Film Guide | Film News | Film Reviews | Trailers | DVD & BluRay Reviews | Competitions

Welcome to bargain bin, a new semi regular feature where the challenge is to find a nights entertainment for only $2.95! First up is George A. Romero genre defining masterpiece Night of the Living Dead!

From the back cover:
Seven people secluded in a Pennsylvania farmhouse face relentless attacks by reanimated corpses seeking to eat their flesh. The group, which includes a married couple and their daughter, a pair of young lovers, and an African American man try to keep their sanity as the living dead try endlessly to enter the house.

Background:
Night of the Living Dead is the progenitor of the contemporary “zombie apocalypse” sub-genre of horror film, and it influenced the modern pop-culture zombie archetype. Night of the Living Dead (1968), is the first of five Dead films directed by George Romero, and twice has been remade, as Night of the Living Dead (1990 film), directed by Tom Savini, and as Night of the Living Dead 3D (2006).

On its release in 1968, Night of the Living Dead was strongly criticized for its explicit content, but then in 1999, the Library of Congress deemed it “historically, culturally or aesthetically important”.

Is it worth $2.95?
Yes. What it lacks in colour and special effects it makes up for in storyline and it’s ability to still have you on the edge of your seat. Sure it’s dated and you have to approach it with a laugh or two, especially at the start.

Slow off the mark, Night of the Living Dead builds up slowly, coaxing you into the story before assaulting you with the relentless terror of being trapped in a house surrounded by an enemy who just won’t give up. What’s more is the fear of who you’re trapped in the house with as, the human spirit can only take so much before it breaks. Carefully crafted, Night of the Living Dead is ripe for a decent remake, but probably won’t get done due to already being re-made twice, which is a shame, as some one like Zack Snyder could inject a re-make with some adrenaline and special effects gore that would introduce the story to a whole new audience.

Ok, so I’m no movie mogul, but I figure if Noah Wyle’s The Librarian series can make it to it’s third direct to DVD installment, then Worst Case Scenario would have no trouble finding investors right?

What’s Worst Case Scenario I hear you ask; well it’s a Dutch Nazi zombie movie and here’s the teaser Richard Raaphorst created to whet investors appetites:

If that little treat didn’t get you excited, you might just be a zombie yourself, but I figure if some one came up with the funds, this movie could be made, it could do the film festivals, maybe a limited release in certain markets and then make a killing on DVD. It should be easy money, right? Apparently not, as twitch are claiming that interested investors have come to a catch 22 situation and nothing is proceeding. Worse Case Scenario is dead in the water.

Fortunately Worse Case Scenario isn’t the only Nazi Zombie movie out there, the Norwegians have already made Dead Snow (Dod Sno) about a group of ski bunnies who happen upon Hitler’s Undead legions in the snowy alps:

Alas, Dead Snow has yet to be given a New Zealand release date.

Also for all you Zombie fans, keep an eye out for French movie La Horde, which is currently in post-production and well worth keeping an eye out for.

For those who prefer their Nazis with no Zombies, but with tongue firmly planted in cheek, check out the trailer for Iron Sky, A Finnish comedy that’s still in pre-production stage:

Thanks to Warner Bros, we have two great chick flicks up for grabs this month, Bonneville and Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants 2. All you have to do to go in the draw to win these two great DVDs is to leave a comment below. If you win, you’ll have the prefect gift for you mother this mothers day, or the perfect excuse to have your girlfriends over for a movie night!

Only one entry per person, competition ends 2nd May, 2009.

This competition has now ended. The winner was picked using a random number generator. Congratulations to tina and wendy arman. We’ll be contacting you by email shortly.

Call of Duty is dead, long live Modern Warfare! It seems that the Modern Warfare brand is stronger than the Call of Duty brand and as such, Modern Warfare 2 will be released sans the COD prefix. I wonder if Treyarch are working on a World at War 2… Probably not… Possibly they should look at alternative reality World War 2 so they can put zombies in the main game…

The only thing we know about Modern Warfare 2, is that there is a teaser trailer, and it has been dissected. Of course being a teaser, it may be full of red herrings, but no matter what, it’s certainly stirred up a fair bit of interest…

The boys at 360prophecy have mocked the intense interest created by the teaser trailer and some one with too much time on their hands has created a fake screen shot:

How do I know it’s a fake? Well, it’s a little to clear to be the quick covert shot it’s made out to be, that and fourzerotwo said it was a fake.  But then the only place I’ve seen this image was via fourzerotwo’s twitter page, so maybe it’s a double fake, meaning that it’s really real….  ooooh, those Infinity Ward guys are sneeky clever.

Talking of fourtwozero, he’s just finished setting up Modern Warfare 2′s facebook page.  It’s bland and boring, but then that’s facebook for you!