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By Ben Bussey

We’ve had no shortage of documentaries covering the cultural shifts of the 1970s and 1980s. In the US, American Nightmare charts how horror cinema was revitalised from the late 60s onwards by the likes of George Romero, Wes Craven and Tobe Hooper, whilst Going To Pieces chronicles the slasher movie boom which came in the wake of this; in the UK meanwhile, Jake West and Marc Morris brought us the excellent Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape, and its sequel Video Nasties: Draconian Days, which relay the Great British brouhaha over the so-called nasties and the broader political ramifications of that panic. But of course, film was not the only medium to undergo changes, reflect contemporary anxieties and prompt controversy (often deliberately so) during that time period. Comic books also went through quite the transformative process, the mid-80s seeing the rise of the graphic novel with Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, paving the way for a new wave of mature readers-oriented comic lines which liberally piled on the tits, gore, naughty words and provocative subject matter almost to the point of self-parody in the 1990s. However, whilst plenty of the most fondly-remembered comics of this era were published in the US, a great many of them were the work of British writers and artists – and most if not all of these talented individuals had reached the top of their trade as part of a now-legendary British weekly comic whose role in the rejuvenation of the medium cannot be overlooked.

That British comic, of course, was Whizzer and Chips.

Alright, not really, it was 2000AD.

It’s actually kind of hard to believe that no one else beat director Paul Goodwin to the punch bowl on this years ago. 2000AD has long, long since been one of those iconic brands that’s instantly recognised, even by those who’ve never read it (case in point: myself). But as it turns out, Goodwin and his cohorts at Deviant Films are indeed the first to produce a feature length documentary chronicling the history and impact of what I doubt many would dispute is Britain’s most important comic. And happily, Goodwin and co have done a damn fine job of it. A documentary on comics is always going to face a significant challenge that one on movies or music doesn’t: i.e., the fact that you’re not going to have much to bring up between the talking heads except for static images. Nonetheless, through smart editing and judicious use of animated flourishes, sound effects and music, Future Shock! proves every bit as energetic and entertaining as either of Jake West’s Video Nasties films, or anything Mark Hartley’s done. It doesn’t hurt that many of the people behind 2000AD – co-creator Pat Mills in particular – are almost as outlandish and colourful as any of their creations.

Born from the ashes of an earlier controversy-baiting boy’s weekly called Action, that comic’s creator Pat Mills was charged by publisher IPC with putting together a new sci-fi title in the hopes of cashing in on the anticipated boom in the genre with Star Wars on its way to cinemas. Mills got cracking in conjunction with John Waggner, and the comic was given the name 2000AD as that sounded futuristic and, on its launch in 1977, no one imagined it would be staying in print that long. Little did they know. Mills remarks the publishers had most likely expected something nice and middle class, which isn’t quite how it turned out. Taking the anarchic, anti-establishment attitude and taste for ultra-violence which wound up getting Action banned, but filtering these through a science fiction context which distanced things from the real world just enough to get away with it, 2000AD proved an instant hit, and all through its early years would present a radically different type of comic which really challenged its readers, young and old alike, and saw among its staff many of the biggest names in comics to this day, the two most notable to be interviewed here being Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman.

However, one rather notable absentee in Future Shock is arguably the most revered figure ever to come out of 2000AD: Alan Moore, whose breakthrough work The Ballad of Halo Jones was published in the pages of the comic – but never completed, when Moore quit over clashes with the publisher, who retained all copyright to the characters created for the comic. Still, if Moore declined to participate over concerns that the documentary might paint 2000AD as one big happy family, his fears were misplaced. All interviewees acknowledge the negative aspects of working for the comic, the draconian contracts and small-mindedness of the higher-ups being the most frequently cited problem. The creative highs and lows of the comic are also charted frankly, with misguided attempts to covet a ‘new lad’ readership in the mid-1990s proving a particular nadir. But through it all many key players remain on board, most notably Pat Mills, whose irrepressible outspokenness and penchant for profanity provide many of Future Shock!’s most striking, memorable and often piss-funny moments.

Charting the comic’s broader impact, how it influenced the US and became (much to the annoyance of Mills) a training ground for writers and artists who would go on to work for the American labels, and naturally with particular emphasis given to its best-known creation Judge Dredd, Future Shock! would seem as good a primer in 2000AD as anyone could hope for. Given my own limited knowledge of the subject, I obviously couldn’t say for sure whether or not this will tell seasoned fans much that they don’t already know, but I can say that it makes for a hugely entertaining hour and 45 minutes, and is liable to have long-time 2000AD readers digging out their old issues, whilst sending 2000AD newbies off to their nearest comic shop on the double.

Future Shock! The Story of 2000AD is out on Region 2 DVD on 7th December, from Metrodome.

By Ben Bussey

There are few things so tiresome as a horror comedy which is neither funny nor scary. Alas, we seem to get rather a lot of them; and, double alas, The Funhouse Massacre is yet another title to add to that undesirable list. A well-meaning, ambitious endeavour with a very agreeable core concept, director Andy Palmer’s film clearly aims to pay affectionate homage to the glory days of the slasher whilst upping the ante with contemporary comic book stylings and a good dose of kick-ass action. However, these good intentions are scuppered through a combination of low production value, mediocre writing and direction, lifeless performances, and an over-reliance on the over-familiar.

It all starts out intriguingly enough, as a remote, top secret facility for the criminally insane run by none other than Robert Englund (well, y’know, not the man himself, he’s playing a character n’all that) takes a rare visit from a journalist. Essentially Arkham Asylum by way of Guantanamo on a microbudget, the institution houses four colourful crazies who might have stepped right out of a bottom shelf VHS tape anywhere between 1985 and 1995 – all of whom are being held without charges or trial, which Englund’s character makes clear he has no qualms about. Clearly no bleeding heart – yet he will be bleeding elsewhere soon enough, as it transpires that his visitor isn’t quite what she seems. Single-handedly staging an alarmingly easy mass break-out of what’s supposed to be a maximum security compound, she and her fellow psychos waltz on out for a special Halloween party they’ve been planning for some time at a nearby haunted funhouse attraction.

The scene thus set, we might our inevitable batch of victims-in-waiting, the staff of an old school all-American diner – most of whom look to be around thirty yet seem very teenage in their demeanour. I guess they’re meant to be college age, I dunno. Anyway, we have your standard characters – nerd, jock, nympho, immediately obvious final girl – and after closing up shop they’re all driven over to the funhouse by that other trope, comedy ethnic minority (in this case a Mexican cook), for some Halloween night entertainment. The funhouse boasts a series of rooms based around various local urban legends including a serial killing dentist, a cannibal chef, and a devilish cult leader with a gift for prompting mass suicide. But unbeknownst to the masses, every one of those legends is true – and the real killers have now taken residence in the funhouse itself.

Once again, I do like the premise of The Funhouse Massacre. The notion of real murders occurring in a Halloween attraction, where witnesses would naturally assume it was all part of the show, is a potentially very creepy one – and as I mentioned when we first ran the trailer, I’m reminded of another indie horror from earlier this year, The Scarehouse, which played on a similar conceit but largely under-emphasised the funhouse element. And, of course, there are plenty of great horror movies from years gone by which take place in a carnival or circus setting; that colourful, thrill-seeker spectacle lends itself beautifully to the genre. Unfortunately The Funhouse Massacre just doesn’t exploit that set-up effectively enough. The clearly low budget may be a factor, but every moment just feels too stagey, too stiff and by-the-numbers, with very little real atmosphere and pretty much zero tension. It also doesn’t help that we’ve seen pretty much all these psycho killer tropes done before, and better; Candice De Visser’s Dollface is a blatant clone of Harley Quinn (a debt acknowedged by her early alter ego ‘Ms Quinn’), Mars Crain’s Rocco is yet another Lucha Libre hulk, Jere Burns’ cult leader is yet another loquacious, charismatic Manson figure. Also kind of sad to see the notable Clint Howard squandered on such a non-noteworthy role.

Still, we might excuse The Funhouse Massacre for falling back on cliches if only it was executed well enough. But, again, it simply isn’t. By attempting to blend horror, comedy and action, it bites off quite a bit more than it can chew, and never proves effective enough in any capacity. The script is clearly aiming for laugh-a-minute, but it barely ever prompts more than a slight smirk, and the abundant fight scenes just feel a bit sloppy. Still, gorehounds will doubtless be pleased that the bloodshed is, so far as I could tell, all-practical, and realised by none other than the great Robert Kurtzman – although it seems profoundly unlikely this will ever be held up alongside the make-up FX icon’s best work, as once again, there’s no mistaking that it was done on the cheap.

The Funhouse Massacre arrives almost two weeks too late to be featured in our Halloween thread Trick Or Treat, but if it had I wouldn’t have hesitated to mark it a trick. As much as it might strive for cult status, it’s ultimately just another run of the mill, middle of the road indie horror that’s surely doomed to be forgotten.

The Funhouse Massacre is on limited theatrical release in the US from Friday, November 13th.

By Ben Bussey

Few things show up gaps in one’s own film knowledge more acutely than a movie you’ve never heard of dropping in your lap with a press release describing it as a ‘cult classic.’ It’s true, I was hitherto utterly unaware of writer-director Philip Ridley’s debut film, and indeed of Ridley himself and the intriguing, varied career he’s had as a writer and artist before and since. Perhaps, given my bias toward genre-based material, this ignorance needn’t be too unexpected, as The Reflecting Skin truly is one of those films which defies genre definition. Reading up on it now, I see that it is often described as a vampire movie, but this strikes me as extremely misrepresentative. Even so, it’s certainly true to say there’s more than a hint of horror movie about it, if only because of how harshly it exposes the dark side of the human condition – yet all set against a rural American landscape of often astonishing beauty, photographed in such a painterly manner as to overwhelm the audience. This juxtapostion of jaw-dropping aesthetic loveliness with displays of humanity at perhaps its ugliest combine to make The Reflecting Skin a viewing experience that is truly quite unique, and while it’s clearly not a film that everyone will appreciate, those who do are liable to completely flip their wig for it.

Seth Dove (Jeremy Cooper) is an eight year old boy, living in a remote, unspecified region of America in the 1950s, one of the youngest members of a small, strictly religious community amidst seemingly endless wheat fields.  At a glance he’s the most harmless, sweet-natured boy you could imagine, although a jaw-dropping act of cruelty within the first five minutes leaves no doubt that he’s not as innocent as all that. Nor is his home as idyllic as it might initially appear, as he and his beleaugured father Luke (Duncan Fraser) suffer at the hands of domineering, often cruel matriarch Ruth (Sheila Moore) who seems unable to cope with the absence of their eldest son Cameron (Viggo Mortensen).

Worse yet, there seems to be a very real danger in the community when one of Seth’s friends abruptly vanishes, only to turn up dead on the Dove family’s property. This leads the somewhat tyrannical local sheriff’s department to suspect Luke Dove, owing largely to certain past indiscretions – but Seth suspects otherwise. He comes to believe the one responsible is Dolphin Blue (Lindsay Duncan), the mysterious English widow who lives nearby – and what’s more, Seth thinks Dolphin is a vampire. However, when further tragedy results in Cameron returning home from his military service, there are soon stirrings of romance between Seth’s beloved elder brother and the vamp next door.  What is a young, traumatised, almost-certain future sociopath to do?

As might be evident from that synopsis, the somewhat oblique choice of title and the distant, ethereal quality of the imagery included here, The Reflecting Skin is a somewhat unorthodox, self-consciously alienating piece of filmmaking with heavy arthouse leanings. Ridley himself describes it as a fairy tale, and although this isn’t the most immediately obvious parallel it does fit; there’s a heightened sense of unreality throughout, perhaps inevitable when it shows 1950s middle America from the perspective of a young Englishman in 1990 who’d never been to America before going to make that very film there. Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves seems a good point of comparison, and I have to suspect that Guillermo del Toro may have taken some inspiration from it on his own dark fairy tale movies, and yet The Reflecting Skin is very much its own beast.

It also doesn’t seem a million miles from Spielberg’s ET, given that it’s told almost exclusively from the perspective of a young boy, who naturally has only the vaguest grasp of what’s going on in the wider world around him. The Reflecting Skin, however, takes us to considerably darker places, unflinchingly presenting the mean-spirited, borderline savage behaviour of which the young are capable. None of this, however, is to imply that Seth is to be considered evil; he’s simply an under-stimulated child who has yet to learn right from wrong, or reality from imagination, hence his whole-hearted belief that Dolphin Blue is a vampire (which, although some reviews seem to suggest otherwise, the film never implies is actually the case).

All the poor boy really needs, it would seem, is a steady adult hand to offer him guidance. Herein lies his real problem, as there isn’t any such adult to be seen, and indeed most of them, notably his imbalanced parents and the brutally inhuman Sheriff (Robert Koons), seem many times more deluded and ignorant than Seth himself. The role of Christianity is not emphasised too heavily – there are no church scenes, no Bible readings, none of that obsessive Carrie’s mother stuff – yet it is made clear that this very small community takes certain Christian schools of thought very seriously indeed, particularly when it comes to the subject of sin, and this mindset informs several of the film’s most harrowing moments. Furthermore, it underlines how this literalist interpretation of religion has predisposed Seth to wholeheartedly believe what he is told – whilst, at the same time, being too young to fully process the truth of what he sees before him.

The only real sparks of love and kindness come from Duncan’s Dolphin, and Mortensen’s Cameron – yet they too are dealing with significant traumas of their own. While I do find her chosen character name a bit much, Dolphin is a magnificent character brought to life beautifully by Lindsay Duncan, whose hauntingly soft voice really brings out the underlying poetic quality of Ridley’s dialogue. While being widowed from suicide has clearly left her an extremely damaged human being – one who says things to Seth that one should never, ever say to an eight year old (resulting in many of the most darkly funny moments) – she is the one person who at least seems to make some effort to really connect with Seth on an emotional level. Mortensen’s big brother, meanwhile, is clearly well-meaning but also fighting some significant demons of his own from his work, which we come to ascertain is connected with military atomic testing; his description of children turned silver as a result of nuclear radiation would seem to be the source of the film’s title.

So just to surmise, we have A-bomb angst, suicide widowhood, fundamentalist Christian paranoia, childhood sociopathic tendencies and the suspicion of vampirism – and I haven’t even touched on paedophilia, and the thing which Seth assumes to be a fallen angel. Yes, there is a hell of a lot going on in The Reflecting Skin, and very little of it is resolved in a neat way by the somewhat sudden end, so if you prefer your films driven by coherent narrative then The Reflecting Skin almost certainly isn’t for you. However, there’s no denying that it is a film of often quite staggering visual and emotional power. The extras on the Blu-ray see Ridley and cinematographer Dick Pope discuss at length the artistic influence and perfectionism that went into the look of the film, and this definitely results in a striking film loaded – or possibly overloaded – with symbolism. It may get a bit much, and it most definitely will come off as far too ostentatious for some tastes, yet it also really stays with you. Again, there’s no doubt that many viewers will be entirely put off by the film’s alienating nature, but it’s easy to see how this is a film which might obsess some viewers, with every scene if not every frame crying out to be analysed.

Should you be so inclined as to fall under The Reflecting Skin’s spell, then this Blu-ray from Soda Pictures is without doubt the copy to do it. I’m not the biggest Blu-ray fan in the world, generally finding the sound and picture upgrade from DVD to be pretty negligible, but it is emphasised in the extras that the 2K remaster on this new edition is the best the film has looked since its release. The disc also works well as a Philip Ridley primer (as, indeed, it was for me), giving a fair overview of his broad career, from artist to playwright to musician to children’s author: on which road, filmmaker would only seem to have been a minor detour, Ridley having only directed two more movies in 1995’s The Passion of Darkly Noon and 2010’s Heartless. Seems to have been a recurring problem for visionary young directors coming out of Britain around the turn of the 1990s, to rise quickly but burn out even quicker: see also Clive Barker and Richard Stanley. Still, there’s something to be said for passing up a long, prolific career in favour of producing a smaller body of work of genuine power and individuality, and Philip Ridley’s The Reflecting Skin seems as good an example of this is any other.

The Reflecting Skin is available on limited edition (2000 copies) Steel Book Blu-ray on 30th November, from Soda Pictures. Pre-order here.

By Ben Bussey

Halloween tends to be a time when the older, more established horror movies we often roundly label as ‘the classics’ get picked up, dusted off and sent on the rounds.  It was no doubt with this in mind that our friends at PR company Fetch Publicity got in touch with us with a proposal from Warner Bros Home Entertainment to revisit a horror title from the studio’s DVD back catalogue as a Halloween special feature. This, naturally, posed quite the quandary. Warners have given us (and/or own the rights to, in many instances via their ownership of New Line Cinema) a number of the best known horror titles of all time: The Exorcist, The Shining, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Poltergeist, The Lost Boys, Beetlejuice, Interview with the Vampire, plus more recent hits like The Conjuring, Annabelle, Oculus and of course this generation’s Halloween classic Trick ‘r Treat. (And no, before anyone asks, The Devils was not among the titles offered to us.)

Perusing the long list, I pondered long and hard over which to choose. So many esteemed and iconic titles, and a fair few indisputable classics. But piling further praise on films that don’t really need the attention isn’t really our bag at BAH. I doubt I can say much about The Exorcist or The Shining that hasn’t been said innumerable times already. Better, surely, to revisit a comparatively lesser-known film that perhaps doesn’t get the attention it deserves. And so it was that my pick from the Warner Bros DVD catalogue (though an MGM production, the rights presumably sold due to that studio’s well-publicised financial difficulties) is the 1983 feature debut of director Tony Scott, and one of the most unusual vampire movies of that decade – The Hunger.

This is one of those films I vividly recall sitting up to watch on late night TV aged 12 or so, when my love of horror was really taking hold. Up to that point my experience with vampires on film was primarily Dracula (the Christopher Lee and Duncan Regehr versions) and The Lost Boys. Blood, fangs, stakes through the heart: all very crash-bang-wallop, and easily digested by my young mind. However, having also recently seen Hammer’s Twins of Evil (an enduring personal favourite) and caught clips on TV from Bram Stoker’s Dracula which had opened in cinemas to huge publicity that year, I was slowly getting some some vague grasp of the erotic overtones of vampires.

Obviously, at that age my sense of what constituted cinematic eroticism was somewhat limited; generally, I just thought it meant you got see some tits. And lo and behold, there are indeed tits within the first five minutes of The Hunger as the enigmatic and alluring David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve take a couple of new wave punks back to their fancy pad for something other than coffee. However, as these seduction scenes are juxtaposed with Bauhaus performing their eerie Goth classic Bela Lugosi’s Dead, with sudden jarring cuts both in the visual and the audio, images of screaming monkeys, and then the inevitable gruesome bloodletting as the vampires let rip not with fangs but daggers hidden inside their ankh necklaces, it’s fair to say my young self was left with what I believe is generally referred to as a confused boner. The spectacle is arousing, unnerving and bewildering – and, although it seems hard to fathom why, it all works.

Revisiting The Hunger now, it doesn’t seem quite so willfully obtuse as it once did. Once we get past the arty flourishes, it’s actually a pretty straightforward story (based on a Whitley Strieber novel, which I should point out I’ve never read). Deneuve’s Miriam is a master (mistress?) vampire of unspecified age, potentially upwards of a thousand years old, whilst Bowie’s John is her most recent companion in vampirism, converted a couple of centuries back in a time of powdered wigs. However, it seems the notion of vampirism as literal immortality doesn’t quite ring true in this world, as out of nowhere John suddenly starts ageing rapidly, with even fresh blood proving useless to stop it. We soon learn John is not the first of Miriam’s lovers to suffer this fate, and in search of a solution they become fixated on a brilliant young doctor, Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon), who is leading ground-breaking research into life extension. However, once she and Sarah meet, it becomes apparent that it isn’t simply her medical expertise that Miriam is interested in – and rather than finding John’s salvation, she may instead have found his replacement.

The Hunger, along with such others as Paul Schrader’s remake of Cat People, embodies a distinct breed of erotic horror which I’m not sure managed to endure beyond the early 80s: highly stylised, oozing with overt sexuality and moments of genuinely quite shocking gore, but also with a curiously intellectual bent. Most crucial, however – and the key reason it largely went over my head on first viewing – is that it’s genuinely adult horror, tackling very grown-up concerns about mortality, sexuality and relationships. More than once John reiterates Miriam’s early promise that the two of them would be together forever, literally forever and ever – but ultimately they both know that can simply never be, even for vampires (a word which, not for nothing, is never used in the film). That anxiety over the knowledge that, one way or another, eventually one partner must leave the other behind is something that anyone who’s ever been in a long-term relationship will be acutely aware of.

It’s not hard to read The Hunger as a midlife crisis film – in which case, it’s rather refreshing to see that it’s the woman who opts to abandon her no-longer desirable other half in favour of a pretty young lady. And looking at Sarandon here, you really can’t blame her. Equally, who could possibly blame Sarandon’s Sarah for wanting to get with Catherine bloody Deneuve? Okay, so lesbian vampires may have long since been a massive cliche, but The Hunger presents us with one of the most well-realised displays of undead sapphic desire, with as much emphasis placed on the emotional states of the characters as well as the actual, physical act of lady love. Still, it’s hard not to giggle just a little at the love scene played out to The Flower Duet from Lakmé, given that very same piece has since been used to sort-of similar effect in the now-legendary sexy mermaid sequence of Piranha 3D.

However, in the midst of all this raunchiness, there’s still no forgetting that The Hunger is indeed a horror film. The bloodletting scenes, as previously stated, are genuinely quite startling, and the finale in which Miriam’s romantic history literally comes back to haunt her is a masterclass in cinematic Grand Guignol which leaves one somewhat regretful that the late Tony Scott never made another movie in the genre (indeed, it’s very hard indeed to compute that Scott’s next directorial effort after this was Top Gun). Most happily, The Hunger also gives us some of the best ageing effects ever. As we’ve seen in many films to this day, filmmakers often struggle to convincingly age actors on screen, but the work here from Dick Smith and Carl Fullerton – given the rather nice screen credit of ‘make-up illusions’  – is tremendously effective, and one can imagine that the eternal chameleon Bowie must have been enthralled at seeing himself go through several stages of degeneration.

No, The Hunger isn’t necessarily the best film to put on in the background for shits and giggles at a Halloween party, but if you’re after something that bit more cerebral and a whole lot more unique in its atmosphere, then it most definitely makes for some good midnight hour viewing. Watch, be hypnotised – and prepare to have Bela Lugosi’s Dead on earworm for days.

Review by Quin

There is certainly no shortage of film titles consisting of puns. These films tend to either be porn films or comedies; but more accurately, parodies. Edward Penis Hands. Shaun of the Dead. Womb Raider. Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. You get the idea. Well, now you can add Night of the Living Deb to the list. I guess it’s a horror parody, but not a very funny one. Fortunately, it’s not all bad, and I’m sure some of you will enjoy it, but I’m afraid to say I found its rapid fire non-jokes (A.K.A. regular things said with a rhetorical rim shot at the end) not at all funny, and the rest of it derivative and boring. But, don’t fret, I’ll tell you what I did like about it too. After all, I didn’t hate the damn thing.

Deb and her friend Ruby are out at a bar the night before the 4th of July. Deb is sort of hipsterish with her jean jacket and pins, while Ruby is her figurative “wing-man” wearing a seemingly ironic bad Christmas sweater (yes, on the 4th of July). They spot a good looking guy amongst a group singing “America the Beautiful” (probably un-ironically), and Ruby convinces Deb to go talk to him. His name is Chaz (ugh). After an agonizing first conversation filled with mad-cap misunderstandings (i.e. Deb is really not too perceptive, and maybe she drinks too much, but to be fair, Chaz seems like a thoughtless prick) the scene fades and next thing we know Deb is waking up in a bed that one could easily surmise is her new friend Chaz’s. He quickly tries to get rid of her, but she keeps talking and talking and talking. When they finally do part ways, Deb checks her voice mail, only to hear a strange message from her friend Ruby that ends in growling and screaming. It doesn’t even occur to Deb that this is out of the ordinary. She even sees a guy beating another guy with a baseball bat and all she has to say is, “The parade’s really gone down hill this year.”

Deb and Chaz quickly reconnect, realizing that they might need each other because as they were so slow to realize, it turns out there’s a zombie apocalypse going on. First they visit the Christmas themed shop where Ruby works called Yule Mart (which explains the out of date sweater from before) then they move on to Chaz’s dad’s house. He’s a rich conservative who runs a company that is putting some unknown chemicals in the water to make it drinkable. It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s turning people into zombies. The good news is that the rich water tycoon is played by Ray Wise. The bad news is that Ray Wise has done a lot of low budget garbage since Twin Peaks. However, you can always count on him to be that Ray Wise character. He’s always great. And as hateable as his character is, he still makes you smile.

If you saw the 2009 film Zombieland, and I’m sure you did, there is really no reason why you would need to see Night of the Living Deb. Zombieland pretty much did the same thing that this movie does, but it did it first and it did it better. It did it with Bill Murray in a Ghostbusters uniform. The zombie genre has already been deconstructed, and we are all aware that zombies used to trudge along slowly – or as this film so eloquently puts it, “That’s one of the old-school Cerebral palsy variety” – and now they sometimes run. That quote sums up nicely how this film made me feel. It leans toward the mean-spirited as well as the glaringly unfunny.

This brings me to my final point – the casting. The acting in this film is actually quite good. And there is a final scene that is way better than what the rest of this movie deserved. Maria Thayer as Deb and Chris Marquette as Chaz reminded me so much of Julie Klausner and Patrick Wilson, which only made me long for them to be in this. Julie Klausner is the creator and star of a new show on Hulu called Difficult People, which is about how awful people can be. It’s brilliant because she and her friend Billy remain likable through the awfulness. Deb and Chaz are mostly just awful and they should have turned into zombies right away. Now I hope Difficult People ends with a zombie apocalypse.

Night of the Living Deb is available now on VOD in the UK, via FrightFest Presents.