Let’s do another Zombie movie.

The Dead Next Door is one of those horror movies that doesn’t get talked about a whole lot, but those that have seen it tend to count it as a personal favorite and/or a guilty pleasure. I had seen fans refer to it as being a pretty good cult film akin to something like Evil Dead multiple times,  so I was excited.

I was pretty disappointed.

This movie starts out completely awesome. The zombie apocalypse shows up and there’s well done scenes of general zombie mayhem occuring. The best part is when a zombie is shown with a stack of famous zombie films at a video rental store. From there we see that they’ve established a police force specifically for dealing with the zombies. This in an interesting concept that gets abandoned pretty much right after it gets established. This sucks because a Zombie police squad itself is a fucking great idea for a movie. They could’ve focused solely on these guys and had a great film right there.

After that is where shit gets boring; the plot shifts focus to some scientists who are trying to develop a cure for zombies. This shit is never interesting but it shows up in like every horror movie that’s about zombies. No one wants to see these guys figure out how to stop the one thing that is keeping us watching the film. If they cured the fucking zombies, I wouldn’t watch the damn movie; so you know they’ll never get anywhere with their research, which just makes scenes like these fucking boring because you know they’ll ultimately be fruitless.

Then it almost gets interesting again; almost. They introduce the idea that there are religious cult memebers who believe that the zombies are a punishment/warning from God. Now that’s actually interesting. Like the anti-zombie squad, this idea alone is enough to make an interesting movie. In fact, you’d think the two ideas together would make a legendary horor movie, but man, would you be wrong. Like the scientists, the cult shit never goes anywhere.

Some of the redeaming factors in this movie:

• Zombie cops
• Zombies renting zombie movies
• Every major character is named after a horror personality (Romero, King, Raimi, Savini, etc)
• A zombie’s detached head eats a man’s fingers and we see them fall out the bottom of his head
• One of the main characters looks a lot like Bruce Campbell, even though it isn’t Campbell, his voice is actually dubbed over by Campbell for some fucking reason.
• The effects are actually really well done, especially for being in such a laughably bad low budget affair.
• The title is pretty cool, even though it doesn’t deliver.

It’s hard to really recommend this movie because it gets so damn boring near the end. I guess if you’re gonna give it a shot, shut it off as soon as the scientists show up. You won’t be missing anything at all.

Shaun of the dead is a fantastic film, but it seems like since it was successful we keep getting a lot of (mostly indie) horror comedies about zombies lately that aren’t anywhere near as good. So much in fact, that they’ve coined the term “Zomedy” which is fucking dumb and annoying.

Zombieland is awesome, but it can’t touch Shaun of the Dead.

You probably already know everything about the plot so I won’t get into too much detail as far as that goes. Besides, all you really need to know is that there’s a geeky, WoW-playing, loner who manages to survive a zombie apocalypse by being smart and sticking to his rules. He meets up with Woody Harrelson who plays a cocky badass and two sisters who are trying to make it to an amusement park in California for vaguely defined reasons. None of this plays out like the trailers implied, but it’s still pretty damn good.

The first thing I noticed was the clever use of typography. Throughout the movie, the main character’s rules are spelled out on screen in comical ways and the opening credits even sort of interact with their surroundings. This was very cool, and I hope to see more stuff like this in the future in all kinds of movies. The second thing I noticed was the soundtrack which was pretty eclectic. You get Metallica, Van Halen, Band of Horses, Doves, The Raconteurs, and some pretty cool instrumental stuff that I’m sure was written just for the movie.

I should point out that, like Shaun of the Dead, the movie favors comedy over horror and there really isn’t anything to be afraid of. It’s too bad because I was hoping for something more like Drag me to Hell, which had generally scary moments but was pretty damn funny too. The movie works best when it’s funny; one of the best scenes is when the survivors blow off some steam by destroying everything in a tacky tourist shop off the side of the road. There’s a few dramatic moments too, but they actually seem to work instead of being boring or coming off as cheesy. The movie is just fucking fun, the kind of thing you could watch drunk with some cool friends on Halloween.

Definitely see this movie if you like horror or comedy at all. Woody Harrelson completely knocks it out of the park as a twinkie craving redneck, and that alone is worth seeing.

My plan is to watch a bunch of cool horror movies and do some mini reviews here on the blog. It’s not anime, but fuck you, this is my blog and we’re gonna talk about horror movies.

Cover for volume 1

Doubt is basically what would happen if you tried to make a Saw manga and then the deal fell through with the movie studio and you had to change some details at the last second so that it didn’t resemble the movie enough to be copyright infringement. Yet it still manages to be a pretty good read by being short and not trying to go overboard with humor or romance or any of that other shit that doesn’t belong in a horror manga. The author apparently drew one of the many Higurashi no Naku Koro ni manga which may or may not give him some added credibility, depending on whether you like that series or not.

The story revolves around this game called rabbit doubt which is never really explained well enough. The rules are pretty vague; but it’s the origin and the purpose of the game that I don’t get. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. Who plays this game? Is it like a cellphone MMO or something? Or is it just these characters? I dunno, the game part just seemed half-assed and unnecessary to me. The plot could have worked just as well without it. It’s also likely that these things were explained and I just glossed over them somehow. Anyway, there’s this game where all the characters are rabbits, but on of them is deemed the wolf. The game begins when the wolf offs one of the rabbits, then it’s up to the other rabbits to discover the killer before he kills the rest of the rabbits and I guess wins the game. The characters are players of this game who decide to meet up and do some karaoke one afternoon. The main character heads to the bathroom and sees someone with a giant rabbit head come out of one of the stalls before he blacks out and wakes up in a warehouse or something. Horror ensues.

I had started reading this a while ago and then lost interest because the first chapter is pretty lame, but trust me, it gets a lot more interesting afterwards. The thing is, it never really gets intense or crazy enough to keep you turning pages at a breakneck pace or anything. In fact I only read it so fast because it was short and I wanted to see if the ending would be as shitty as I thought it would. However, even though its so short, it starts to drag in the middle and there’s shit that could have been cut out or narrowed down.

The series throws in enough red herrings and twists and turns to make a good mystery but it never really becomes one. The selling point for me was the ballsy ending the author pulls out at the end. Even though I was sure that the reveal of the villain wasn’t as easy as it seemed. I still didn’t guess who the killer was which is pretty unusual for me. When you’ve seen as many movies and taken as many literature courses as I have, you get pretty good at figuring out twists ahead of time. But this one was set up to where I just didn’t see it coming, and the final pages changed my score from a 7/10 to a 9/10.

One other thing that bugged the hell out of me was the character designs. All of the chicks and dudes looked exactly the same, and there were several times where I saw a character and thought they were somebody else.

You can’t really lose here. If you’re not into horror, it might not float your boat, but there isn’t a whole lot of gore to offend you. If you are into horror, you’ll likely appreciate it as well. Even though I’d give it a 9/10, I get the feeling I’m only so generous because there aren’t enough decent horror manga out there to knock it down a peg; but until those manga come out, you can always read this.

I don’t have a whole lot to say; but let me start by saying that I fucking love Hellsing. I just finished the manga recently and it’s one of the few series that I actually buy (both the manga and the special edition OVA DVDs). It’s a fantastic example of choosing style over substance and making it work. Kouta Hirano never gives us much for a story (and when it comes to vampires, story is never really the big draw, if it’s scary or violent  that’s all we really ask for) but what he does give us is at least pretty interesting, what with the whole nazi thing and all. What Hirano does best is create memorable characters. Hellsing is just full of kickass characters, most of whom die by the end of the series, and some of whom are only present for a few chapters like Rip Van Winkle who is my personal favorite.

With that said, the OVA seems to spend each episode highlighting one or more of these great characters. 1 covered Alucard and Anderson, 2 covered the Valentine brothers, etc. This episode makes you fall in love with and regret the death of Pip Bernadotte who is completely fucking awesome.

The animation, as with the previous installments, is top notch. There’s really nothing else like the Hellsing OVAs in sheer quality of animated hyper-violence, though Kara no Kyoukai is similar.

The best scenes are the glimpse of Alucard on the ghostly looking ship and then the interactions between Seras and the other soldiers towards the end. The kiss scene seemed a lot more pogniant in the manga though, it just felt kind of stupid here.

The end credits this time around were really cool. I never actually sat and watched the credits roll during prior episodes but these were funny and really unique.

As I said, not a whole lot to say. Good stuff all around, can’t wait for episode 7 and I hope that there will be many more in the future.

What the fuck……..

What can I say that hasn’t already been said?

I think it was an interesting idea with shit execution. We didn’t need so many episodes to get their point. I think three episodes top would’ve been enough.

What’s sad is, it really is an interesting story, it just works soooooooo much better as a short story than as a flurry of seemingly ENDLESS episodes about the same thing with nary an alteration to separate between them.

I’m really curious to see how the DVD sales go; is anyone going to buy this shit? I don’t even wanna think about Endless Eight ever again, let alone own it to for my re-viewing pleasure.

I don’t even know what the fuck is gonna happen next with this show. I just want to see Disappearance animated. Please guys, don’t fuck with us again.

Man, there was so little payoff for such a long shitstorm too. I mean, less than half of the episode was new sauce and when we get to the shit we’ve been waiting to see for the past few weeks, all we get is Kyon shouting in a somewhat “epic” voice and Haruhi deredereing all over the damn place. Not enough to make the suffering worth it.

What the fuck……..

A whole bunch of these postcardy things were in the theater lobby; awesome sauce, but I wish they were giving posters too.

A long time ago I was in a thread on /tv/ and anonymous asked, “What movie do you wish you had seen in a theater?” and someone said End of Evangelion. A good choice, as EoE had some amazing animation and one of the best dubs I’ve ever seen. So when I found out that Eva 1.0 was playing at a theater only 20 minutes away, I had to be there; and even though I almost didn’t make it, I did end up going and shit was so cash.

Here's my ticket for no reason.

First of all, I gotta say I was surprised by the crowd. I didn’t see any weeaboos or weirdos of any kind. Like, at all. On top of that, there was only one cosplayer and he was just wearing a lab coat and seemed nice and normal enough. I was completely expecting to be annoyed beyond reason, but once the shit started, people were quiet and respectful. I mean, holy shit. This is not the kind of behavior I’ve come to expect from anime/manga fans; I was delighted.

As for the presentation, I was expecting the movie to be on a film roll like most normal movies are (or however those new digital systems work) but it was clearly played off of a DVD, which kinda sucked, if only because it felt a little bit cheesey and the screen wasn’t completely filled. I was also expecting to see some trailers for other Funimation movies or even series, but no, the movie just started playing. However, they fucked up and jumped around a few scenes and their were some weird glitches like a cord wasn’t plugged in right or something. So once they got that all sorted out the movie actually started and went on with no problems.

Now, I’ve seen Eva from start to finish four times now. I’ve seen Death and Rebirth and End of Evangelion back to back about six times. I had seen the fansub of 1.0 before as well, but it had been a long time since, so while I knew what I was in for, I wasn’t completely bored. The movie, as I’m sure you know by now, is fantastic. The animation is absolutely incredible and it just looks all the more phenomenal on a bigass screen. The English dub was a step above decent. Not the best, but still really good. There were a few lines where I was like, “Really? Nothing else worked right there? That’s what you came up with?” I was a little thrown off too by some of the characters’ voices because I guess I was expecting all of the same people to be back from the original dubs. It was like you would see someone come on screen and expect them to sound a certain way and then they don’t; like when you see you’re cousin for the first time in years and he’s going through puberty. Very weird. As far as I could tell, the only voice actor’s that stuck around were Spike Spencer as Shinji and whoever plays Misato (who I always thought did a great job voicing her). The only problem with this movie is that Asuka isn’t in it, but Misato – my second favorite – is, so that was okay. Also, whoever did the voice for Rei this time around did a great job, and Kensuke as well. After the movie was over, the smarter fans hung out and we were lucky enough to be shown the trailer for 2.0.

I don't remember who's blog I stole this from, but I wish had these kind of kid's meals in the U.S.

Anyway, I’m really glad I got to experience the movie on a big screen and I sincerely hope they play 2.0 in theaters as well so I can see Asuka. I’m actually looking forward to buying this, but I think I’m gonna wait for til I get a Blu Ray player because I hear the Blu Ray version is complete magic.

http://chartfag.wordpress.com/

3. Sundome

The least weird of the series I plan to talk about is still pretty fucking weird. The main character, Aiba-kun is a spineless wimp who is a part of the Roman club; a club who’s goal is apparently to make sure their members remain virgins throughout high school. No really, that’s literally the point of the club. Anyway, some shit happens and he becomes friends with and subsequently develops a crush on a girl named Kurumi. Kurumi gets her kicks by forcing Aiba-kun to man up and not be such a pussy. Of course, she has to offer perverted rewards in order to pique his interest. However, she swears that she’ll never allow him to ejaculate; go figure.

So Kurumi’s deal is hard to pinpoint. Fan speculation seems to point to the idea of her being either a post-op transsexual, or having some kind of STD or something. Whatever her deal is, she is often visited by an older man who is presumably a doctor of some kind and she tends to spend a lot of time away from school. Add these theories to the weird sexual games she plays with the lead character and it’s all very weird and only kinda moe.

I have to say, this series started out strong but then just got less and less interesting as time went on. The only real reason to continue reading at this point is to find out the truth about Kurumi’s condition.

2. Mysterious Girlfriend X

Quite a bit weirder than Sundome, and a hell of a lot more enjoyable, Mysterious Girlfriend X is by far the best series on this list. MGX started life as a mere oneshot, but it was inevitable that such an interesting an unique idea would be spun off into a full series. So the main character of MGX is perfectly average, agreeable, all-around normal boy Tsubaki. One day, a new girl comes to school and manages to creep everybody out by being mostly silent and sleeping at her desk whenever the chance comes. This keeps up and most people keep their distance, but Tsubaki can’t help but take an interest in the weirdo. So cut to afterschool one day as the new girl is fast asleep at her desk, our hero decides to wake her. She thanks him and walks home. Here’s where shit gets interesting. After she leaves, Tsubaki notices that the new girl left a small puddle of drool on her desk while sleeping and for no fucking reason at all he decides that it would be a good idea to see what it tastes like. So things spiral down to weirder and weirder points from here. Tsubaki gets sick and misses several days of school until the new girl- Ueno- comes to his house and informs him that he is love sick and now has to taste her drool everyday or else his fever comes back. So she sticks her finger in her mouth and lets him taste her drool again, and wouldn’t you know it, he’s perfectly fine the next day. From here they decide to start dating and very weird things continue to happen.

Not only does Ueno have the weird factor with the drool, but she also (for no reason at all) carries around a pair of scissors in her underwear and tends to cut things into neat little shapes whenever Tsubaki tries to get close to her. Add to that the fact that she seems to really like to be naked around Tsubaki (while he’s blindfolded of course). Oh yeah, and that whole drool thing? Apparently tasting each others drool allows them to feel each others emotions. Makes sense to me. Ueno is harder to figure out than the last girl, but the only thing I can figure is that maybe she’s some kind of alien or something. The difference between MGX and Sundome is that Sundome relies heavily on the main characters secret to be interesting; as I said, the only reason I keep reading is to see whether they ever reveal what the deal with that shit is. With MGX, the author doesn’t really need to explain anything for the series to remain interesting, it just is.

I seriously recommend this to anyone who likes any kind of manga, it may sound kind of gross, but it’s actually really cute and rather sweet at times.

1. Choku!

Choku! is a series that I actually just read last night and only has one chapter translated so far. This manga is what led me to type up this whole article; when I read it I just couldn’t believe how fucking weird the main character was. So we have yet another average guy who meets a weird girl with weird fetishes and adventures ensue. I can’t remember the characters’ names, but basically there’s this tall girl who has a crush on this short guy. The guy says let’s just be friends. The girl asks her “friend” what friends do and then tries to do these things with the guy. Also, the girl is obsessed with shitting for some reason and has constant powerful nosebleeds; so powerful in fact, that she has to wear a gas mask looking thing in order to keep blood from splattering on a wedding dress she’s wearing while taking a picture with the main guy who is also wearing a wedding dress.  Also, she has a weird motorcycle with some kind of mascot side cart.

wat

The artwork is kind of cute, but I don’t know if I really wanna read about a girl who likes shit and has constant bloody noses. We’ll see.

Anyway, if nothing else, check out Mysterious Girlfriend X, it’s a good read for sure.