The Walking Dead TV Show

Our more faithful readers should remember the gory Walking Dead comic books, that rather excellent take on zombies and humanity's contemporary tendencies for self-destruction. Well, good news everyone! The Walking Dead TV series is just around the corner and seems to be more promising than a particularly promising thing. The first episode of the six episode series will premier this Halloween (Oct. 31) and will introduce viewers to a dark, gory, shockingly violent, (at times) touching, cruel, zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic world, and the rag-tag group of survivors that will be the seeries' protagonists.

At the helm of the how you will pleased to find director-writer-producer Frank Darabond (The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption), who is supported by a talented cast, that includes Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal, Sarah Wayne Callies, Laurie Holden, Jeffrey DeMunn, Steven Yeun and Emma Bell.

To find out more about the Walking Dead you could do much worse than visit its content-packed official site. Imdb also sports some useful info, though you'd better start by taking a look at this lovely trailer:

Thirst - a sadly dissapointing review

A film by Chan-wook Park, the writer-director of Oldboy, sporting a vampiric priest and erotic themes couldn't possibly go wrong, could it? Well, to my great surprise and even greater disappointment, it apparently could. And quite spectacularly did, for Thirst is a sub-par horror movie, that tries a little too hard to appear as some sort of deep and meaningful piece of filmic art, which frankly it is not.

Then again, as certain people tend to mistake a slow pace for true art, we can rest assured that these lost souls enjoyed the movie despite its convoluted and banal plot. Said plot is not only unspectacular and quite contrived, but also sports one of those oh-so-fashionable modern, touchy, emo vampires. Being a horror film of course we could overlook such genre cliches, but Thirst takes itself far too seriously to revel in the banality. There is no self-mockery to be found here. Thirst tries to be deep, thoughtful, sensual and all it manages is feel overdrawn.

After watching the thing I was sure it had lasted for more than two hundred minutes, which it clearly hadn't.

Seems I am easily bored by just another well mannered vampire, with a strong Christian faith no less, that effortlessly manages to overcome its new nature in stark contrast to its more, well, vampiric girlfriend. And the fact that the protagonist was sort of an ur-vampire created by a failed medical experiment didn't help at all and all the great acting and brilliant cinematography went to waste. For shame.

The Time is Now

 I've checked my dolby bought me a new bag of popcorn picked out my comfortable home clothes and I'm ready to go...
This is the week when everything starts again.
I've loaded my DVD player with all the films I have to watch, circled all the TV premieres and put aside all the books that need to be read.
I'm excited but at the same time oh, so scared!
There will be suffering but there will also be great pleasure....

O.K. then, here we go!

Bela Lugosi's Dead

I have seen, and then seen again, more than a few films promising to capture the lure and fascination of our beloved nocturnal creatures. Needless to say, I was mostly and unsurprisingly untouched by all those weak attempts to restore the awe once lost.

As a matter of fact the last vampire movie I enjoyed was Coppola's Dracula and that was a looong time ago.

There is some kind of innocence in those black and white movies or even the early colored ones that made the difference. The commanding presence of the tall and lean and ever so intriguing figure of a vampire, with only blood and survival in his mind. The cape, the make-up, the costumes, the music, the era itself, which made those films dark, romantic and me reminiscent.

I miss the incomparable cemetery scenes, caskets opening, creaking, damsels screaming for their lives.

The idea of a monster hiding under my bed or even in my closet waiting, lurking.

And as the song goes....

White on white translucent black capes
Back on the rack
Bela Lugosi's dead
The bats have left the bell tower
The victims have been bled
Red velvet lines the black box
Bela Lugosi's dead
Undead undead undead
The virginal brides file past his tomb
Strewn with time's dead flowers
Bereft in deathly bloom
Alone in a darkened room
The count
Bela Lugosi’s dead
Undead undead undead

To Nick...