The Curator of Schlock #320 by Jeff Shuster

Rec 2

The sequel to Rec in case you were wondering. 

I have a confession to make. I don’t always understand what I’m watching when it comes to movies. Take Howard the Duck. I thought it was a movie about an anthropomorphic duck trying to survive in a mid 1980s Cleveland. Then the movie becomes about laser spectroscopes and Dark Overlords of the Universe. What I’m trying to say is that simple movies can get complicated to the point where I don’t know what’s going on.

We need to talk about 2009’s Rec 2 from directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza. It picks up where Rec left off. A group of three commandos led by a Dr. Owen (Jonathan Mellor) make their way through the crowd of onlookers outside of the quarantined apartment building. This is another found footage movie as each commando has a video camera in his helmet to help him record the situation inside the apartment complex. Once inside, only Dr. Owen can give the voice command to permit them or anyone else from exiting the building.

They make their way up to the penthouse with all of the religious iconography and newspaper cutouts about the possessed little girl. Dr. Owen keeps demanding that everything gets recorded. Infected apartment residents attack and infect one of the commandos, but Dr. Owens is able to subdue and trap the infected commando with a Rosary and some prayers.

Huh?

And then Dr. Owens removes his helmet to reveal a priest’s collar. He’s not Dr. Owen from the Ministry of Health; he’s Father Owen from the Vatican!

Okay. So I’m going to try to explain what I think is going on. The Vatican decided to use medical science as a way to cure the demonically possessed. I think Father Owens rambles that the Vatican discovered that possessed people have a virus while possessed and if they could come up with an antidote for this virus, priests could just inject someone who gets demonically possessed instead of going through the whole exorcism ordeal.

Unfortunately, the virus mutated during their experimentation.

The virus can pass from person to person. The demon residing inside the original possessed person possesses each person the virus comes into contact with. So I guess the virus is possessed, which allows a single demon to possess several people at the same time?

Father Owens needs the original blood sample from the possessed girl so that an antidote can be created. He directs the remaining commandos to hunt for the virus. By the skin of his teeth, one of the commandos retrieves the last vial of the possessed girl’s blood before one of the demonically possessed, zombie maniacs is able to tear him a new one. At this moment, Father Owens makes the stupidest mistake I’ve ever seen in a horror movie. He insists that the blood sample needs to be tested for authenticity before he will allow them to leave the building.

Ummmm. Father Owens, you can test the sample outside of the building in a controlled facility far away from this demonically possessed, zombie maniac infested apartment complex. You got what you came for. Now get out of there. But no, he has to test the sample. He pours some of the blood onto a plate, holds a crucifix over it while saying some prayers, and the blood shimmers before catching fire. The remaining blood in the vial also catches fire and the commando holding it drops it on the floor. The blood sample is useless now, but Father Owens says they can retrieve a new sample from the original possessed girl who is hiding somewhere in the building.

What else?

We get some annoying teenagers sneaking into the apartment complex after destroying a perfectly good blow-up doll. Ángela Vidal (Manuela Velasco) shows up again apparently having survived the first movie. They discover that the original possessed girl can only be seen through a camera’s night vision, as the demon is able to make her invisible to the naked eye. Nothing is going to go according to plan…well…actually…I suppose things go according to demon’s plan. To think, I was going to have June be Satan Month.

I guess Satan Month came early.

You’re welcome.

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #177 by Jeff Shuster

Resident Evil: Retribution

Zombie simulators and evil computers.

 We’re in week five of Resident Evil month and I am dead-dog tired. Is there such a thing as too much of a good thing? Perhaps. The fact that director Paul W.S. Anderson could keep this zombie extravaganza rolling through six movies is nothing short of incredible. The fact that I was able to wade through this zombie extravaganza is nothing short of amazing. Do I deserve a pat on the back from you, my faithful readership? Yes. Yes I do. 

Resident Evil: Retribution picks up where Resident Evil: Afterlife left off. Alice (Milla Jovovich) was fending off an attack by the evil Umbrella Corporation on the freighter known as Arcadia. Oh, I forgot to mention in my last review that Alice owns a gun that can shoot quarters at her enemies. That’s pretty nifty. Anyway, the attack is being led by Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) from Resident Evil: Apocalypse. She’s possessed by one of the red beetle robots, the same kind that were possessing Claire Redfield in the last movie.

Did you remember the last movie? No need since Alice gives the audience a recap of the first four movies. I wish other movie series would do that, give recaps. I can’t keep anything in those Marvel movies straight. Hell, I couldn’t keep anything in Avengers: Age of Ultron straight. I thought it was going to be a movie about superheroes fighting killer robots. Instead, I got to see Iron Man and Captain America hang out at Hawkeye’s ranch, talking about their feelings while Thor waded around in a wishing well. I don’t get movies sometimes.

Anyway, Alice gets knocked off the Arcadia, falls into the Pacific Ocean, and wakes up in some kind of suburban housewife fantasy. She’s married to Carlos (Oded Fehr) and has a deaf daughter named Becky (Aryana Engineer). Zombies break into their house and kill Carlos. Interesting. Wait a minute! Didn’t Carlos die in Resident Evil: Extinction? She runs into Michelle Rodriguez on the street, too! Didn’t her character die in the first movie? Something fishy is going on here.

Alice then wakes up in a glowing white room. Jill Valentine is interrogating her, asking why Alice betrayed the Umbrella Corporation. We learn later that the Red Queen, the evil computer that looks and sounds like a little English girl, is controlling Jill. Ada Wong (Li BingBing) helps Alice navigate an Umbrella complex in the middle of Russia that contains domed theme-park versions of New York, Tokyo, and Moscow.

See, the Red Queen can create clones of sixty Umbrella employees, give them basic memories and personalities, and then let loose the zombie hoards on them. This structure was created to simulate the effects of a zombie apocalypse so the Umbrella Corporation could sell their bioweapons to the highest bidding superpower. 

Ada Wong works for Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts) who is now one of the good guys. Huh? He was so evil in the last movie. Wesker has sent a squad in to rescue Alice. Unfortunately, this squad runs into to some Soviet zombies, driving tanks and brandishing machine guns.

I think there’s a super zombie version of Michelle Rodriguez at the end of the movie. I’m tired.

Your Curator of Schlock is and will be taking the month of April off. He will return in May. Big things are in store for the Museum of Schlock this year. Can’t say anything just yet. You’ll have to wait and see.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #176 by Jeff Shuster

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Still no kung Fu zombies!

 Was it too much for Paul W.S. Anderson to cast Donnie Yen in a Resident Evil movie, have him get zombified, so we could have a kung Fu zombie fight scene with Milla Jovovich? Was that too much to ask? We’re four movies in and I have yet to see that scene! You don’t even need to have Donnie Yen play a character. Just have him play himself and then he gets zombified. And don’t have him do one kung Fu scene for like two minutes and then have him sit around for the rest of the movie like a certain Star Wars movie that I won’t mention.

Okay. Enough with my nitpicking. I’d say the first eighteen minutes of Resident Evil: Afterlife are just about the most awesome thing I’ve seen in a long time. Resident Evil: Extinction ended with Alice warning the evil chairman Albert Wesker that she was coming for him and the rest of the Umbrella Corporation. Resident Evil: Afterlife begins with Alice (Milla Jovovich) infiltrating Umbrella’s massive underground facility in Tokyo, Japan. She’s using ninja stars and a samurai sword, lopping the heads off of Umbrella guards left and right.

She even uses her psionic powers to waste even more guards. And then she gets three bullets in her back. No more Alice. Until three more Alices show up sporting machine guns. Milla Jovovich times three?

That’s right. I forgot Alice had freed hundreds of clones of herself at the end of Resident Evil: Extinction. And they’re all here, killing tons Umbrella officers! This is awesome! The evil Chairman Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts) makes a quick getaway with his tiltrotor plane, smirking as he triggers a bomb from his cell phone that destroys Umbrella headquarters, killing all of the Alice clones and leaving a rather large crater in the middle of Tokyo. I really hate this guy!

Unbeknownst to him, the real Alice was hiding inside the plane. She sneaks up on Wesker, gun in hand, but he’s too fast for her. Wesker sticks a needle in her neck, releasing an antivirus that kill the T-cells in her bloodstream, removing her powers and turning her into a normal human being again. Wesker makes some speech about the Umbrella Corporation reclaiming their property and how he’s going to kill Alice. Maybe he should have focused his attention on piloting the plane, which is about to crash!

Alice survives and heads over to Alaska where the survivors in Claire Redfield’s convoy were supposed to be holding up. She searches Alaska for months, finding no sign of them or the town they were supposed to go to, Arcadia. Eventually, she finds Claire Redfield (Ali Larter), but she’s not herself. Claire acts like a wild animal, attacking Alice with everything she’s got. Alice knocks her out and removes a strange, robotic red beetle from Claire’s chest. Claire comes to, saner, but has amnesia, obviously. Claire doesn’t remember her own name.

They fly a plane to Los Angeles, where they run into a ragtag group of survivors like former basketball star, Luther West (Boris Kodjoe), and former Hollywood producer, Bennett Sinclair (Kim Coates). They tell Alice they’ve been receiving broadcasts from a huge ship named the Arcadia, which offers safe haven to survivors. Alice figures the rest of Claire’s convoy is on that ship.

They just have get through the zombie hoards to get to it. And let me tell you, the zombies are worse this time around. Their faces open up like Venus flytraps. Plus, there’s this giant super zombie with a burlap sack nailed to his head walking around, wielding a huge axe he made from a streetlight.

Fortunately, Chris Redfield (Wentworth Miller), brother of Claire Redfield, joins up with them. He knows how they can get to the ship. But what horrors await them onboard? I’m not going to tell you. I’m really digging this series.

_______

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #175 by Jeff Shuster

Resident Evil: Extinction

It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine. 

It would seem that the zombie apocalypse that I thought was averted at the end of Resident Evil: Apocalypse is in full swing at the beginning of Resident Evil: Extinction. The evil Umbrella Corporation failed to contain the T-virus.

And you know what? I’m glad.

There’s nothing like an American wasteland filled with flesh hungry corpses to pique my interest. This movie seems to cater to all my interests. We’ve got zombies, mutants, killer birds, maniac punks, clones, a psionic woman warrior, and Ali Larter. What more can you ask for in a movie? 

Resident Evil: Extinction begins with Alice (Milla Jovovich) waking up naked on the floor of a shower just like she did in the first movie. She evens puts on that same red evening dress. Alice wanders around that same creepy mansion from the first movie. She makes her way through a series of traps before getting gunned down by an automatic turret. It’s like something out of a video game. A few Umbrella scientists led by the evil Dr. Isaacs (Iain Glen) retrieve her corpse and dump the body outside where there are dozens of other dead Alice clones littered about. The scientists then go to their underground lab since they’re fenced in by hoards of hungry zombies on the surface. Good thing they have a helicopter.

The evil Dr. Isaacs attends a holographic boardroom meeting with the head members of Umbrella, including the evil chairman Albert Wesker (Jason O’Mara). Dr. Isaacs claims he can come up with a new virus from the blood of those Alice clones that will domesticate the zombies. The Umbrella Corporation likes the idea of a docile workforce. They wouldn’t even have to pay the zombies minimum wage. Just toss them a Slim Jim once in awhile and they’ll be fine. He tries the new virus on a particularly violent zombie and the zombie calms right down.

The zombie uses a cell phone and even takes a couple of photos of the scientists, but the virus quickly wears off and the zombie eats the observing scientists. Dr. Isaacs needs the original Alice to perfect this new virus.

The original Alice has been roaming the zombie wasteland for years now, avoiding the detection of the Umbrella Corporation’s satellites by keeping off the grid. She tries to help people when she can, but they usually turn out to be Death Wish-style punks that want to do bad things to her. Meanwhile, there’s a caravan of survivors led by the fiercely beautiful Claire Redfield (Ali Larter). Along for the ride are Carlos Oliveira (Oded Fehr) and L.J. Wade (Mike Epps) from Resident Evil: Apocalypse. We’ve also got a nurse named Betty (Ashanti), a cowboy named Chase (Linden Ashby), a girl named K-Mart (Spencer Locke), and a bus full of orphaned children.

Alice reunites with her friends after saving them from a bunch of infected, killer crows with her newfound psionic powers. That’s right! Alice is a Scanner.

What else?

There’s a fight in Vegas with some Umbrella super zombies. Carlos sacrifices himself for the good of the group by driving a gasoline tanker into a hoard of zombies and then lighting up some dynamite. Woah!

Alice dukes it out telekinetically with a mutated psionic zombified Dr. Isaacs. A computer called the White Queen (another creepy English girl) slices and dices Dr. Isaacs with a laser. Alice discovers an army of Alice clones, which she plans to lead against the Umbrella Corporation. Chairman Wesker will pay! Until next week. Same psionic zombie time, same psionic zombie channel.

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #174 by Jeff Shuster

Resident Evil: Apocalypse

More zombies, more mutant dogs, and more Milla Jovovich!

Yeah, you heard right. Resident Evil month continues here at the Museum of Schlock, this time with more zombies, more mutant dogs, and more Milla Jovavich. Two out of three ain’t bad. Of course, I am referring to more zombies and more of the lovely Milla Jovavich.

I could live without the mutant dogs.

One of them eats a redheaded man in this movie. That made me uncomfortable. Why can’t the redheaded man save the day? Why does he have to end up as dog food?

Tonight’s movie is 2004’s Resident Evil: Apocalypse from director Paul W. S. Anderson. 

The movie opens up with a team of Umbrella scientists opening up The Hive research facility to figure out what went on down there. Maybe they didn’t get the memo of the hordes of ravenous zombies lurking down below. You’d think the evil Umbrella Corporation would like to keep that little experiment under wraps. They send a bunch of black vans to ship all of their top scientists out of town before the zombie outbreak hits the streets of Raccoon City. One of the scientists is played by Jared Harris. He played Lane Pryce on Mad Men.

Sigh.

I miss Mad Men. 

You know, trying to explain the plot of this thing is like trying to explain the plot of The Lord of the Rings. There is just too much going on. We’ve got some new characters this time around. Let’s see, we’ve got Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), a former Raccoon City police officer who was dismissed because she discovered the Umbrella Corporation was experimenting with zombie viruses. We have a pimp named “LJ” who’s played by Mike Epps. He serves as the comic relief.

There’s also Carlos Olivera as played by Oded Fehr, an Umbrella soldier who decides to help the survivors of the Raccoon City outbreak after the Umbrella Corporation leaves him to die. Was Oded Fehr in The Lord of the Rings? No, he was in those Mummy movies, the ones with Brendan Fraser. I liked the first one, but the sequels sucked. I seem to recall Brendan Fraser wrestling a Yeti in the third one. 

Ugh. I’m getting off track. Anyway, everyone’s trying to leave Raccoon City, but the Umbrella Corporation has all of the exits sealed off to prevent the spread of the zombie virus. Jill Valentine holds up in a church along with some other survivors, only to realize the place is infested with lickers, the monster with the long tongue from the first movie.

When all hope seems lost, Alice (Milla Jovovich) crashes a motorcycle through a stained glass window and starts taking care of business (and working overtime). No more lickers, but Alice is about to face here most challenging foe yet.

The Umbrella Corporation has cooked up a monster named Nemesis. He’s a hulking zombie with a computer in his head. Nemesis has to do whatever the Umbrella Corporation tells him to do, and that usually involves killing. Oh, and they gave the Nemesis monster a bazooka too. Will Alice be able to stop the Nemesis monster and rescue the survivors? Will Alice use her kung fu powers against the undead? Will she feed an evil Umbrella scientist to a hoard of zombies? Yes, yes, and yes. Go watch this movie! I kind of recommend it.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #160 by Jeff Shuster

Shock Waves

Nazi zombies are the Taliban of the zombie world.

I think I promised you eager beavers a story last week, a twisted tale to keep awake well past the witching hour. Okay. So there was this pigman who lived in Angola, New York. Well, he wasn’t an actual pigman as in a man who is part pig and part man. He was a butcher of pigs, ran a hog farm. He didn’t like the local teenagers coming on his property, getting all up in his business. He used to impale pig heads on spikes surrounding his property as a warning for them to keep off his lawn. Still, that didn’t deter those rotten teenagers. A few of them decided to sneak over one night so the pigman chopped their heads off and put those heads on spikes. They should have left well enough alone.

Which brings us to tonight’s picture, Shock Waves, a 1977 horror film from director Ken Wiederhorn. Okay, it doesn’t feature teenagers going where they’re not supposed to go. It’s about a group of tourists on a commercial freighter, sunning and swimming on and in the Atlantic Ocean. I assume it’s the Atlantic because I’m an east coast guy, but it’s not really mentioned. A cantankerous John Carradine plays the ship’s captain.

Don’t worry. He’s the first one to die. We also have a pervy ship’s cook who we know is pervy because of all the pictures of naked women he has plastered around the kitchen. Don’t worry. He dies too. In fact, the cook dies by getting his face impaled on a cluster of sea urchins. What a way to go.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. So we have a young couple and a middle aged couple who booked the lamest vacation you could think, stuck on a crappy boat in the middle of the Atlantic for a couple of weeks. And then that little commercial vessel crashes into a ghost ship, but not just any ghost ship. It’s the rusty husk of once mighty Nazi battleship. And there are Nazi zombies lurking somewhere in the waters.

Now if the TV show, Breaking Bad, taught me anything, it’s that Nazi zombies are even worse than regular zombies because Nazi zombies hate Americans. I’ve always thought that if a zombie takes a bite of me that I shouldn’t take it personally. After all, it’s just their nature. But Nazi zombies have clear anti-American bias. They can also walk with a clear stride and even have some stealth abilities. You never see them coming and neither can the characters in this movie. Plus, they have blond hair and what I imagine to be blue eyes except they wear these goggle sunglasses that will kill them if removed. Yeah. No fooling. Just remove their goggles and they’re toast. They don’t like the sun.

The commercial freighter gets stranded on a nearby island and while exploring, the tourists run into an old, retired Nazi Commander played by none other than Peter Cushing, who also starred in a slightly more famous film in 1977. He was in charge of the Death Corp, an indestructible squad of underwater Nazi zombies. Did I mention they can breathe underwater? Maybe they don’t breathe at all, and that’s the point.

Is there a lesson to be learned in all of this?

I think so.

I think the lesson is when fighting a war, don’t create a squad of indestructible, underwater zombies. They tend to do whatever they want (which usually means killing anything that breathes).

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Photo by Leslie Salas