horror movie reviews: day one, the horror of everyday life
a series of reviews, two each day, of horror movies.
day one, movie one: # alive.
1: half the people are crazed and trying to kill the other half of the people, panic and mass casualties, violent infection, etc – yes, it’s 2020-2021 thank you, continue
2: infected people trying to get in and infect people who are quarantined, aggressive mental illness -yes, yes
3: your neighbors are all worse than you ever knew -yes. yes
4: cops eating each other -please do go on
5: oh no several days how will you ever survive with only ramen
two whole days of lockdown
6: so you’re warned to have plenty of food and water, yet you don’t immediately fill up the bathtub at least, or the sinks. and you don’t go into the zombie neighbor’s abandoned apartment to see if there’s food
7: too much tech, not enough walkie talkies. I doubt.
8: I get it, people expect the end of the world to be like, a switch flipped, but no. this shit draaaags forever
9: the golf club is reminiscent of funny games. maybe an intentional nod to his change in mental state
10: slapstick!
11: finally, foraging.
12: the Mormons are at the door
13: we have skipped two weeks, without water or food?
14: and finally the lights out- wouldn’t that go before the running water?
15: oh the melodrama. don’t be a moron, but this magical dude has been alive a month without water
16: Kim Yu-bin is keeping track of her shit. I bet he gets her killed. nice waterworld callback with watering the plant.
17: of course he’s that stupid, he’s the protagonist and you’re a competent woman in a movie. how else would it justify you endangering yourself for him?
18: oh, wait. he HAS water? from where?
19: finally the tech is worth a damn. and she’s feeding him, which is ok because yes helping each other matters but
20: ok yes the tech is nice, good point, this is a scene from hackers vs zombies. slapstick is fine. zombie big mad. give me back my hand you bastards
21: Jun-u. I had been ignoring his name the entire movie. This is a bad habit of mine with zombie stuff.
22: finally some decent fuckin plot movement. there’s kids, in a good movie he’d have to kill one. instead, a treasure trove of all the survival gear. it’s handy when someone else did the preparation FOR you. I mean damn
23: oooh she’s only alive to help HIM. what a fucking surprise
24: reminds me of the pandemic “share a window” website crossed with a gentle, normal mukbang (not a weird fetish feeder one)
25: the zombies are going hooome. the zombies are going hooooooome
26: ok yes sounds scary, looked scary but it seems like there’s only five of them at her door
27: she’s skilled. of course. melee fighter. I like that this isn’t the dumb-ass slow zombies, nor the superhuman ones. just regular people.
28: another pile up!
29: don’t drink koolaid from strangers, but spam? NO NOT THAT EITHER. of course there will be cannibals in this that aren’t sick, that’s another nice callback (the road) (dead alive). I’m still holding out hope a kid zombie gets killed, although it’s unlikely at this point.
30: holy fuckin generational-divide-monologue for the ages
31: oh damn a gunshot in South Korea.
32: look, Kim, I wasn’t given any backstory for you, but I really want you to outlive “regular dumb guy”. the suicide subplot is going nowhere and we both know it
33: it’s never a good look to be fighting zombie hordes on the stairs. I don’t know why, it just isn’t good. just stay in the damn apartment. please.
34: regular Joe, you are doing the right thing by staying behind, keep that up.
35: FUCK THIS SHITTY APARTMENT
36: finally, machine guns. sorry, I’m American. I’ve been waiting for an hour and a half for logic to set in
37: where are they even going? she’s cooler than him, why isn’t she getting messages? so I guess his Instagram saved her? is that a subversiveon of what I’ve been complaining about? I think it is.
7/10 excellent slapstick, callbacks, just enough humor without ruining the narrative. subversive ending in that he’s only in the movie for the sake of saving her life, and neither died. points deducted for lack of depth to the woman in the film, too much depth for the guy, and for showing us a lack of water then changing that enough to keep someone alive for 20 days. (also, he didn’t even fill up the sink, the hell)
number two, day one: condemned
this movie is about squatting, a lifestyle I’m too familiar with. let’s see how close to the mark it gets. oh, and zombie infection stuff. that too.
1: the supe is always the strangest thing in any building in NYC. always. this isn’t a narrator. this is realism.
2: when will rich kids learn that poverty isn’t an aesthetic? when will something that poor people authentically live through, be safe from commodification and the thievery of the privileged? where does class/cultural appropriation end? why are people using their yacht money on a tiny fuckin house? find out on the next episode of generation x, when we discuss the occup- wait no- this is just a zombie flick. sorry about that
3: I know she’s saying other shit on the phone but all I hear is “the rain was such a blessing”
4: montage is always good with good music over it. going anywhere in the city is basically a montage in reality
5: cigarettes cost 14 bucks in New York holy fuckin shit I’m old
6: ominous: “what could be worse than where you are now”, teens having sex, neon lighting, drainpipe footage, “what difference is a day gonna make”, “I won’t make the same mistake like I did in Vladivostok”
7: this bondage shit on the third floor is giving me a real, serious flashback to a job I did briefly which paid incredibly well. every time these characters show up I have a flashback, every time I watch this.
8: every character in this movie is someone I’ve met. every fuckin one. even cookie. I hate that and love it at the same time. I don’t know if you’ve ever lived in bad beat city but this is accuracy.
9: the glitch hallucination is wonderful. don’t show me people’s bad dreams, though. it’s a waste of film. especially someone’s dream who doesn’t know that squats don’t get the garbage picked up. at least he was gentle about her tourist status. (yes, that was fucking gentle. she’s visiting, but they LIVE there. he’ll show you the life of the mind)
10: the colors in this movie reminds me of Mermaid in a Manhole, an amazing movie itself- this is a compliment
11: yes punk means you puke and say “did you SEE that” yes it does
12: the way sickness spreads in close, unmaintained quarters is accurate too. these old buildings were originally tenements and were notorious for being built in a way that contributed to outbreaks of diseases. ny poverty history
13: the glitch used as stand-in for visual mirage is again amazing and continues to be throughout
14: that walk up all the stairs after a day at work to complain about the horror of everyday life, with a back crack and sore feet.
15: the cops are also accurate
16: the plot takes a nice strong left turn here, and it’s perfection. since the development of the plot cookie was leading us to doesn’t matter to the people in this building, it’s better to truncate it. and then we can get to business.
17: yes. if you die in a squat, you’re getting rolled in a carpet and left blocks away. you’ve got to. nobody’s gonna kill you but nobody’s going to be on the street over your ass either.
18: guitar axe skyline lightning. that may be a summary of the whole movie.
19: absolutely pitch perfect “you ruined new york city” rant for the ages
I used to live there
20: if the building wasn’t shit, this would be a nice Shining callback
21: FAWKKING
22: this movie just will not let you have any expected outcome. it’s brilliant.
23: I’ve lived in a brownstone that had a cellar which connected to every building on the block and beyond. that was in Philly, but the construction of this landscape is perfect.
full disclosure- I own this DVD and have watched it a lot. it’s one of my favorite movies, structurally and visually, and I think it’s one of the best horror movies made this decade.
