The DAN ZONE

Popped in the 2007 movie The Mad tonight, starring Billy Zane. The gist of the zombie infection this time is basically ‘mad cow’ disease. Small town, cows are diseased, cows are made into hamburgers for local restaurant—people turn into zombies.

This movie had me from the opening credits song because it is a total 80s new wave throwback. All the songs in the movie are by a band called Half Past Four, and what the ‘band’ did with the opening song, entitled “We All Are Mad 1985” is basically record an 80s-style ‘horror’ record. In my opinion, the two best decades of ‘Halloween’ and ‘horror’ themed songs were the 60s and the 80s. Well, Half Past Four did their homework, because their 1985 version of “We All Are Mad” sounds like a cross between the Bollock Bros. (who gave us the 80s treasure “Horror Movies”) and Oingo Boingo (who had classics like “Weird Science” and “Dead Man’s Party”). Later in the movie, there’s a ‘2006’ version of the same song, but it can’t compare to the opening throwback version. Perfection.

Not unusual for movies that were released in the past 10 years, this film makes 80s references ad nauseam. And I love it. Considering Dead Calm came out over 20 years ago, Billy Zane is now old enough to be playing a dad (but still looks hot, bald and wearing geek glasses). His character reminisces about playing electronic drums in a post-electronica band in the 80s called, what else? The Mad. He now has a bratty teen daughter who, in one sentence, busts on his taste in music by dropping names like Culture Club, the Bangles and Depeche Mode. She’s mad at him because they are traveling with his new girlfriend. Seems mom is dead, and this movie starts with what threatens to be a complex examination of a fractured family and the relationship between a daughter and her soon-to-be step mom.

But fear not. Once the fractured family sits down for dinner at a local restaurant, the zombie fun starts. Everyone in the restaurant who is eating a burger very quickly turns into a zombie, and this film suddenly turns into a totally over-the-top campy, almost slapstick at times, comedy. Once you adjust to the change in tone, it’s easy to laugh along with it. It’s right up there with Dead & Breakfast in terms of the ridiculous humor that some of us can’t help but laugh at (others will probably hate it). But come on. There’s even an uncooked infected hamburger patty that attacks! The gore effects are tame, there are no scares, and there is no real significant gut eating, but the part many zombie fans will appreciate is when the characters get into a deep philosophical discussion about the ever questionable technicalities of how exactly one becomes a zombie.

The Mad is pretty simple in its goal of entertaining, and it’s just long enough at about an hour and twenty minutes. That’s about as long as Zombieland, yet this film delivers more consistent zombie action, even if the humor wears a little thin by the last half hour or so.

Coincidentally, as Lost Boys: The Tribe hit the top of my horror pile for a rewatch, we today lost 80s icon Corey Haim—well, half an icon, considering he really wasn’t whole unless he was in a movie with Corey Feldman. So, I popped in my Blu-Ray of the sequel, not expecting to be blown away, since I barely remember the film from the first time around.

But on my second viewing, I paid attention instead of doing five million other things while ‘watching’ it, as I did the first time. Sure, the film feels like vampires invading the 90210 remake at first, but if you stick with it, there are some very campy and funny lines sprinkled throughout, even if they are too sporadic for the film to fully reach its camp potential. This is also definitely not a sterile flick, because, despite the pretty faces and polished production value there is some great gore and impressive nudity.

The story is simple. A young guy and his sister move to a seaside community after losing their parents. All it takes is one party (complete with face-sucking lesbians) for them to get involved with the latest tribe of motorcycle gang vampires. Along comes “Eddy Frog” to warn them of the vampire threat, Eddy being none other than Corey Feldman. Your knee-jerk reaction will be to laugh out loud at how cheesy he sounds when he delivers his first lines in a froggy voice, but once his role gets off the ground (and if you can flash back to his character in the original film), it’s kind of endearing and nostalgic. One character even makes a reference to the great film The Goonies, a not-so ‘in’ joke for all us Gen-Xers who know that Corey Feldman was in that movie. Another nice throwback is the use of a pretty good rerecorded version of the awesome theme song from the original Lost Boys, called “Cry Little Sister,” a dark and atmospheric song that has the children’s chorus singing “Thou shall not fall.”

There are also a couple of awesome cameos. First, horror effects master Tom Savini has a nice gory cameo in the opening scene. And then, of course, the late Corey Haim makes his appearance in a short scene after the credits begin to role. Those of us who watched the reality show The Two Coreys know that Haim was not asked to reprise his role for the sequel and was very hurt over it. But by throwing him a bone and putting him in this miniscule cameo at the end, they gave Lost Boys fans what we were, um, thirsting for: the potential for a full-on Corey vs. Corey sequel. But now, sadly, that second sequel will never happen and Corey will never have his second moment in the spotlight.

Just finished watching the campy slasher comedy Drive Thru (2007), featuring a killer clown mascot of a popular fast food restaurant. The name of the mascot is Horny the Clown and the name of the restaurant is Hella Burger, so you pretty much know what to expect going into this one. Our killer Horny is awesome, goofy yet freaky like the clowns in Killer Clowns from Outer Space. In fact, Horny’s clown mask is modeled after the fast food drive thru intercom, so his mouth looks like a speaker you’d talk into to place your order. It’s all cheesy fun plus some pretty good gore. The actors and director don’t bother to take themselves seriously, just going with it, which really works. There’s some good Styx/AC/DC references for 80s lovers and a slight obsession with ‘wiggers’ and black street talk (even though all the main characters are white). Also, there are also extraneous political jabs at Orange County, Republicans, and George Bush. It’s oddly out of place and feels somewhat forced, even if it’s not as excessive as the political satire of David Arquette’s liberal horror film The Tripper. I know both films were released when Bush was still in office, but that’s simply not the kind of  ‘clown’ horror I want to relive again and again!

Well, the first four were voted off American Idol last night. Watching the boys perform on Wednesday, me and my partner knew immediately it was all over for that young kid when he spoke to the camera in his native tongue after his performance. How does everyone NOT know by now that you can not demonstrate any kind of pride other than white American straight pride on this show, especially this early in the game??? That’s why we were so surprised Adam Lambert made it as far as he did last year. He couldn’t hide his pride even if he came face-to-face with a 300 pound steroid-pumped football playing homophobe with anger management issues in a dark alley.

Meanwhile, how awesome was it when that Jim Morrison reject said that the judges didn’t give him any constructive criticism about changing up his image until after he performed for votes the first time–and they cut to Simon as he was mouthing the words, “That’s true…” Awesome. That’s like the closest we’ll ever get to Simon admitting he was wrong! And just in the nick of time, considering he’s leaving the show.

Ke$ha will probably get slammed by the onslaught of web crawlers who love to bash anything that isn’t ‘art rock’ or ‘smart music,’ a definite plague that has resulted from the dawn of the internet age. We’re talking those who scathingly refer to pop as throwaway and forgettable, despite the fact that this is the very music that has proven time and again that it gets stuck in your head and has huge staying and comeback power. Not sure why they even bother wasting their precious holier-than-everyone time attacking music they’d never listen to—and I can’t imagine what would have been posted about the music I loved as a kid had the internet existed. Those who don’t like dance and pop music shouldn’t–you know–bother talking about it so much. If you don’t like a certain music genre, then why would those who DO like that genre really CARE what you think? Don’t quite get that.

Having said that, let’s get into the adolescent pop dance perfection that is the Ke$ha CD. Forget the hit singles “Blah Blah Blah” and “Tik Tok”—those who love party pop and dance music will go wild for this album. Imagine if Avril Lavigne recorded a dance rock record ripe with electronics and you pretty much have Ke$ha, who covers everything from puking at parties to ragging on ‘old’ men who look at her and think they’re going to get some. Straight up rocking dance tracks include “Your Love Is My Drug,” “Take It Off,” the adrenaline rush “Kiss and Tell,” the electro punk “Party at a Rich Dude’s House,” the more moody dance tracks “Blind” and “Dancing With Tears in My Eyes” (no, not a cover of the Ultravox new wave classic), “Boots & Boys,” and “Animal.” “Stephen” sort of takes the classic upbeat girl group pop sound of the 60s and gives it a modern twist. “Hungover” and “Back Stabber” are the closest thing you get to actual Avril Lavigne pop rock. And then there’s the quirky, almost Tom Tom Clubish “Dinosaur.” But it doesn’t end there. The UK edition of this CD has two must-have bonus tracks. “V.I.P”. is a sleazy sexy electro dance rocker with attitude and atmosphere. “Dirty Picture Part 2” is a surprisingly hardcore electro house track. What I want to know is, where is “Dirty Picture Part 1”???

A couple of years ago, I caught this movie called The Roost on cable, and it really struck a chord with me. It was a 2005 film, but it looked and felt like something out of the late 70s or early 80s. But that wasn’t the only reason I liked it. It was a creepy, tense, suspenseful film that delivered an atmosphere of isolation and dread. The story is simple and typical. A bunch of kids heading for a Halloween party in the middle of nowhere crash their car in a ditch after a bat dive bombs their windshield. Of course, they have to get out in the middle of the dirt road at night to try to find help. Other than a jack-o-lantern on the porch of the house they come across, there’s really no focus on the Halloween holiday in this film.

The Roost is a bats/zombie hybrid. A roost of bats lives in the creepy old barn at the seemingly abandoned house. If they bite you, you turn into a zombie. The film’s spookiness is due in part to the limited number of people and zombies crawling around the barn. In heavy retro style, the film uses some classic Argento lighting of red, green and blue at times, but mostly, it relies on just the drop lighting that illuminates the barn, which reminds me very much of the super dark and shadowy atmosphere at the isolated camp in the original Friday the 13^th. Director Ti West allows darkness to be as black as it truly is, immersing viewers in the location. Slow pans, far shots and sustained still shots are all reminiscent of the most effective camera work of films from the past, instead of the A.D.D. choppy editing used in modern films. Although one character has a cell phone, the film is almost timeless, with no noticeable current cultural references to date it. This seems to be something the director shies away from in his films as he celebrates films of the past. The quality of the film is even made to look grainy and flecked with white specs you used to see on old VHS tapes.

While The Roost is a subtle homage to films from the 80s, Ti West’s second film, the slow burning The House of the Devil, pretty much sets itself in the 80s without ever saying it. This creepfest has people smoking in a public pizza parlor, has the main character using a cassette walkman with spongy headphones, focuses on the use of a pay phone, features corded phones with rotary dials, and doesn’t once show a modern computer, not even in the main character’s dorm room.

The plot is, again, simple but perfect for setting up an atmosphere of isolation. A young college student, desperate for cash, takes a spur of the moment babysitting job at a big house way out in the woods…which leads her into some serious occult trouble. When her friend (who has high 80s hair and heavy mascara) drives her to the house, we get a rear view of the car’s taillights that looks like it was lifted right from the original John Carpenter Halloween when Annie and Laurie are arriving at their babysitting gigs. Later on, the main character looks up the stairwell of the house where she’s babysitting and again it’s straight out of Halloween, when Laurie looks up the stairwell while calling nervously for her friends.

Speaking of horror films that starred Jamie Lee Curtis, the eerie sustained string chords used as this film’s soundtrack are highly reminiscent of the score from the original Prom Night. There are even some classic 80s tracks used in the film. On the car radio can be heard Greg Kihn’s “The Breakup Song (They Don’t Write Me Like That Anymore)” and the song “One of Our Submarines” by Thomas Dolby. The main character at one point puts on her walkman and does a very 80s solo impromptu dance through the house to the sounds of The Fixx’s “One Thing Leads to Another.”

But as cheesy as her dance routine is, the main character in The House of the Devil does something that rarely happens in horror movies—when she gets totally freaked out from being alone in the creepy old house, she turns on EVERY light in it. Now THAT is realism and one of many reasons to see this film. As icing on the 80s horror cake, 80s scream queen Dee Wallace has a super short cameo.

While Ti West hasn’t scored himself a major theatrical release yet, he may be on his way, because his latest film was just released directly to DVD…Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever. Obviously it’s not his own creation this time, but more a film for hire. But it is a sequel to a major horror release (that I love), so it looks like Ti is on his way. I just hope he doesn’t get pigeonholed into making second rate direct to DVD sequels. Cabin Fever 2 is fun enough, but it can’t compare to Ti’s own films. It has a more polished, modern feel, although he does manage to through in some of his 80s references, including songs like the Ramones’ “Somebody Put Something in My Drink,” Sparks’ “The Willys,” and Sparks’ “Eaten by the Monster of Love,” a song that just happened to also have been featured in the 80s classic Valley Girl! But even better than that, Ti uses a song from the ultimate late 70s/early 80s horror cheese moment—the disco song Prom Night that was played during that ridiculous disco dance scene between Jamie Lee Curtis and her boyfriend in the original Prom Night. I could NOT believe my ears when it came on!

The plot of Cabin Fever 2 lends itself more to a title like High School Fever. In this far inferior sequel, the infection is spreading through a high school during prom, which eventually leads to the entire student body being locked inside, which adds a serious Quarantine element to the film. However, the high school gym dance setting is ripe for Carrie references, which it totally delivers. The eerie blue and red lighting is there, the viewpoint from the stage down at the crowd of students is there, and eventually, chaos erupts and everyone starts running for the gym doors JUST like in Carrie. But to add something new to the mix, there’s a very explicit scene involving the infection’s effects on a teenage boy’s genitals that might make you a lifelong spitter if you aren’t already….

I’m not sure if Cabin Fever 2: Spring Break is a good thing or bad thing for Ti West’s career. I just hope he still has time to make his own non-mainstream films. Because I’m highly anticipating more films like The Roost and The House of the Devil.

Did everyone see the “We Are the World 2010” video this weekend? I had no expectations for the new version, but I actually kind of liked it. The major thing I noticed was that many of the voices are less distinguishable than those in the original. Some solos were very distinct, like Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Hudson, Pink, Enrique Iglesias, and Josh Groban. But the voices of soloists like Fergie, Toni Braxton, Miley Cyrus, Nicole Scherzinger (the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls), Adam Levine (lead singer of Maroon 5), Usher, and even Mary J. Blige, I wouldn’t have recognized unless I’d seen the video—and that’s not to say that these artists don’t usually have very unique voices. The solos of hip hop artists like Akon and Lil Wayne sound completely electronic and robotic, I guess to give them the trademark studio manipulated techniques they use on their own recordings. Wyclef Jean also sounds like his voice has been digitally altered, but I don’t actually think it is. Whatever is going on there, which seems to be some sort of Haitian stylizing, it sounds odd.

Highlights include Jamie Foxx doing an impression of Ray Charles’ line from the original 1985 version, Celine Dion belting out the Cyndi Lauper part, and of course, the insertion of Michael Jackson’s original vocals and his video clip from the 1985 version. However, having him ‘duet’ with Janet is kind of weird. You can’t hear Janet singing at all. Visually it looks off too, because they have a grainy 80s clip of Michael on the left and a crystal clear clip of Janet on the right, and she just sort of looks like she’s going through the motions, moving her lips while staring blankly ahead. What I actually like most of all is the rap part! It’s the one thing that adds a modern feel and groove to this remake, with artists like LL Cool J, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes and Will.i.am rapping in unison. It isn’t over-the-top ganster rap, it’s actually delivered in a very harmonious, passionate way that flows perfectly with the rest of the song. It’s reminiscent of that benefit cover of “What’s Going On” that a bunch of artists did a while back.

As for disappointments, there are really only two so far. First, Ann and Nancy Wilson (aka: Heart) are in the chorus, and I can’t BELIEVE they didn’t give Ann a solo considering she is one of the best female vocalists of the hard rock era. Second, as of right now, the song is only available as a download! BLECH. Give me a frickin’ physical CD to add to my collection.

I’ll never forget when I saw Xanadu in the theaters in 1980. Sure, it featured a bunch of roller skating muses, but this wasn’t no roller disco movie. There wasn’t a disco song to be found on the soundtrack. The vivid neon colors, the fashions, and the keyboard-saturated tracks by Electric Light Orchestra were all signs of what was to come in the decade ahead. The ‘electric’ sound of their song “I’m Alive,” which opens the movie, accompanies the ‘digital age’ visual of the muses, surrounded by sizzling halos of light, as they pull away from their graffiti art likenesses on a brick wall on the street. The movie seems so self-aware about ushering in the new decade (not to mention prophetic). Andy Gibb clone Michael Beck makes a self-proclamation about the modern sounds he wants for his purely 80s club, which serves as the introduction to the song “Dancin,” in which innocent and virginal pre-Physical Olivia Newton-John does an old-skool-meets-new-skool duet with The Tubes—who would score their biggest hit a few years later as part of the new wave movement with “She’s A Beauty.” While Olivia’s big band segment is lip-synched by three “Andrew Sisters” types in the film, the electro rock segment featuring the Tubes is drenched in neon lights, with the camera focusing heavily on electric guitars, keyboards, and scantily clad women in tight spandex and leather. This often scorned film was a pioneer! Here’s a clip of ONJ actually performing as all three women on Midnite Special with the Tubes. Just doesn’t have the same effect as it was presented in the film:

Next we have…no, not Tron. A year before that, there was Looker. This 1981 sci-fi thriller starring Albert Finney and Susan Dey (goodbye 70s), focuses heavily on the world of fashion modeling and its obsession with perfection (Wow. That was a prophecy of Nostradamus-sized proportions). The main plot of the movie is that this evil company (don’t they always have to be evil?) has created a computer that can determine how to make a woman’s features flawless…as long as she gets the surgery to fix those digitally detected flaws. However, what the computer is really doing is creating cyber women based on the anatomy of the real women! Bwah hah hah! But there’s a much deeper mystery here as beautiful models begin, um, jumping out high-rise apartment building windows on a regular basis after seeing mysterious flashes of light that seem to hypnotize them and make them lose all sense of time. What would happen if the technology of digitally generated people on TV was combined with an ability to hypnotize people with light? It would be a recipe for world domination I would say. I mean, how do we even know President Obama really exists???

The real 80s treasure here is the “Looker” theme song. This icy synth vocal rocker with seductive female vocals has a pulsing electronic riff that screams 80s soundtrack song. The track is as perfect as the women in the movie. For the film, the song is performed by never-was recording artist Sue Saad (I wish her lone album would be reissued on CD!), and it was covered by Kim Carnes a few years later. I have Kim’s version, but have been searching with no success for the original 45 RPM record of the Sue Saad version. Because as it stands, my “Absolute 80s” folder on my iPod simply isn’t absolute without it…

So I was wondering why I couldn’t remember a thing about Beat Street,  a film that came out in the heat of the breakdancing movies in 1984. I new I had to have seen it on cable, because I saw EVERY film on cable back then. Well, I finally got a copy of this breakdancing film starring Rae Dawn Chong, and now I understand why I couldn’t remember it–it’s a DOWNER! You get none of the colorful 80s cheese of Breakin or Body Rock. Sure you get plenty of flamboyant breakdance routines, but the film lacks the hokey upbeat vibe of the other films of the decade. Now I understand why reviewers on Amazon called it a ‘real’ look at the breakdancing lifestyle. There’s no candy coating on this one. It’s pure ghetto gloom. Hell, someone even gets fried on the third rail of the train tracks! WTF? Who wants to know the real truth about urban life in the 80s??? I want all my 80s ghetto movies to look like a Lionel Richie video! “We’re goin’ to…party…Karamu…fiesta…forever…” Yeah. 80s ignorance is bliss. Avoid this one!

Any questions about Lorenzo Lamas having no career after Grease were squelched by his success in the 80s. Sure, he starred in that Falcon’s Crest show, but his career didn’t truly hit its peak until 1984, when he starred in the ultimate cracker’s breakdance movie, Body Rock!

With the first pulsing electronic beats of the slammin’ Maria Vidal title song, we are taken to the scary streets of New York City as they were in 1984. But fear not. As hot pink letters in a slashing font splash across the screen, spelling out the title of the film, the big scary apple turns to sweet cinnamon apple sauce. A line of dancers grooves across the city street, wearing bright neon colors, mesh shirts, half shirts, Flashdance off-the-shoulder shirts, and studded belts. And these are the guys!

But none of these men is as pretty as Lorenzo, his body perfectly sculpted, his buff hairy chest bursting forth from his jean vest, and his hair a perfect mirror of his Grease co-star Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” hair style, right down to the head band. He’s our leading man. He’s Chilly D.! And here I thought Pauly D. from Jersey Shore was one-of-kind. Anyway, Chilly D. is…I’m not sure. A graffiti artist I think (I forgot how cool spray paint cans were in the 80s until this movie brought the memories flooding back). Chilly hangs out with a DJ and a gang of breakdancers at a club where they sort of work together as a ‘performance’ group, graffiti on the walls, the DJ spinning, the dancers breaking, and Chilly D., I don’t know, MCing I guess. Even his DJ friend asks him later, when they’re thinking of taking their act to the professional level, “What do you do?”

So, before they can go pro, Chilly has to get breakdancing lessons from some little black kid on the street. Their dance lesson montage puts the Kevin Bacon-Chris Penn montage from Footloose to shame, because Lorenzo and his little friend are joined by a man-sized…robot??? Now I understand why there’s that “don’t forget the robot” line in Robin Sparkles 80s hit “Let’s Go to the Mall” on How I Met Your Mother!

When it’s time to perform for the talent scout, Chilly still doesn’t dance much, but he does rap! Yes, Chilly D. and his white DJ friend rap with a Jerhi curl-sporting audience that looks like it could have been Prince’s backing band the Revolution in Purple Rain. There’s even a gang of mean looking steroid-swollen black dudes who I’m convinced are Full Force. I was expecting Samantha Fox to come prancing onto the screen singing “Naughty Girls Need Love Too”.

Body Rock IS the 80s. Every guy has an earring only in his left ear. There’s a fantastic should-have-been-a-hit Laura Branigan song called “Sharpshooter” featured in a sex scene that focuses mainly on Lorenzo’s body as he strips down and the camera hovers just millimeters above his curly cues. Wow. There are groundbreaking camera angles I’ve never seen before in any of the other 80s breakdancing classics: overhead views and underfloor views of the dancers spinning out on the floor, which lends itself to a whole lot of focus on their swirling crotches. And speaking of crotches, there’s another 80s staple in this film—Meat from Porky’s! Yes, big hunky handsome Meat has a ‘small part’ as a bouncer.

But it’s really the gay aspects of the film that make it a classic of the 80s (No, I haven’t even gotten to the real gay stuff yet). First, Chilly D. eventually cuts a record and promotes it by performing it in the club with disco ball mirrors glued to his face. Lorenzo actually does the vocals, singing a song with lyrics that I’m convinced Trent Reznor plagiarized: “I’m gonna suck you like an animal, eat you like a cannibal.” And if that isn’t gay enough for you, Lorenzo eventually ends up in a gay leather bar! Yeah, this is definitely not a breakdancing movie made for the genuine hip hop culture of the time. Lorenzo is showing just as much flesh as the gay leather men, and although they are all in manly black as compared to his flaming day-glo colors, he has to assert his heterosexuality by punching out a man who kisses him. What a disgrace that Lorenzo Lamas has not been honored with a GLAAD award (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) for helping to break new ground in cinema with his man-on-man kiss. I guess he blew it with that whole gay bashing bit. But hey, it was the 80s, and that’s just what straight guys with an Olivia Newton-John “Physical” hair style, disco ball glitter on their face and Jennifer Beals’ Flashdance shirt falling off their shoulders did back then. Gotta love the gayties. I mean…eighties.