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Land of the Dead (2005)
Director: George Romero

The Walking Dead and every other zombie film owes to not only this franchise, but to this 2nd sequel to Night of the Living Dead. From the opening credits, all tattered and stylish, we can see where Darabont took his show running creative direction to implement the Walking Dead opening. The nice thing about this film is that it was, like TWD, shot on film. Fuji film, with digital intermediate. That explains the tricks (DI) thrown in with quick cuts and circus-like effects and staging. There are some fantastic deaths on display here.

John Leguizamo is one of my old favorites, and he is great here. I didn't care much for the lead actor. I thought he was a bit too plain. I really liked the slow sidekick, though. His lines and acting were good. Some scenes were very creepy. Shot at night, Romero really knew how to set the mood and keep the tension on. Lots of darkly lit photographed entrail mayhem. Digital doesn't do these kinds of things justice.

The porous characteristics of film are suitable, and that is one of the circumstantial reasons why Romero's films are far above any extensions of his proprietary genre kind of pale in comparison. That and the fact that he knows how to write good characters who aren't completely one dimensional. Most all characters are given something to play with, and they do. This seemed to be on the edge of the big zombie turn in characterization in commercial cinema. Good old 2005.

I really liked the writing of this chapter. Day of the Dead was gritty and fulked up in all the right ways, but Land of the Dead is a fresh take, and still has a bit of the Harrison score in brief piano bits like when the zombies first start to cross the water. I'm glad he directed that mood to revisit. Too much sonic wall music is boring and actually works against a film being memorable. When will Hollywood learn. The answer is never. But that's OK. They're idiots. Moving on..

Dennis Hopper gives one of his last hurrahs and he's good but not great. He could've been in the film more and I wouldn't have minded at all. Zombies "creep him out", but that's about as far as we get from a usually very outspoken Hopper. Still, the The Nicotero/Berger effects make his death scene Ramboesque enough to at least finish up his job tidy for a film that wants to be more, but doesn;t have the budget to be.

This is the most ambitious chapter in the series yet, and goes the extra mile to make it atmospheric. Some of the make up isn't very convincing, namely the main "Bub" like zombie who seems to lead the pack in revolt. His zombie mask is clearly visible to start at the bridge of his nose and it's distracting. Maybe the effect team figured film would carry on longer than it did, and that the blurriness and saturation of colors would mask this limitation from the unforgiving sharpness of high definition. Who knows?

I did enjoy this movie.It very much deserves it's place within the series.




A lil' John Harrison for dat ass...




Naked Lunch (1991)
Director: David Cronenberg

Cronenberg's strange, over the top comedy is based on the William S. Burroughs book, and right off the bat during the title sequence we can see the director has really taken great care to set this up as a pure mood piece. The titles are revealed by multi colored art deco shapes and lines of pale greens and magentas.

Peter Weller's performance is the funniest thing about the film. He is so cool and deadpan that it's as if his eyes take an extra 5 seconds to catch up with his words.

The plot is absurd. A bug exterminator becomes hooked on his own powder, shoots his wife by accident, and goes into the Interzone, an imaginary world where roaches, centipedes and aristocratic writers assign him to certain "reports" about things we don't quite understand.

Many of the themes in this film seem to be about homosexuality. Possibly the writer's own denial? I got many laughs at the recurring insinuations and the way Weller handles them, eventually coming clean in a brief description of his alter ego dancer mada'am. Other aspects seem to linger on sickness, possibly the AIDS virus, and yet again a recurring character is a hemmeroidal butt hole for a mouth as part of an agent typewriter. This movie is absolutely insane!

I'll never need to watch this again. The plot is totally nuts, and the length of the film stays way, way past its welcome. Though it is funny and perverse, I can't say it's a "great" film because it really isn't. If weird is your flavor well then I suppose this movie is a masterpiece, and there are plenty of interpretations and underlying things to try and dredg up into discussion, but even with a very literary spine, I felt like this was just one bad acid trip with some chuckles.




Naked Lunch, even though you rated it higher than I did, we both agree on a lot about the movie. I watched it for one reason, Peter Weller. I think he's really a different type of actor, but he didn't make that many movies. At least not where his special style of deadpan serious acting can work. What have you seen him in? Any recommendations?



Naked Lunch, even though you rated it higher than I did, we both agree on a lot about the movie. I watched it for one reason, Peter Weller. I think he's really a different type of actor, but he didn't make that many movies. At least not where his special style of deadpan serious acting can work. What have you seen him in? Any recommendations?
Well, I haven't seen him in much, to be honest. I'd have to revisit Firstborn, where he plays an abusive father figure to a single woman's kids...and Shakedown, where he teams up with Sam Elliot, who is like the coolest actor ever.

Also, I believe Buckaroo Bonzai Across the Eighth Dimension may have some dry and hip Peter Weller. I haven't seen that one in over a decade.



Naked Lunch (1991)
Director: David Cronenberg

Awww. Naked Lunch is a top tier favorite o mine. Weird is in my wheelhouse though. Believe me, William Burroughs wasn't in denial about homosexuality by the time he wrote NL. If you think the movie is crazy, you should read at least a portion of the book. 10 times more weird, incomprehensible, sleazy, repulsive. If you had read it first, you'd have no idea how anyone could possibly think the content could be filmed.

Naked Lunch, even though you rated it higher than I did, we both agree on a lot about the movie. I watched it for one reason, Peter Weller. I think he's really a different type of actor, but he didn't make that many movies. At least not where his special style of deadpan serious acting can work. What have you seen him in? Any recommendations?
If you haven't yet seen it, Screamers is pretty cool. PA film loosely based on a Philip K Dick story. Weller as deadpan as ever.



Awww. Naked Lunch is a top tier favorite o mine. Weird is in my wheelhouse though. Believe me, William Burroughs wasn't in denial about homosexuality by the time he wrote NL. If you think the movie is crazy, you should read at least a portion of the book. 10 times more weird, incomprehensible, sleazy, repulsive. If you had read it first, you'd have no idea how anyone could possibly think the content could be filmed.


I do like weird I just couldn't get into it this time around. I'd seen it way back in like 1995, I think. I guess ya gotta be in the mood for it

I've never read Burroughs but I'm sure Cronenberg did amazing work with parts of his book. I know nothing about the writer or his work but I can tell that it probably wouldn't be something I enjoy or get much out of aside from some creative clusters and description. Who knows, tastes change. I thought Meet the Fockers was horrible in the theaters, but on home video I realized it's one my favorite Dustin Hoffman performances.



I do like weird I just couldn't get into it this time around. I'd seen it way back in like 1995, I think. I guess ya gotta be in the mood for it

I've never read Burroughs but I'm sure Cronenberg did amazing work with parts of his book. I know nothing about the writer or his work but I can tell that it probably wouldn't be something I enjoy or get much out of aside from some creative clusters and description. Who knows, tastes change. I thought Meet the Fockers was horrible in the theaters, but on home video I realized it's one my favorite Dustin Hoffman performances.
I'm not too big a fan of Burrough's either, but I really admire his incisive language. I'm much more fond of the movie, but the book might be worth glancing over just for the uneasy experience.

In high school, I was once tasked to choose a 'book of the month' for us to read, and I unwittingly chose Naked Lunch. My teacher told me he listened to the audiobook in a public setting... we had to switch books after that. I think his words were, exasperatedly: "what the hell did you make me read"



...I believe Buckaroo Bonzai Across the Eighth Dimension may have some dry and hip Peter Weller. I haven't seen that one in over a decade.
Yeah, that's one of my favorite Weller movies. Of course I dig the Orson Welles tie in. He was really good as a guest star on Star Trek Enterprise on the episodes: Terra Prime (2005), Demons (2005).

He was the host of Engineering an Empire which was pretty cool show, especially as he has a degree in Ancient Roman and Renaissance history.

...If you haven't yet seen it, Screamers is pretty cool. PA film loosely based on a Philip K Dick story. Weller as deadpan as ever.
I've seen that, and even reviewed that one, it's a fun movie. Joel, I bet you'd like that one.




Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Director: Tommy Lee Wallace
Rated: R

The first thing you should do is forget you know anything about this film and watch this teaser trailer (I'm sorry about the commercial but please watch it, it's only 45 seconds):


Now here is the theatrical release poster:

Again, pretending you know nothing about what's in store for you, how can these materials not be the most scary and exciting Halloween movie event ever broadcast tv or hung in a marquee?
I remember this film back in 1982, and the tv spots alone had us running around the sidewalks at dusk screaming like banshees, imagining how much of an incredible event Halloween III was going to be.

The movie starts off with a very promising title sequence made up of horizontal analog CRT tv lines of orange with light blue titles, while each line appeared or disappeared APPLE IIE style, that coincided with a synthesized musical cue, all the while this back drop sound is dark, one note droning. It's working us up and doing a fine job at it!


Once the movie starts, immediately there's an enormous sense of atmosphere as Dean Cundey's signature anamorphic squeezed night photography takes us over, and Carpenter and Howarth's music continues to swell. This movie looks dynamite!

After a few minutes of ominous set-up we meet Tom Atkins who plays a tough, hard drinking medial doctor. He's cool. He flirts with the nurses, his kids are idiots glued to the tv, and his wife hates him. He takes a late night call and goes back into the hospital.

At the hospital I guess some dude comes in shouting "they're going to kill us!". Hey, I don't wanna give away a bunch of plot, but for the next hour and 20 minutes nothing very exciting happens.

What does happen is that Dr. Atkins (we'll call him Dr. Atkins) meets a hot chick and they go incognito to find out what happened to her father, the shouting hospital dude Nevermind.

Anyway, they go to this desolate Irish town and get a motel room to investigate as a fake husband and wife. Guess what happens next? Yeah! He just met this gal and already he's banging her. I love this movie! It's so realistic and cool! Well, it's definitely cool because Bullwinkle Moose is on the case and she is smokin' hot in a Janet from Three's Company kind of way, except way, way hotter.


Let me skip a lot of stuff and just get right to it.
This movie is great and sucks at the exact same time.

On one hand you have great camera work. Nothing moves or glides fancy, but the photography is beautiful. Also, some of the opticals are decent. I like colorful and/or well rendered opticals like lasers, and guess what? This movie has lasers, not once, not twice, but I do believe THREE TIMES! Guess what color? Well...you're gonna hafta just see the pictures I put in this review to find out!



So, what exactly is wrong with this movie? That's easy.
No, it's not that there is no Michael Myers.
That's not it.
It's because early on in the film, you get the impression that the bad guy has the same kind of menace as Myers, but you soon find out that this is not the case. The camera shows a tracking walking knees down to feet shot of the baddie, except it turns out that this dude is no more scarier than an insurance salesman. What's worse is that the main man bad guy isn't scary, either. He's just some old dude who looks like he belongs in Robocop as the head of OCP. Wait a minute, it is! It IS Dan O'Herily from OCP. Well, at least he's really Irish.

These are the bad guys. Terrifying, right?


Halloween III has moments, but I felt disappointed that the only scares were false alarms. Carpenter's usual jump scare noises that sound like a robotic bell on full volume do work to distract you from not being frightened, but it soon becomes an old trick. As if seeing the edge of a business blazer shoulder come into foreground frame is scary. I don't think so.

But back to what's good about this movie. It's an original idea. The story is so far fetched by the time you make it to 85 minutes that you may have to rewind a bit to make sure you heard the explanation correctly. At first I thought they were gonna blow it off with a line like "Do I really need a reason?" But no, soon after he gives the reason for the bad stuff that he the bad guy is doing and gonna do. I almost feel like the writing was improvised and at first the table was just like "eh, just have him say 'do I need a reason' and leave it at that". Goofy!

There was so much potential with this picture! Unfortunately, they decided to spend the entire length of the film focused on the stakeout aspect instead of bringing the destruction to suburbia where the viewer expected it to be. There could have been things going haywire in the streets, at doorsteps, everywhere, all at that time of evening when the sky is orange and the shadows of children are sillhouetted against it.




Which reminds me, kudos for the film actually taking the time to shoot a scene that marks the mood of itself. We get this image on the poster, too. It's a good look, and aside from horrible villains, the rest of the film does live up to the world that the poster creates.

Sadly the film does not live up to the teaser preview. We get no real witch that looks anything like that demon we saw. False advertising. BOO!

This movie could have been off the f*cking chain had it been written better.
Still though, for a sequel that decided to go its own way and attempt an anthology (which sadly never happened), it's kind of refreshing to let the Michael Myers character rest for a bit.






Straw Dogs (1971)
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Rated: R

David (Dustin Hoffman) is a mathematician who receives a grant to continue his work. Him and his wife Amy (Susan George) move back to her old stomping grounds in Cornwall, UK where Amy's old boyfriend and cronies are the local help, helping David repair his garage and exterminate the old house's rat problem. Because David's wife has a history with these rough fellas, he often feels guarded and hyper aware of how she carries on with them. It becomes clear very soon in this story that Amy is flirty and this puts her husband at unease, understandably.

She comments to her husband that her friends think he is strange. Her husband reacts positively by turning this into a joke and nothing comes of it. Around the same time we see Amy erase a "+" sign from one of David's complex chalkboard math problems and replace it with a "-" instead. She's mad because she feels David doesn't spend enough time with her. David explains he just needs to work. That is why he is there. That is why they are there. He's received a grant and wants to take full advantage of the quiet setting to see his work through.

We can certainly understand Amy's position. She is bored, maybe feels a bit neglected, and gets increasingly impatient with David. But it also becomes obvious that Amy is inching her way towards being one of the villains of the film. She constantly taunts David as being a coward once suspicions arise as to who hung her kitty cat in the closet by its neck. The local roughnecks are prime suspects and David is slow to confront them on the matter of a missing cat. As much as he seemingly ignores his wife during working hours, he also seems eager to join them in a duck hunt once invited by them. David wants to fit in.

The thing about this story is that I think it may be a bit misunderstood. David is not a coward. At every potential confrontation we see his character take a smart position. He isn't a push over. This is evident by him honking in back of the local gang's hog truck. He doesn't stay quiet when his wife badgers him for being in retreat from life's responsibilities. He knows she is wrong but he remains a gentleman. David wants to work. He's saved time for his love "in a little while" but he's not going to base his life on being a cowboy like his wife wants him to. It's time David took a stand for something, however.

Amy's character, frustrated and feeling a bit selfish, takes her top off exposing her bare breasts for all of her old workman friends to see. She knows what kind of people they are, and she may even know what they are capable of, but she flashes them anyway. She's been with someone already, and she knows how he feels about her. He wants her, and she is teasing him with her husband right downstairs.

The rape scene

David is out being mislead by the group when they convince him to join them on a duck hunt. Amy's old flame shows up at the house knowing David is indisposed. She invites him in for a drink. He makes a move to kiss her. She reluctantly kisses back but soon jerks away and smacks him. He punches her back. Now afraid she warns him and smacks him again. He returns blows. Suddenly he is making love to her. I say making love because after blows are exchanged he is fairly gentle with her. She is apprehensive at first but soon becomes agreeable and seems to be enjoying it. Her enjoyment is mixed with guilt, a little bit of push back, followed by more intense sexual body work. The second half of this scene involves another man who's scurried away from David at the duck field. He's now pointed a gun at Amy's lover and decides he wants to have sex with Amy. He proceeds to, and this time Amy is not thrilled. She suffers through this about 90% of the time. I say 90% because if you watch the film you see that Amy is still acting out a mixed emotion on this.

That's how I saw the rape scene. She knew she shouldn't, and she knew she couldn't stop him. She gave in out of fear, but alongside that fear she wanted to feel what she considered a real man making love to her. A tough man. She had lost respect for David, and although guilty and dealing with some fear, she knew this man, these men.

Later on Amy flashes back to the rape and realizes that she is all out of sorts, mentally. She keeps thinking of David's shirtless torso on top of her, and her ex boyfriend's body movement seems to match the movement of the priest she is staring at. She's sitting with David at a church function, having flashbacks. Neither one of them are having a good time, so they leave.

I am not going to cover every aspect of this film. Instead I am skipping to the end where David finally wakes up to his manhood. He exclaims to his wife " This is me" referring to their house. He has to protect the house because the local cretins want to come in to get a child murdering suspect David has accidentally hit with his car driving in fog. David feels he must protect this man, guilty or not. No one is getting into the house.

Amy, in a desperate attempt, tries to undermine David yet again by unlocking the door while shouting "they just want him, let them have him and they'll leave!"
David calmly disagrees. "If they get into this house, they'll kill us."

For the next fifteen minutes we see David, who is nervous, act out a systematical strategy that not only protects his wife, himself, and the man he's harboring upstairs, but we see him effectively kill 5+ men who are out for blood. He does this with surgeon skill. He is matter of fact about it and he rarely trips up. He calmy tells his wife what to do. When she says no, he asks again, and then he forcefully tells her what to do. It's in this cacaphony of orchestrated violence that we realize David is the strongest man in the picture. His head is cool, he's focused, and he's not settling for anyone invading his home, no matter what the reason.

After the smoke has cleared and David realizes he's killed many men like they were scarecrows, he must get his refugee to a hospital. Before he leaves, he turns to his wife who is shaking from shock on the staircase and asks "are you alright?". When she answers, he leaves and drives off into the night with his next responsibility, helping the child murderer he accidentally struck with his car hours earlier. He knows he is not coming home. He doesn't know his way home any longer.


I've heard blips here and there about this film demonizing women and reinforcing that old stereotype that women really want to get raped. I think this is not only a misunderstanding, but a pretty stupid generalization on women. This is a story. It's a film. It's about what it's about, and what it's about is a woman who has no allegiance to her man. She doesn't stand by him. Like a foolish child she gets herself into trouble again and suffers the consequences. Nothing about her character and what happens to her in this film have anything to do with "women". It's really as simple as that. Right? I think this strikes a nerve with those who have a guilty conscience. There's really nothing else it could be because if you watch the movie, and aren't a complete mental ape, you'll see it right there in black and white.

I also hear that David is a wimp who breaks bad. Also not true. David, at no point in this picture, is a wimp. He's always someone who stands his ground. He's not out looking for trouble. He's polite, soft spoken, and plays his cards the best he can. When push comes to shove, even early on in the film, you can witness David not being a complete push-over. He's just not ready to lay the hurt down yet, that's all.



The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Director: Dan O' Bannon
Rated: R

This is another movie that time isn't kind to if you were too young, or not yet born when this came out. Watching it today, not living the era, one could easily dismiss it as patchy, stupid and not scary.

I feel lucky that I am not one of those people. Very lucky. I friggin' love this movie! It's got a punk soundtrack and some really 80's fashioned scenes that play for laughs. James Karen and Thom Mathews are hilarious as the bumbling medical supply workers. In particular, James Karen's much over-done coughing and cackling/moaning made me almost wet my pants!

I really enjoyed the atmosphere in this one. Mostly night shot scenes with rain and streetlights, we do get some dusk scenes with a cemetery that are super cool. It's fun to just hang out in this movie, even if the acting and dialog aren't exactly winning any oscars.

There's not much to say about this without splitting its skull open and looking at the brains and guts, and in a film like this, you simply don't do that. It's for fun, cheap scares, and to put you in the mood to party!

I remember actually watching this over my girlfriend's house while we were partying. We both drank margarita's. It was lovely. I was laughing so hard. Then I turned to her and saw she was completely stone faced and irritated. Needless to say - she's ancient history now!

Oh, and there is some great nudity in this. Linnea Quigley was smoking hot and she strips naked and dances, then runs around nude the rest of the picture. This movie is just cool. Anyone walking into this with a serious or overly analytical mind set would be better off just finding something else to do. No one likes a party pooper except other party poopers, and this movie is all about partying!





Empire of Passion (1978)
Director: Nagisa Oshima

A love affair with a military man and a married woman leads to them murdering her husband and throwing him down a well to live together as a couple.

I didn't really enjoy this movie based on the content and mentality, especially since everything was kind of in your face and graphic. There was definitely a perverse intention in the directing that I feel could have been classed up a bit with some implication instead of just hitting you over the head with shocking images.

At the risk of sounding prudish, I think this movie would have been better had the director used some better judgment in how to tell the story. I could not really see any kind of connection between any one character and that set me back from fully taking the ride from an emotional standpoint. I was always kind of in the cold watching this.

There was plenty of malfunction and mental illness on display, but hardly could I feel like anyone was making a good decision, and to hang on to this story knowing that justice would be served seemed a bit pointless to me. I realize this was a morality tale, but not once did I feel like any character had a strong enough hold on themselves or their motives because the writing wasn't fleshed out enough. There was no nuance. It was all just a wide and plain perspective. "I want you. We kill him now. I feel scared. I feel bad now. We messed up."

The look of the film is beautiful. The images created with fog and lighting, as well as the autumnal scenery really made an impression on me. The creative team here knew what they were doing, and I think that is a lot of the allure of a film like this. Had this been shot just adequately instead of with great care, I'm quite sure this would have been laughed off a lot more than it probably is.

I also really enjoyed the musical score. It helped the ghost story aspect of the movie quite a bit.

I probably would have liked this a lot better if I could have at least felt something for any of the characters, but I couldn't. They all came off a bit too dramatic or goofy, and even with the procedural aspect I felt it was blown off in favor of an almost child-like way of telling a story. An old tale. Very broad strokes. I'm not sure that worked for me considering the strong content of the movie. I think the perverse aspect comes into play when I mention this. Some kind of adult-kid fantasy of seeing deep erotic and violent/ruthless behavior mixed with a doe eyed way to present it all. Not really my flavor to be honest.

It was interesting at the very least, and for that I'm glad it was nominated. Special shout to @cricket for hooking me up with a reliable way to watch it!



Tough Guys (1986)
Director: Jeff Kanew
Rated: PG




Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster star in this Jeff Kanew (Revenge of the Nerds) lensed comedy caper. Two convicts released after 30 years for robbing trains attempt to start a new life in 1986, and boy have the times changed. From tele-prompted fashion designer clothing shops to gay bars, hydraulic gym equipment and The Red Hot Chili Peppers thrashing around in nightclubs, these guys are out of their element. One last train robbery ought to do the trick.


This is a dumb little movie that was a minor hit when it came out. Two screen legends playing fish out of water is a proven formula and these two are certainly up to the challenge. The chemistry is more than adequate and at times funny in a light way. I did get a few really nice chuckles.

Though Tough Guys is filled with cliches, it's still not a horrible movie. It's aimed at an audience who just want some light fun with two old pros. It hasn't aged as well as Kirk and Burt have here, but these kinds of movies rarely do. I like it for nostalgic reasons. I have no idea how it would fare for anyone else.








Get Out (2017)
Director: Jordan Peele
Rated: R

This is a very well done movie. The mix of paranoid thriller suspense with broad comedy was handled just about perfectly.

I laughed a lot, and really loved the perspective of a blue collar black man and how he sees the strange entitlement of upper crust white people. I remember always getting a kick out of black comedian's doing their take on certain buffoonish white folks and their corny humor and limited understanding of boundaries and respect. This movie was a welcome throwback to that playful brand of humor.

That's not to say I really feel this way about white people. But there's a little bit of truth in every stereotype, even if it's a tabboo subject. It's only a ribbing and a generalization at self important "white people". Something that was built into this movie. A poke in the chops at aristocratic mentality, and how some privileged races feel the need to "belong" amongst a sometimes under-privileged different color people, even at the expense of their manners and awareness of how they come across when trying to fit in and break the ice.

The film has a strong ability to keep the suspense on high, never really showing in full what's happening until it's worked you over enough to finally divulge the plot.

Get Out is a much needed refreshing for my palate after having to drudge through a lot of self important and bloated modern thrillers. I was surprisingly not twisted up on the social commentary it presented because it was all in fun, and when it did hit the nail on the head and take a serious tone at the audacity of some social circles, it still remained playful thanks to a pitch perfect reactionary performance from Daniel Kaluuya.

Glad I finally got around to seeing this one. Horror keeps getting smarter and I'm digging that, even if this is essentially a b-styled picture, it's still much too self aware to be pigeonholed into that sunken category.








Don't Kill It (2016)
Director: Mike Mendez
Rated: R


Dolph Lundgren plays a demon hunter who shows up in a small town to rid it of an unleashed evil that passes from body to body every time someone kills the demonic host. The demon enters whoever killed the body it was surviving in, making things rather complicated. The only way to stop the demon is to trap it, and someone must first kill the host, poison them self, and then become possessed as they die.

This is a nice premise that makes use of it's simple story. What undoubtedly works for this movie is the humor. Dolph does his best southern drawl that still sounds a bit like Ivan Drago from time to time, but never takes us out of his fun character. He's an oak tree of a dude, and he vapes a big hookah in many scenes. To me that's funny.

As the police try and cuff him in the obligatory exposition scene where he tries to convince them of the evil force, it takes 3 deputies to hold onto him, but instead of usher him into the cell, they struggle unsuccessfully as Dolph keeps re entering the Sherriff's office to finish explaining a seemingly never ending and highly detailed account of the trouble in store for them if they don't buy his story. This is a gut busting scene because it shows the writing really took good care to provide some intelligence and tongue in cheek attitude about the common cliche of no one ever believing the hero at first, least of all the police and FBI. Don't Kill It definitely knows it's a comedy for the most part, and does well with that notion which seems to hold it above the usual overly serious toned failures of many contemporaries.

It's true that this movie has many scenes of graphic violence, and usually this is a bit of a turn off for me unless it's something along the lines of Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn, but it is done in an almost cartoonish way like Dead by Dawn, even though some early scenes are pretty tasteless and brutal.

I found myself at one point pumping my fist in the air and doing a slow clap because I was so pleased I had come across this movie. It's just some quick fun with an occasional injection of intelligent writing and sharp humor that gets us through the running time. The ending works, and when it finally wraps up, it doesn't feel like this movie was over padded or stayed past its welcome run time.

Once again I am thrilled that today's horror is still going strong and, in fact, getting stronger in some aspects as far as writing and humor goes. I do enjoy the horror comedy if its done right, and this one is no exception.