Mulberry Street

Trademark After Dark Films

Mulberry Street was advertised as a zombie movie. This, my friends, is not true. In fact, it’s about… *dramatic pause* Rat-People! I know it says zombies on the box, but that’s just marketing. In the marketers’ defense, the rat people are very zombie-esque. Like zombies they spread a disease that turns regular joes into rat people, they eat human flesh, and along with developing the features of a rat they also look a bit on the decayed side. At first I was slightly perturbed to find the stunning lack of the walking dead, but after about twenty minutes I started having enough fun that I didn’t care anymore. The use of misdirection in advertising is simple. It prepares the viewer for the general feel of the movie. I suppose it is a new look at zombies; I was just pumped to see what Horrorfest had to offer to the zombie world. Like all good zombie flicks this one has a bit of topicality to it, making a statement about the New York rat problem. It’s an interesting watch that takes us through the events in a group of tenants’ lives leading up to and during the rat people outbreak.

Trademark After Dark Films

This movie is a good example of how to the walk the line between silly and serious. The visual style is like a darker version of Dawn of the Dead (2004). The rat-zombie-people move fast in this one, but unlike Dawn of the Dead (2004) it makes sense. These people are becoming animals, not walking corpses. The style keeps it serious. You never feel like it’s supposed to be comedy, but they do acknowledge that the subject matter is a bit ridiculous. There’s a particular line said by the character Victor, a bar owner, that is similar to, “Rat people… F^*#ing crazy.” I appreciate that. Strangely enough that line is really what sold me on this flick. The rat people are killed with reasonable ease. By this, I mean they can be killed like any regular person and don’t require damage to a particular part of the anatomy, like the head. If you’re capable of killing one without being partially eaten, then kudos to you.

Trademark After Dark Films

This movie is an isolated incident as opposed to the grand scale zombie-apocalypse movies like what’s been popularized by Romero. It’s limited to Manhattan, which allows for a possible containment, but that’s not what the movie focuses on. We watch the survival efforts of a small number of tenants in a crappy downtown apartment building. Relationships are a little hazy for a while and aren’t completely defined by the end of the movie. They establish enough that you understand who the individuals are and for the most part the fact that they’re neighbors is good enough. A little clarity would have been nice, though. The most important relationship is defined. A former boxer named Clutch, with the efforts of his friend/fellow tenant, prepare for the return of Clutch’s daughter from the military. Unfortunately she leaves a war zone for a… well, I suppose a war zone.

Trademark After Dark Films

I can’t decide between this one and Borderland as to which one is my favorite movie from 2007 Horrorfest. If you only see one of these movies make sure it’s this one or Borderland.

The Verdict: It’s a worthy buy, but if you’re not open to the idea of rat-people you may only want to rent.

Next: Nightmare Man and Unearthed

-Vince

Lake Dead

Trademark After Dark Films

In my opinion Lake Dead is the most disturbing of the “eight films to die for.” Mulberry St. is close given its visual style, but I’ll get to that one next time. I enjoyed it. It has several standards of horror films: nudity, gore, and that general fear for the characters a viewer gets from any decent horror flick. In fact it’s somewhat reminiscent of classic horror. It feels like a 70’s horror with a spit polish. The trait that I always found charming about old horror movies was the gritty old film used to make them. It made me feel like I was watching something that might have actually happened, as if some omnipotent being grabbed a camera and recorded the events to show us an experience that we otherwise wouldn’t see. They actually tried to make this a modern flick. Personally I appreciate the rawness and disturbing nature of the story as it stands in contrast to the polished look to the movie. Normally I don’t care for this type of mixture, but I think it was successful where other similar attempts have failed. It’s almost funny when, in films of this sort, people try to cast actresses that possess today’s standard of beauty: in other words, skinny and blond. Normally it’s a tragic mistake to cash in on the “hot” celebrity at that time. Dare I say, Paris Hilton in the 2005 remake of House of Wax. I think that’s pretty much what the makers of the film Lake Dead had in mind, but it ended up working well for the story.

Trevor Torseth and Alex A. Quinn, Trademark After Dark Films

Spoiler Warning

The plot is not dissimilar to what you’ve seen before. It’s like a cross between Deliverance and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The movie opens with an old man being murdered, and his granddaughters, Brielle and Kelly, inheriting his old out-of-the-way hotel and lake. Just in case you’re wondering why the hotel goes to the granddaughters, the girls’ father is a drunk. So that makes sense. The hotel is a vacation spot for people who like the outdoors without being required to camp. Despite the convenient location of the hotel, the two young women, one’s husband, and three friends take a camper to a site near the lake. After all of this is established and they’ve had a small amount of time to rest at the campsite, they are attacked several times by a couple of hickish cavemen-like killers wearing jumpsuits. Most of the goings on in the film are suspenseful but ultimately predictable because, as I said earlier, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. The characters we meet at the hotel are far from innocent looking. The old woman and the sheriff that live in the area are too accommodating to actually be believable good guys. The movie went exactly where I assumed it would. About half way or two thirds through the movie we discover that the old woman is actually the grandmother of Brielle and Kelly, the sheriff is their uncle, and the two mutants are their uncle/cousins. That’s right, incest. Just from the small amount of information given in the first scene, it’s easily expected. That’s why I think the two girls were cast well because it lets the audience know even though the characters are related they aren’t actually inbred as well. No wonder their father was a drunk. Whoo, I don’t know about you guys, but to be in his shoes would make killing a few brain cells sound like a good idea.

Trademark After Dark Films

The Verdict: I think it’s a worthy addition to a collection based on the successful combining of modern style with a seventies feel, but it’s mostly filled with easy thrills. So if you’re just looking for a good time, give it a rent, and watch with your buddies. It’ll have you in suspense and shouting at the characters.

Next: Mulberry Street and Nightmare Man.

-Vince