Pontypool (2008)

I came across Pontypool on a website promising to be the definitive list of best horror from 2008. Two titles stood out as features I hadn't heard of and wanted to see, on the back of the glowing reviews. I don't know what it is with me and horror movies lately. I don't enjoy the pap bandied about by self proclaimed 'horror aficionados' - Drag me to Hell, The Ring, The Grudge and so on - and I really get into movies that somehow missed out on the love. Not necessarily smaller movies, niche or indy stuff like Splinter - also big budget movies like Silent Hill.

I really enjoyed Silent Hill

Anyway, I'm reviewing Pontypool today, a movie that falls firmly into the 'small film' niche. Small film, small budget, one location for the entire movie (except the beginning and end). Pontypool tells the tale of a real honest to goodness cowboy, Grant Mazzy played by Stephen McHattie, working as a radio DJ. Once he was a big star in the big smoke, now he spins shit and discs in small-town Pontypool. Once cold, snowy day, Grant and his two off-siders - Sydney (Lisa Houle) and Laurel-Ann (Georgina Reilly) - begin receiving increasingly disturbing phone calls about riots and mayhem around the town. Safe, or so they think, in their little radio station, they listen with increasing horror as the town outside falls apart.

My spattered blood forms in the image of a cowboy. Shame, I was hoping for a naked woman.

While fairly well made, Pontypool annoys me through all the missed opportunities. After about and hour of decent build up, nothing striking is done with the built up tension and great concept. There was a huge opportunity to follow through with a truly scary second half but instead I saw a hokum and slightly silly segment about the plague outside being transmitted by sound, the characters running about the small set like headless chickens and some boring zombies. Where the first half was eerie and filled with a slight sense of impending doom, well built through the use of phone calls and the isolation of the protagonists from what was happening, the second half was flaccid and boring.

And that's about all I can say because that's all that happened. The ending wasn't a Deus Ex Machina so to speak, but it negated all the work Grant and Sydney did trying to save their own lives and perhaps stop the plague. Still, by that stage the movie had outlived it's premise and I was ready for it to end anyway.

5/10

Summary: A watchable movie that would have worked better with a little more show, a little less tell and a much better second act.

[REC] (both versions)

Spanish jazz-hands

Watching the American version of REC (I'll be dispensing with the [] from this point on) was a bit like eating cheap easter eggs. They look the same, weigh the same and feel the same - but the taste is just short of chocolate. Sometimes disastrously short. Both versions are about a surprise zombie outbreak (is there any other kind?) in an apartment building as documented by a pretty girl and her camera man as they follow a fire fighting unit and record their shift (at night of course). Be warned, this movie is of the first-person cam style like Cloverfield or Diary of the Dead. Personally I love the first-person style when done right, but it's not for everyone.

Over the course of the movie, various of the residents are bitten and infected or torn apart by ravenous zombies. Then the other characters are killed off and finally it's all down to the girl and her camera man. Turns out someone was running experiments in the attic, which became infection ground zero when the subject escaped.

I watched the original Spanish version a couple of years ago and loved it. Naturally, if you dislike first-person movies you shouldn't bother to begin with, otherwise I'm confident horror and zombie fans will agree with me. The characters were interesting enough but more importantly the action and suspense carried this flick all the way through. Doing a first-person movie is like doing a first-person novel, rather than being used as a cheap gimmick, the style must suit the story and not be shoehorned in. The things you can do with first-person - such as only show what the person could see - must be used to further the story and add to the tension or doubt.  Since we can't always see what's happening and we only know what the protagonist knows it sometimes forces us to use our imagination and thus fill in the gaps. Plenty happens off-camera in REC, with lots more being shown in flashes or glimpses, adding to the value of re-watching later. As a matter of fact, I feel like watching it right now.

The remade American version is pretty much the same as the original, except in English and with a different cast. For some reason it's also not as good. I can't put my finger on it and perhaps it's simply because the American lead actress wasn't as good as the Spanish one, or maybe because I'd already seen REC and the remake was literally a carbon copy. I should probably mention at this point that the American remake is called Quarantine, not REC.



REC the original gets 8/10 from me, the remake maybe 6.5/10. 

Raptor Sees a Blood Moon

Blood Moon Rising is a flick that could have done with a bigger budget and probably a better cast since the story was actually interesting. It involved a cursed couple who are transformed into a werewolf and vampire by some she bitch Vampire because she had the hots for the guy (Vampire).  The she bitch gets killed and buried but a clause in the curse states that she will rise again if the girl(werewolf) is killed and using a Necrenomicon type book open a gate to hell. Oh, her fathers the devil. Add some vampire bikes, zombies created from the wolf bite and the cast from a horror movie shoot and it’s general mayhem.

This poster looks cooler than what the movie actually does....why God why!?!

This poster looks cooler than what the movie actually does....why God why!?!

The movie was filmed with a grind house style even with annoying loss of voice sections, man that was annoying since it happened like 3-4 times. I’m sure once would have been enough. They also used the old dust hair on the screen, missing footage and burn out scene tricks too. I didn’t mind them so much.

The actors generally went from bad to ok. I guess the Darrell Lee (Neal Trout) the soda shop teller was probably the highlight as a comic obsessed gun carrying idiot. Although the surprise was Ron Jeremy who shows up as a sleazy producer and promptly gets eaten by zombies. Way to go.

The CGI that was in this was pretty average. It wasn’t used to much but when it was it mediocre. There was a lot of practical blood and guts and head exploding done which was pretty good. Some of the devils at the end looked like they were out of the World of Porn Craft back lot. Especially bad was the werewolf. Man was that a crappy looking werewolf. Let me not explain it other than to use the word craptacular. Also anyone bitten by the werewolf gets teeth. The only way you can tell a werewolf from a vampire is they also have fangs on the bottom row. That’s it.

Reiterating this move would be great with more money thrown in. I mean it had zombies, werewolves, demons and vampires.….oh yes and some booby shots. What more could you want? More money I guess.  I give this one a 4.5/10.

Raptors Stuck in the Doghouse

You know Doghouse is a frightening movie for men mainly because it’s about women on PMS with weapons. Actually it’s about zombie women on PMS with weapons.

It starts with a group of guys getting together to head off for a weekend out to cheer up Vince (Stephen Graham from Snatch) after he had a break up with his wife.  So they hire a bus and take him to a town in the middle of no where. Soon they find that all the women are infected with some virus released as an experiment by the government that changes the women to flesh eating zombies who can still wield weapons.  They try to make it back to the bus but that now has been overrun and so begins their plan to escape.

I think they are scared because they saw the extra meat and two veg.

This movie seems to be a vindication for all the trouble that men have with women but it does wear a little thin by the second half and just leans a little too much into the misogynist side.  Even so it does take it all with a comedic bent that takes the edge off enough too be watchable and frankly you wouldn’t want to meet these zombie women in a dark ally and please, please don’t ask for the $10 drop the pants special.  The guys put on a reasonable performance and the British banter makes them quite likeable. The zombie girls, and there are a lot of them,  each have their own individual look such as the hair dresser runs around with two scissors or the gothic paraphernalia store owner is a large breasted zombie with a huge sword….compensating for something. Maybe, just maybe. They also have two phases in their disease. Phase one is a slower, not so bright zombie state. Phase two they morph into red eyed long clawed she demons with more smarts…oh noes!


The ending on this one kind of irked me. They end up getting away but find that one of the guys they left behind was still alive, so they go back to get him and then after finding him are about to leave the village again and…that’s it. What? You couldn’t have put in an extra 5 mins of footage. Bah! What ever.


Over all, the movie was ok. The zombies were interesting and the characters quite solid. I give this one a 6.5/10.

Raptor Goes Trick r Treating

Let’s admit it, most horror anthologies usually aren’t very good. You may get a good story out of the 3 or 4 shown but they rest tend to be crap. Fortunately when I sat down to watch Trick r Treat I was pleasantly surprised. The four stories in of themselves were pretty good but the thing that impressed me the most was the way they interwove them together. It wasn’t a simple four stories wrapped up by another. Each story was linked to another by something almost like watching Pulp Fiction but with ghosts and ghoulies. There was a short prologue story which kind of kicks off the whole chain and eventually the last story links back to this which was cool. The first story was to do with a Serial killer(Dylan Baker) and the humorous way he tries to dispose of his latest victim. The Second story centred around the telling of a tale of murdered children on a school bus and a group of kids that go down to the lake to offer tribute to them but have other motives. Thirdly is the story of Little Red Riding Hood, a vampire and werewolves. This one was pretty cool itself with Anna Paquin from X-Men playing the Little Red. Finally it ends with a grumpy old man(Brian Cox) who hates Halloween and a little pumpkin headed daemon who teaches him the true meaning of Christmas…er I mean Halloween. This one was probably my favourite and Brian Cox played a great old man battling it out with the little imp. Come to think of it another one from X2.

Mum says that putting a sack on my head means I'm really good looking.

All the actors handled themselves well and were quite believable. The director was Michael Dougherty who really hasn’t directed much at all but based on this I think he really should. He has a number of acting and writing credits to his name as well including the screen play to X2 which is one of my favourite movies.

The cinematography and colours of this were just beautiful. Highly above it’s straight to DVD standard. Shots of a mountain-scape that drops to a school bus sinking into a lake or a street with pumpkins head lit with candles really brought out the atmosphere. There were times were the effects were a little off such as the werewolf transformation scene which had short stints of CGI that didn’t add up but overall most effects were practical. The last story had some really nice practical work. There was blood but not too much really for a horror movie or maybe I’m just desensitised to it all.

Dear god they ripped my dirty dreams out of my head and put them on film.

Sadly there was no boobage in this film. Awwww I hear you all say…Wait! I lie. There was a glimpse of boobs in the werewolf transformation scene. Yay! Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.

If you don’t like horror anthologies I’d still recommend watching this was to see how one should be put together. For myself I give this one a solid 8/10.

Zombieland (2009)

Fat vs bat. My money on the bat.

Zombieland is quite simply a good film. What it lacks in boobs it makes up for in zombies, guns and sass. I expected a quiche and they served me prime MSA steak with chips and a tasty red wine jus. This movie has all the vital elements; humor, a pretty girl (Emma Stone with permanent bedroom eyes), Woody Harrelson, a geeky guy (Jesse Eisenberg), zombies, guns, aforementioned sass and some very cool slo-mo effects. The fourth member of the quartet is played by Abigail Breslin.

Eisenberg plays a neurotic recluse with no friends and little family contact. He spends his time eating pizza, playing WoW and avoiding human contact. After a pretty girl stumbles into his apartment and goes all zombie on him overnight, he's forced out of his apartment and into the mean streets of Zombieland, a world populated almost exclusively by zombies. As time goes by he establishes and expands a list of rules for survival in Zombieland and these rules appear on the screen as text each time a rule is followed. For example when Harrelson runs down some zombies then reverses over them before driving off, the rule 'Double Tap' appears over the dead zombies. Simple, but never grows old.

Harrelson and Eisenberg eventually meet two sisters, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin, who con them out of their car and weapons. The two parties, following some more hijinks, eventually overcome their misgivings and team up. What begins as a marriage of convenience grows into friendship and mutual support. Stone's character learns to trust people, her younger sister learns to be a kid again, Harrelson opens up a little about why he's so angry and distant, and Eisenberg finds a family. What makes this movie work so well are those developing characterisations which are admirably supported by the actors, all of whom turn in a believeable performance.

There's a bit toward the end where I thought 'oh no', because the movie seemed to have run out of ideas and steam before it ran out of story. I'm happy to say I was wrong and the ending shows off a very cool shoot out by Harrelson, a zombie duck-shoot from the top of a carnival ride and a lot of cardio work by Eisenberg (rule #1). I felt satisfied by credits time yet hungry for more zombieland...which is all I needed to say really.

9.5/10 - Zombieland went in my eye from frame one and never relented. Three thumbs up...oh God, that's not a thumb!

Raptor Finds a Dead Girl

I heard good things about the movie Dead Girl but I wasn’t convinced so when I sat down to watch it I was pretty much thinking this was going to be another crap fest. Well for the first 20 mins or so it didn’t do much for me. The slightly washed out colours looked cheap at first. The two mains we meet, Rickie played by Shiloh Fernandez and J.T played by Noah Segan both seemed pretty shallow and acted out like stereotypical high school students. This was all until they find the Dead Girl in a sealed off room of an abandoned medical facility. It’s then that the two personalities begin to polarise. The dead girl (sexy Jenny Spain. Yes even if she is dead) is a zombie but in quite good nick. How she got down there is never explained. The two friends panic and leave her but J.T. goes back and ends up killing her but she comes back to life so decides to use her as a sex toy while Rickie thinks he’s crazy. Rickie doesn’t want any part of it and guilt kicks in so he tries to free her but finds out she is quite feral and so splits.  There is a side story with Rickie and a Joann (Candice Accola) who he is infatuated with and eventually spirals into a kidnapping by J.T. and meeting with the dead girl.  It's always awkward when your living and dead girlfriends meet.

Yes, there was some dead action in the back section....ewwwww

The movie is tense and the lack of morality by J.T. is juxtaposed to Rickie who’s initial impotence do anything, possibly due to the friendship with J.T. and the fact the dead girl is well dead, fortifies into a resolve to act. It does pose the question that if somes dead or zombie do they have rights? Beats me. I just watch the film but and leave the philosophy to you.


There are some funny moments such as J.T and pal trying to kidnap a girl to make into a new dead girl only to be beaten up by the victim and there are also some huh? I don’t get what the fuck just happened moments too that just don’t click but overall barring the weakish start it ends with a strong performances and a pretty good story line. I give this one a 7.5/10

Raptor Stripps like a Zombie

I have a new favourite Zombie movie. Why is that? Two words. Zombies and strippers. In the same movie. Together. Not to mention that you also get Jenna Jameson as one of the strippers and she can act better than…ok with all the porn movies she’s done she’s a pro at faking it. The basic plot of Zombie strippers is that a group of Soldiers called Z Squad go to clean up a zombie outbreak at a lab owned by Gearge W Bush. Everyone know he owns weapons of mass destruction! Anyway one of the nooby soldiers gets bitten and rather than get his head blown off makes a runner and ends up at strip club owned by the sleazy Hypochondriac Ian played to expertly by Robert Englund (again Freddy yo!). At this point he turns full zombie and attacks Kat one of the strippers played by Jenna Jameson. As the soldier is stuffed downstairs Kat of course gets up and but now she wants to strip and turns out being undead makes you a real good stripper. Slowly the other girls begin to succumb to the lure of being a zombie stripper either through envy, jealousy, adoration or other. Ian sees this as a great opportunity to make money but of course as all zombie movies must go, the zombies cannot be contained and the patrons (dumb males) who the strippers keep lap dancing for (eating their bits) soon break loose.


Fairly new director/writer Jay Lee has done a pretty good job getting this movie together on a pretty low budget. He used a lot of the crew as the patrons and a few friends such as Calvin Green who plays the DJ Cole. The editing is tight and the comedic banter is works well between the actors although some of the joke verge on groan worthy. There are a lot of new faces here and other new bits. The strippers are Hawt! Barring Jenna Jameson we have her rival Jeannie played with bitchy flare by the sexy Shamron Moore. One of the strippers that doesn’t get her kit of is Berenge (Jeannette Sousa) a nihilist that doesn’t quite know if she should support or detest what the strippers have become. Then we have Lilith played by singer Roxy Saint, a gothic and pierced raven who is the first to join kats side. Now this leads me on to the music. It rocks. Roxy Saint actually sang one of the songs that Jenna first strips to as a Zombie called Smother and it got me grooving. In fact so much so that I’m actually looking for the sound track to the movie as we speak…right now like. 

To the special FXs! I have to say down and out these are some of the best zombie FX and gore gags hands down. They were created by Patrick Mcgee and considering the whole film had a budget of $1million that’s pretty impressive. Most of the FX were practical with CGI used sparingly and I’ll have to say my favourite zombie was Tongue guy who lost his jaw in a lap dance. Awww sad. The strippers had about 5 stages of zombiness, from just turned bloody but rare to well cooked black eyed, protruding eye sockets and decaying skin.

The extras on the DVD gave a bit of an insight. There is easily about 45 mins of deleted scenes that were edited to get the movie to a tight 90mins. Some of these I thought would have been great to add a little more to it but there were other scenes that were easy targets to be removed. The commentary with Robert Englund, Jenna Jameson, Jay Lee and Joey Medina is hilarious. We also find out that the movie is loosely based on the play by Eugene Lonescos’ allegorical play "Rhinoceros" with the names of the characters being derived from it including Jeannette Sousa character being the conclusion of it.

Some of the acting was at times a little off, mainly in the Z squad characters but this didn’t detract to much overall. I still thought this was one of the best zombie films I’ve seen in a long time. My score 8.5/10.

Gavor's movie round-up #2

Over the last week I've been busy selling cars and my house in preparation for le grande trip around Australia. Because of this I haven't had my usual spare time to find and watch movies so here's a round-up of the movies I've watched lately (and that I don't want to devote the space to full reviews).

Planet Terror

Robert Rodriguez's underwhelming zombie movie as part of the Grindhouse feature collaboration with Tarentino. It's okay, but having just watched Dawn of the Dead(both original and remake) it pales in comparison. Good for a couple of beers and a bag of popcorn.

5/10

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Takes all the subtext about consumerism and throws it in the bin then goes on to make a pretty decent movie about zombies. There are a couple of slow moments and not all of the acting works but I still enjoyed it. The grim ending leaves things open to interpretation, which is my kind of grim ending. Not as good as the original, but pretty close. The trailer below is rubbish and doesn't represent the movie well at all.

8/10

Shaun of the Dead

Funny zombies done right, and with a pretty good soundtrack too. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost work well together (and continued to do so in Hot Fuzz),  fingers crossed for more amusing collaborations in the future. Throw in Dylan Moran as a complete tosser plus the future Prime Minister of England as Shaun's mum and you have a great movie about zombies taking over London.

8.5/10

Drag me to Hell

Terrible, cliched shit with no laughs, no scares and almost no gore. I gave up about two thirds of the way through and skipped to the end. She dies. The end. Thank fuck for that. Someone please ask Mr Raimi to stop making movies.

2/10

Getting Some Roasted Poultrygeist

So here I am, getting all annoyed that Gavor has posted nuddy screen caps of movies and while I’ve stuck to…well weak sauce play time pics so I thought what movie can I review that would bring the elements of Horror, Nudity, grossness and musical all into one? Then I chose the Trauma movie Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. Now a warning to our more sensitive readers, first of all what the fuck are you doing on this site if you are, second this movie is not for everyone but if you don’t mind your movie with gross out humour, crazy gore gags,  B-Grade SFX , nudity and musical numbers, and really who doesn’t, then this movies is for you.

Wendy, have you shaved your chest?

Poultrygeist is directed by Lloyd Kaufman who has directed other Trauma movies such as Toxic Avenger and stared in more B grade films than I can point a voodoo stick at.  He also appears in the film as the older Arbie. The two stars of the movie are played with great energy by Jason Yachanin as Arbie our love struck hero and the very cute Kate Graham as Wendy the love interest turned experimentally lesbian. All the acting in her is very tongue in cheek and while not Oscar material it kept getting a laugh out of me. It really felt like I was watching some Armature Theatre company put on a comedy but because everyone was having so much fun doing it you just couldn’t help but be pulled in by it all.

Yes its Michael Jackson. Sorry I couldn't resist.

Other notable performances were Robin Watkins as General Lee Roy the unscrupulous owner of the American Chicken Bunker franchise and Joshua Olatunde as Denny the downtrodden African American store manager trying to make a mark for himself in this white mans world, of course he employs Carl Jr, played by Caleb Emerson, a bigoted yokel with a chicken fetish…go figure.

And now I shall make her skirt dissapear.

The story starts when an America Chicken Bunker is built over an Indian Burial ground which then brings about the curse of Chicken Dead. What first begins with a possessed chicken carcass soon turns into a gory outbreak of the Chicken Dead and this lets Lloyd Kaufman run loose with the toilet humour and gross out sight gags such as a fat guy with explosive Diarrhea painting the toilet walls or how about implants used  for a bread fillets. Meanwhile Arbie tries to win back the love of his life Wendy by getting a job at the one place that she has been protesting against for it abuse of chickens. As you can see Arbie isn’t the smartest sardine in the can. So when the shit hits the fan it’s up to Ardie and company to save the day and stop the Chicken Dead by finding their one weakness.

Yes she is cute and a lesbian.

Now you’re saying “Raptor that’s all well and good but what makes this so special?” and I would say “Well, dick that can’t help but point out the flaws in my movie review it would be the nudity but more importantly it’s the music”. Yes that’s right; this is a musical but what kind of musical. Well I’d have to say if you’d ever seen the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer then that’s probably the closest I could give and an example. The "Slow Fast Food Love" is a ballad sung by Ardie and Wendy and more importantly with Wendy half naked and a number of other naked girls but my favorite would probably be the Irish like jig by young and old Ardie titled Longing to Live/Waiting to Die".

This movie is full of flaws but the lead casts are so likeable and filled with stupid vigor that I have to give this one 7.5/10 and now lets roll the screen shots.

A very special episode of PIS Movie Review - Movie round-up

Welcome to PIS movie round-up episode 1. In PIS movie round-up I'll cover, in brief, some of the movies I watched less recently (and so am a bit sketchy on) and titles I really can't be bothered going the whole hog with. Grab yourself a rubber device, settle back and enjoy...

Dead Birds - A bunch of wild west characters end up in a haunted house and the ghosts kill them off one by one. I watched this little flick alone with all the lights off, well, alone if you don't count the beer. Dead Birds is honestly the only movie to creep me out for over an hour and I had to take a break at the halfway point because it was just so intense. Sadly, the last act of the movie is a bit of a mess and lessens an otherwise well constructed and scary movie. 6.5/10

Body of Lies - I'm a married man with two kids but for some reason DiCaprio does it for me. Like Blood Diamonds, which I also enjoyed, Body of Lies is a well constructed movie with few surprises but plenty of tense scenes, good acting and top action. I forget the plot but it was something to do with terrorists and pineapples...or similar. Anyhow, worth a look. Better then a turban in the eye. 7/10

Benders Game- Cocking disappointing after the larb that were the first two Futurama movies. Benders Game was sorely lacking in laughs, jumped around and had no place in the overall narrative of the four movies. Bollocks of the highest order but perhaps better if served with cheese and vodka. 5/10

Balls of Fury- Surprisingly un-entertaining. I think this is the one with the table tennis, Christopher Walken and hot chick. Umm. That's it really. The chick was hot. 4/10

Rambo (the new one) - John Rambo kills the entire Burmese army with arrows and knives and shit. If you're a male this movie makes you believe in miracles, much like Sliding Doors or Sleepless in Seattle does for women (or whatever movies are big with women these days). When Stallone gets on the big shooter at the end you realise there's nowhere else for action movies to go, this is the pinnacle. For that reason only I have to dock points, Rambo ruins every action movie that will ever be made from this day forward. 8/10

Doomsday - I love post apocalyptic movies. I didn't like this. I think. Memory is a bit vague. Better go watch it yourself. To be on the safe side I'll include a picture and a 3/10.

Doomsday - Breasts and fire.....actually, I think I was a bit harsh on this movie

 Outpost- Nazi zombies kill mercs. Shit ending - I really fucking hate the trend of most horror movies these days to end on a down note. Everyone dies...wow, dramatic. 5/10

Abominable- Badly made costume attacks nubile girls and crippled guy. Costs were kept down by using the monster suit from Harry and the Hendersons. Some breasts. 3/10

And that about wraps it up. Join me next time for more movie reviewing brevity!

Dead Heat (1988)

Not pictured: nudity. Crazy, I know.

Dead Heat - starring Treat Williams, Joe Piscopo and Vincent Price (in one of his last roles) - is a horror/comedy vehicle from the director that brought you the 1989 version of The Punisher and also edited a bunch of pretty good movies. Mark Goldblatt in case you're interested.

In a nutshell, Dead Heat revolves around two cops and a machine that brings the dead back to life. From what I could understand the character played by Vincent Price was swindling rich old people into giving up half their fortune in exchange for eternal life, the catch being that those brought back to life only lived for 12 or so hours before melting into goo. Of course that part wasn't demonstrated to the captive and above all cashed up audience.

The movie zings along at a decent pace. Characters appear and are then slaughtered off screen, the action is okay, the jokes are horrendously bad and the acting is pretty abysmal. The one exception to this is Treat Williams, who I found far more believable than any of the others. Overall it was a budget 80s cop flick only with zombies instead of Colombians, Mexicans, Italians or whatever culture we're making fun of at the time.

What I did enjoy were the effects, prosthetics and general level of technical expertise. In particular the Chinatown butcher scene is awesome, well thought out and kind of horrific. Sadly though, an interesting premise and good effects were wasted with a crap script and horrible acting. Perhaps a remake should be on the cards using an all new script that exploits that central idea and builds a bunch of clever scenes like the Chinatown scene. Throw in some good jokes, decent actors and an underlying theme that explores the feelings of those brought back to life yet facing death again - and we have a winner. Someone send me lots of money and I'll get right on it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq90fHRJOiA - Trailer

5/10 - Dead Heat had some potential, but ultimately it's a dead duck.

Oh and the ending was fucking terrible. I think I had a 6/10 in mind until I saw the ending.