|
|
Troubled Arletty (a solid and sympathetic performance by the gorgeous Mariana Hill) goes to the remote coastal community of Pointe Dune to check on her reclusive painter father Joseph Long (Royal Dano in a brief, yet still commanding appearance). Arletty discovers that the residents of the town are all turning into lethal carnivorous zombies. Writers/directors Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, who also wrote "American Graffiti" and went on to make the notorious "Howard the Duck," relate the absorbingly macabre story at a hypnotically deliberate pace, do an ace job of creating and sustaining a powerfully spooky and unsettling booga-booga mood which becomes more increasingly scary and nightmarish as the strange narrative unfolds, sprinkle in a decent smattering of grisly bloodshed, and stage several bravura startling set pieces with tremendous skill and aplomb (jolting highlights include a woman being attacked in a movie theater that's overridden by zombies, another gal assaulted by the ghouls in a grocery store, and the zombies jumping through the skylights of a house). Moreover, Huyck and Katz populate the picture with a striking array of genuinely quirky and colorful characters: Michael Greer as obnoxious rich hipster Thorn, the ever-adorable Joy Bang as the kooky Toni, sultry Anitra Ford as slinky vamp Laura, Elisha Cook, Jr. as drunken, unhinged derelict Charlie, and, most amazing of all, one shot wonder thespian Bennie Robinson as an astonishingly creepy rat-eating albino trucker. Stephen M. Katz's accomplished widescreen cinematography delivers a wealth of stunningly weird visuals (the shots of the blood red moon are especially impressive). Phillan Bishop's shivery'n'wonky electronic score does the spine-tingling trick. The hauntingly downbeat conclusion packs quite a punch. But it's the overall pervasively bizarre and unnerving midnight-in-the-graveyard gloom-doom atmosphere which really gives this picture a highly potent and distinctive extra ominous and alarming oddball edge. Well worth seeing.
score 8/10
Woodyanders 26 November 2009
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2164197/ |
|
4-4-2021 11:20:37