A Clip from "Happiness"

Not only is Todd Solondz's "Happiness" one of my favorite movies, it's also one of the few films where you will see Jon Lovitz in a serious role.

On the Fringe: "Begotten"

On the Fringe: "A Thief in the Night"

My second attempt at doing a video film review:

"Mommy Mommy Where's My Brain?"

A cool short from 1986 by Jon Moritsugu. The underground doesn't make them like this anymore...

On the Fringe: "Mondo Cane"

Trash Humpers

After having viewed Larry Clark's Kids about four years ago, I had hankering for more. I perused Clark's Wikipedia and IMDB pages, seeing such titles as Wassup Rockers and Bully. Strangely enough, it would be another two years before seeing another Larry Clark film. I found Bully on recorded on DVR at my parents house and I could not pass it up. Why wait two years to see another Clark porno? Because Kids writer Harmony Korine caught my eye, and I found the descriptions of his body of work (as of 2007) a bit more fascinating. His style of filmmaking blurs the lines between art and exploitation, not unlike early John Waters' films.

Korine's directorial debut, Gummo, was quite the introduction, as I had never seen anything like it. Where Kids was a portrait of teenage debauchery on overdrive, Gummo took it to a more nihilistic and bleak level, following the lives of teenagers in a small town in Ohio that was left in ruins by a tornado. Despite the fact that I find most people hating this movie, I'm not ashamed to say this film definitely makes my top 20 favorite films. His next effort, Julien Donkey-Boy, was an intriguing study of a mentally disabled man with schizophrenia, and had a macabre beauty in its ugliness. It was a Dogme95 production (some have put this up for debate), and Korine makes the film wonderfully surreal despite the limitations. Mister Lonely was a major departure from Korine's depressing realism, as it had a bigger budget and a concept that could not rely on Korine's knack for creating narratives out of barely outlined scripts. Mister Lonely is two stories; one is about a Michael Jackson impersonator that finds a home on a commune populated by other celebrity impersonators, and the other is about a priest (played by legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog) and his nuns on a mission in a Third World country. It is not his best work, but still a worthy addition to his body of work.
And in 2009, there was Trash Humpers. In what you could call a 'return to form' for Korine, the realism is accentuated by his use of a VHS camcorder. Humpers is about a gang of vandals in 'old people' masks (one of them actually looks like the bastardized version of Freddy Krueger in the recent remake) that roam the alleyways and disenfranchised streets of Nashville, busting television sets and fluorescent lightbulbs, setting off firecrackers, and yes, humping trash cans, among other things. From all this comes some what of an "accidental narrative", as the characters find a bit of redemption in the end, going from almost completely free individuals living on the fringe to finding a little bit of domestication. Not unlike the idea behind the visual style of August Underground, the film is made to look like someone's home movies that is found lying in the gutter and discovered by a curious person. It works on this level, as even the film's credits are produced by the title function on those old VHS camcorders.
With that said, I must admit that Trash Humpers was a minor disappointment. It had all the right factors going for it: realism, a gritty aesthetic, a group of people that have no boundaries, and Korine's unique direction and improvisation. But what weighs it down is its repetitiveness and lack of structure. Most of the scenes are comprised of breaking shit, high-pitched laughter, humping a stationary object or masturbating a long cylindrical object, and the camera man singing the same jingle ("Three little devils jumped over the wall, chopped off their heads and murdered them all"). Even though a lack of structure has worked for Korine's films in before, it works to both advantage and disadvantage here. It serves the aesthetic well, but this also makes scenes awkward, with the camera capturing gaps in conversations when the scene's purpose has been fulfilled and the actors don't know what else to say.


Despite its flaws, it is not a bad film. There are some amusing moments, and watching people that just don't give a fuck and enjoy mayhem always serves some degree of catharsis for the viewer. And there are moments that you don't see coming. But three-minute scenes of 'old men' humping trees and simply laughing at the camera bring it down. So much more could have been down with this premise, but it doesn't go as far as it should. Still, it has a nightmarish quality to it, with a nihilistic and foreboding undertone to it not unlike Gummo. The world these deviants live in is an American landscape that has been left in ruin and the disenfranchised live on the existing pieces. Like his other films, they are most likely only to be appreciated by his already existing fan`base, and hated by everyone else. I just hope that Korine's next film will embody his potential more than this one did.

See the trailer.

Niku Daruma

On the fringes of cinema, there have always been films that push the boundaries of what society has deemed decent and acceptable for the public to view. Such films depict graphic violence, unsimulated sex, and other taboos that regular people dare not speak of, with some movies including all of the above. Here in the United States, films like August Underground and Faces of Death gain an audience in the underground circuit and obtain recognition mainly through notoriety and word-of-mouth. But across the Pacific, Japan has its own brand of extreme cinema, with an emphasis on combining both pornography and unapologetically brutal violence. Niku Daruma (aka Tumbling Doll of Flesh or Psycho: The Snuff Reels) is such a film, even though it may seem tame to fans of extreme movies.

The film begins in a dark room, with a man sitting watching the gorey aftermath of an ax homicide on a small television set (according to many other movies about psychopaths, this is shown to establish his craziness). Next, we are shown several men picking up a female porn star, and they are taking her to the set (aka some guy‘s shitty apartment). The scene they are shooting gradually becomes more extreme, as they start off with normal foreplay and move into rope-bondage. It is when they introduce her to an enema that she objects and wants to take a break. While going to the restroom, one of the men come in and beat her over the head with a baseball bat. The three men tie her to the bedposts with ropes, and proceed to perform multiple amputations and other graphic acts (which would lose their impact with curious readers if I mention them).



Niku Daruma is directed by Tamakichi Anaru (his surname actually translates to “anal”, which is very telling, considering Niku), who has made other gore-soaked fares as Suicide Dolls and Women’s Flesh: My Red Guts. He is also known for his pornographic work, with such titles as Mother and Daughter: Spit-Swapping Seduction and Near Relation Lesbian Kiss. Anaru no doubt has a peculiar taste when it comes graphic sexuality, and he incorporates this into Niku and has the narrative (or lack-there-of) take a violent turn for the worse in this respect. Although he does, in a way, cater to the wishes of gorehounds and fans of obscure extreme cinema, Anaru has clearly made this film just for the sake of being shocking and perverse.

I must admit, I expected more going into this film. Having read other reviews for Niku, I was awaiting the chance to be shocked and disturbed. However, what I got was a 69-minute film that was a 40-minute porno (a rather boring one at that) and a 20-minute faux snuff film. I probably would not have minded this, were it for how painfully long and unnecessarily tedious the snuff portion of the film was. It also did not help that there were no subtitles, which makes you care about the characters even less. Niku Daruma has a very limited release here in the United States, and can probably only be found on eBay or the darkest corners of the internet. If you are into this sort of movie and you have a morbid curiosity to see it, then go for it (if you can find it). But Niku Daruma is too painfully long considering its short running time and has incredibly sub-par effects that I cannot actually recommend it to anyone.

Capitalism: A Love Story

The always controversial documentarian Michael Moore has been exposing the corruption, greed, and down-right inconsideration for the lower and middle class of America's elite for over twenty years now. Since the people who tend to support the actions and ideology behind the upper one percent are on the right side of the political fence, Moore has attacked the very basis for their position in Capitalism. Moore has even expressed that this is the film that he has been waiting to make since the beginning of his career (I'm paraphrasing). This is highly evident, as the problems of capitalism have been an underlying but influential factor in the issues discussed in his movies, even if he hasn't previously came right out and said it. Within the first twenty minutes, there is a montage of old-time circa-1950s footage, showing clips of the idealized yet unrealistic view of the nuclear family's American dream: dad working a factory job, mom shopping with a baby sitting in the shopping cart, the family on vacation. Over this, the narration states how things used to be good in the old days, when dad had a job that provided the family with everything they needed, mom could "work if she wanted to but didn't have to", and the middle class had a "love affair with capitalism". But soon enough, he mentions that not everything was perfect, and as long as people got to live the American dream, they would put up with "this and that", while showing clips of black men being hosed down and bombs being dropped. This is one of the more confusing parts of the film, in that I am not quite sure of what Moore is getting at. If this is the ideal version of capitalism, in which dad's job was enough to support a family and provide for their basic needs, then does he support this kind of economic system? Although he does show that things were not great for minorities and countries we had invaded at the time, this is somewhat overshadowed by the assertion that this capitalism was perverted when Reagan came into office. Moore comes dangerously close to insinuating that the 50s and 60s was a better time in American history, much like how conservatives think this was a time where family values, work ethic, and adherence to morals was at its peak, and we should therefore return to that mentality. But what they always fail to mention is the lack of rights and recognition that minorities, women, and even gays had, and this system really only benefited white middle-class males.*

My biggest bone to pick with Capitalism, and Moore specifically, is a religious aspect that incorporates in the film. He interviews several priests, who claim that capitalism is an evil and use words like "eliminate" and "eradicate" in relation to capitalism and its supporters. Christianity is supposedly highly altruistic, always looking out for the better interests of the collective, and enterprise and greed are antithetical to Jesus' principles. Moore even claims that he wanted to be a priest, but he saw them as activists pushing for social reform. First of all, I find it strange that Moore only interviews Catholic priests. I find this ironic that they are put into this context of being the ones who support the lower class, when the Vatican is a very wealthy city-state, and the reason priests can't marry has historically been because their property would go to their families instead of the Church. That sounds a lot like a product of capitalism to me. I do understand that these priests are a minority, much like the few white churches that helped out during the Civil Rights movement and the anti-war protests during the Vietnam War. But Christianity, and any other religion for that matter, has never been the poster child for social progress and reform**. Time has showed us that Christianity has consistently clung to tradition and a contradictory value system that is slowly changed in terms of peripheral beliefs as a modern world demands reform. So Moore saying that the teachings of Christianity has been at the forefront of fighting for reform and the average worker is fallacious, especially when homosexuality, a woman's right to her body, and even contraception and condoms are still condemned by most denominations. Moore fails to acknowledge the Christian/imperialist complex that is at work in America, and that he has been blaming for the past twenty years.
However, these problems occur in the first half of the two-hour plus film. After an hour of anecdotal cases of home foreclosure and seizure, mild religious pandering, and personal stories, he finally gets to the real issue that is on everyone's mind: the financial crisis. Chronicling the beginning of the real estate loan scam that eventually and tragically ended up crashing the economy, Moore doesn't hesitate to point fingers. This is no doubt the most powerful and enraging part of the documentary, in that it shows a corporatist scam that was flawed and rotten from its very foundation.

Aside from the few problems I aforementioned, this is a compelling documentary that Moore has been working towards his whole career, whether he realizes it or not. It may not be the smoking gun that the left has been waiting for to start what the right refers to as a "commie revolution", but it will no doubt get people thinking, even if they their concern ceases the beginning of the next work day. While exposing the corruption that capitalism can potentially (and maybe even eventually) lead to, he simultaneously calls for major economic reform, namely a form of socialism, even if he doesn't say it out loud. If you hold onto the idea that America is 'great' because of capitalism, or that God wants it this way and the only alternative is a communist/socialist police state that persecutes Christians and is run by Jewish, Satanic, Catholic, homosexual, feminist, occultist, atheist (or maybe even aliens or lizards) bankers bent on world domination and destruction, then this will either enrage you or change your mind.

But I couldn't help but wonder what will become of Michael Moore now? He even states at the end of the documentary that he doesn't think that he can do this anymore. His reputation has gotten him to the point where he can no longer walk into the lobby of GM Headquarters and try to make an appointment with the CEO, like he did in Roger and Me. The second time around, in Capitalism, a security guard walks right up to him and the camera, trying to cover the lens with his hand while immediately recognizing Moore and telling him he can't shoot without permission. For Mike, it has gotten to the point where every white collar worker knows who he is and is constantly looking out for him, because of the attention he attracts and the influence he may have.
Maybe it is time for him throw in the towel, or at least get into producing and support like-minded people looking for social justice. Or maybe he can rip the next Republican president a new asshole while making the Weinsteins a shitload of money because they think his films won't cause an uprising within a population that is largely apathetic, numbed out on trash television, and whores of the system. But with a capitalist society like ours, can you blame them for the lack of optimism?

*- This is not an admission of white guilt, nor am I saying that no white males get screwed over by capitalism
**- Again, there are always exceptions, and there is a minority that is progressive and has 'gotten with the times'

SCHLOCK! The Secret History of American Movies

What exactly does an exploitation film exploit? Is the marketing of a shitty film as a good one? Is it the use of titillating subject matter that will no doubt put some asses in the seats? Is it the name of a star that will draw attention to the film? Or is it the cast and crew, who are looking for film credits to further their career but are stuck on a low budget exploitation film that will pay them little to no money? The answer probably lies in a combination of several of these questions, if not all.

SCHLOCK! The Secret History of American Movies is a documentary directed by Ray Greene. It takes a look at the beginnings of the exploitation film, that were mostly science fiction fare like Invasion of the Saucer Men, back when science fiction was lumped in with pulp magazines. It shows the progression of how exploitation films were always looking for new material use, especially as the sexual revolution of the late 60s and 70s made people more curious about who's fucking who. The documentary features a handful of the pioneers and early players including Doris Wishman, Samuel Z. Arkoff, David F. Friedman, and the legend Roger Corman.

The problem with this feature is that has a fascination with sex. Starting off with sci-fi, it continues into the early Roger Corman horror movies, like The Terror, and his numerous Edgar Allan Poe adaptations with Vincent Price. OK, so far so good. Then it delves into the nudie film, a precursor to sexploitation films, in which relatively normal dramas and comedies take place in nudist colonies. It was subversive for the time, but since nudist colonies actually existed, they were able to get through the censors (and sex doesn't actually exist?). This eventually evolved into what are called "roughies", which focused on sex that varied from slightly rough to rape. It was around this time that I figured the documentary wouldn't get any better. Ten minutes prior, which was the fifty minute mark of a ninety minute film, they mentioned Herschell Gordon Lewis. You can imagine my disappointment when I thought they would finally stop dragging out the sexploitation concept and finally talk about the movies I wanted to hear about, the utterly twisted, depraved, gorey, and disturbing ones. Where the fuck is my Cannibal Holocaust? I Spit On Your Grave? Jesus Christ, my fucking TROMA!!!

I would have liked this more if covered anything past the early seventies, when exploitation was at its height. Having interviewed mostly directors and producers that worked in sexploitation, they most likely figured it was the easiest way to have interview footage and access to film stock that would fill up a 90-minute running time. Although disappointing, it does has some good insights. I was surprised to see Peter Bogdanovich, who played Dr. Melfi's therapist on The Sopranos, and worked with Roger Corman and Francis Ford Coppola as well as direct some movies. Probably the best insight came from Harry H. Novak (I think) who asked "What movie made today isn't an exploitation film?", which is juxtaposed to a shot of a billboard advertising Pepsi and Star Wars Episode 1 with Jar Jar Binks holding a can. Need I say more?

Jesus Ranch

Here's a clip from the not so well known and very mediocre (I remember seeing the boom mic come into the shot on several occasions) film Bongwater from 1997. Even though Jack Black is featured prominently on the main cover art for the flick, he appears in it for less than ten minutes. But goddammit do I love when he's in it. This is also one my favorite Tenacious D songs.



PS- Believe me, the song makes more sense in the context of the Tenacious D HBO episode.

Clerks. Analysis

This is a paper I wrote for a film course in college. The writing is not as good as it could be, but trust me, I've become better at it since then. I like it because it is a completely formalist criticism. I know that the themes I found in Clerks. were not any part of Kevin Smith's authorial intent, as evidenced by several of his SModcast episodes. Regardless, this is my analysis of Kevin Smith's-in my opinion-magnum opus:

"I'm not even supposed to be here today!": Slackerdom and Clerks.

Kevin Smith’s 1994 debut feature film Clerks tells the story about two clerks that work in a convenience store, referred to as the “Quick Stop”. Called in on his day off, Dante (Brian O’Halloran) is forced to deal with annoying customers, his two love interests, and his best friend Randal (Jeff Anderson). He is also forced to take a look at his life and where it is going, or if it has any direction at all. Roger Ebert describes the movie and its characters as: “The movie has the attitude of a gas station attendant who tells you to check your own oil…and Dante and Randal look like they have been nourished from birth on beef jerky and Cheetos. They are tired and bored, underpaid and unlucky in love, and their encounters with customers feel like a series of psychological tests” (Ebert par.2).
Smith’s focuses on the main two losers throughout the film, of whom are perfect examples of the slacker culture of the early nineties. Desson Howe of the Washington Post said, “much of ‘Clerks’ is extremely funny and dead-on—in terms of its intentionally satirical, Gen-X-istential gloom” (Howe par.3). Dante and Randal are both adults in their early twenties, while still working at the Quick Stop and showing no signs of improving or changing their situations. Dante complains repeatedly about his life, mostly saying: “I’m not even supposed to be here today!” throughout the film, without doing much about it. But on the other hand, Randal is content with his situation, and simply deals with every day brings. By focusing on their personalities and overall attitudes, Smith presents a message of getting on with life, despite the life situation.
Clerks’ structure doesn’t possess a plot, but rather shows events throughout the course of the day. It plays more like a series of occurrences that ultimately tie together the day depicted and the film itself. Some scenes are merely conversations about Star Wars, stupid customers, and porn, while most of them progress the relationships of the characters. But they all add perspective to the characters’ personalities and the setting.
In terms of technical innovations, the film does not break any new ground. It was filmed in black and white, while many films at the time were not. The film’s budget was made for approximately $28,000, and was shot mostly in and around the real Quick Stop convenience store. Marc Savlov of the Austin Chronicle described the look of the film as “resolutely low-budget, full of shaky camera work, the occasional less-than-perfect edit, and a few sound glitches. Conveniently, though, all this shoestring filmmaking technique only adds to the film's desperate charm” (Savlov). As most of the movie is indoors, you get a feel for what they have to do all day, which is either dealing with customers or doing nothing. The cinematography is pretty straight forward, with the main use of objective point-of-view. But at the same time, Smith uses a director’s interpretive point of view. For example, there are many conversations between the two leads that take place behind the counter of the store. Smith frames the shot in a way so it is centered on the two standing behind the counter. This creates a feeling of them being trapped, because they are enclosed in that area by the counter, the wall behind them, and the consumer products that surround them. The camera movements are also pretty straight forward, as no pans, tilts, dolly shots, etc. are notably used. However, Smith does use a lot of handheld camerawork, except on the occasions on the mentioned counter shots.
Smith communicates two problems of the slacker culture: those who are satisfied with their life, and those complain but don’t do anything (or as Randal says to Dante towards the end of the film, those who “need to shit or get off the pot.”). Smith doesn’t only show this through the personalities of Dante and Randal, but through relationships. Dante is torn between two women: one is his current girlfriend named Veronica (Marilyn Ghigliotti) who truly loves him but pressures him to continue his education in college, and the other is a promiscuous woman he went out with in high school named Caitlin (Lisa Spoonhauer). Veronica is the driving force that could move Dante’s life into a new, successful direction, while Caitlin represents his high school days, before he entered the real world. This presents the conflict of whether Dante should stay where he is at in life with an old high school sweetheart (who has cheated on him in the past), or move on in life with the woman who wants him to succeed and loves him. By the end of the film, Dante’s relationships with both of them are ended, and Smith does not give much of an answer for whether Dante learned anything from them. But the film as a whole works in a weird way because of it, in that Dante himself doesn’t really know what he wants from life throughout the film, so by not giving him an epiphany or resolution compliments his persona very well.
What Smith seems to illuminate about our culture is the alarming rate of youth adults fit into the slacker category. Over the course of the film Dante and Randal are not the only characters without higher education. Outside the Quick Stop are two stoner drug dealers, named Jay and Silent Bob (two characters that show up frequently in Kevin Smith’s other films), who just simply stand in front of the store all day, waiting for their next drug deal. Not only does Clerks shine light on said slackers, but it also shows what it is like for those in the service industry. The clerks have to deal with stupid customers that ask them questions like: “How much does this cost?” (When there is a sign that reads “$.99”) and “What do you mean no ice, you mean I gotta drink this coffee hot?” At one point in the film, while Dante, Randal, and a customer are talking about a man that puts eggs through ‘endurance tests’ in the back aisle, she turns to them and says: “You see, it’s important to have a job that makes a difference boys. That’s why I manually masturbate caged animals for artificial insemination.” Several customers like this take an arrogant verbal stab at the clerks throughout the film, and you feel bad for them, despite their inaction to change their position.
This movie reminded my own experiences and me a lot of the people I know. Very few people in my own have gone to college, and have ended up in either construction-type jobs or service jobs of some kind. Also, many people I knew in high school who are not in college now are working as waiters or store clerks. I have worked several public service jobs, from hauling kegs and serving beer to bringing old people their food in a nursing home. And since I know what it is like to work in the service industry, there is a reason I am in college right now. Clerks changes the way you look at people stuck in those type of jobs, and the way you treat them. As Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Free Press puts it, “there's something about seeing life from the distinct angle of the convenience-store clerk that's just new enough to hold you” (LaSalle par.7).
What makes the film work is that it chronicles a day in the life of Dante and Randal, rather than giving you bits and pieces of different days and time periods. By doing this, it gives the audience more of perspective of what these people go through, even if it be dealing with personal problems or fighting boredom. With all this said, I love this film. The dialogue is very realistic and funny, and like I said, I can relate to it even though I have never worked in a corner convenience store. There is a charm to the amateurism and simplicity of the story, and the intelligence behind the dialogue. However, I don’t think this film is for everyone. Despite the rave reviews it received at its theatrical release, Clerks is highly profane. Not only does it have many bad four-letter words, but there is also a lot of sexually explicit dialogue. Clerks initially received an NC-17 rating, and had to be edited down to get an R-rating. When a major plot point involves Dante finding out about Veronica and a large amount of fellatio on her part, you know that it’s profane. Only those who can handle almost constant profanity, but no violence or actual sex can dig this film. To really get the true idea of everything I mentioned, one has to see it for him/herself.


LaSalle, Mick. Clerks. 8 Nov 1994 San Francisco Free Press 4 May 2008.
http://www.well.com/conf/media/SF_Free_Press/nov8/clerks.html

Savlov, Marc. Clerks. 11 Nov 1994 The Austin Chronicle 5 May 2008.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Calendar/Film?Film=oid%3a138414

Movie Reviews

I've been writing film reviews for Passport Cinema (passportcinema.com) and the UWRF Student Voice newspaper here at University of Wisconsin: River Falls, where I am a full-time student. Instead of making a new post for each of them individually (like I did with the Night of the Living Dorks review), I'm providing all the links here, in order to shamelessly promote the sites and myself. Keep in mind, I never said I was good at writing reviews.

Antibodies

Friday the 13th (2009)

Hanzo the Razor: Sword of Justice

Hotel For Dogs

Last House on the Left (2009)

My Bloody Valentine 3-D

Night of the Living Dorks

Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Slumdog Millionaire

Valkyrie

Murder Toke

For the past year and a half or so, starting with finishing the script, I've been working on a short film, called "Murder Toke". It's a work in progress, as I'm still working on it. We've (meaning the actors/crew and I) shot most of it, with several reshoots due to a technical difficulty and a few scenes that still need to be shot. However, I have in my spare time edited together a short teaser trailer for it. Here it is:

"The 8 Worst Places to Steal a Movie Idea"

Here's an interesting article called "The 8 Worst Places to Steal a Movie Idea" by Michael Swaim of Cracked.com. I found it funny because almost all of Hollywood films nowadays come from these sources. That's not to say that some of the movies Swaim mentions are bad, but they rather succeeded at adapting the source material.

Check the whole 2 page article at:
http://www.cracked.com/article_15087_8-worst-places-steal-movie-idea.html

"Night of the Living Dorks" AKA "Die Nacht der lebenden Loser"

Writer and director Mathias Dinter’s Night of the Living Dorks may be a
German flick, but it may have more familiarity with the American audience
rather than its native youth. In an international boom of horror genre parodies
since the success of UK’s Shaun of the Dead, this just feels more like a teen
sex comedy than another zombie flick.

Phillip (Tino Mewes) and his two friends Wurst and Konrad (Samuel Cortez
and Thomas Schmieder) are the unpopular kids in their school, and are
constantly picked on by the elite, upper-class popular people. After
witnessing a voodoo ritual in a cemetery performed by Phillip’s next-door
neighbor Rebecca (Collien Fernandes), the trio crashes their car while
under the influence of marijuana. This of course, turns them into zombies
and they have to figure out a way to fix it while at the same time taking
revenge on those that have wronged them.

While Night of the Living Dorks is a self-proclaimed zombie spoof, it
plays as more of an American sex teen comedy than anything. The
conventional characters of the teen flick are there (the girl next door,
the popular girl that the protagonist pines after, the upper-class jock
nemesis, the wise-cracking side kick, the parents leaving the house in
their son’s care, etc.), and a Revenge of the Nerds-type influence on the
plot is more than obvious. Besides being an essentially bloodless movie,
it does little to poke fun at zombie films. In fact, the ‘zomie’ as we
know it actually very skewed here, as there is apparently an antidote to
reverse it, and those unlucky ones turned into zombies can live among
humans. All they have to do is eat a lot of raw meat, raid a blood bank,
and learn to suppress the urge to bite an ass or two.

Night of the Living Dorks isn’t all that bad, however. Even though it’s
just like every other National Lampoons teen sex romp we’ve seen before,
it’s actually funny. Instead of focusing on making as many references to
teen culture as possible, it’s just flat-out silly and entertaining, with
the dialogue being consistently perverted and goofy. The biggest flaw is
the fact that Night of the Living Dorks seems too American. A German
flick that makes references to Kurt Cobain, Michael Jackson’s Thriller,
and Casablanca really doesn’t come off as too German to me.

If you’re looking for formulaic yet goofy and entertaining time, then this
is for you. But if you enjoy foreign films and/or horror genre spoofs,
this most likely won’t be your cup of tea.

2 stars/4