So Maybe the NYC MTA Isn't the Worst Institution In the World...

For better and worse, found footage horror has become to the 21st century what the slasher film was to the 1980s and, perhaps more specifically, what the zombie genre has always been to the aw shucks world of DIY indie filmmakers who didn't go to film school. Where enthusiastic wannabe auteurs used to wrangle their friends into undead makeup in the hopes of reaching rental shelves, the generation raised on The Blair Witch Project now uses shaky cam and night vision to make their cinematic dreams a reality. It's just as cheap and, I assume, far less messy.

Strangely enough, I'm also finding it far superior. Like any horror genre, found footage has its piles of duds, but when you compile a list of its offerings, the good far outweigh the bad. For every misguided Diary of the Dead, there's Megan Is Missing, Grave Encounters, and lower profile but still quite strong picks like Skew and The Feed. Even the most successful of the second wave has built itself a solid, if not great franchise in the Paranormal Activity series. 

Thusly do we enter 2011's The Tunnel, an Australian festival hit styled as a combination of Lake Mungo's talking heads documentary and Grave Encounters handheld night vision cinematography. 

Quick Plot: As Sydney faces a water shortage, the city officials propose a new plan that would recycle water currently trapped under the subway's tunnel system. The plan is suspiciously dropped, stirring the interest of go get'em TV journalist Natasha, who rounds up a small crew to head underground and find some answers.

What do they find? Why, a flourishing utopia inhabited by bulldog puppies and trees that grow peanut butter and chocolate of course!

Or an undefinable race of monster men who feed on homeless people and collect their eyeballs. Same difference.

Like the aforementioned Lake Mungo, The Tunnel takes a slightly different approach to the found footage style. From the beginning, we are introduced to our two assumed survivors, Nat and cameraman Steve (the very natural Steve Davis). Their one-on-one interviews are mixed in throughout the film to explain, react to, or preface the 'actual' footage we see from their cameras. Though the effect might take away a little something from a few scenes (it's hard to fear for the screaming Nat when we know she made it to the post-disaster interview), it generally helps to build tension or let it settle in an oddly personal place. Seeing how the unfortunate turn of events affected Nat and Steve is almost as scary as witnessing the horror for ourselves.

The Tunnel had been heavily hyped for me as one of the scariest new horror films of last year. While I wouldn’t put it on the same plain as some of my 2011 favorites like YellowBrickRoad, it does offer some excellent creepiness and more than one moment of genuine fright. The docu-style also helps to add something (somewhat) new, and despite my major gripe of a Low Note, this is one of the good ones.

High Notes

You have to give a hand to any film that sets itself in such a fertile horror location as the deep terrain below a city’s subway system  

As we’ve seen from some of the rougher found footage tales, acting to the camera isn’t always easy. It’s quite a relief that all The Tunnel’s actors deliver natural, but still interesting performances

Low Notes

I'm not sure if it's just the surly feminist in me looking for a fight or if this is a widespread problem in cinema, but ever since Heather Donahue led two pals into the uncharted Maryland wilderness, doesn't it feel like females with power-infused jobs starring in found footage horror are just designed to be responsible for the deaths of others? The Tunnel offers an added layer of icky sexism by having the male characters all insinuate that Nat got--and precariously kept--her position by sleeping with the boss. I don't mind some flawed characters, but there's something about the way the sole female in the film is portrayed and treated that just feels a little unnecessary in its meanness

Lessons Learned

Tunnels carry sound quite well

If you require the services of a 911 operator, you're better off not living in Australia

When it comes to human body parts, eyeballs make the best keepsakes

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Tunnel isn’t quite on the same level as something as weirdly haunting as Lake Mungo, but it’s another example of how a fresh approach at a seemingly played-out subgenre can still work. A sequel has been planned, and if director Carlo Ledesma comes back, I’d be happy to check it out. 

The Unsinkable Lovely Molly

The last time I sat down to watch a film by ½ the Blair Witch team, I was saddled with The Believers, a good idea mangled into a dull movie. Despite this disappointment, the Internet told me that Lovely Molly—an indie made by the OTHER 1/2—was actually quite good.

Let us judge without prejudice. 

Quick Plot: After Molly’s to-the-camera suicide attempt prologue, we flash back a few months to her happy wedding day to Tim, a nice guy truck driver. Although their nuptial toasts are filled with vaguely ominous hints towards a troubled past, the couple seems content enough living together in Molly’s childhood home.

They are not.

Little by little, we piece together some facts: Molly and Tim are financially challenged and need all the work hours (or Tim’s out-of-town trips) they can get. Molly is a recovering drug addict. Her late father was a very bad man. And older sister Hannah (Dead End’s Alexandra Holden) has secrets of her own.

In just two weeks, Molly is spinning out of control. Though she tries to maintain her sanity by documenting her days via found footage, there’s something amiss. The question remains: is she relapsing, losing her mind due to buried childhood trauma, or just an unlikely horror movie victim of demonic possession?

Directed by Eduardo Sanchez, Lovely Molly has been receiving a fair amount of praise in the genre blogging circles and I’m pleased to say that it’s well deserved. Though the film isn’t a game changer a la Sanchez’s more famous effort, Lovely Molly has plenty going for it to make the film haunting, memorable, and disturbing on a deeply sad level.

A lot of credit goes to actress Gretchen Lodge in the title role. With a haircut that subtly winks to Mia Farrow, Lodge has the challenge of playing a woman haunted by something unknown. As the audience, we never quite learn if her downward spiral is caused by psychosis or the supernatural, and while Molly isn’t sure herself, Lodge never backs away. Whether she’s shivering behind a camera in the middle of the night or trashing up the join in smoky eye shadow to seduce a local minister, the actress always seems in control of a character who is anything but.

What really makes Lovely Molly special though is its unusual ambiguity. It’s not that uncommon for a minimalist horror film to skirt around the specifics, but there’s something about Lovely Molly’s approach that feels fresh. Compare it to the recent dud Silent House, which tried to build itself on what you couldn’t see only to then draw everything in gigantic print using permanent red marker and THEN crossed everything off because nothing you saw made any sense anyway (not that I’m still bitter about that or anything). 

I could see some viewers being very turned off by Lovely Molly’s noncommittal nature, but I think the execution ultimately makes it effective whether you leave confused or satisfied. The early sequences of suggested horror are done quite well, as quiet sound design plants the seeds of horror that may or may not be paid off in the long run. The film is filled with slightly off images that aren’t explained but linger uncomfortably, be they Molly’s dry humping the air or a photo album ominously collaged with horse heads. 

Though not a perfect film, Lovely Molly is a fresh, surprising, well-executed, and genuinely unnerving little indie that finds something new in a simple and well-trod premise. After 13 years of watching countless filmmakers rub his film’s belly for inspiration, it’s nice to see Sanchez return with something like this.

High Notes
One of my recent miffs with horror cinema has been the seemingly unlimited finances of its characters, be they Screfourem’s deluxe suburban kitchens or Paranormal Activity’s upper middle class snobbery. By making its leads working class, Lovely Molly instantly garners a little more sympathy and also sets up important (and identifiable) roadblocks that helps facilitate the horror

Low Notes
While I like the idea of integrating some bits of found footage from Molly’s handheld camcorder, it never really seems to come together with the full story in a way that makes those shaky cam moments (always undercut by standard filming) worthwhile

Lessons Learned
If your sister is a recovering heroin addict, it’s probably not a good idea to bring over a bag of pot when she’s home alone

Breaking your vows as a minister isn't the worst thing a man of the cloth could do, but the smart ones would avoid doing so with someone who might just totally and very obviously be insane

Crappy health insurance or not, when your boss catches you on surveillance video miming sex with a stranger, it’s time to see a doctor

Rent/Bury/Buy
Lovely Molly is well worth a rental for a quiet and chilly night. While it won’t change horror like Sanchez’s more famous debut, it is a refreshingly new take on ye olde possession tale that works to both make you think and creep you out. The DVD includes a few—whaddya know—Curse of the Blair Witch-style featurettes that purport Molly’s haunting to be deeply rooted in history. They don’t add much, but at five minutes each, they’re fun enough and bring an extra layer or two to the mythos of the film. 

Somewhere Over the Rainbow (you might go crazy)

It might surprise you to learn that sandwiched between Dawn of the Dead and The Wicker Man, my second favorite film of all time is a little classic known as The Wizard of Oz. Allow me to display some photographic evidence of such:

Yup, that’s me with my big brother and a little Munchkin who visited a local Blockbuster Video in 1989 to sign autographs and pose for pictures with star struck second graders. Note that I am indeed taller. Note that I am also the same height today.

Moving on, there were two things that led me to queuing up 2011’s YellowBrickRoad on ye olde convenient Instant Watch:

1-Its clear connection to the REAL best film of 1939 (screw you, Scarlet O’Hara)

And 2-Like the great premised, terribly executed Vanishing on 7^th Street, it seemed to play with the haunting idea of the disappeared members of the Roanoke Colony, something I’ve always found fascinating. Though YellowBrickRoad doesn’t explicitly name that nugget of history, the idea feels close enough that it must have served as some inspiration.

Quick Plot: Teddy and Melissa are married academic explorers who team up with their professor friend Walter on a research project of Friar, a town where 70 years earlier, the whole population followed a trail and came back dead. Though the locals are reluctant to drudge up the past, the team amasses a few more members (a map-making sibling pair, spacey intern, forest ranger, and New Hampshah townie) to follow the titular YellowBrickRoad into the woods while documenting their findings for a book.

Echoes of Blair Witch sound through the early scenes, but YellowBrickRoad is far more ambitious than it initially appears. First-time directors Jesse Holland and Andy Mitton tell a mostly straightforward narrative, though they occasionally mix in still photographs or recorded interviews throughout. Walter documents the heads of his team, videotaping each member discussing memories or reciting the alphabet backwards to gauge their mindset. As you probably expect, said interviews reveal the slow cracks in sanity that happen when you cross over into Oz.

Sure, YellowBrickRoad’s basic formula is familiar, but the execution is actually quite fresh. It begins with some old timey music, the low undertones of which are heard by the whole group in a ‘maybe we’re crazy, maybe someone’s messing with us, or maybe it’s REAL’ mystery that works because sound designer Daniel Brennan’s work is actually incredible. One sequence follows the group through a high-pitched beeping as they can only communicate on paper. It might sound annoying (and it is) but it’s also quite horrifying.

There are berries to not be eaten (and of course, totally eaten), water not to be wasted (until it’s used to put out fires that didn’t have to be started in the first place), hoarded candy stashes and unrequited love stories inside YellowBrickRoad, and honestly, that’s fine. This is the sort of film that’s culled from other sources, but Holland and Mitton--along with a far better than average cast—work hard to make it pop, giving each character his or her due and payoff.

MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW

YellowBrickRoad clocks in at 100 minutes, and unfortunately like so many new horror films, it seems to check out at 99. For the majority of its running time, the atmosphere—crafted on an effectively used low budget—is perfectly unsettling and each crescendo as terrifying or bizarre or weirdly humorous-turned-bizarre as intended. It SCARED me, and it’s not often that I can say that as I pluck the gray strands out before my 30^th birthday.

But GRRRR did the final shot or two make me say GRRR. While there’s a good chance I’ll look at it differently upon second viewing and am more than open to hearing any defenses, I just found the film lost me once it left the woods. I don't have a theory on the ending yet--was it a twist? was it all about Teddy? Is he now in hell?--and perhaps I'll change my mind upon second viewing. It definitely says something positive to the film that I'm eager to give it one.


THUS ENDETH SPOILERS

High Notes

Sometimes you forget how important good acting is in a genre film. Though nobody channels Meryl Streep in YellowBrickRoad, there’s not a bad performance in the ensemble. We like (mostly) and most importantly, BELIEVE the cast, making their fates all the more devastating

I mentioned this back in the early Doll’s House days when reviewing The Signal (also starring Anessa Ramsay, oddly enough) but it never fails: weaponless violence unnerves me. The first major bout of horror here is primarily made with one’s hands, and while other reviewers may have found it laughable, I found it horrifying in both a darkly serious and darkly comedic absurd kinda way. Likewise, verbal descriptions on neck snapping? Ick!

Low Notes

Aforementioned ending

Lessons Learned

Berries are for squishing (or getting high)

If you already bare a striking physical and audio resemblance to Richard Dreyfuss, you might as well embrace it and quote some of his more famous Jaws lines when appropriate

New England ushers are generally jerks

Rent/Bury/Buy

Now streaming on Netflix Instant, I heartily recommend YellowBrickRoad to those who enjoy good modern horror. It will probably do little to sway those naysayers who despise anything made in the 21^st century, but this is a sharply made horror film packed with pleasantly mean surprises, strong performances across the board, and a unique vision and ear that makes fantastic use of its look and sound. I’d sell my ruby slippers for a more satisfying ending, but I still heartily endorse YellowBrickRoad as an excellent block of evidence that there are indeed good genre filmmakers working today.

Razzmatazz!

It’s easy to get angry over the annual injustice of the Academy Awards, but we can only mock Mira Sorvino’s luck or fruitlessly wave a David Cronenberg flag so many times before our own Oscar the Grouch routine sounds bitter. To thoroughly cite all the great genre performances and films neglected by the Academy Awards is as daunting a task as actually watching the ten Best Picture nominees of 2010 (mainly because that requires you to sit through The Blind Side), but there’s one annual national film society ceremony horror fans can, year after year, invest some stock in: The Golden Raspberries, aka the only trophy to be won by both Tom Green and Laurence Olivier.

We can be thankful that movies as awful as The Happening get recognized for the cinematic crimes they commit against the ticket buying public, but every now and then, the Razzies get it wrong. Sometimes it’s an oversight, as many voters probably try their darnest to erase the memory of certain bad films (I didn’t even remember that I’d seen Friday the 13th: Part XII this year. More often, the Razzmacademy gets a little too eager to punish some of the less critically acclaimed, but not necessarily awful cinema that’s simply an easy target. 

Here are a few Razzie wins and snubs that just don’t add up:

Megan Fox in Jennifer’s Body

There are a lot of people currently breathing who dream of watching the slow death/D-list descent of Ms. Megan Fox, but just because a person’s sound bites are more annoying than Mentos commercials doesn’t mean every single performance she gives is a total dud. In Jennifer’s Body--a film targeted as the second coming of Satan according to a vocal segment of the horror community--Fox is perfectly cast as a Mean Girl turned truly evil (not, like, high school evil) and hungry for the blood of horny teenage boys. Yes, Fox’s primary responsibility is to look hot in a cheerleader skirt, but she easily hits the right notes in a role custom made for her (probably limited) range. She’s no Jennifer Tilly in Seed of Chucky, but on a certain level, there’s some genuinely fun about her self-aware work. 

The Blair Witch/Book of Shadows

In fairness, the 1999 nomination for this juggernaut hit was probably more the result of general weariness from the onslaught of fan-films and true story debate than the actual quality of The Blair Witch Project. But a nomination for worst film? This in the year that was Baby Geniuses and Chill Factor? Similarly, the sequel continues to slowly build a late blooming audience who appreciate the film’s playful meta take on the very success of its predecessor. It’s not classic, but surely there were worse films to nab nominations in 2000. Don’t believe me? Hanging Up, Drowning Mona, Pokeman: The Movie, Digimon: The Movie, Autumn in New York, The Ladies Man, and Dungeons & Dragons might have something to say about that. If anybody remembered any of them existed. 

Paris Hilton in horror

I’m no Paris Hilton apologist. If I ever find a genetically deformed monkey’s paw, there’s a good chance its extra pinky may indeed be used to wish her fame into oblivion. That being said, there’s nothing about her underwhelming, if adequate performance in House of Wax that’s worse than Jessica Simpson’s slack-jawed mumbling in The Dukes of Hazard or, more importantly, Katie Holmes’ dull and unbelievable zombie stare in the nearly great The Dark Knight. I could easily call foul on the Razzie voting committee for her 2005 win, particularly when they gave her a hat trick four years later for one deservedly awful (beyond words) performance in The Hottie and the Nottie (please don’t ever make me type those words again) and one actual better than anyone expected (or wants to admit) performance in Repo! The Genetic Opera.

Anaconda

Great movie? Not by most standards. Damn good fun with decent production values and a rich sense of humor? You betcha. So why did 1997’s Anaconda earn a place in Razzie history with multiple nominations, including Worst Picture, Worst Supporting Actor (Jon Voight the performance of his career...seriously) and Worst New Star? More importantly, how is an animatronic/CGI snake considered a New Star?

The Shining

Stanley Kubrick was never a universally loved artist, but to cite him in the Worst Director  category at the Razzies debut ceremony is appalling in any time. At least he was in some highbrow company: Brian De Palma and William Friedken shared the honor.

The Horror of Hype

Genre fans tend to feel a little unpatrioritc pledging allegiance to the same mass-produced flag saluted by 80% of the general public. We’re far more comfortable digging our way through dusty, sometimes crusty DVDs in questionable basement or neon lit video stores than we are sitting amongst the Friday night crowd at the week’s big release. 

It’s no wonder then that movies like Paranormal Activity throw some of us for a loop. How, you ask, could I possibly enjoy the same film that my coworker with the Twilight screensaver has been raving about all month? At the same time, we also get stuck trying to evaluate our own opinions amidst the chokingly thick fog of fanboy enthusiasm that surrounds new cult favorites like Hatchet and Grace. 

So how, you ask, can one navigate the dead-end, it’s-not-as-good-as-people-say labyrinth that is viewer hype? To find a map, we first have to consider the type o’ hype, and I don’t just say that because rhyming is fun.

1.  Long Awaited Hype 

Admit it: you drooled like an overly hydrated zombie when details surrounding Land of the Dead surfaced, just as you giddily brushed off your boomstick at the sound of Sam Raimi returning to his horror roots with Drag Me to Hell. When our childhood heroes reupholster their bloodstained director’s chairs, our own expectations can grow to unreachable heights. Thus, when George Romero makes a decent, if weirdly clean smelling zombie film with a happy ending in the 21st century, we put aside the flaws of the obnoxiously acted Day of the Dead and its own cheat of a final shot in order to blast horror’s indie king for seeming to sell out for CGI and Canada. 

As hard--or maybe impossible--as it is, any film needs to be seen on its own terms and unless it’s in 3D, with no tinted glasses to fog our sight. Sure, it’s depressing to watch Dario Argento continue to roll down a hill of film quality and near impossible to not look up the address of the actress narrating Diary of the Dead in the hopes of slaying her puppies and tearing our her vocal chords, but I promise you that these directors didn’t make these films simply because they hate you. Maybe they’ve lost touch or maybe their visions were simply more startling in another era. Either way, the main thing to remember is that a film should be judged against itself, not your memory of its older brother.

2.  Defensive Hype

There’s a reason nobody makes feel good features documenting the NY Yankees. We don’t care about winners born into luxury, and while not all genre fans can latch onto a sports analogy, everybody loves an underdog. 

Hence, horror loyalists stand on virtual soapboxes to warn passerbys about studio-backed cash cows like Saw while gleefully catching rides on The Midnight Meat Train. Is it fair? In theory, yes, but this comes from a long-suffering Met fan well accustomed to disappointment. Likewise, Lions Gate earned genre fan disapproval when it failed to give a wide release to 2008‘s public transportation terror trip, and I waved my fist in solidarity. 

Then I saw the movie.

While it wasn’t nearly as awful as some recent remade offerings (I’m still washing out my eyeballs for the stain imprinted by Black Xmas)Midnight Meat Train just....wasn’t good. Well-acted and polished, but dank, oddly plotted, and ultimately, quite uninvolving. Aside from battle ready horror fans and Cliver Barker bookworms, would full price ticket buyers really have wanted to spend their Friday night allowance on such an unlikable film? The same could easily be said for Repo! The Genetic Opera, a polarizing rock opera that amassed an army of devotees alongside a migraine suffering horde of conflicted haters.

The best solution I can conjure is to assume nothing. Praise the idea of an original film and support its release for people to actually see, but don’t force yourself to love something that simply isn’t your taste pallet. This leads us to ...

3. But I’m Supposed To Love This, Right?

What do you mean, you didn’t want to marry Hatchet and have its pickaxe babies? And really: what are you doing going out to a Halloween party when you could be home rewatching Trick ‘r Treat, aka The Greatest Horror Film Of All Time, for the ninetieth time this week? 

Of all the hypes out in the cinematic universe, this may be the most difficult to overcome. After two years of nearly universal ravings about a little unreleased horror anthology, it’s hard to watch a film without feeling sadly underwhelmed, angrily disappointed, or unconsciously bullied into submission (remember: Alllllllllllllll the boys love Mandy Lane). 

We could certainly try to build our own Skinner boxes and block out any rumblings from around the genre community, but in the age of blogs, podcasts, and bootlegs, that’s about as realistic as Martyrs getting an Oscar for best foreign film (what, you agree? you didn’t like Martyrs? What kind of fan are you?) Ultimately there is no such thing as a universal opinion, even in a more isolated specimen like the horror community. There’s nothing wrong with not loving a film that makes Fangoria swoon, but try to not let your dislike grow with the positivity of others; don’t hate it more just to match the positive intensity of those who enjoyed it. The best way to handle this is to return to the film several months--or years--after its buzz has been died down. Sometimes, you can only discover what your genuine thoughts are after they don’t seem to matter anymore.

4.  Mainstream Mania

In many ways, Gore Verbinski has earned a rigidly uncomfortable seat for himself in the filmmaker realm of hell. No, the mini pirate boom of the 00s wasn’t that bad, but his fairly big budgeted Americanized take on Ringu is the heavily botoxed grandma when it comes to remakes, aka the Scourge of 21st Century Horror. And to think, most of 2002‘s The Ring‘s impressive box office return came straight out of the pockets of...well...everyone. Men, women, eighth graders...you couldn’t throw your popcorn without hitting someone raving about that randomly scary film they caught in the theaters, much as

Paranormal Activity and 1999’s The Blair Witch Project commandeered a normally neutral audience immune to the haunts of quiet horror.

So where does that leave you? You can’t be the only one in the office without a take on why Michael was standing in the corner, and more importantly, you may be the only one with the sense to explain that no dear, Heather, Michael, & Josh are NOT still lost in the Burketsville woods. Plus, if you avoid a film just because everybody else didn’t, you might actually miss a good movie.

Think of the experience like dining in a fancy, highly recommended but seemingly overrated restaurant you’ve yet to patron. You have to make reservations. Wait 45 minutes and still end up in a less than desirable seating area, then deal with rude waiters. After all that, even a decent meal can’t live up to the hype. Likewise, when watching a too-talked about film, one must be careful to judge it on its own terms. Any extra effort only adds to the aggravation and inevitable unmet expectation. 

In other words, wait a month into a film’s run and hit up an economy priced matinee. Make sure that when you give the film your less-than-premium-price dollars, you can judge the film on its own merits, rather than the experience that surrounded your viewing.

5. Late-to-the-Party Classics

We’ve all hear our parents and grandparents wax nostalgic on how Frankenstein lurched through their nightmares and Psycho made Janet Leigh swear off showering, but depending on your initiation process into genre cinema, many older classics can fall flat on modern eyes. Some timeless films work in any era, but when you’ve eaten cereal shaped like smiling vampires, it’s hard to accept that Bela Lugosi’s Dracula was once a force to be feared.

In order to enjoy a film that’s been written about for 30+ years, it helps to understand why it’s still relevant in today’s cinematic universe. Something like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, for example, may seem rather--well, silent--upon a blind watch, but pop in the special edition after after Blade Runner, Total Recall, or Dark City and note some of the architectural inspiration. From Birth to JoshuaRosemary’s Baby as the matriarch of eerily sterile NYC thrillers. Sometimes, the only way to fully appreciate an older, possibly dated film is to go backwards and watch with your head, not heart.

So which films have you hated due to humongous hype, or felt never had a true chance in the face of overexposure? Share your thoughts but remember: don’t get too excited. Then I’ll have to figure out what the Hype-Over-Hype-Type-Hype means, and that gives me a bigger headache than hearing Bill Moseley duet with Paris Hilton.

D'oh! So That's Why I'm Dead

Devoted horror fans put up with a lot. Bad acting and clunky dialogue are often standard, while roving misogyny and special effects made during arts ‘n’ crafts class are not uncommon. Worse of all, we find ourselves constantly defending a genre littered with characters that make Jessica Simpson look like a Rhodes Scholar.

Sadly even good horror films are not immune. Let’s look at a few examples where seemingly smart characters doom themselves with stupid decisions. 

Mapping The Blair Witch Project

From the plain-faced actors to the music-less sounds of autumn, The Blair Witch Project achieved a sense of realism so true, gullible fans formed vigilant search missions to save the ill-fated (and fictional) filmmaker trio. For all its clever plotting and subtle scenes, however, there is one glaring plot flaw that could make even the most loyal fan say, “At least Book of Shadows didn’t do that.

"I kicked the map into the river!"proclaims the giggling, near hysteric Mike. It’s certainly understandable that being lost in the woods and low on food would play with our characters’ heads here and there, but could it also transform a once smart man into a total idiot? Granted, the map would probably have served no other purpose than becoming a sharp paper airplane to jab into Heather’s eye, but still: making a character that careless cuts our sympathies by a granola bar portion.

The Beyond Stupidity

It’s easy to watch a zombie film these days with a sense of superiority. After experiencing hundreds encounters with shamblers, sprinters, talkers, and every other varietal, most discerning fans know the only way to survive a meeting with an undead warrior is to shoot him or her in the head. Of course, in 1981, this wasn’t quite universal knowledge and thus, David Warbek’s heroic doctor in Lucio Fulci’s surreal classic is somewhat excused for firing a few stray rounds. For an untrained marksman, the head is not always the most obvious target.

Of course, all that should change when, after shooting a bunch of rotting corpses to no effect in the stomach, a head shot finally takes one down. Most people--especially those with enough intelligence to pass medical school--would probably reason that repeating said shot could defeat the approaching monsters. This guy? Not so much. Then again, he does load his rifle by dropping bullets down the barrel, so maybe he just knows something we don’t.

Taking Advantage of The Ruins

Stranded on an abandoned temple, surrounded by gun-wielding natives, and running out of food and water, the five pretty young people of 2008’s surprisingly good little horror film have little hope for survival. Well, they do have one weapon but despite the fair amount of intelligence present in these young college educated characters, no one thinks to take advantage of the one piece of leverage they have against their human antagonists: the villainous plants. 

When Jenna Malone breaks down, she hurls a loose piece of greenery straight at her captors. It brushes a young boy and before you can say poison ivy, another local soldier instantly shoots the unlucky fellow. Logic would follow that tossing a few more flowers in their direction could buy a little time by inciting a shootout, perhaps providing enough chaos for a frantic escape. I guess our party girls and boys slept through Logic and Survival Skills 101 freshman year.

That Darned Pet Sematary

Mary Lamber’s 1989 adaptation of Stephen King’s novel has produced its share of nightmares (in mine, Gage and Chucky would teamed up against me as the world’s scariest duo with a combined height under four feet) but in order to truly  be frightened, the audience is forced to endure not one but three character decisions that defy basic logic.

The kindly retired Hermann Munster/author of wonderful children’s books Fred Gwynne plays a weathered old man who knows his home town well. Upon the death of the new neighbors’ beloved kitty, Gwynne’s Jud encourages Mr. Creed to bury it in the local pet graveyard, knowing full well that what goes into the ground will come up...different. And never good.

Not surprisingly, the feline Church returns with an extremely unreasonable dose of cattitude. You’d think the young father had learned his lesson, but then true tragedy strikes, killing his young son. Naturally, the best idea seems to be a post-mortem move back into the old neighborhood. This not-so-bright decision can certainly be excused when taking into account the grief of losing a child, so I’ll cut the grieving father some slack. However, upon being widowed (whaddya know, by the very monster he helped to create), Mr. Creed returns again to the clearly cursed pet cemetery to bury his late wife. Because surely three times is the charm.

Really? Sure, your daughter is conveniently stashed away at Grandma’s, but if you think this move is going to inspire a second honeymoon, prepare for some serious disappointment.

Dumbness in Dawn of the Dead ’04

I spent several years working in the pet care industry and have owned dogs and cats my whole life. I know how deeply love can run with the canine species. 

I’m also not an idiot.

According to Zack Snyder and James Gunn’s revision of the zombie rules, freshly spry corpses run faster than Ricky Henderson in his prime. They’re also pickier eaters than the average supermodel, preferring an Atkins friendly menu of human meat with no cheats allowed on puppy ribs. Hence, when border collie Chips is dispatched to bring a few sandwiches to the sharpshooting Andy, he doesn’t need protection. 

Tell that to the whiny redhead who puts several lives in danger attempting to rescue the completely safe dog.

So am I being too hard on these intellectually inferior (and massively unlucky) characters, or should they all invest in a few good books? And which other casts would you nominate for Darwin Awards and certain death?