Rider Reimagines Monkey Shines

Alternate title: Proof I Can Write About George A. Romero Movies Without Lapsing Into Zombie-speak

I caught Romero's 1988 flick Monkey Shines on IFC last night (for the first time since its video release) and it didn't disappoint. It had all the elements of a perfect film: quadriplegic sex, a killer monkey wielding matches and syringes, and John Pankow's enormous forehead.

But deep down inside my wooden cranium I wondered how it could be better. How could it be updated with current celebrities and state-of-the-art FX to really make that monkey shine?

For starters, I'd put Jason Statham in the wheelchair. He'd still be the quadriplegic hero who uses a mouth-tube to roll around his house, but I'd set the film in a future where he telepathically controls a pair of hologram arms for getting dressed. That way, when Yakuza cyborg-ninjas attack, Statham's "holarms" can defend him with a twisted-up shirt. Besides, his contract stipulates that clothing be used as a weapon in at least one scene.

Ella, the helper monkey who both loves and taunts him, will be played by Dakota Fanning. I'll use Lord of the Rings-like forced perspective and camera tricks to make her appear 18 inches tall. Nothing will make the audience cheer more than when Statham seizes little Dakota's neck with his teeth and chokes the life out of her as she gibbers and screeches. Fanning doesn't do her own stunts, so we'd have to use a Monchichi stand-in.

I'll change the epilogue to bring the Statham legend full circle: after his character's spinal surgery is a success, his girlfriend picks him up at the hospital (she's played by Angelina Jolie's CG doppelgänger in Beowulf but voiced by Doc Hammer as "Dr. Girlfriend"). She's driving a black Audi A8 or a BMW--depending on who offers more for product placement. It seems they're going to move to France, and he's going to call himself...Frank Martin! Never mind that it's set in 2021 and The Transporter took place in '02. It's Statham. Why question it?

After the credits roll, we'll fade back in on a rural Pennsylvania farmhouse, and a voice on the radio will say, "The dead are rising from their graves and eating the flesh of the living."

D'oh!

I'm Not (Un)Dead Yet

My site meter shows you've been lurking for fresh posts. I'll get to them soon. For now you'll have to be satisfied with zombies reciting poetry. Who'da thunk a severed foot could be an effective punch line?

Rider Explains the Appeal of Zombie Movies - Part Uno

A new feature on the Block, where your humble host Rider attempts to explain the appeal of zombie movies. If you ever meet him at a blogger party and you've run out of topics--i.e. why Whatchamacallits are the best candy bar on the planet, 100 reasons why John Mayer is a tool, how Sprint is the worst cellular carrier in the U.S. and will fold within 12 months, etc.--there will be no need for awkward silences. He will have sparked a desire in your heart to seek out movies and books about the walking dead and you'll have more interesting things to discuss than why Dr Zibbs has been in the bathroom for an hour or how drunk McGone is again.

Our first installment focuses on the most obvious reason why zombie movies are so appealing...

It's fun taking out pent-up frustrations on family members and other worthless members of society.

Come on, admit it: you've wished your family members dead at least once in your life. Maybe it was the time mom smacked you when you spilled milk and sent you to bed without your liver and onions, and as soon as your bedroom door shut you whispered, "I wish God would take her in her sleep tonight."

And the next day she cooked you scrambled eggs and bacon and you loved her again--but the point remains: you wished your mother dead over trivial shit at a young age. That's a deep-seated instinct that never goes away, my friend.

Cut to a standard dilemma in every classic zombie movie since 1968's Night of the Living Dead: a character's brother or daughter is killed in a zombie epidemic, has a brief moment of peace, then opens their milky eyes and suddenly lunges after them with a garden trowel. Surprise!

It's you or them, dear reader. You don't want to kill Uncle Rudy, you have to. But what your inner self is actually whispering is, "Now you get to."

The primary reason why zombie flicks are so awesome is because you live out the fantasy of putting a bullet in the brain of the brother who teased you incessantly, the roommate who stuck you with a $1,500 phone bill from porn calls,* or the teacher who ridiculed you in front of the class for not knowing pi to the tenth decimal.

Or, as pictured, the birthday clown who once creeped you out and gave you nightmares and a life-long unpredictable bladder. Usually triggered by Ronald McDonald making parade appearances.

* True story. Sadly.

Nominee #1 for Favorite Supporting Character in a Horror Movie, 2008

I loves me an Amish man and he's not Harrison Ford in Witness.

The first half of George Romero's Diary of the Dead rocked my little world, but the whole movie really picked up steam when a character named Samuel made his first appearance.

If you haven't seen it--and why the hell haven't you?--Samuel is a farmer caught up in a zombie uprising in Pennsylvania.

You'd think his character description would end there--since he appears in the movie less than five minutes--but he's so much more.

He's also a deaf/mute Amish man who communicates with a chalkboard and tosses sticks of dynamite with amazing accuracy. He can take out three of the walking dead in a single throw.

Samuel is my first nominee of the year for favorite supporting character in a horror movie. Watch it and just see if you don't fall in love, too.

This is now my BlockBerry's wallpaper, as it should be yours

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U2 3D: How's It Compare to a Zombie Flick?™

U2 3D featured:

• An astoundingly crisp 3D experience
• Inspiring performances by true rock masters
• Heavy-handed political rants were kept to a minimum--which aided in a surprisingly high Rotten Tomatoes score
• A damn-near perfect set list (including "The Fly"!)

But not once in U2 3D did a flight attendant ram the business end of an umbrella into a zombie's mouth and out the back of her skull--and then click it open for effect. I had to rent Flight of the Living Dead to see a special effect of that magnitude, and I'm a better person for it.