In Versus, two escaped convicts rendezvous with a Yakuza gang in a woods who are supposed to aid in their escape. But, it soon becomes apparent that these Yakuza have orders and they are not to help the convicts. When tempers flare over the kidnapped girl that the Yakuza brought along, a firefight breaks out that leaves one gangster dead…but, not for long. After convict KSC2-303 and the kidnapped girl flee into the forest, the Yakuza soon find out that they are in the Forest Of Resurrection where the dead don’t stay dead. That coupled with the fact that the Yakuza have been disposing of their bodies here for a long time means recapturing the girl and the convict will be a tougher job. When the boss finally arrives, the reason why the kidnapped girl and convict KSC2-303 had to come together in the forest of resurrection comes to light.
Although there are zombies afoot in the Forest Of Resurrection, Versus really isn’t much of a zombie movie. The zombies play a much smaller part than one would think from the premise or from reading the cover. The camera pretty much avoids the zombies faces, but the make-up looks pretty minimal, with more attention paid to them looking like they just sprung from the ground (i.e. really dirty looking) rather than dead and decomposed looking. It’s not exactly clear how these zombies are killed either. Head shots don’t necessarily do it. It would seem that to kill a zombie in the Forest Of Resurrection, one needs to shoot the zombie a lot, then marvel at the fact that they are not dead yet, then, express a look of greater resolve and more determination and shoot the zombie even more, possibly blowing a hole in their body that you could fly a paper airplane through or, more commonly done, point the camera through so that the viewer could see the zombies assailant through it before falling down. This seems to work swimmingly.
None of this is to say the Versus is in any way a bad film. It’s actually quite cool and entertaining. While light on zombies, it’s definitely heavy with gore and blood. It doesn’t quite reach Story Of Ricky level gore, but it’s definitely creeping up behind with a .50 Caliber rifle and an over-sized sword with superfluous spikes and things jutting out of it. With heads flying off, folks split in half and portholes blown through men, the special effects gore lends an air of black comedy and slapstick that breaks up the serious over-the-top action that this flick is no doubt known for. The fight scenes are expertly choreographed plus well shot and edited without a lick of CGI. They have an old Samurai meets new fangled gangster movie way about them that nails your ass to the seat.
An interesting point to this movie is that none of the characters have names. The closest thing to a name that anyone has in the escaped convict KSC2-303. Even the boss is only referred to as “him” and “he”. Yet, this doesn’t get in the way of the movies consistency or enjoyability.
While I wouldn’t recommend this to zombie movie buffs, I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anybody with an affinity for action and Kung Fu movies because Versus definitely delivers the goods. I was glad I saw this movie.
Super-awesome independent book/ comic publisher Last Gasp is releasing Tokyo Zombie, the manga, in an English language edition for the first time ever! It will be out on September 18, 2008. You can watch the trailer for the film version in our Classic Zombie Trailer Archive here. For more information on the manga, check out the blog Same Hat! Same Hat! I can’t wait!
The American remake of the Spanish film [REC], titled Quarantine, now has a release date of October 17, 2008. You can visit the official website site here. You can also enter to win a free trip to the Comic Con International in San Diego, this July, check out photo stills from the film, and watch the full trailer right here:
This is marketing trickery at it’s best. The cover looks like it’s a zombie film, they pushed it as a zombie film, and the director in the DVD extras calls it a zombie film. But, it’s no zombie film at all.
What it really is though, is a horrible, horrible film that tries to be scary and original, but fails at every aspect. It’s chock full of bad horror clichés, like the lights going out, the flashlight dying, shadows in window, the rocking chair that rocks on it’s own (!!!), and so on.
The story involves a girl, Becky, who’s parents die while she’s out partying at a local bar. She’s so guilt ridden about it that she keeps “seeing” them in her house, where they all lived together, so she takes off and heads to their cabin on a lake. Obviously, she picks up a creepy hitchhiker, during a torrential downpour, on the way to the cabin. He just happens to live a few cabins down and they get all “buddy buddy” during their car ride together. At the cabin by the lake, weird stuff starts happening!
You meet a stereotypical little horror film girl, you meet the Ed Wood-esque cops, you see weird lights and hear weird noises and this goes on for the whole film. The “zombies”, I use this word very loosely here, show up, but never really do anything but walk around and look non-threatening. In a moment of “what the fuck just happened?”, there’s an animated blood-splat that hits the screen (!?!). Why? Who knows. And then you get to the part of the film where Becky starts spouting off about all of the religious aspects of the “weird happenings” around the lake, sounding more like a religious philosopher, than a party girl she’s been portrayed as the whole film.
Ghost Lake makes no sense at all, the “zombies” are generic and crappy, and the acting is really, really bad. I would never recommend this film to anybody. Ever. Stay clear.
House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return is the Nintendo Wii port of a long running series of arcade games by Sega. It’s a quick, pick-up-and-play game that offers fun for both the hardcore gamer as well as the more casual video game fans.
Similar to the arcade games, this port has the player utilize the Wii remote as a light gun to blast away at endless hordes of zombies. Gameplay is simple: just point your Wii remote at the zombies on the screen and press the trigger button to shoot them; reload by pointing off-screen. Although on paper is sounds simple enough, when faced with multiple enemies all dodging your bullets it can become quite frantic. Add to this strangers in need of saving, secret areas, and multiple play options and you have a robust package with lots of replayability.
House of the Dead 2 was originally released in 1998, and unfortunately the graphics look a little dated. There is some horrendous voice acting to go along with a barely comprehensible plot, but these don’t really take away from the game’s overall experience. In House of the Dead 2, the original arcade experience is left largely in tact. The one major difference is that from the start you are only given 4 credits to work with compared to the limited-only-by-the-amount-of-quarters-you-want-to-spend experience of the arcade game. The game also includes an “original” mode which is like the arcade game but with a few role-playing elements scattered throughout.
House of the Dead 3 is a little more recent release (2002) and the improvement made to the graphics really shows. The environments and zombies are much more realistic looking. Gameplay is much the same as House of the Dead 2, but feels like there are less “cheap shots” taken where a hit seems unavoidable. House of the Dead 3 also features an “extreme” mode with more play options and harder difficulty level.
Overall, it’s a fun quick game that you can feel comfortable investing as little or as much of your time into. Bring over a friend for some two player action and you won’t regret it.
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