I'm Cuckoo for Zombies!

YES! I'M cuckoo for zombies like a tiger digs frosted flakes. All zombie movies are excellent, but the ones with humor are the cream of the crop.

The best zombie movie ever is Shaun of the Dead. It's a British film and I love the snarky humor that the Brits do oh so well. In fact, I sell a lot of t-shirts and bumper stickers in that part of the world (insert shameless plug here >> www.cuckooforzombies.com. )

I'm not a fan of all horror movies. The slasher and senseless violence movies like My Bloody Valentine or Friday the 13th: number 2, 3, 4, 5, 6...42 are just stupid and I have to say pretty formulaic. I've been looking for a chance to use the word formulaic without it looking like it was on my word of the day calendar and LOOK-here it is!

I think that's why I enjoyed Scary Movie so much. I mean, we all know what's going to happen in a slasher movie, right?

• No! Don't go into the basement/woods/tool shed/serial-killer-rec-room-that's-clearly-marked all by yourself!
• ACK! Look behind you! [they never never DO even when I try to warn them by screaming at the television.]
• All minor characters get taken out one at a time to build the suspense of the final dual between the bad guy and the main character. However, the minor characters are always killed off one by one in order of importance, which generally means in order of minority/gender/ or funny but expandable sidekick. 
• Flashlights NEVER work, or only work long enough to make you feel safe about going into the basement/woods/tool shed/serial-killer-rec-room-that's-clearly-marked!

So, that's why I prefer zombie movies. First of all zombies are the slowest villains ever! Basically, you're watching a geriatric-like monster travel at negative 7 mph towards an able-bodied hero who somehow, always JUST gets away. Suspense in slow motion! It's fabulous. And no matter what, I end up screaming and jumping off the couch in fright. I do this even when I've seen the movie on 6 previous occasions.  I've never actually watched a zombie movie with another human, I'd like to keep all my friends. I would like to watch one on the big screen, but I'm pretty sure they would bodily remove me from the theater in the first 10 minutes... and they may need duct tape.

And I hate shutting my eyes at the gory parts. Instead I will pause the movie, jump around for a while and sing a happy song until I'm calm enough to continue with the show. This means it took me three days to watch Zombieland... and I loved every minute of it. The best part was that every time I would scream and jump from the couch, my dog would run to the window barking, scaring me even more. So, if you can imagine me jumping up and down singing, my dog barking at the window, intermittently looking to me for some sign of sanity and then... me laughing my ass off when I realized how ridiculous it all was. It's the BEST!

Zombieland is actually my second favorite zombie movie. Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg are brilliant and Bill Murray has a cameo near the end. Let's just say... Bill Murray, always funny! The best part of the story--and a good zombie movie ALWAYS has a story and good character development-- is Woody Harrelson's epic quest for the last Twinkies in a post-apocalyptic-zombie-infested-world. The survival list is fabulous, the humor is pee-your-pants funny and the characters actually pretty endearing.

So, I'm not sure what you're going to dress up as this Halloween, but I can guarantee you I will be on the lookout for roving zombies, probably screaming my head off and then laughing like a loon! It should be a sight.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Why Spike is Better than Angel

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't watched all 7 seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is 39 dvds and approximately... well... I honestly don't know how many hours, but it was a big chunk of my life! then you may want to skip this post. You should know that I'll be giving some things away. I didn't spend that much time glued to my television to not talk about everything Buffy! So beware and if you don't want me to ruin it for you, then read another post, there should be plenty to choose from. If you aren't a Buffy fan, I highly recommend it. It's THE best vampire series that ever was or EVER WILL BE.

I should let you know that I am a total fanpire of most things undead, but Buffy is the icon. All other vampire tales should aspire to be a fraction of what it was. Twilight, schmilight... Buffy is the best!

 

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I'm sure that most people are familiar with David Boreanaz because of his co-starring role in Bones on FOX. He's pretty good in that and he was good in Buffy as well. And lets face it, he's easy on the eyes. For those of you who don't know, he played Angel & Angelis, two sides of the same coin. Angel the tortured vampire with a soul was Buffy's true love. He has two names because essentially he played the "good" and "evil" versions of the same character.

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Spike came into the show later and was the complete anti-Angel. Spike was played by James Marsters and he did it brilliantly. He had to dawn nearly transparent bleach-blonde spiky hair, a British accent and a killer wit (pun totally intended). He was also a vampire of course, but wasn't cursed with a soul as Angel was.

Now, in the beginning of the show, I fell for Angel like every girl who watched him brood his way into Buffy's heart. He was tall dark and handsome, a vampire to boot, a cool celtic tattoo and he had incredible hair! He was cursed by a gypsy after he killed everyone in the gypsy camp save one lone and powerful gypsy woman...  Basically, when one becomes a vampire, the soul disappears. We don't really know where it goes, but it's not incorporated in the being anymore. The gypsy's curse installed the soul back into the body of Angelis the vampire, creating Angel, still a vampire, but now tortured, brooding and adorable. Why is this important? Well, when Angel got his soul back, I remind you he was cursed with it, he had to feel all of the torture, killing and mayhem that he'd done prior to that, which evidently was a pretty long and horrible list. Without a soul, there is no conscience to make you feel bad about what you've done. With a soul, you feel terrible about it. To feel better, he started fighting on the side of the good guys against other vampires, demons and things that go bump in the night. Hoping that one day he would do enough good deeds to erase his guilt.

Spike on the other hand, wasn't cursed with his soul. He was 100% bad-ass vampire, had killed a couple of slayers in his time (which is evidently a big deal) and wore a black leather duster and combat boots to finish the persona. In the beginning, his only goal was to kill the slayer... well he drank a lot and fornicated as well, but isn't that what I meant by "bad-ass"?  I won't go into the whole back story but basically through some twisty turns in fate, Spike starts having an affair with Buffy, does something reprehensible, regrets it and journeys to hell or some other dark dimension to retrieve his soul. Yep, he purposefully went to get his soul back!

Why is this important? Well, first Angel was cursed, he wouldn't have chosen to have his soul back. Spike not only chose it, he went through a series of "kick your ass" trials to get it back! He nearly died getting it back. You may ask why he did this. Love. Of course. Spike loved Buffy, felt terrible about what he did, and wanted to be worthy of her. Did you hear that? Spike felt bad BEFORE he got his soul back. Hmmmmmmmmm. Now that's interesting. Even without a soul, Spike felt bad!

Now there are little things that I love about Spike's character. I enjoyed his wit for instance. I love British humor and James Marsters played a natural Brit... but James Marsters is actually American. His accent in the show was completely fictitious and it was nearly flawless. I went through several seasons before I found out that the accent wasn't actually real! That in itself is amazing. Generally, you can tell when an American tries to fake British... see Madonna. I also love the character because he was a full speed ahead, all risk, take no prisoners, 150% in with everything he had kind of guy. How can you not love that kind of enthusiasm? He was also funny and that is an essential immortal boyfriend quality.

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So, let's see... Spike had killer wit, a conscience without having to have a soul, was good in a fight, was Buffy's match in every way and was willing to die for her. Well, that's my argument. Angel's pretty to look at, but he's no Spike!

 

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If you're a Buffy fan, I would love to hear your opinion. I think Joss Whedon is absolutely brilliant and I've loved Buffy, Angel, & Firefly... not a big fan of Dollhouse.