Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland 1 and 2, Warm Bodies, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, The Uninvited, and “65”

Weekly Horror Bulletin Newsletter 238

It’s “Zom-Com” week, with five comic zombie films. 

We’ll start with our earliest funny zombie movie that we saw this week, “Shaun of the Dead” from 2004. Then we’ll visit “Zombieland” twice, in 2009 and 2019. 2013’s “Warm Bodies” is a bit of a different take on zombies, as is “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” from 2019. 

For our newsletter-exclusive bonus films this week, we’ll also watch:

• “The Uninvited” (1944)

• “65” (2023) 

Check out all our books with one easy link: 

https://brianschell.com/collection/horrorguys

Here. We. Go!

Shaun of the Dead (2004) 

• Directed by Edgar Wright

• Written by Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright

• Stars Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield, Lucy Davis

• Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes

• Trailer:

Spoiler-free Judgment Zone

This is straight-up comedy horror that still held up really well during our second viewing of it. The writing is excellent, and the cast are perfect in the roles.

Spoilery Synopsis

Liz talks to Shaun about his annoying friend, and he talks to her about her annoying flatmates. And all three people are right there with them. She wants to do more than hang out at the pub every single night. He promises to change– tomorrow night. Credits roll. 

Pete, Shaun’s roommate, wants to get Ed out since Ed is worthless. Shaun walks to work, and we see his neighborhood. We hear a radio report about a deep space satellite that broke up over land. He works in the appliance store, and we see some concerning things on the news program playing behind him. 

Shaun’s creepy stepfather comes by to remind Shaun about his visit tomorrow. There are many jumpscares in the workplace, all of which are fake-outs. Shaun fails at basic reservation-making, and Liz doesn’t want to see him anymore. As the pair argue, we hear continuous sirens outdoors. The argument goes badly for Shaun, so he goes back to the pub with Ed. Ed points out, “It’s not the end of the world.”

The two leave the pub, completely drunk, and ignore all the zombie-happenings going on all around them. They get home and Pete chews them out for being losers; his hand has a bite on it. 

Morning comes, and the streets are deserted except for the wreckage, damaged cars, people running, trash everywhere and closed shops. Shaun goes to the grocery in a hungover daze and pays no attention to the blood everywhere. He is completely oblivious, and he makes it back home. Ed points out that there’s a weird girl in their garden. They assume she’s drunk. When she gets impaled but doesn’t die, they think something may not be right. 

The newsman reports that zombies can be killed by destroying the brain or removing the head. Shaun and Ed find out that doing so is harder than they expected. Armed with a shovel and a cricket bat, they figure it out. The newsman reports that bitten people change, so they remember Pete, who’s upstairs. Shaun calls his mom, who says stepdad Philip isn’t feeling well. “We’re coming to get you Barabara!” shouts Ed. 

They run out to the car and yes, it’s a full-blown zombie apocalypse. Shaun arrives at his parents’ house and he goes after Philip, who isn’t a zombie. They all go outside and Philip does get bitten immediately. They drive to Liz’s place to rescue her from her apartment. Basically everyone gets into the little car and heads for safety at the Winchester pub.

Stepfather Philip makes a confession to Shaun because he thinks he’s dying. Then he becomes a zombie and tries to eat them all. The group runs into Yvonne’s very similar group going a different direction. They find that they can’t get to the Winchester pub, which is surrounded by zombies. “We’re not going to get anywhere by moaning.”

Or maybe they will. They all pretend to be zombies and walk right down the street. Shaun gets loud and draws all the zombies away from his group. Liz, Ed, David, Diane, and Barbara wait and argue in the pub for Shaun to return. When Shaun returns, they try to watch TV, but all the stations are down. 

Liz notices that Barbara’s been bitten. The zombies surround the place, and Shaun finds a gun with 29 shells. They all have a standoff over what to do about Barbara until she does, in fact, turn. 

David gets literally torn apart by the zombies, and so does Dianne. And Ed falls to the hoard. Soon, it’s only Shaun and Liz and a heavily-bitten Ed. Shaun and Liz make it outside just as a busload of soldiers arrive and start shooting. Yvonne and her group made it out and got help. 

Six months later, we watch news reports about the “mobile deceased.” Zombies are on comedy shows, contests, and reality shows. Shaun and Liz are still together; he’s got zombie-Ed outside in the shed, and they still play video games. 

Commentary

The restaurant that Shaun tries to make reservations at is “Fulci’s.” Nice zombie reference. 

I love how most of the people in town look and act like zombies even before the incident takes place. Between that and all the mundane jump-scares, it’s amazing anyone survives normal life. 

Ed is one of those characters you’d like to have with you during a thing like this; he’d be eaten within the first five minutes. 

It still holds up pretty well, even though many funny zombie films followed. . 

Zombieland (2009) 

• Directed by Ruben Fleischer

• Written by Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick 

• Stars Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone

• Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes

• Trailer:

Spoiler-free Judgment Zone

This was a really fun ride of humor, horror, and action in perfect balance. It’s got a good cast with chemistry that works, and they look like they’re having a good time with it.

Spoilery Synopsis

We get a voiceover about how America isn’t America without people. The narrator calls it “Zombieland.” He has rules for surviving, and we watch demonstrations of all of them:

1. Cardio: The fatties were the first to go.

2. Double Tap: Always shoot the dead twice. Or more. 

3. Beware of Bathrooms

4. Fasten Your Seatbelts

Credits roll. 

The narrator tells us that it’s been two months since the world basically ended. We immediately see that his rules work. He explains that he’s a loner, but now he kinda misses people, so he’s heading home to “Columbus” to see if his parents are still alive. 

A car pulls up and a man with a shotgun gets out. It’s all very tense until Columbus puts his thumb out for a ride. “Tallahassee” agrees to give him a ride for a while. Tallahassee has a weakness for eating Twinkies. They find a Hostess truck full of… Snoballs. Columbus, on the other hand, is afraid of clowns. 

We get a flashback to Columbus and his neighbor from apartment 406 before everything bad happened. She tells the story about watching a crazy homeless man who tried to bite her. She goes to sleep on his shoulder, but when they wake up, she’s a zombie. She attacks him, and he barely escapes. 

Tallahassee has a sick sense of humor about the zombies, but Columbus takes it a lot more seriously. They go in search of Twinkies, which leads to grocery store carnage. They spot a girl in the store, and her sister has been bitten. No, not really. “Wichita” and “Little Rock” are playing a con to get the shotgun away from Tallahassee. Then they steal their car, which really annoys Tallahassee. They find a new car soon enough. 

The guys soon catch up to the girls, who appear to have broken down. The girls soon demonstrate who the smart ones are. We get a flashback to the girls conning people before the outbreak. 

They all decide to go to Pacific Playland, a famous amusement park. Little Rock is about twelve years old, but she’s more mature than Tallahassee. That night, they stop at a tourist trap that’s all lit up. They wreck the place. 

They eventually arrive in Hollywood, home of Pacific Playland. They shoot a few zombie actors and then grab a map to the 90210 stars’ homes. They go to the top of the A-list actors– Bill Murray’s house. Little Rock has never heard of Bill Murray, Willie Nelson, or Gandhi. 

We see someone creepy approaching the group. It’s Bill Murray as a zombie. No– he’s faking it. He’s normal, but pretending to be a zombie to blend in. He gets high with Tallahassee and Wichita while Columbus and Little Rock watch “Ghostbusters.” Bill puts on his zombie wig and goes into the theater to scare Columbus, who shoots him to death. He didn’t realize it was an act. 

We get a flashback to Tallahassee and his dog, who is really a child. Wichita and Columbus dance and get closer together. 

Wichita and Little Rock steal the car and go to Pacific Playland. They figure out how to turn on the lights and power (Where’s the electricity coming from?). This wakes up all the zombies for miles around, who make a beeline for the park. 

Columbus and Tallahassee argue about going after the girls, and Columbus leaves. 

The girls are stuck on a tower, surrounded by hundreds of zombies. The guys show up and have a ball blasting the dead. Tallahassee draws most of the zombies away, while Columbus goes after the girls. Except– there’s a zombie clown. That takes less time than anyone expects, and he releases the girls. 

Columbus finally gets his kiss. Tallahassee gets his Twinkie. 

Commentary

The rules popping up on the screen are always funny when they resurface. “Zombie Kill of the Week” really needs to be a thing. Bill Murray stole the film even though he was only on for five minutes. We never did quite figure out how the park and other places were getting their electrical power, but that’s zombie films for you. 

It never slows down. It’s funny throughout without getting too ridiculous. 

Zombieland: Double Tap (2019) 

• Directed by Ruben Fleischer

• Written by Rhett Weese, Paul Warnick, Dave Callahan

• Stars Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin 

• Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes

• Trailer:

Spoiler-free Judgment Zone

This was cool how ten years passed in our world and the movie world, and the same quartet is back. They are a little older, and Little Rock is all grown up. This movie is another dose of the same, with even more so. It’s funny and gross and full of action. A very good sequel.

Spoilery Synopsis

Columbus explains that in the time since the first film, zombies have evolved into “types.” There are Homers, the stupid ones, and Hawkings, the smart ones. Then there are the silent, deadly Ninjas. 

We cut to the four main characters from before on the lawn at the White House, massacring zombies. They sleep in the Lincoln bedroom, but cover Lincoln’s eyes because he’s creepy. Little Rock complains about never having a boyfriend, but she doesn’t have many options. They give each other some very unique presents for Christmas. 

Columbus reads “The Walking Dead” comics and says it’s not very realistic. He wants to marry Wichita, but she’s not into that at all. The next morning, the girls leave… again. Tallahassee talks about his Indian blood, and he bores Columbus. 

Columbus meets Madison. She’s annoying. She picks on Tallahassee for being so old. Tallahassee complains, “Zombies eat brains, and she ain’t got any!” Then Wichita returns to steal some weapons; Little Rock is gone– she ran off with “Berkeley,” a pacifist musician. This doesn’t go over well with Tallahassee, who has gotten all parental over the years. The two young people ran off to go visit Graceland. There is supposed to be a new, better, stronger zombie out there.

Columbus and Wichita make up, and then Madison shows up. Oops. 

The whole group packs up and goes after the kids to Graceland. Madison gets on everyone’s nerves, but she is nicer than Wichita, even if she’s completely stupid. They run into the “new” type of zombie that doesn't go down with a double-tap. They call them the “T-800” model. 

Berkeley is a bit of a songwriter, and he serenades Little Rock in their car. Back in the other car, Madison gets sick. “If you love something, you shoot it in the face so it doesn’t become a flesh-eating monster.” Columbus shoots her himself. 

They make it to Graceland, and it’s a burned-out wreck. They do, however, find the Hounddog Hotel, which has Little Rock’s car parked out front. Columbus puts on the blue suede shoes. 

Tallahassee is attacked by a woman named Nevada. She says Little Rock and Berkeley left a few days ago for a commune. She talks about how Bill Murray died, by pretending to be a zombie and some dummy shot him. It’s now called “Murraying,” but Columbus pretends not to understand. Nevada and Tallahassee get real friendly, real fast. 

Little Rock and Berkeley get to the Babylon commune, and they’re invited in. They melt down their guns and make peace pendants. It’s a weird, walled-off place. 

A new guy, Albuquerque, shows up at the Hotel, and he’s like a twisted mirror of Tallahassee. Then Flagstaff, the Dollar-Store clone of Columbus, shows up. He has a list of “Commandments” that are the same as Columbus’s rules. The two cowboys mock each other and the two nerds… nerd at each other. 

A group of T-800s show up. Albuquerque and Flagstaff make short work of them, But Albuquerque got bit. It doesn’t take long until he starts to turn. Flagstaff got bit twice. The pair end up fighting their evil doppelgangers in the Elvis museum. 

They get back on the road and pass Madison driving a clown truck. She’s not dead. Turns out, she just had a nut allergy, and Columbus couldn’t bring himself to shoot her. Like, who could have known trail mix has nuts? 

The group eventually finds Babylon, but they aren’t allowed to take their guns inside. They meet up with Little Rock, who actually may be happier left alone here. Tallahassee decides to leave for his own adventures. He doesn’t get very far before he finds a whole mob of T-800s heading for the completely unarmed Babylon. 

They set up some traps and get ready for the T-800s. They blow up a whole bunch of them, but there are a lot more of the monsters than expected. They’re all about to die when Nevada charges in with a monster truck and rescues them. It’s all awesome until the monster truck rolls over. 

Tallahassee leads the remaining zombies up onto the roof of the tower. The group sets up a gauntlet, and the whole zombie crew runs right off the roof to their deaths, just like in his buffalo story from earlier. 

Wichita agrees to marry Columbus. Tallahassee and Nevada do too. So do Madison and Berkely. All the hippies have a party. 

Later, the group drives away in Elvis’s pink Cadillac, and we get a Bill Murray flashback. 

Commentary

No one wants the minivan. 

We’ve upgraded to “Zombie Kill of the Year” in this one. They sort of explain the electricity question: rains in dams. 

It’s really got the same humor and situations as the first one, but there’s more of it, and the jokes didn’t wear thin. At least not yet…

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016) 

• Directed by Burr Steers

• Written by Burr Steers, Jane Austen, Seth Grahame-Smith

• Stars Lily James, Sam Riley, Jack Huston, Bella Heathcote

• Run Time: 1 Hour, 48 Minutes

• Trailer:

Spoiler-free Judgment Zone

It’s well made, with great settings and costumes, good action and effects, and a strong cast. But it’s not very fun. The zombie aspect might have been more effective on its own. As it is, it’s a satire of the ultra-conservative romance style of Jane Austen that we thought was kind of a drag.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a man running his horse across the countryside. We hear narration about people being slaughtered by hordes of the living dead during a whist party. The man gets off his horse and identifies himself as Colonel Darcy. They lock him in a box naked and examine him for bites. Then they let him into the main house. 

Darcy comes into the party and says there’s a report that someone there has been bitten. No one looks like a brain-eating undead, so he sits to play cards. He releases a jar of flies, which can easily detect dead flesh. They all land on one man, and Darcy quickly kills him in the middle of the party. What about the man’s niece? Oh yeah, she’s got it too. 

We get a brief history about the zombies as credits roll. We’re told there’s a huge wall and moat around London. There’s now only one bridge across the Royal Canal. 

Mr. Bennett and his daughters are told about Mr. Bingley, a new neighbor who is throwing a ball. Lizzy, Jane, Lydia, and Mary have all had combat training, but they don’t have husbands. The girls put on corsets, frilly dresses, and knives. They all go to the party, hoping to meet eligible men. Mr. Bingley is rich and eligible. Darcy is there as well, and he’s scary– but rich. 

Bingley immediately likes Jane, and Lizzy likes Darcy. Mrs. Featherstone, the woman from the zombie-party, approaches, and Darcy shoots her. A horde of zombies approaches, and all the Bennet women pull knives. After the massacre, Darcy admits that Lizzy is hot. They sure can fight, which pleases him. Two sisters spar violently later while discussing Darcy and pride. 

Jane is invited to tea at the Bingleys, but she’s accosted on the way by a zombie. She wastes no time in dispatching the miscreant. She then encounters a mother and child pair of zombies…

Lizzy comes to Bingley's house the next day, as Jane has gotten sick. Darcy releases his flies, which Lizzy grabs right out of the air– she’s very fast. We see that there’s a whole class thing where rich people learn Japanese martial arts and lesser people learn the Chinese methods. Lizzy brags about reading “The Art of War” in the original Chinese. 

Jane starts feeling better, so all the Bennet sisters return home. Cousin Parson Collins comes to dinner; he’s Mr. Bennet’s heir, since his daughters cannot inherit. His patroness is Lady Catherine de Bourgh, the greatest swordswoman in all of Great Britain. He’s interested in Jane, but she’s awaiting a betrothal to Bingley, so he takes Lizzy as second choice. He’d rather the girls all take up cooking not fighting. 

George Wickham comes to town with his regiment, and he may be stationed there all winter. Lizzy likes Wickham, but he’s clearly a rival of Darcy. 

There’s yet another ball. Wickham, Collins, and Darcy are all interested in Lizzy; she’s everyone’s second choice, but she’ll have to do. Lizzy doesn’t like Darcy, but she likes Collins even less, so she agrees to dance with him. Suddenly– zombie attack! Darcy jumps in and saves the day, but Bingley is injured. 

Darcy and Bingley return home, leaving the odious Collins with all the girls. He wants Lizzy to marry him, but only if she retires her violent ways. She refuses, which annoys her mother. Mr. Bennet is fine with this, but her mother is not. 

Lizzy storms off into the woods alone and soon finds Wickam and four pallbearers out there. He takes her to the bridge and out into the In-Between, a sort of no-man’s land for zombies. They go to a church that is full of zombies; everyone there is a zombie. They’re not fully converted since none of them have eaten a human brain. 

When Lizzy returns home, Charlotte admits that now she’s betrothed to Collins, much to Lizzy’s relief. They all go to visit Lady Catherine, the great warrior. There’s a painting there of the Four Horsemen, and they look a lot like those pallbearers that Lizzy saw. Darcy is Lady Catherine’s nephew, and he’s there too. Lizzy and Wickham explain about the peaceful zombies and how they can be redeemed with a treaty. Catherine and Collins laugh at the idea; they’re like locusts. Darcy has Wickham removed. 

Darcy proposes to Lizzy. He had a hand in breaking up Mr. Bingley and Jane, so she tries to beat him severely. They undress each other with knives, but she eventually throws him out. He later writes her a letter apologizing and explaining. He’s gone to the siege of London, which is going badly outside the Great Wall. 

Wickham runs off with sister Lydia, and they go to the zombie church. Lady Catherine comes to threaten Lizzy over Darcy. Lizzy defeats Catherine’s giant coachman. 

Lizzy and Jane head to the zombie church, but the soldiers have closed the bridge. They go anyway, right into the war zone. They come across Darcy in the field of combat. He says the zombie church was razed to the ground five days ago. 

He lied. Darcy goes to the church the next morning on his own. He sees the four pallbearers outside. He finds a bunch of dead soldiers with their brains cut out. He finds Lydia chained up in the church’s dungeon, but he can’t release her. He finds Wickham, who refuses to do the honorable thing, even for money. They argue, and zombies attack. Darcy and Lydia get out, but Wickham attacks them outside. 

Bingley, Jane, and Lydia cross the bridge. Darcy sees that Wickham has been a zombie all along; he simply suppressed his hunger. He says that he’s the antichrist and the four horsemen have come to join him. Except then Lizzy rides in and cuts his head off. 

Bingley gives the order to blow up the bridge just as Darcy and Lizzy are riding across it. 

Mr. Bingley comes to Lady Catherine and talks to Jane. Darcy has survived and is fine now, as is Lizzy. He proposes to her again, and this time, she accepts. Jane and Bigley and Lizzy and Darcy have a double wedding. 

Commentary

This wasn’t so much a comedy as it was just a satire of those old melodramatic romance books from the 19th century. There were very few laughs. 

It’s got all the silly, frilly, giggly, romantic nonsense from Jane Austen but also a lot of bloody zombie combat. The sets and costumes here are very elaborate, as are the makeup and gore effects. 

The zombies here are sensible and can talk, but they can’t help but eat people’s brains. There’s also an intermediate stage that people are in before they eat human brains. 

I like the political angle with the half-turned zombies. That would be interesting to see more of, but too much of the film dwells on the Jane Austen side of things, which honestly just slows down the whole thing. It’s a well-made, witty movie, but it’s just not a lot of fun. 

Warm Bodies (2013) 

• Directed by Jonathan Levine

• Written by Isaac Marion, Jonathan Levine

• Stars Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, John Malkovich, Lio Tipton

• Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes

• Trailer:

Spoiler-free Judgment Zone

It’s basically a retelling of Romeo and Juliet. It has an angle that’s rarely seen in zombie movies, which boosted it a bit. It’s decently made in all aspects, and entertaining, but not quite great.

Spoilery Synopsis

R wonders why he can’t connect with people or stand up straighter. Oh yeah he’s a zombie. Credits roll. He doesn’t remember his name, but it probably started with an “R.” All his friends are zombies, and he wonders what they were in life. He and the others hang around in the airport all day, every day. At some point, zombies who give up become “Bonies,” which looks pretty awful. Still, he’s not mindless, he can open doors, play records, and do simple tasks. All the zombies have one thing in common; their taste in food. 

We cut to a survivor camp. There are military checkpoints, and it doesn’t look very much fun either. It’s been eight years since the plague began. Julie and her friends get a pep talk before being sent out into the city to scout and scavenge medicine. The zombies rush into the lab and there’s a gun battle. R watches in fascination as Julie shoots all his friends. 

R eats Perry’s brains and gets his memories and thoughts. He walks right up to Julie and stares into her eyes. Perry was Julie’s boyfriend, and he got some of that from the brains. He takes her along with the zombie gang. They go to his home/lair, aboard an old jetliner. “Not eat,” he says, but she’s clearly terrified of him.

She can’t leave because the whole airport is swarming with the undead. We get flashbacks to Perry meeting Julie’s father, the leader of the humans. R plays records for Julie, and she sees that he’s not exactly a mindless zombie. We see that R’s cold, dead heart thumps a beat. 

The two go outside and Julie pretends to be a zombie. She wants to leave, but he wants her to stay, so they go for a drive in his convertible. He’s not a great driver. Before long, she starts to have fun. He collects things, and she likes that. She sleeps, but he doesn’t do that anymore. 

M, one of the other zombies, hears the music and lights in the airplane. Julie goes out, and he and his zombie buddies surround her. She fights them off with a weed whacker until R shows up to help her. A Bony shows up and almost gets them both, but they narrowly escape with M’s help. Other regular zombies see them holding hands and let them through. 

They two drive away from the airport and eventually stop at a house in the suburbs. Meanwhile, back at the airport, M and some of the other zombies start to remember things from their own past, sparked by R and Julie holding hands. Some of them get a heart-thump as well. The Bonies detect something human-ish about all this, and it looks like there’s trouble on the horizon.

Julie’s dad drives by outside the house, and Julie says he would shoot R if he ever saw him. She doesn’t want that. She figures out what R did to Perry, but she understands. R has a weird dream of hanging out with Julie and her friends in “real life.” He wakes up in the morning, and she’s gone. 

R is depressed at being left by his “girlfriend.” Julie returns to the city and her father is happy to see her, but also angry that she’s been gone for so long. He’s paranoid about her being bitten. 

R runs into M and the others, who are all acting much more human than they had been. The Bonies chased them out. M says R has started something with their memories. “We are changing,” says R. 

R sneaks into the city and looks for Julie’s house. Inside, Julie tells Nora that maybe they’ve all misunderstood the zombies. She misses him. She goes outside on the balcony and sees R down there. She warns him that anyone else in the city will kill him. Nora comes out and sees him; she thinks he’s cute. She hugs him and comments that he feels warmer than she remembers. We see that his eyes and skin color are getting more normal looking as things progress. 

He tells her that lots of them are changing and evolving, but that the Bonies are chasing them. Nora has some makeup that would let R look even more normal, and then they could sneak him out of the city. The Bonies are massing outside the city, and the soldiers are getting ready for a fight, including Julie’s father the colonel. 

Julie tries to convince her father that the dead are coming back to life, but he’s not willing to listen. R introduces himself, but he’s too nervous to speak. Nora pulls a gun on the colonel until R and Julie can get away in the subway. 

When they get back to M’s group, there are hundreds of recovering zombies with him. The Bonies are breaking in to fight. The Bonies, zombies, and soldiers all converge in the subway. Some of the dead rescue the soldiers and report this back to the colonel. 

We see R’s eyes turn blue just as the colonel shoots him. He’s bleeding, which corpses don’t do. The soldiers put down their weapons and the colonel changes his orders to the men. The soldiers and the zombies team up to fight the Bonies. 

Given time, all the zombies become human again. R still doesn’t remember his real name, but otherwise, he’s looking pretty normal again. We see the humans tear down their wall. 

Commentary

Throughout the film, we get a voiceover of R’s internal monologue, and he sounds perfectly normal “on the inside.” The zombies themselves have some reason, even in the beginning, but the “Bonies” are the really nasty ones. 

The acting here is decent, and the script is a rehash of “R”omeo and “Julie”t (except for the downer ending), but it’s entertaining and occasionally funny. 

The Uninvited (1944) 

• Directed by Lewis Allen 

• Written by Dodie Smith, Frank Partos, Dorothy Macardle 

• Stars Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp 

• Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes 

• Trailer:

•  

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone 

This was a pretty light-hearted ghost story with quite a bit of mystery to solve. It looks good, has a good cast and script, and was entertaining overall.

Synopsis 

We get a fairly long introduction concerning ghosts, and how people in the area where the film takes place are so familiar with them, but our narrator and his family were not prepared… 

Roderick Fitzgerald and his sister Pamela walk along the beach on vacation—there’s some immediate comic action as the little dog chases a squirrel into the window of an abandoned house and Rick gets bitten. They explore the old house and find a locked door upstairs. She loves the old place and wants them both to buy it and move in right away. He thinks she’s crazy, but he eventually relents. 

They go to visit Cmdr. Beech, the owner of the house. His granddaughter, Stella has them wait for the old man. When she hears what they want, she tries to shoo them out before her grandfather returns. Beech comes home, and he says the house is for sale. Stella and the old man argue about selling her mother’s old house, but they can’t afford to maintain it. They offer to buy it for 1200 pounds, and the old man is all in for that. He does warn them that he had some tenants a few years ago that complained about disturbances. 

They open the locked room, and Pamela says it’s cold and damp; the only room in the house she doesn’t like. Rick says he’ll make it his office. The flowers on the bed wilt and die as they speak. Their little dog howls but won’t go upstairs. They spot Stella standing outside staring at the house; Pamela feels a little guilty about buying her building. 

The shopkeeper in town tells Rick about one of the previous owners falling off the cliff and dying mysteriously. Stella comes to Rick and says her mother told her to come apologize—her dead mother, who fell off the cliff. She’s boring, but he invites her to go sailing with him, but he gets seasick. They have a fun time, and he tells her that he must go to London for about three weeks. 

Lizzie Flynn comes home with Rick several weeks later; she’ll be the new housekeeper. Pamela says their dog has run off sometime in the past weeks. She also mentions that she hasn’t seen Stella at all. Lizzie’s cat refuses to go upstairs, and everyone thinks that’s odd. It seems like she’s about to say she doesn’t like the house, but Rick is so happy that she changes her mind. 

That night, Rick hears moaning and crying in the dark. When he checks on Pam, it’s clearly not her. Pam says she’s heard it and searched before; there’s never anyone there. She’s glad to know he can hear it too. It stops at dawn. Rick says he’s sure it can be explained scientifically. 

Rick goes to see Cmdr. Beech, who denies that anything weird happens in that house. Stella says she’s glad to see Rick, but Beech says she’s too weak for new friends. He’s clearly being evasive about the whole thing. 

Stella surreptitiously asks Rick to come over for a visit tonight. Beech calls Miss Holloway and wants to see her tonight about something; he’s quite desperate. Stella comes over for a tour of the house, and he plays her a song on the piano. He plays “Stella by Starlight,” a song he wrote just for her. She gets creeped out and runs outside, almost running over the cliff just like her mother. 

Lizzie screams and Rick runs inside. Lizzie says she saw something in front of the studio door. She says it was a ghostly mist, but no one else sees it. “A woman it was. The ghost of a woman!” Stella goes up there and faints. 

The doctor comes and says that she’s fine, she just got too worked up. Dr. Scott says their little dog came to live with him, and Pam admits the dog was the first to see their ghost. The old doctor talks about Carmel, who had an affair with Stella’s father. She died a week after Mary, Stella’s mother, died. The two deaths were obviously related, but no one knows the connection. 

Stella wakes up and sees her mother. She knows that the ghost is her mother. She’s happy to have seen Mary again. Rick figures out that there are two ghosts, Mary and Carmel. Rick offers to move back to London and take Stella with him. He even volunteers to have the old house torn down. She refuses to forget her dead mother. 

Pam suggests they try to hold a séance. Dr. Scott thinks it’s a good idea and may get Stella off her obsession. The four of them set up the séance. Rick and the doctor think they can fake answers to make Stella move away, but the ghost has its own ideas. Mary the ghost says she guards Stella from Carmel. Beech breaks in and takes Stella home. 

Beech brings in Miss Holloway, who thinks she can help Stella recover. She had been Mary’s best friend, and she’s got secrets. Lizzie tells Rick and Pam about Miss Holloway, who was a trained nurse brought in for Stella. Holloway runs the “Mary Meredith Retreat,” named after the dead woman. 

Pam and Rick go to see Miss Holloway at her treatment center. They meet Miss Bird, one of the crazy residents. Holloway talks about Mary and Carmel. Mary was exceptional, but Carmel was exceptionally evil, a gypsy. She wanted Mary’s husband. Carmel took baby Stella and intended to throw her over the cliff, but Mary ran up to stop her. Carmel pushed Mary over the cliff. Carmel then died of pneumonia two weeks later. 

We soon see that Stella’s staying at Holloway’s hospital. They talk about the night when Stella tried to run off the cliff’s edge. Dr. Scott checks his records, and it looks a lot like Miss Holloway may have killed Carmel by leaving the window open. 

Holloway tells Stella that she can leave the hospital, but she goes straight to Winwood, Rick’s house, not her grandfather’s place. When Rick and his friends arrive, Holloway says that Stella’s gone home. Holloway says Stella’s going to jump off the cliff, just like her mother. 

Stella arrives at the big old house, but no one else is there yet. She goes inside. She finds old man Beech in the studio, and he’s not looking very healthy. He says she’s in great danger and needs to leave the house. She says she’s not afraid, but he says she should be. The ghost has tried to kill her before. The ghost standing behind her scares the old man to death. 

Stella makes a beeline for the cliffs again just as Rick drives up. Stella doesn’t understand why her mother’s ghost would want to kill her. Dr. Scott reads more out of his logbook; Carmel had a baby too. 

Rick puts it all together: Stella is Carmel’s child! It was Mary who tried to kill her, and Carmel defended Stella from her. Miss Holloway, who was in love with the (evil) Mary, then took revenge upon Carmel by leaving the window open in mid-window. Mary’s ghost appears before Rick, who simply laughs at her and tells her to go away. 

Suddenly, the cat’s not afraid to go upstairs anymore. 

Commentary 

It’s a serious ghost story, but it has quite a bit of comedy inserted, mostly from Ray Milland. This was one of the first “ghost story” movies that had an actual supernatural occurrence. Usually, ghosts had been comedic or people pretending for nefarious reasons. 

It’s very good. Things progress slowly, but we never really know what’s going on until the end. 

65 (2023) 

• Directed by Scott Beck, Bryan Woods

• Written by Scott Beck, Bryan Woods

• Stars Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt, Chloe Coleman

• Run Time: 1 Hour, 33 Minutes

• Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This was a cool idea, mixing futuristic science fiction with dinosaurs from the distant past without using time travel. Beyond that, it’s a pretty simple story. There’s a lot of action and a steady stream of things that go wrong that they deal with effectively. Sometimes requiring suspense of belief. We were entertained, but the “Giant Monster” aspect of the film is really pretty minimal compared to most Kaiju films. 

Synopsis

We are told that long before humanity, other races explored the universe. We open on planet Somaris, Mills talks to Nevine’s mother about going on another mission in order to be able to afford a cure for their daughter. It’ll take two years, but Nevine will survive because of the large pay increase that Mills will get. 

Later, Mills’s spaceship, Zoic, passes through an unexpected cloud of space rocks. Mills takes manual control, but there’s too many impacts and too much damage. He ends up needing to make an emergency landing. It’s a violent crash landing, and he’s not going to just take off and leave again. The computer says he was off course and in an unknown star system. 

There were numerous cryogenic pods on the ship, and they have all failed. Mills puts on a spacesuit and goes outside where the bodies have been ejected. On the bright side, he can breathe the air on this planet. He sends a message that his mission has failed and then he puts the gun to his head– and he can’t do it. 

A bit later, the computer notifies Mills that one of the pods has been located and is still working, so he goes outside after it. He pulls out an unconscious teenage girl, but before he can get back to his ship, he sees a footprint of something huge. 

Credits roll. “65 Million years ago, a visitor crash landed on Earth.”

There is supposed to be an escape craft, but the computer doesn’t know where it is. The ship literally broke in half during the crash. He goes looking, but finds the bones of something huge. The computer locates the escape vessel fifteen kilometers away, and Mills is immediately attacked by a little velociraptor. 

The girl’s name is Koa, and Mills tries to explain the situation to her. He quickly realizes the translator is broken, and they don’t speak the same language. She basically makes it known that she wants to get to her family, and he lies and says they’re at the escape ship. He knows that her parents are both dead in failed pods. 

They set off to walk to the other half of the ship where the escape pod is. They look up and see our moon, plus a big red thing in the sky. Koa finds a baby dino stuck in a tar pit and helps it out. It’s immediately eaten by something else. Mills was injured in the crash, and his wound is not healing properly. 

They run from some dinosaurs, and he uses his gun and grenades on them. It’s pretty traumatizing for both of them, so Mills starts getting all parent-y with Koa. Mills points his computer at the sky, and it reports that there’s an unidentified irregularity out there. 

They find a cave and camp out for the night. Koa chokes on a bug in her sleep, and that’s nasty, but then they figure out the cave they're in is already occupied. They get trapped inside and have to dig and tunnel their way out. She gets out, but he has to find another way. 

When Mills finally gets out, his computer reports a “catastrophic asteroid detected. Collision imminent in twelve hours.” Then he falls into quicksand and Koa barely rescues him. 

They reach the escape pod, and a rescue vessel is coming. Except Koa is looking for her family there in the wreckage. Mills shows her pictures of his own daughter, who did not recover from her illness; she died back home during the flight to this place. Meteorites start hitting the ground, so they don’t have much time. 

They strap in, do a pre-flight check, and then a meteor knocks the ship over a cliff. Not only that, but now there’s a pair of T-Rex trying to open the ship like a can opener. Mills runs out to fight it, but his gun’s power has drained. The two still manage to fight off the monsters, and the ship gets working on auto-repairing itself. 

When one of the giant dinos returns, Mills yells “Launch the ship!” as he leads the final T-Rex away. He high-tails it to a field of acid geysers that he found yesterday, and it slows it down until Koa runs in and stabs it in the eye. Another geyser then melts the thing. 

Meanwhile, larger rocks start falling from the sky. “Impact imminent,” says the flight computer. They get into the escape ship and launch themselves, just as the big meteor hits. 

As closing credits roll, we get glimpses of time passing on Earth as the meteor damage cools, ice ages pass, and cities grow. 

Commentary

We’ve seen dinosaurs in all the Jurassic Park movies, but they never showed us prehistoric bugs, and those are even worse. 

The plot is really thin– he crashes and has to take a mute girl across a wilderness to the escape ship. The special effects are excellent, and Adam Driver carries the film all by himself. 

I really wasn’t expecting them to get away. I figured they were the start of humanity. 

Overall, it was well done, but is hurt a bit by the lack of story. 

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