If it weren’t already difficult enough to be my friend, I make some poor schlocker choose a movie from a pile of “films” I’ve pre-selected, that way they can take the fall when things turn out like they did tonight. The only thing worse than the movie tonight was that Pat had to take the fall for selecting it (He’s pretty much the nicest one among us). Crissy passed on it two weeks ago, Luke saw a brighter future in Happy Birthday to Me, but Pat was brave enough to stand in front of the projector tonight and say ” I choose this one. I choose the mutated zombie people from North Carolina, and here’s your awesome spicy pineapple tequila drink.”
Just talking about life during the apocalypse, again.
I need to preface this review by saying not only are we extremely supportive of independent cinema (I mean some of my closest friends make films), but we have a BIG appreciation for what it takes to make a movie, even a crappy one. But if you’re reading this, and thinking about making a film, here’s the biggest piece of advice I can give: Less is more. Level 7 is a whopping 110 minutes long and about 70 minutes too long at that. We spent a lot of the film wondering why we had to see the previous 3-4 minutes of footage. For instance, if you’re getting in a car I don’t need to know that you took the keys from your purse, put them in the door, pulled the handle, took the keys out of the door, put them in the ignition, turned the keys, well you get the idea. Some of this shit is implied! And if your mom leaves you to babysit your younger sibling (who’s probably in college) they ain’t gonna give you their cell phone number (yup, that happened).
In between making fun of the movie, which is what we do best, the schlockers faces portrayed a sort of ambivalence about life in general while they stared at the screen. I believe a couple of them were pondering if this feeling was equivalent to purgatory. At 40 minutes in we took a unanimous vote to move it up to 1.5x speed. And a collective sigh of relief was felt when we realized the credits took up the final 8 minutes.
“How did she drown??? She’s so buoyant!”
Was the movie really that bad? Ummmmm, No. Should they have made room in the budget for a tripod? Yes. (and no this was not a Blair Witch/ Cloverfield aesthetic). Were there a lot of special effects including gore, condom like intestines, gun shots, and runaway extras from The Walking Dead? Yes. Did you have to wade through a shit ton of dialogue that didn’t advance “the plot” or sound realistic outside of a porno? Yes.
All in all the first half hour of the movie was a testament to how awesome my fellow schlockers are. We laughed, made fun of each other, made fun of the movie, and made fun of Jake. But then the round of drinks ran out, and the chips started to scrape at the bottom of a dish which once held BLT dip (you don’t wanna know how awesome this stuff was), and nothing short of a porno slaughter, Bruce Campbell cameo, hundred dollar bill falling out of the case could have saved this mess. We REALLY, REALLY, REALLY wanted to like this movie, but in the end there was just too much to love.
1/5 leopard tattoos
What it has: a cautionary statement about breast implants, overdoses, sex through underwear, expensive cars, wheelchair victim, false ending, a great premise, nuevo Japan, lotsa guns, a feel for small town Carolina, and a need for a good editor.
What it’s missing: natural dialogue, virgins, outtakes as main footage (there were some nice moments there), and confidence in the viewer to read between the lines
Drink of the night:
Escort through Purgatory
4 parts tequila
1 part agave nectar
6 parts pineapple juice
tabasco to taste
squeeze of lime
cilantro to taste
Serve over ice.
Brains, Blood, Boomsticks, & Broods 