Dead Air (2009, Corbin Bernsen)

In full disclosure, I got my copy of this movie from the director, Corbin Bernsen. However, I'd been planning on seeing this for probably a year after learning the star was Bill Moseley, whose performance in Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 I and my friend Nick became obsessed with in high school. Unbelievably, he already had a website for his "Chop-Top" character which even more unbelievably had available an album featuring the guitar work of theatrical guitarist Buckethead entitled Cornbugs. After mailing a fan letter with my purchase order, he sent back an autographed picture and in the next couple years released a couple more CDs worth of hard-rockin' Halloween music and skits. This was prior to the second phase of his career, starring in Rob Zombie's House Of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects after Mr. Zombie reportedly saw him reprise his Texas Chainsaw character to host a Universal Studios horror award show. I don't know how Bernsen met him. After telling Bernsen how much I enjoyed his performance in Brian Yuzna's and how I was looking forward to this new film he'd made starring my beloved Bill, he reached deep into his magic bag of goodies and produced a screener DVD for me to keep. The only caveat was not to express my opinion until after the release date. Now here we are. If you're reading this: Thanks, Corbin! You made something a lot bolder than the mere "zombie movie" I was expecting: You made a horror movie with Muslim terrorist villains. Ho-lee Moseley.

Dead Air proves that if horror movie producers were really serious about scaring the shit out of people, they'd use terrorism. This is the most anti-terrorist horror movie made since 9/11, maybe the only one, since - I don't know if you heard about this, but the American arts community has tended to be suspect of patriotism since the 1960s. George Romero, the Pope of zombies, has consistently used them to satirize American society for so long that every genius thinks they've got a social allegory to tell through zombies, resulting in trite piffle like Fido. After 9/11, Romero changed plans from using zombies as stand-ins for the homeless (as per this 1990s Onion AV Club interview) to using them as generic Marxist revolutionaries against generic Capitalist-Fascists in a convoluted metaphorical plot. Romero has essentially become the insufferable tenured liberal college professor of horror, writing politically charged essay movies like Diary of the Dead. Yes, he sympathizes with zombies. This ceased to be original when he gave over completely to those feelings in Day Of The Dead and that was the beginning of the Return Of The Living Dead epoch of zombie movies; the end of Romero's reign. This film belongs to the 28 Days Later epoch. Iraq-occupation zombie sequel 28 weeks later and the upcoming ZMD: Zombies Of Mass Destruction (which leaves a Mulsim-American protagonist stranded amongst zombie Middle America) are the default politics against which Bernsen and Yakkel tread.

Screenwriter Kenny Yakkel does not go so far as to make the infected running persons Muslim, more trickily the zombies are American victims of bioterrorism. In every passing year since Romero's day zombies have increasingly become meat bags for mutilation gags, the type Romero's gun crazy redneck posses enjoyed. Another liberal rebuke. Every child in America will have slaughtered a thousand zombies by the age of 12, at least in videogames. The point is that Yakkel's victims are both sympathetic and to be feared, traits not one less complimentary to the other. More than the zombies the film's biggest antagonists are the same terrorists who let loose the infection, and phase two of the plan involves further incensing hatred of Muslims. You'd think setting off a bomb would be enough, yet Yakkel wants all to know he doesn't hate Muslims. Therefore his evil terrorist characters are as conscious of inflaming bigotry as an enlightened white liberal. This is a refreshingly different set of politics from the Romero orthodoxy of the genre. Oh wait, the virus was developed by Americans...but only according to the terrorist. Incorporating the clash of civilizations, Yakkel's terrorists have apparently seen zombie movies too: their zombie pandemic has an expiration date to keep from reaching the Holy Land.

Bill Moseley's role as a call-in radio show host is perfect casting, his crotchety voice is a natural fit. He's more restrained here than I've ever seen him in his long career playing geeks and psychos. The only "normal" role I can eve compare him against another zombie movie, playing the short-lived Johnny ("They're coming to get you, Barbera!") of Tom Savini's decent 1990 Night Of The Living Dead remake. Showing a different side from his usual persona, Moseley is perfectly adept at playing protagonist and takes the film through the big emotional arc of terrorism: unlike horror films which tack on the subject as a throwaway grab for greater relevance, Dead Air waits as long as possible to reveal that the victims of the attack are turning into mindless slobbering killers. This gives Moseley and the supporting cast of the radio station time to soak in the feeling all Americans have dreaded since 9/11: what about the next time? Will there be a next time? How bad could it be? I heard these questions answered in the echoes of each character's reactions: "It's real." "It finally happened." Seeing Bill's reactions as a normal person kind of shook me. His comedown from freewheeling filler of airtime to panicked citizen trying to use his airwaves to help is what embodies the dramatic weight of the film, the collective feeling of the floor dropping out from underneath. I only wish his character were a crappy morning zoo crew host so there'd be even more of a comedown. The comedown makes his character and he's very good. Bernsen's direction is skittish in the pre-crisis period but matches pace once when things get going. His handling of combat scenes on a low budget is particularly impressive. Carpenter-esque, almost.

As one tagline explains, "Terror. Horror. The Worst Of Both Worlds." Perversely, the reality which the film's depiction of Islamic terrorism is grounded makes the movie-reality acceptance of zombies a little easier and therefore scarier. In a completely blatant fashion free of metaphor or analogy, Yakkel's story ties both fears together in a way that will horrify a lot of people for lack of political correctness. Yakkel has gone so far to show his heart is in the right place - the third act reveals Westernized Muslims in danger whom Moseley's character loves and cares for - yet our culture preprograms knee jerk reaction to any film with Muslim villains and slandering this film as anti-Muslim would be a cinch. Meanwhile the supposedly countercultural genre of horror continues to be ideologically characterized by upcoming productions like Kevin Smith's Red State (just guess who the villains are in that one) and Eli Roth's reflections that his torturous Hostel films are really about the draconian Bush years. Bernsen, Yakkel and Moseley have made a horror film for the rest of us, one which could get them into real controversy and danger, and one which will be rediscovered by many during the long war. This was a lot more than I bargained for as simply a Bill Moseley fan, and I couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised.

Paranormal Activity (2009, Oren Peli)

The success of Paranormal Activity is more interesting than the movie itself. At this point a lot of people are going to see what the buzz is about, and I can't imagine there have been a lot of repeat viewings, even from those who had a good time being scared.  The success has trounced Saw VI, which may encourage other studios to pit their horror movies against Lionsgate's franchise in October. Recently Trick R' Treat became a big word-of-mouth video hit (does that even happen anymore?) after Warner Brothers finally decided to dump the long completed film straight to DVD. Why? No stars. No stars? Paranormal Activity doesn't even have a budget and just look. Not only is this the type of success story everyone who's ever even thought about films has wanted for themselves, this is the sort of low budget success the horror genre has more or less owned since George Romero's Night Of The Living Dead. Somehow the common denominator is always a dash or dollop of cinema verite style, through Last House On The Left, Texas Chainsaw, Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer all the way up to ten years ago, with The Blair Witch Project.

The really remarkable thing about this film vis-a-vis Blair Witch is that at the time, some people were convinced by the Internet that the hand held camera feature film was real footage and not fabricated. They were also tricked by a Sci-Fi Channel faux documentary; equally incredible to think that just ten years ago the Sci-Fi Channel had cultural influence. More importantly, no one who walked into the movie wanting to be fooled walked out of the movie unconvinced. Paranormal Activity couldn't possibly have advertised a hoax the way Blair Witch did any easier than a Blair Witch copycat could have in the first few years afterward. Since then, Cloverfield was a hit seemingly apropos of the handheld subgenre style (what would the monster look like, people wondered,) George Romero embarrassed himself with Diary Of The Dead (which takes your dad's perspective on the new media age) and a supposedly shot-for-shot remake of the excellent Spanish handicam horror film •REC called Quarantine was ignored by audiences everywhere. There will probably be a slew of handicam horror flicks coming out soon from major studios - some ghost related one did - despite the helpful evidence from recent releases in the same subgenre that the subgenre isn't what people care about. The same glut might've happened after Blair Witch except Artisan cranked out Blair Witch 2: Book Of Shadows so quickly that they killed it themselves. What's happened now as then is a lot of people simply heard their friends say that this movie, in particular, is supposed to be really scary. Well, that and a few people had to see how they used the budget, which is a fraction of even Blair Witch.

The aesthetic works. Katie Featherson and Micah Sloat are convincing enough in their casual scenes and escalating panic scenes, Featherson a bit more so. Their careers probably stand a much better chance in the future than the cast of Blair Witch since people won't feel as though they've been made suckers of afterward. The movie's most iconic image, the one which adorns the posters like the inside of Heather Donahue's nose did for Blair Witch, is also a camera angle. Featherson and Sloat's room is where most of the effective creepiness happens, from the camera's view opposite the wall of the bedroom door and mattress where the couple sleeps. The simple stuff from this innocuous angle works great - rustling sheets, a door that closes by itself - and with each successive night that passes the suspense swells around the silence. Hard to say if seeing this with a crowd and hearing every tenative gasp or shriek at the possibility of the smallest movement improved the experience. The video format would seem better suited for home video viewing, which is where this was nearly dumped, yet I can't imagine Blair Witch being what it was if not for the communal event going on. That's a special effect without a price. The actual special effects used by Paranormal are the most distancing aspect, and mercifully few. The biggest is the final shot of the film, the big chair-jumper, and they would've been better off having that be the only. There's also some stupid low tech special effects which attempt to build creepiness despite phoniness so obvious that the supposed reality of the handicam makes them worse - effects like weird noises or found objects that you'd roll your eyes at in any other horror movie.

The sizzle-to-steak ratio isn't really close with this one. Fans of the genre will be just as happy waiting for home video and non-genre fans aren't going to be converted. If you only see one handicam horror you should still see •REC, which like Paranormal Activity and unlike Quarantine has a sequel in production. •REC nestles comfortably between the showiness of Cloverfield and the shadows of Blair Witch, giving you scary monsters and a convincing hand held style of shooting. Paranormal Activity doesn't show the monsters and considering the beating it gave torture porn's flagship series at the box office, that may be how the average moviegoer wants to be scared again. Here's hoping a lot of little horror movies get their shot thanks to this one.