Remy – American Mary
You know, I wasn’t nuts about the Soska twin’s first movie, Dead Hooker in a Trunk, so I have no idea why I had such high hopes for this film. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that I had just seen and fallen in love with the movie Excision, and American Mary kind of reminded me of that character. Or so I assumed. I also think that visually, the trailer sucked me in with a movie that looked to have some real stylish flair, but the irony was, that was ALL this film had to offer. American Mary let me down in almost every single way it possibly could.
The story was pretty much non-existent. Character development was, well, non-existent (except for Mary, but you could see where she was heading from reel one), and on top of that, you had a movie that didn’t actually go anywhere. You could tell the Soska sisters knew this, as they tagged on a lame antagonist in the final ten minutes of the film for no good reason.
I expected to love this movie, and it made on my worst of 2013 list. That, my friends, says it all.
Nato – Cockneys Vs. Zombies
Hey, I’ll take starting out one for one. It’s true, Cockneys Vs. Zombies wasn’t the game changer Shaun Of The Dead was, but you got a bunch of senior citizens blowing zombies away with heavy weaponry – and one of the golden oldies was Alan Ford! To boot, this zombie comedy took place in the UK, which just makes most horror films better. Dry wit, funny phrases, silly accents, and plenty of zombie bashing to go around!
Not only was Cockneys Vs. Zombies a fun, violent, and extravagant zombie laugh-riot, but it also showed something other horror movies are lacking these days – strategical smarts. Certain characters were able to live another day by immediately acknowledging their surrounding predicament, as it only took a matter of seconds before someone shouted the word “zombies.” Matthias Hoene might not have reinvented the wheel, but why reinvent something when you pimp it out to the nth degree?
