When a space shuttle makes an unscheduled (and seemingly panicked) return to earth, it burns up on reentry and crashes across miles of open fields.  Investigators attempt to quarantine the area, but find many nearby townspeople have been in contact with debris from the ship.  Investigating scientists, in hazmat suits, tell visiting CDC biologist, Tucker Kaufman (Jeremy Northam), that pieces of the wreckage contains a virus that that has never been seen before, which managed to survive both the cold of space and the intense heat of reentry.  Immediately afterwards, in a scene that’s nonsensical and distracting, a young girl runs up to Tucker with a piece of debris that’s covered in infectious matter, so naturally, he grabs it with his bare hands, cuts his finger on it, then drops it, gets into his car and drives away, without another ...

Young, childlike doll, Shitface, is haunted by recurring nightmares where he brutally murders people. A sad, gentle soul, Shitface (voiced by Billy Boyd), is a living doll being exploited by phony punk ventriloquist, Psychs (Keith-Lee Castle), who keeps him caged when he’s not using him in his stage act. After appearing at the Glastonbury Ventriloquist Festival, Shitface sees a TV show, featuring a backstage glimpse of an upcoming horror movie starring talking dolls Chucky and Tiffany (voiced by Brad Dourif and Meg Tilly), and notices that Chucky has the same birthmark as him—a “Made in Japan” stamp, branded onto his wrist. After escaping from Psychs, Shitface ships himself off to the Hollywood set, via international mail, determined to find the two horror stars, whom he’s certain are his parents. Unfortunately for Shitface, when he arrives in Hollywood, he finds that the ...

  Though claimed by many to be a spoof of zombie movies, “Shaun of the Dead” is really something more unusual. A spoof is like, say, “Scary Movie,” where scenes from other movies are repeated/altered as parodies. The zombies in “Shaun of the Dead” are played absolutely straight—they’re genuine menaces. It’s the human beings who are funny, often very funny. It is, however, partly a parody of modern-day romantic comedies; some have dubbed it the first “romzomcom”—romantic zombie comedy. But what’s important isn’t which category the movie belongs in, but that it’s done with intelligence, a lot of wit and plenty of slapstick. The young cast, mostly unknowns to people this side of the Atlantic, really gets into the film and has great fun with the story and each other. If you doubt this, just listen to the commentary track by most of the leading actors; it’s incoherent and unilluminating, but it’s clearly the ...

  Zombies have become the coolest monster in current horror entertainment. They’re the subject of several novels, from horror novelist Brian Keene’s novel, “Dead Sea”, to one of Stephen King’s latest novels, “Cell”, to Robert Kirkman’s three-plus years of comics, “The Walking Dead”, to Brit zombie horror film “28 Days Later”. There’s something so simple about zombies that horror fans just eat them up. Of course, on the big screen, the zombies eat up everybody. George A. Romero and John Russo together created “Night of the Living Dead” and launched a whole new type of horror movie on an unsuspecting public. After the two had a falling out, Romero and Russo each went on to keep zombie franchises on track. All of Romero’s films have “Dead” in the title, and all of Russo’s have “Living Dead”. Both franchises have zombies looking for human buffets. The two had differences of opinion from the start. Russo wanted ...

  Based on a 1973 British film starring Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee that’s a cult favorite, “The Wicker Man” starring Nicholas Cage just misses all the way around. Like the original, this “Wicker Man” poses as a thriller, mystery, and horror movie. It’s more successful in the beginning segments that introduce Cage as California Highway Patrolman Edward Malus. The movie opens at a sedate pace in a small town where Malus is just one of the people in a diner; he seems to be focusing on dealing with problems in his life. That’s why he’s buying the self-help tapes to listen to while he’s patrolling on his motorcycle. This set up is quietly contained and quite different from the tragedy that happens soon after. While on the highway, Malus finds a doll. He stops and picks it up, then drives on ahead and spots a station wagon that has the likely culprit. When he ...