ANALOG MEDIUM FEBRUARY 2007
The Encyclopedia Zombica Universal Zombie Movie Rating System
Biocircuitry - Photography by Maxwell Rygiol
Blast Into Combat With Analog Medium
The Analog Medium Office - February 2007
Analog Medium Offices February 2007
Make Your Own NES Cartridge
ZOMBIES!!! The Board Game
Robot Bastard! by Rob Schrab
The Return and End of S.C.U.D. The Disposable Assassin
Grindhouse (2007) Trailer
Aqua Teen Hunger Force (ATHF): The Movie Trailer
28 Days Later (2002)
Pet Sematary II (1992)
Lord of the Flies (1990)
Pet Sematary (1989)
Zombie 4: After Death (1988)
The Transformers: The Movie (1986)
Demons 2 aka Demoni 2 (1986)
Demoni aka Demons (1985)
Night of the Comet (1984)
Alone in the Dark (1982)
Nightmare City (1980)
I Spit on Your Grave aka Day of the Woman (1978)
House on Haunted Hill (1958 and 1999) Double Feature Review
Captain Skyhawk (NES 1990) Review
Adventures of Lolo (NES 1989) Game Genie Codes
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (NES 1989) Game Genie Codes
ANALOG MEDIUM FEBRUARY 2007
Biocircuitry - Photography by Max Capacity
The Biocircuitry Project by Max Capacity
Max is working on a color photography project featuring surrealistic landscapes created with closeups of printed circuit boards. He imagines them as landscapes and arial shots of futuristic cities. That's what I see too, definitely. I can't wait to see the finished product.
Make Your Own NES Cartridge
A guy named Cory Arcangel took a Super Mario Bros. NES cartridge and erased everything except the clouds scrolling by. You might say, "Who gives a fuck about clouds?" But then you would be stupid. The idea is that you can modify the hard-wired programming into virtually anything you want. I'm not a big enough nerd to figure out how to make something cool. I AM a big enough nerd to try to duplicate his results. He has a very complete write-up of the project on his Cory's Web LOG. I'm going to make sure to print out a hard copy for my project binder.
(via Hack a Day)
ZOMBIES!!! The Board Game
We got this great board game at the comic shop recently. It's just our kind of game. ZOMBIES!!! by Twilight Creations is just as good as it sounds. You play as a survivor trying to kill enough zombies or reach a helicopter. The point of the game becomes to screw over the competing survivors with event cards. It's pretty simple to play, and the game board is made up of tiles, so the board is different every time you play. Even cooler is that there's several expansion packs that can expand your game, as the name would suggest.
We've played a couple times now. Master Kush (right) won both games somehow. Bastard. The second game, The Silver Screen Kid and I tried to gang up on him, but he got lucky and got to the helicopter in time. We want to get the expansion packs and play a mega zombie game. Mega.
Adventures of Lolo (NES 1989) Game Genie Codes
Adventures of Lolo is one of those puzzle/strategy games that makes my brain lock up like a Buick in the snow. I've never beaten it. I don't intend to, either. But if you decide you must defeat the game, I've got got some codes to help you. You might also be interested in watching an Adventures of Lolo speedrun recorded from an emulator that I found on Internet Archive. I haven't watched it yet, but I can imagine how it goes. If you really want to finish the game, a speedrun might be just the right kind of walkthrough to help you.
Game Genie Codes:
SXOPSPVG - Infinite lives
PEKPOAIA - 1 life
PEKPOAIE - 9 lives
The Encyclopedia Zombica Universal Zombie Movie Rating System
In order to supplement the information contained in the Encyclopedia Zombica, our list in-progress of every zombie movie ever made, we've created a rating system. It's super-scientifically extrapolated from atomic cosmic transmissions. Instead of a simple 1-10 scale, like some stupid Olympic figure skaters' 9.5-9.9s, we've opted for a more sophisticated points system. Each point is awarded based on the fulfilment of our super-scientific criteria.
1. Headshot/Annihilation - Must the zombies be killed by headshot or full-body annihilation? Give the movie a point.
2. Dialogue - Is the dialogue snappy? Give the movie a point.
3. Believable Monsters - Suspension of disbelief isn't necessary, but it sure helps.
4. Humor - Comic relief is good in even the gravest situations. The best movies get this point.
5. Gore/VFX - You can't have a great zombie movie without good gore.
6. Setting - Interesting or original settings make a big difference when it comes to maintaining attention spans.
7. Body Count Ratio - Lots of people AND zombies need to die. Otherwise, what's the point of it all?
8. Creative Violence - Headshots and evisceration are cliche at this point.
9. Wild Card - This point is for something special or something that makes us cheer out loud
10. Overall - This point is simply for whether we liked the movie or not.
For Example:
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
+1 Headshots/Annihilation - Yes (headshots)
+0 Dialogue - No
+1 Believable Monsters - Yes
+0 Humor - No
+1 Gore/VFX - Yes (does a lot with a little)
+1 Setting - Yes
+1 Body Count Ratio - Yes (everyone dies)
+1 Creative Violence - Yes (zombie girl trowels mother in the basement)
+1 Wild Card - Yes (early and influential)
+1 Overall - Yes
8 points for Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Look forward to the Encyclopedia Zombica Universal Zombie Movie Rating System in the upcoming Encyclopedia Zombica 2.0.
Zombie 4: After Death (1988) Review
One might wonder what would be more entertaining: watching Zombie 4: After Death, or eating a steaming pile of donkey dung. One might wonder, but I know already. Eating a steaming pile of donkey dung would be much more exciting, and probably healthier for you. Just to clarify, Zombie 4 has almost nothing to do with Zombie 3. Just like Zombie 3 had nothing to do with Zombie 2. Just like Zombie 2 wasn’t even made in the same country as the first film to bear the name. The story goes that when Lucio Fulci, the Italian zombie-maestro, was working on a zombie flick in Italy, the original Dawn of the Dead was released over there under the name Zombi. To capitalize on its success, Fulci’s producers named his movie Zombi 2. Not that it was a sequel or anything. It just had a 2 on the end. Zombi 3 came later and, even though Fulci was involved for a time, the story had pretty much nothing to do with Zombi 2. Zombi 4 actually relates to Zombi 3 more than any of the others did. Too bad the first two movies were so much better.
The only way I could sit through this stinker was thanks to high-octane coffee and some mindless tasks I had to perform at 3 AM. Mindless is the perfect state to be in to watch this crap. If I hadn’t been doing something else that occupied a percentage of my brain function, I think my whole nervous system would have gone into shock. If you know anything about me, you know I like bad movies. But there’s bad, and then there’s bad, and then there’s this. The whole thing felt like a sixth-grader got his hands on a 16mm camera and went into the woods to play zombies with his friends. It all was filmed with a B-porno aesthetic, and the zombies were pretty much people with black rags strewn about their body and some flesh latex caked on for scars. Extremely booty.
If you don’t believe that a movie named Zombie 4 could suck so bad, just check out the following dialogue that I transcribed directly from the movie:
Girl: “Aren’t you frightened?”
Guy: “Sure, it’s only natural to feel frightened. It’s fear that saves your life when you’re fighting, waiting for Charlie to drop out of a tree at night. Those are the times that really count for something in a man’s life. When you discover if you’ve got balls or not.”
Girl: “And you do?”
Guy: “I found out one thing. When a man’s afraid he’s gonna die, there’s nothing he wants more than a woman at his side. And I want you.”
That’s right, it’s that bad.
Demons 2 aka Demoni 2 (1986) Review
I like to think of Demons 2 as Demons Again. It’s the same damn movie. Same plot, same actors, different setting, different characters. Which isn’t really a bad thing. If you read the A.M. review for Demons, or saw it, you know that the Demons series is strong in gore, weak in any superfluous story. Which is just how I like ‘em. Make some zombies, kill some zombies, finish the movie. Both Dario Argento (the producer) and Lamberto Bava (the director) understood this perfectly when making these classics. They spent time and labor on make-up, prosthetics, and violence. Give the people what they want!
Where Demons takes place in a movie theatre, with a movie that turns people into zombie demons, Demons 2 takes place in an apartment building. With a movie that turns people into zombies. As the set-up progresses, you see the various tenants of said apartment building living out their normal everyday lives until a horror movie comes on TV. Many stop to watch. One gets infected. All the rest feel her pain. The second act is by far the best, after the demon zombies have been unleashed and everything decays into zombie-fueled hysteria. Explosions and stabbings play an integral part in the second act. Zombiism spreads quickly, my friends.
The most hilariously low-budget aspect of Demons 2 is the reappearance of many of the actors that populated the first film. Now their characters have different names, but they have the same personalities. The pimp character from Demons returns, but this time he’s a personal trainer at a randomly placed gym in the apartment building. He doesn’t have the same suit or jewelry, but the pimp attitude remains. As the average sheep-brained survivor starts to panic, he stays cool as hell. There are some memorable moments of him and his crew barricading the parking garage by crashing cars and constructing makeshift molative cocktails. I liked Demons 2 just as much as the original until the final act. The original had a dirt bike and a samurai sword. This one just had a cheesy, contrived getaway. When all was said and done, though, I was not sorry for having watched it. Good times.
The Transformers: The Movie (1986) Review
I just want to go on record saying Transformers: The Movie is the best damn movie ever made. Period. Nothing that has come before or after can match the scope, depth, diversity, raw drama, and struggle depicted by the artists and voice actors that labored for two years on this masterpiece. It’s beyond your imagination. It’s as if the creative geniuses behind the scenes got together and said, “How can we make the most amazingly brain-staining action adventure that will blow kids’ minds away?” Then, when they got to the storyboards they were like, “Sure, this is super amazingly awesome, but how can we make it even more incredibly awesome? I know, how about a Transformer that eats planets? Let’s get Orson Welles to do the voice.” Bickity-bam, creative explosion.
Orson Welles, once a boy genius himself, was in the twilight of his career when Transformers came around. He must have been a fan to agree to play Unicron. Who wasn’t a fan of Transformers? Who isn’t still??? The passion and peril displayed in both the show and the movie blows away any and all drama. Shakespeare would have been proud to work on it. Homer would have heralded its song. What kid, when sitting down to watch it, wouldn’t instantly understand that Megatron fights for the side of evil, and Optimus Prime fights for justice. What parent wouldn’t be impressed by the artwork, the conceptual design, and the sheer magnitude of it all? Whole planets fall victim to the Transformers epic struggle, all for the sake of Cybertron.
When I decided to write this article I thought I might need to reach new depths of depravity to research the creative process that went into making it. Then I realized that it doesn’t really matter who worked on the movie or what they went on to do afterward. It doesn’t matter because anyone who worked on it can die happy knowing that they contributed to Transformers: The Movie. I sincerely hope the people working on the live-action version (Steven Spielberg, Michael Bay, etc) will be able to say the same thing when their movie premieres later this year. Remember, Spielberg, Remember, Bay: myself and millions of other fans like me are going to be watching with an ultimately discerning eye that has been honed by decades of dedication to these amazing transforming heroes. Don’t fuck it up.
Captain Skyhawk (NES 1990) Review
Before there was Starfox, there was… Skyhawk! This game rocks my socks off, and it’ll rock yours off as well. Talk about highway to the danger zone!
Lots of people think that every NES game had crappy block figures jumping up and down with 4 color ghosts chasing them. Some NES games had amazing, brain-splitting graphics. Captain Skyhawk is definitely one of them. This cartridge has full 3-D graphics and full up/down and left/right range of motion. Kick ass.
The game play is wizard, too. My favorite NES games are the ones with super quick response time, like Super Mario Bros. When you mash the controller playing Captain Skyhawk, you feel the effects of that mashing. Whether you still rock the original console or you have yourself an NES USB controller set like the Analog Medium cave dwellers, do yourself a favor and pick this game up.
Robot Bastard! by Rob Schrab
Do yourself a favor and go watch Robot Bastard! right now. It's free, it's about 15 minutes or so, and you can download it straight off their website. I recommend the DIVX version.
If you don't know (and I didn't until I read about it), Robot Bastard! is a short film created by Rob Schrab (SCUD The Disposable Assassin). It's all done with models, prosthetics, stop-motion animation, computer animation, and some awesome props and sets. It basically blew my mind. I've watched it about 6 times since I downloaded it on Saturday.
It is savage too. Lots of green ichor spraying, lots of headshots, lots of gratuitous violence. The sets and costumes are all made out of old toys, found cardboard, and what looks like tempera paint. Very surrealistic. While I was looking at Rob Schrab's videos on YouTube, I saw the Robot Bastard! trailer which I've embedded on Analog Medium for everyone to get hype off of. Another interesting fact that I learned on Schrab's webpage is that he's involved in directing parts of The Sarah Silverman Program on Comedy Central.
Demoni aka Demons (1985) Review
Demoni (or Demons to you and I) is widely regarded as one of the best Italian horror film of all time. Although there are plenty of Italian masterpieces that I like more, I’d have to agree. Demoni definitely ranks somewhere in the top 10. What could make a movie so sick, you ask? Think of it like this, this is the only movie I know that features all of the following: zombies, a cinema, an afro pimp, his hookers, naked boobs, cocaine, torn open throats, a samurai sword, a dirt bike, a crashed helicopter, Billy Idol, and a blind guy who gets his eyes torn out (can you say overkill?) Leave it to Dario Argento, the master of Italian horror, to conceive such a film.
Lamberto Bava, son of Mario Bava (Bay of Blood), directed this beautiful piece of art. The story goes that Lamberto had been working for Argento as an assistant director and Argento agreed to produce a movie expressly for Lamberto to direct. Argento came up with the story, put together the right people (including Michele Saovi who went on to direct Cemetery Man) , and handed it to Lamberto. And Lamberto ran it in for a touch down. Booyah. I have special sense of pride knowing that this triumph was released the same year that I was born (1985). A lot of good things were made that year.
You might think that being made in the 80’s, in Berlin, by an Italian crew, Demoni might have a limited appeal. It’s quite the opposite. Watching the movie for the first time last night, I guarantee I enjoyed it just as much as anyone who watched it in ’85 (maybe more). And I guarantee you’ll enjoy just as much as I did (guarantee void in 50 states). There is a near limitless amount of memorable stuff that happens in this flick. Almost too much to go into. I will say, however, that you’ll never feel the same in a movie theatre again after watching it. Demoni pwns. Watch your ass.
