The Flicks

The Graves

Megan and Abby Graves, two close but completely different sisters, are spending a final weekend together before Megan heads off to college.  Instead of choosing some awesome place like a beach somewhere or Las Vegas, they choose the middle of nowhere in an Arizona desert.  After a diner waitress convinces them to visit the town’s only attraction: an abandoned mining town called Skull City (no really, Skull City!), all hell breaks loose (literally) when they are chased by a determined killer. 

The Graves sets itself up like most slasher films where a couple of teenagers find themselves out of their element or in some strange location and are chased by a crazed person looking to decorate their walls with some new entrails.  It puts a different spin on this formula by adding a much better motive behind the killings.  The mining town rests on the lair of a hell bound evil spirit that forces the townspeople to kill outsiders in order to feed it with their souls or else be killed themselves.  When Megan and Abby become the next targets, they must adopt the same attitude as the locals in order to survive. It sounds awesome, but the film ends up being another example of a great concept executed poorly.

Despite the inclusion of Candyman star Tony Todd as Reverend Abraham Stockton, it really feels like he just phoned it in here.  I know he fits the creepy persona to a T, but when he delivers his lines in such a manner that he’s repeating himself on screen, I question the need for a big name like his.  The scene at the end in the church where he preaches is particularly awful.  I’m guessing director Brian Pulido was afraid to tell him to do another take since his 6’5” frame probably scared the crap out of him.  The rest of the cast offers better performances, if only slightly.  Expect to see a lot of awkward moments and stuttered dialogue.  Zombies of Mass Destruction did great things without a big name cast, why couldn’t The Graves?

Zombies of Mass Destruction

The second addition to the disk, Zombies of Mass Destruction is the superior of the two films in every way.  When the small island town of Port Gamble falls prey to an outbreak of the undead variety, the residents start looking for answers.  Convinced that it’s an act of terrorism, the still-living locals start blaming every non-white, non-Christian in the vicinity.  One of these unlucky few is an Iranian (Not Iraqi!) girl name Frida (Janette Armand), who is captured shortly after the insanity starts by Joe Miller (Russell Hodgkinson, Big Fish).  He begins torturing her to admit that she’s the cause of the outbreak until his son Brian Miller (Andrew Hyde) intervenes. 

Meanwhile, gay partners Tom (Doug Fahl) and Lance (Cooper Hopkins) are planning to come out to Tom’s mom over dinner until she turns brain muncher.  They escape to the town’s church where Reverend Haggis (Bill Johns) believes that he foresaw this apocalypse coming and that it’s caused by the non-believers and consequently, gay people.  He plans to use a device the church created long ago to remove the homosexuality (and life) from Lance and in doing so stop the onslaught of undead. 

Offering an odd blend of humor and horror along with a story focusing less on the undead and more on how humanity falls apart when the end comes is how ZOMD really shines.  Fans of AMC’s The Walking Dead or the comic of the same name will really love the premise here.  It’s exciting to see the heightened emotion and change in personalities as good people go bad in the face of their own doom.  Despite the studio labeling this as a “zomedy,” there’s less humor than you’d expect, but the small amount included doesn’t feel tacked on.  The inclusion of the “Frida” song in the beginning and at the credits is quite catchy and is silly enough to bring a smile to your face after hearing it.  ZOMD is a great albeit simple zombie film.

Audio and Video

Both films feature the same 1080p High Def widescreen presentation but only one of them really shows the level of quality expected on Blu-ray.  Zombies of Mass Destruction looks very crisp, with a great mix of bright colors early on when showing off the quaint community of Port Gamble but switches to the darker tones and solid blacks as the dead start walking.  It’s a great transfer and should look good on whatever high def setup you own.  With that said, The Graveslooks nothing like its better half on the disc.  It looks crisp in some areas and looks like it was shot with a small handheld camera in others.  On top of that, the special effects look incredibly poor and stand out far too much.  In one scene Megan bites the nose off an attacker and the effect looks absolutely ridiculous. 

Both of the films also use an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack, but again, The Graves offers the weaker performance of the two.  Much like the video quality, the audio also bounces between great sounding moments to others with very poor audio. On the other hand, ZOMD, offers a pretty solid track throughout with the groans and moans of the undead sounding appropriate.  The young cast does a great job of sounding like true professionals and they really make this quirky film even more enjoyable. Also, make sure you rock out to the included “Frida” song during the credits earlier. It’s awesome.

Special Features and Packaging

After Dark Horrorfest Double Feature to Die For Vol 4: The Graves andZombies of Mass Destruction on Blu-ray comes as a single-disc collection in a standard recycle case with the following extras:

The Graves:

• Two audio commentary tracks with 1) Brian Pulido and with 2) Francisa Pulido and Adam Goldfine. 
• “The Graves: Behind the Screams” featurette
• “Sound Designing The Graves” featurette
• Plan to Actual
• Spot the Gnome
• Auditions
• “Vampires Don’t Exist” Music Video by Calabrese
• Producer’s Trailer

Both sets of commentary are worth a listen for different reasons. Brian Pulido talks a lot about his contributions to the writing portion of the film while the other two cover how set design and scenes were set up.  “Sound designing” explains how the mixing was done using actors’ dialogue and lots of synthesizing. “Behind the Screams” is your basic behind the scenes feature and runs about 20 minutes.  It’s introduced by director Brian Pulido and features a lot of details from the design crew who put it all together.  It made me appreciate the film more, despite how bad it turned out.

The plan to actual features early shots of the scenes with director Brian Pulido walking the actors through them followed by the actual scenes used in the movie.  Spot the Gnome is a little game with “Boris”, a garden gnome that Brian Pulido puts in all his movies. The music video is the full version of the song used in the beginning of the film.  The auditions are just that and feature most of the actors present throughout the film.

Zombies of Mass Destruction:

• “Making of Zombies of Mass Destruction” featurette

The ZOMD featurette runs about five minutes and provides some extra details from the directors’ point of view.  It’s a shame that more attention wasn’t given to this film since it’s the better of the two on the disc. 

Overall

The Gravesoffers a great concept, but runs it into the ground with poor acting and stunts. What could have been an awesome in the hands of a better director turns out to be the worst film in the collection.  On the other hand, ZOMD manages to provide a fresh take on the zombie genre with memorable characters and a story that ends appropriately. It’s the real reason to own this volume and is well worth the small price tag.

ComicsOnline gives After Dark Horrorfest Double Feature to Die For Vol 4: The Graves and Zombies of Mass Destruction on Blu-ray 4 out of 5 zombicidal maniacs.

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