Closet Sci-Fi Geek

A Few Things to See on Hulu

Hulu is quickly becoming one of my favorite websites because I can watch a bunch of movies and TV on demand, without having to go out and get a rental or wait for whatever is in my Blockbuster queue to arrive. Here are a few things I’ve recently caught on Hulu:

The Fifth Element
Now a classic sci-fi film from the 90s, The Fifth Element is on Hulu in its entirety with only a few short commercial breaks. Boy, how I miss the 90s and how freakin’ over the top we were. Sci-fi was just a lot more colorful and humorous back then. Now it’s all grey and dreary and “realistic.” Blah. The Fifth Element is so totally wacked in moments that it would have been a complete failure were it not for Bruce Willis, Chris Tucker, and a surprisingly good performance by Milla Jovovich (in her trademark white bandages and skinny little bod).

Alfred Hitchcock Presents/The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
OK, not really sci-fi for the most part, but these are really worth a watch. I remember seeing them a long time ago and forgot how good some of the episodes are. While a few are predictable, many are well-written with surprising twists and turns. Hitchcock himself makes the show with his goofy black humor. Keep an eye open for stars before they were stars.

Regenesis
A Canadian TV show about biotechnology and all the gory things that go along with it (such as massive viral outbreaks), Regenesis is OK - something to watch while you are doing something else. The first two episodes featured a deadly virus run amok and a mysterious boy who claims he is a “clone.” I wasn’t blown away by the two episodes I watched (it seemed like a cheesier version of House meets CSI meets the movie Outbreak), but some reviewers loved it. I’m willing to give it a few more episodes before making my final decision on it.

Max & Co

I went to see Max & Co this week. A cute story by Christine Dory and Emmanuel Salinger, and very cool stop animation. The mise-en-scene is a nice mixture of steam-punky technology and alpine small-town idealism. And there’s something I really like about French with subtitles. Just sounds cool.

While it’s essentially a kids film, it has some nice adult level moments, like when the captured flies are gassed, have orgasms, and lay eggs while cavorting drunkenly through the air. Well, I laughed.

So, highly recommend it if you get the chance to see it.

Zombies on the brain

Zombie’s scare the bejesus out of me. I read in a dream book that Zombies represent a disconnection from feelings. If you are feeling numb, depressed, cold inside, or if you are completely consumed by a certain feeling, like hunger or fury, then you are the closest to being a zombie – at least according to dream symbolists. I think the loss of rational thought, that which makes us civilised human beings, is also what makes Zombies a terrifying prospect. You’re bog-standard, shambling, ‘brains’ groaning Zombie is a classic example, and made wonderfully chilling in the game, ‘Resident Evil’. The other, and I personally think scarier Zombie, is the ‘Rage Zombie’ portrayed in Danny Boyle’s ’28 Days Later’. That film, and ’28 Weeks Later’, have given me nightmares, and I still half expect when I look up at the glass sliders first thing in the morning, when it’s still twilight, to see a rage zombie, drooling blood, glaring at me with red eyes, just waiting to dive through the glass and eat my spleen.

[Shudder]

Lately I’ve watched Robert Rodriguez’s ‘Terror Planet’ and Johnathan King’s ‘Black Sheep’. Neither of these frightened me – in fact they made me laugh which was the creators’ intention I’m sure. ‘Black Sheep’ was particularly cool as I grew up on a sheep farm and my father always wanted me to write a story about mobs of rabid sheep revolting and running amok. Johnathan King got there before me, and Dad would have loved ‘Black Sheep’ had he lived to see it.

So there’s my thoughts on Zombies. What do you fullas and fullesses think about them?

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Categories: Horror, Video Games
Tags: 28 days later, black sheep, resident evil, zombies
Other posts by Edwin McRae