Madness, competition & the undead

The Horror Movie Show. Please be assured hosts Mark & Jerry are doing their utmost to watch every single horror movie that has ever been created, including the five discussed on this episode.

First up is Magic Magic, a 2013 flick about a young woman (Juno Temple) on holiday with some friends. Insanity lies just below the surface & this excellent little movie both entertains & terrifies. Michael Cera is a standout as the pathetically cruel Brink — as in “going over the brink.”

Next is the 1988 Polish feature Alice (aka Neco z Alenky), based on the literary classic Alice in Wonderland. A beautiful mixture of a single live actress & some outstanding stop-motion animation, this movie might be a bit intense for very small children, but most everyone else will enjoy it.

13 Sins (2014) is the U.S. remake of the worthwhile Thai feature 13: Game of Death. As with most remakes, this feature can be said to both improve on the original & lose some of its charm.

A pair of zombified flicks round out this episode. The 2009 mish-mash Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated features the work of many amateurish animators & illustrators to simply tell the same story as the original — conveniently uncopywritten — zombie flick. The much better documentary, Birth of the Living Dead (2013), gives the classic George A. Romero movie its due as a piece of cinematic history. Horror experts given their head include Romero, Mark Harris, Gail Anne Hurd & friend of this show Larry Fessenden.