It has been a  cold, cold winter.

Snow has been piled high here in Baltimore since late January and it’s been raining down indiscriminately from the heavens since mid December. Snow shovels have become my ally and stolen parking spaces the bane of my existence, but the promise of spring looks set to melt that all away.

Unless, of course the chill returns and with it more seasonal storms. Thanks to the recent blizzards, we are entering the merry month of March and all of us are still looking over our shoulders, waiting for Jack Frost to give us an icy wedgie.

And when you are there, lodged in your home, with no way to get out, it’s understandable that a bit of stir craziness might set in. What better way to counteract that than with some good old fashioned cinematic madness?

Here’s hoping the rest of the year is smooth sailing from a meteorological standpoint, but if it isn’t, here are ten creepy chillers you can snuggle up with on a cold evening:

30 Days of Night-

Before they were fey emo poets, vampires were not just fearsome entities but walking signposts of death and decay. When you get down to it, what better season for the Nosferatu than winter? The sun is dim, the evenings long and the days short, and with everyone wrapped up tight and shivering, it’s easier to go unnoticed. Lately, we have had a trio of cinematic vampires who have chosen the dreary northern climes to inhabit; Frostbiten, Let the Right One In, and this comic adaptation that sees a tribe of dying vamps lay waste to a town in Alaska during a month of perpetual darkness. The other two films fall out of the range of horror/thriller but 30 Days has the creepy color palette, the perfect menace, and the right setting for a terribly enjoyable action/horror romp. Hartnett isn’t the most believable action hero, but Danny Huston as the head vamp is a baddie with real menace. When the remaining survivors discover a young girl who has been bitten, the creep factor goes through the roof.

Wind Chill-

I never really took inventory of Emily Blunt until I saw this 2006 indie ghost story that casts her as a self absorbed college student who catches a ride home with a guy on campus she doesn’t really know. Then, the two find themselves stranded together on a freezing back road during Christmas break. Sound romantic? It isn’t. In addition to the mounting unease that Blunt feels when she realizes her driving buddy might be a stalker, there’s also the possibility of hypothermia setting in before they are rescued, and the fact that the road they broke-down on is inhabited by a plethora of real ghosts. Blunt really delivers a strong performance and for entire chunks of the movie she is alone, pitted against the supernatural forces of this stretch of highway. There’s a feel of Jack London survival stories in all of the tragic details and in the nature of the ghosts themselves, who are playing out a long forgotten misery that traps all who come that way. It’s not a classic, but it does what it does effectively with a good amount of spookiness.

Transsiberian-

The atmosphere alone in Brad Anderson’s wintry suspense thriller makes it worthy of a place on this list. Anderson, who has channeled unspoken fears before in Session 9 and The Machinist,tells the story of a couple of missionaries (Mortimer and Harrelson) riding a train from China to Moscow, meeting up with a sketchy young couple, and getting involved with murder, international intrigue and a stone-faced Ben Kingsley who looks ready to snap. Mortimer and Harrelson have an odd chemistry as the couple, and Kingsley flip-flops between sinister and benign. All of this helps craft an uneasy sense that we can’t trust anything we see. The desolate, snowy scenery is matched against the cramped, claustrophobic confines of the train to deliver a thriller that moves single-minded about the business of fraying our nerves. Hitchcock would be proud of this one.

Ravenous-

Foreboding and gritty, Ravenous is half thriller, half dark comic farce. All of it is revolting in a thematic way. Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle play two opposing forces battling it out at a military outpost in the Sierra Nevadas circa 1847. Pearce is Boyd, a disgraced soldier sent to the fort as punishment by his superior, and Carlye is  Colqhoun, a pioneer whose party was lost in the wilderness and went cannibalistic. Colqhoun is the only survivor and he finds he not only has a taste for human flesh, but in keeping with Native American legend, he can absorb his victim’s power. The stage is set for all kinds of dark hi jinks as Carlyle starts eating his way through the outpost, and making converts as he goes. The cinematography is stunning and beautiful and director Bird captures several disconcerting shots of suspicious meat cooking on the stove. A thoughtful and cheerfully gross horror movie that will help curb that winter desire to snack all day.

Misery-

Got cabin fever? Well, no one handles the idea of cabin fever or interior isolation better than Stephen King, who has two titles on this list. There’s even a snowstorm in this one, albeit it mostly serves as a plot device to keep James Caan’s Paul Sheldon in the helpless care of the psychopathic Annie Wilkes, played to passive-aggressive perfection by Kathy Bates. What Annie does to Paul over the course of months he is in her ‘care’ ranges from subversively funny to downright harrowing. If you ever end up house bound as a result of the weather, or have to hole up for an extended period of time with company that isn’t exactly cheerful, just remember Sheldon’s misfortunes and that hot cocoa will taste all the sweeter. To this day, I can’t watch that scene involving the sledgehammer and Caan’s ankles without turning away.

Cold Prey-

A Swedish production and little known here in the US, Cold Prey is one of the best slasher films in recent memory and the arctic setting has almost everything to do with that. A couple of ski buddies head up to a remote and abandoned (aren’t they always?) resort in the mountains and there they find a force bent on dispatching them one by one. I gave up on dead teenager movies ages ago, but the style and suspense of Cold Preyreally works. The snow-capped mountains and ice glaciers are a spectacular canvas upon which to splash a little blood and viscera. The killer, a hulking giant in a snow parka, is a satisfying villain and among the ranks of the hapless youngsters, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal proves she can swing an ice-pick with the best of them. The perfect remedy for that long-distance ski vacation you’ve been planning. The film also has a sequel which manages to be similarly unnerving.

Runaway Train-

Based on a screenplay by the legendary Akira Kurosawa, Runaway Train is an action spectacle that never lets up and what really makes it sing are the performances by Jon Voight and Eric Roberts and the dazzling, snowy landscapes that the train hurtles through as it heads towards it’s destination. Runaway Train has a harsh, near existential quality to it that distinguishes it from other thrillers of the same era. Voight and Roberts, as two prisoners trying to make a getaway, are seemingly up against the whole universe in their bid for freedom. Although there’s much that feels metaphorical, the frozen, craggy wasteland that these men are thrust into pushes reality and consequence front and center. Intelligent, emotional and entertaining, Runaway Train is the perfect popcorn thriller for a cold afternoon.

A Simple Plan-

Quite possibly Sam Raimi’s best movie, and probably one of the most underrated, A Simple Plan captures the melancholy and eerie loneliness that can accompany a long winter. Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton are brothers who stumble upon a bag of money in a downed plane while they are out hunting. With Paxton’s wife Bridget Fonda, playing lady Macbeth, Paxton, Thornton and a family friend conspire to keep the money for themselves and then things begin to go amiss and haywire. A treatise on greed and the dangerous nature of moral compromise, A Simple Plan is heartbreaking in its emotional depiction of a family pulling apart in the face of temptation. Thornton, particularly, is poignant as a man who isn’t terribly bright, but is enough so that he understands how it is exactly that he doesn’t fit in. Paxton is compelling as a good man driven quickly and devastatingly from the path. The shivery scenery casts exactly the right funeral pall for the film’s events. Crows dangle menacingly from an icy tree and Thornton muses contemplatively “They eat dead things. What a weird job to have.”

The Shining-

The granddaddy classic of all isolated paranoid thrillers involving winter, Kubrick’s The Shining deviates significantly from the events of King’s book, but it is terrifying and scary nonetheless. Kubrick makes the Overlook a most menacing antagonist through long angle shots, still frames, and tracking scenes that capture the disquieting and the unsettling with no particular fanfare. When evil blossoms in such a potentially mundane scenario, everything becomes charged with fear very quickly. Images of swirling snow, and gently falling flakes have the same effect upon our psyche, and I don’t think there has ever been a more perfect use of interior/exterior contrast where setting is concerned. Forget all of that though, and you still have the main attraction; Jack going crazy and stalking his wife and child with an axe through the art deco halls of the Overlook. The ultimate family dysfunction winter madness medley, this one gets me every time.

The Thing-

This is it, the most distressing and sneaky piece of cold weather paranoia I have ever laid eyes on. John Carpenter designs a foreboding atmosphere with this Antarctic base camp and the star ship long frozen in the snow. It adopts all of the functions of the original Howard Hawks movie but it skews more closely to the short story “Who Goes There?” when it comes the shape-shifting identity of the monster. Kurt Russell testing the blood with fire to determine who among the crew isn’t what he appears to be is spine-tingling tension at its very best. The gooey fx that include a head on spindly spider legs, mutated husky dogs, and Wilford Brimley trying to eat his coworkers are still neat all these years later. I also appreciate the way the weather conditions are presented as merciless and dangerous, and don’t take a side seat once the alien terror shows up. There are few horror movies that work as well as The Thing and fewer still that stick with us when they are over.

How about you? Is there a particular movie that evokes the icy dread of winter? Any titles I missed that help reinforce that feeling of unease when the white stuff starts falling? Share with us below!

Here’s the official trailer for Woody Harrelson’s Defendor

Whoa! Looks great! Sure it stinks of which came first (Kick-Ass or Defendor?), but who cares? Kick-Ass has a good trailer but doesn’t look to be a good movie while Defendor looks like a great movie and it stars Woody Harrelson! Woody has great comedic timing (Cheers) and a dark action-comedy, a la Zombieland, is just the place for Harrelson to shine. I’m also reminded of Hot Fuzz and Mystery Men, which might be setting the bar a little high but I think Harrelson can climb over it! Rounding out the cast are Kat Dennings (Charlie Bartlett), Elias Koteas (Fallen), and Sandra Oh (Grey’s Anatomy). First-time director Peter Stebbings makes the leap from television acting where he’s been for the past 20 years. See Defendor in limited theatrical release February 26, 2010 or on DVD April 30, 2010.

The day of the screening I was joking around with some friends at my day job and came up with this snazzy catchphrase regarding the new movie 2012: “Only John Cusack can outrun disasters of massive proportions but not be able to stop the disaster that was his character’s marriage.” I knew that Amanda Peet played Kate Curtis, the separated wife of Cusack’s Jackson Curtis and I had a feeling that by the end of the movie their long lost love would be reunited by the events of the movie.  Boy was I right, and I didn’t need the Mayans to predict this like they allegedly have predicted the disaster that is 2012.

Director and Screenwriter (gotta give credit where credit is due) Roland Emmerich managed to create what will be this season’s greatest comedy. I don’t think that is what he set out to do upon drafting, filming, and editing 2012 but that is the end result. This two-and-a-half hour comedy will have you rolling in your seat as you watch Cusack and the gang outrace disaster after disaster after disaster. The over-the-top elements and wacky situations in which Cuscak and the gang find themselves is downright hysterical. You’ll laugh as the Cusack Gang (short name from now on) out drive an earthquake that is ripping California apart. You won’t be able to resist the temptation to crack a smile when the Cusack Gang manage to hit the perfectly placed upturned pavement, use it as a ramp to jump a very large hole caused by the massive earthquake they were outrunning, and drive through a glass building that was toppling in front of them. It’s the Dukes of Hazzard meets Lethal Weapon 4!

The plot is straight out of an NBC Movie of the week that should be shown as a two-parter during February sweeps. In 2009 Doctor Adrian Helmsley, played by Chiwetel Ejofor, discovers that the Earth’s core is getting hotter. He takes the facts and presents them to Carl Anheuser, played by Oliver Platt, who is the President’s top scientist. They determine that with the help of the world’s government, ships can be built to house all of the world’s culture as well as those select individuals that helped fund the project and all government parties throughout the world. The plans are put into motion and in 2010 the governments unite. Over the next two years the Chinese build six very large metal ships that will be used to transport countless live animals and people to safety for months if not years, and house state-of-the-art electronics that will guide their way. These Arks will be used for the months or years it takes to restart civilization after the great floods.

There is even a Who’s Who of characters that gave 2012 that NBC Movie of the Week feel. Danny Glover is the President of the United States. Woody Harrelson is Charlie, the one “crazy person” who knows the Government’s plans but isn’t taken seriously. Blu Mankuma plays Harry Helmsley the father of Ejofor’s character, and George Segal plays Tony Delgato who hasn’t spoken or seen his son in years and is also Harry’s musical partner. This short list of actors helped to make 2012 feel like a Movie of the Week. Where are Hasselhoff and Shatner when you need them?

I won’t even get into the wooden performance Glover gives as the POTUS. His delivery and demeanor seemed to indicate that this was a paycheck and not really a wise career move. Cusack did a good job at not taking the story too seriously. I mean, how can you when you’re constantly avoiding disaster with seconds to spare. Peet was the only actor who delivered a believable portrayal of a character. As I’ve been told, it only takes one rotten apple to ruin the bunch – thanks to Amanda Peet for being that apple. I kid, I kid… you were the bright spot to this comedy and you were the only person that made me believe that your character was in danger.

I’m sure some will think this was an amazing movie based on the great effects. YES, the effects were incredible. The way Emmerich choreographed the destruction of the Earth was, to say the least, beautiful. His use of real-world physics helped to portray the massive destruction that was happening before our eyes. His sinking of California was an awesome effect and the way the land mass sank while buildings kept toppling over was darn cool to watch. His use of dust and debris from downed buildings converging down the roads and toward the populace was too reminiscent of images captured on 9/11/01 in New York city.  I found myself picking up small sound effects that added to some of the massive events unfolding on the screen. There is a scene where the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy is being lifted by a massive tsunami and the scraping noise of the jets sliding off the bow of the ship was a nice touch of realism. But, as we all know, effects do not make a movie great. Story and acting are also needed to help sell the Hollywood magic and are just what was missing from 2012. I find it hard to take a movie seriously when the entire audience is laughing at EVERYTHING that is happening in front of them. If Emmerich is smart he’ll have Columbia put this under the Comedy section come Oscar time.

Columbia Pictures manages to deliver a PG-13 movie with intense disaster sequences, a 2.5 hour run time, little story,  lots of special effects, and laughs-a-plenty (which I’m sure was unintentional and just the by-product of a bad movie).

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ 

There’s more human suffering on display in Roland Emmerich’s 2012 than any other film I’ve seen. Emmerich raises the stakes of his own game, creating a level of destruction that outdoes anything seen in Independence Day or The Day After Tomorrow. Where he succeeds most brilliantly is in forming a perfectly satisfying piece of coherent bubble gum B-movie, where Michael Bay, given a comparable amount of funding, will produce utter chaos.

The only well-rounded character in 2012 is the calamity itself: unprecedentedly huge solar flares are causing the core of the earth to heat up and weaken the crust of the earth. This is making the tectonic plates of the earth shift around, causing earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanoes and the bisection of the occasional grocery store. Emmerich takes about a half an hour to warm up the audience for impending doom, which makes 2012 incredibly lengthy when it doesn’t need to be. He could lop off the entire front portion of the film and begin with a mysterious bang, letting us put the pieces together as we go along, and it would have functioned just as well.

As a result, we get weird subplots — the replacement of famous artwork in the Louvre and Buddhist monks and simple nonsense. That’s okay, though, because this breathing room lets us hang out with characters, none of whom are totally fleshed out, but also none that are really unlikeable. John Cusack, as a failed everyman writer, is as likable as he’s been in every role in his career.

Blessed with a slightly better script, he would really hold 2012 together; as it stands, it’s definitely an ensemble piece. We get fine turns from Oliver Platt, Woody Harrelson and Chitwel Ejiofor, but they’re the standard characters we’ve become familiar with since Emmerich showed them off in Independence Day. His actors are chess pieces in showcase scenes, which is totally fine. The movie knows what it wants to be, satisfies that purpose, and nothing more.

It’s an average film, highly entertaining in the theater and ultimately disposable on the way out. However, the “rollercoaster ride” cliche totally applies to 2012, and seems to wear it with pride. The thing is, I can’t see Emmerich going anywhere after this film; he’s going to have to try his hand at a different game, because where do you go after destroying the world?

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

Against all odds and desire, I have yet to see Zombieland. However, this hasn’t stopped the film from raking in some serious dough, hopefully a sign that more horror comedies will be headed our way.

The $25 million success of the film has led to obvious discussions of a potential sequel. Co-screenwriter Paul Wernicke had this to say on the subject:

“We would love it, and everyone involved creatively wants to do another one. Woody [Harrelson] came up to us after the final cut of the last scene and gave us a hug and said, ‘I’ve never wanted to do a sequel in the previous movies I’ve done until this one.’ “

Wernick and Rhett Reese plan to return to write a sequel if Zombieland 2 gets greenlit, and they claim that Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin and director Ruben Fleischer all have interest in a sequel.

“It has lived in our heads for four-and-a-half years,” Wernick said. “We developed it and wrote it as a spec TV pilot in the summer of 2005. We’ve got a long brainstorming document that still to this day gets updated on a near-weekly basis with ideas. We’ve got tons of new ideas swimming in our head.”

If the gang’s all back, I’m all for it. Hopefully Fleischer goes and does another interesting project in the interim though — I hate when talented directors get stuck in the rut of their first film’s success. It works for some (Eli Roth, for example), but many, like Sam Raimi, have the desire to move on to other pastures.

Wernick and Reese have also been working on Venom for Sony.

More news on Zombieland 2 as it develops here on AtomicPopcorn.net!

First of all, it’s all-cards-on-the-table time.  Zombieland is only the third zombie flick I’ve ever seen.  I know,  I know.  I’m sorry.  28 days later and Shaun of the Dead are the other two.  Not even one of the real “Dead” series.  They’re on my Netflix queue and have been for quite some time.  I just haven’t gotten around to them.  Things come up, y’know?  Wha’d’ya do?  I also saw Planet Terror, but I’m nearly done blocking that from my memory so it doesn’t count.  That all being said I got to go to an advance screening of this film, sat down with some popcorn and soda (as is appropriate) and thoroughly enjoyed Zombieland.

Before the film started, a gentleman, I’m assuming from the studio, got up in front of the theater, asked for our attention and told us we were one of the first audiences to see this film.  He said that the film was incomplete and had imperfections that would be fixed before it gets released.  I did notice some CGI that needed work, the color correction wasn’t finished, some night scenes were very grainy, and there may be some editing and music cues that will be fine-tuned.  None of it was really distracting, but I am intrigued to see how different the final product will be.  The CGI that was there looks like the computer jockeys were taking a page from the “Zack Snyder Style of Filming Violence” – extreme slow motion and blood that looks like cherry Jell-O.  Even the opening credits’ style was nearly identical to what Snyder did in Watchmen, except that each vignette shows either a zombie kill or a zombie chase – all set to “Knights of Cydonia” by Muse.  It is effective, so I don’t blame them for ripping it off.  I am led to believe that zombies come in two flavors: fast and suh-low.  The ones in this film are fast, sprinting at people and ripping them apart in gory ways, all while bodily fluids of all disgusting sorts spew from their gaping maws.

Our narrator (yes, there is heavy voiceover throughout the entire film and somewhere Robert McKee is shaking his head) is Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus.  This being Jesse’s second “–land” film of the year, he is making a nice niche of being Michael Sera’s understudy.  However, I prefer Eisenberg over Sera since Sera seems to be unable to get past an awkward stammering shtick.  In this film Jesse does the unconfident shtick but he adds in personality – some heart and some guts added convincingly when the story calls for it.  I see Eisenberg someday being Woody Allen’s alter ego in one of Allen’s films.  When we meet him, Columbus is on his own as the zombie apocalypse has turned everyone he knows into a flesh-eating monster.  Along the way, he has created 32 rules for staying alive.  These rules get posted on the screen as they are used, often to very comic effect.

Before the film gets too far into Omega Man territory, Columbus meets Tallahassee.  All the main characters are named for the cities they come from… or are heading to, it was unclear.  This is supposed to keep them from getting too close to one another in case one of them gets bit and the rest need to put him away.  Woody Harrelson, no doubt summoning Mikey Knox back up from where he lays, plays Tallahassee to Snake Plissken perfection.  He is an unapologetic sociopathic badass with a heart of gold, played to the hilt, and he will go down in history with the best of them.  Pure fun.  As Columbus is being dragged on Tallahassee’s ongoing quest to find one more Twinkie to consume, they meet sisters, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin).  There are many trust issues between the four survivors that threaten their wobbly alliance throughout the rest of the flick but the girls become the motives for the guys for the rest of the film.

This film is not a horror film – it’s a action/comedy in the Shaun of the Dead vein.  On top of that, it’s a road trip and their destination is wherever they see hope on the horizon.  Wichita and Little Rock are on their way to an amusement park near Los Angeles called Pacific Playland.  It is a place that held good memories for them both and it becomes the main set piece for the finale.  But before getting there they decide to crash in a Beverly Hills mansion they believe is unoccupied.  This leads to one of the funniest parts of the film and one of the best cameos I’ve seen in a long time.  I’ll say no more here, for to do so would spoil the fun.  Suffice it to say this movie is filled with all sorts of pop references which may date the film, but which will not take anything away from it.

Zombies on film are often used as metaphors.  From indictments of the Vietnam War, commentaries on the Civil Rights movement or critiques of our own consumer-based culture, zombies have been stand-ins for many many things.  So what are the filmmakers trying to portray with the undead here?  Thankfully, they obliterate any uncertainty in the last line of the film.  “Without other people, you might as well be a zombie.”  And with that they set up a sequel very nicely.  If it comes, I’ll be there on opening weekend.

Rating: ★★★★½ 

Zombie movies have been one of the staples of horror cinema for years, known best through George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Horror and comedy rarely make a fine mix; one of the very few exceptions was the 2004 hit Shaun of the Dead. A new film enters that exclusive list, Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland. Tying in a proper balance of gore and laughs, this movie is blood-gushing roller coaster ride that you will not want to get off of.

The story follows ‘Columbus’ (Jesse Eisenberg), a soft spoken college student who is one of few survivors of what’s better known as Zombieland. Quickly he joins an unlikely group of people, like the zombie-killing machine Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), the seductive Wichita (Emma Stone) and the clever Little Rock (Abigail Breslin).

One of the stronger points of the film is not the comedic timing, but the overall pace. There is not a single dull moment that takes place in this movie, leaving you at the end of it wanting more. The story is predictable to a degree, but with the colorful characters and direction, that does not become much of a factor.

Jesse Eisenberg’s character Columbus is timid yet brave, and he plays it out to its full extent. Even though he’s already well-known for being the soft-spoken hero, his chemistry with the rest of his co-stars works perfectly. Woody Harrelson, taking on the role of the gun-toting Tallahassee, is the most enjoyable part of the film. He’s the crazy bad ass person you love to cheer for as he carries on his quest for the last Twinkie. Emma Stone sticks on as the sassy and strong female lead, bringing her own persona and proving that she is an actress to keep an eye on. Abigail Breslin continues to slowly blossom in her own acting abilities, showing she is well able to hold her own among some more seasoned actors.

Ruben Fleischer proves that he can take the lead, driving us head first into the terrifying alternative present. Though his style may not stand out to an excessive degree, he gets the job done and tells a well-rounded story. The cinematography from Michael Bonvillain worked on all levels, not only in his depiction of this bleak apocalyptic world but the connection of unity (or lack thereof) between the four main characters. The production design from Maher Ahmad was simple yet effective, being able to better showcase the utter chaos that ensues scene after scene after scene throughout the film.

What originally was an all-but-dead time for zombies has re-emerged through comedy with this film. Zombieland packs the laughter, action, and horror all into one movie that has been long overdue.

Rating: ★★★½☆