It Stains the Sands Red
Overall Recommendation
Recommendation?
I think this is one of those semi-unfortunate items that is appreciated with age, meaning, this is a movie for adults who although they themselves may play video games, they do not watch other people playing them. That’s an important distinction in maturity and engagement and free thinking, all of which are required to make this work. And then it does, and it does really well. They followed the 5 Guys business model here- they took one thing and made it better than anyone else. What, exactly, I’m not sure, but they definitely were on point with the zombies and effects. Classy. This is a zombie movie for the people who aren’t eagerly stockpiling firearms and ammunition, this is a movie for people who don’t need constant rattling automatic gunfire, this is a movie for people who know how desperately hard it can be to stay awake when you really need to but want nothing but sleep and you’re out of cocaine. Allen does a great coke floozy on the mend, and Smalls may individually be the most aesthetically realistic zombie I’ve seen. The sets were magical, too. I love the desert. The plot of this is superficially basic, however the character’s development as the sun and stress work is really what the movie is about. This is most definitely a zombie movie, and I’d have to place it thematically in the same silo as The Dead series, which are also great. Definitely much more interesting and original than the vast majority of offerings currently, yet at the end, great as that final scene is… I felt sort of like I’d had a diet version of a meal. When I was eating it, I couldn’t tell, but in hindsight, I feel like there was room for something else in the script. I couldn’t tell you what was missing though. But this is a solid B+… A- even, if you’re not into the “big picture” zombie movies that show entire civilizations flopping like fish on the floor. This is a fun, imaginative movie that requires the audience kinda ignore certain realities of desperation. Like, if you’re up on a big rock and there’s a shit-ton of bowling ball sized-rocks all over the place and a zombie directly below you, you’re going to pummel it with rocks until it resembles marina sauce and then continue your walk without a zombie stalking you.
Plot Autopsy
Plot Autopsy
- Las Vegas has fallen, and the arc transporting one couple to safety becomes stuck in sand
- One zombie attack later, Molly is hurrying across the desert, chased by a zombie
- Molly throws her used tampon. I repeat, there is used tampon throwing.
- Molly befriends the zombie, finds a raft and a tire, and… yeah… it just gets silly.
- No longer friends, molly has to amputate one of her fingers with a dull rock
- Molly rescues her son only to ensure that he’s going to see her die before he does.
Zombie Description
Zombie Description
Pretty traditional zombies, except if you tell them REALLY sternly not to bite you, they listen and obey at least until you stick your finger near their mouth. Head shots needed to kill them, bite transmits the virus, no need to sleep, love to play with the intestines they’re eating… perfectly normal, average zombies in every way. Until you speak to them STERNLY. Then their true docile nature comes out. Until the script needs another jolt, so they bite you.
Where the money went
Where the money went
Amazing special effects, a talented actress, a great zombie guy… And land leases to walk around the desert for days on end. There is nothing that this movie did that is lacking. Sure, the gun in the beginning could have had an actual barrel, sure, they could have used real cocaine, of course there were ways that it could be improved. But this would have been striving for perfection, which is the enemy of good. This works because they knew what they wanted and then they made that thing happen. They threw a little extra money into the camera work, too. This was filmed in a pretty, flowing sort of way.
Best Weapon
Best Weapon
Imagination and boldness. How else do you logically combine the idea of zombies hunting by smell with the fact that women bleed every now and again? How do you get someone to sign off on a scene that begins “Molly is crouching on a rock, dangling a used tampon directly in front of the camera.” I get it. It’s logical. I’m not even squeamish about it. It’s just… L7. The weapons were absent for the vast majority of this- in the beginning, she throws a couple rocks, but then she ceases trying to do anything to stop or even slow the zombie down.
Can I get a hand?
Can I get a hand?
I can give you a finger. She smashed one off with a rock. I couldn’t watch. There was a good amount of tradition here, but then there was some stuff that absolutely goes against the grain. Yes, the initial “Zombie trying to get into the car” was awesome, and there was the newspaper headline nod to… something historically zombie, but this is such a small story; “Coke floozy walks through desert followed by a zombie” there’s really… hang on now… we actually DID get a zombie breach- out of the sand after the storm. Ok. This comes in at about a 50% on the Can I get a hand chart. I have zero frame of reference as to what the labels of the chart’s axis’s are.
That was new!
That was new!
Adding menstruation into the movie was new. Using a tampon to lure away a zombie like an aircraft firing flares to escape heat seeking missiles was… very new. And graphic. And nothing that I’d really want to watch a second time. But in that moment, it totally works. Her harnessing Smalls to make him pull her super-raft was pretty new too. And then… suddenly stopping a zombie’s urge to bite you with a stern talking to… well, that was new, and although I understand why it was felt they had to go to this place, I don’t think I approve. That scene left a really bad taste in my mouth. Worse than a tampon. Other big direction this went in terms of new is we’ve seen people protect zombies that they were related to in hopes that a cure could be found… this is a common theme in the genre. But I’ve never seen someone go from being chased across a desert to befriending. That was new.
Review Notes
Review Notes
Opens with a great shot of a Las Vegas dying
A Porsche with a bad girl and a… very unsympathetic man
That was a puke! Which is strange, considering the amount of coke she’s on. When I used cocaine, I could drink straight mandarin vodka out of the bottle and then talk my way out of a sobriety test. Shit makes me invincible. I guess that’s why it’s so expensive.
He has managed to get the car stuck. That’s not… really that believable.
Dude’s name is Nick. There are some who call me… Nick.
Oh. There’s a zombie far away, walking closer.
Right down the middle of the road. It’s a really good shot.
Nick’s got a gun… an airsoft gun… with a really tricky safety, evidently. That’s why a firearm *without* a safety is best. You never pull it unless you’re ready to use it, and if you’re ready to use it, why add in something else to think about that can go wrong in what is already a really stressful situation? I’ve lost my glasses on my face. I’m sure I could fuck up a little slider thing.
Dropped the zombie…
Boy. These two should get a room.
Zombie’s back up.
Nick… shoots the zombie’s ear off like Mike Tyson and Holyfield.
And then is out of bullets.
Run away!
They’re hiding in the car!
DUDE. They’re playing STITCHES. “Better have my money when I come to collect!” As far as insane rapping clowns go, that guy is the *best*.
Great zombie trying to get through the window…
“Just give it five minutes. He’s bound to lose interest eventually.”
Yes, arguing is really helping things.
Molly. Her name is Molly.
And the zombie appears to have wandered off somewhere.
They got the phone, but the zombie… got Nick.
Oh, that’s some good intestines.
FUCK!! STARTLED!!
Molly is overlanding.
Molly is having a breakdown.
Molly is having a cigarette.
It’s the next day, and things aren’t looking good. Molly is lost.
Sugar tits?
And Molly begins walking. In the absolute wrongestmost shoes.
Well, the tampon thing… is new.
Cocaine. It’s what fuels Molly.
Later, around a campfire… the cocaine appears to have worn off…
We’re hallucinating babies and domestic bliss.
Shit. The zombie caught up with her!
When in doubt, climb a big rock. I like it.
Trapped. Molly is an island.
Trying to make the zombie fetch sticks. That’s… new.
Molly just did an L7 with her used tampon as a zombie decoy!
It worked! He fell for it!
And then she fell off her rock!
Her shit is not secure!
“Ha! Too slow, old balls!”
She’s really about that vodka.
The sun is getting to her.
Thank god the zombie is clumsy.
More menstrual stuff.
This could be considered a “The desert is trying to kill you” montage
Oh, that’s trippy. This is really well filmed.
Alecran! Or, that’s kinda what it is phonetically. It’s Spanish for juvenile scorpion. I’ve been told this is actually when their venom is the deadliest, since they’re using it to protect themselves more than for hunting at that point in their life. This was explained to me by the nurse at the orphanage I volunteered at in central Mexico. I’d been out on the soccer field, talking to a couple of girls, leaning up against the goalpost. I felt something fall and land on my neck, and I was already moving my hand to brush it off when it moved, making me think it was a spider, which completely freaked me. When I flung the thing down into dirt where the light shined, one of the girls yelled “Alecran” and then stomped it with her flip-flop. The next day I asked the nurse about them, we were helping in the fields, I was afraid I’d encounter more. She said that getting stung isn’t fatal, unless the venom goes directly into your blood stream, which propagates it into all your organs. In my case, with the jugular and all that, the venom would have gone into my heart or my brain. And then caused massive swelling. That’s why it’s ok if you just get stuck in the hand. Your hand swells up for a bit, then it goes back to normal. I got lucky.
Ok. Really high. Gotta focus. Got the munchies so bad!
She’s found a building that looks bombed.
Jesus, I hate her shoes. Appropriate footwear is my thing. I don’t care who you are. Appropriate footwear or I don’t want to see you.
That’s a nice flophouse she’s found. Good place to smoke your last cigarette.
More domestic dreams.
Oh, shit… the zombie is in the house looking for her.
She needs to pick up a 2×4 with nails sticking out of it and end this.
Or… hiding in a dry, filthy bathtub also works. Especially when the zombie is hunting you by smell.
Lots of close-ups of zombie teeth and eyes…
Oh. Shit. Fucking cat is glitching again! I just babbled that shit about the baby scorpion on my neck way back in Mexico? Now she has a scorpion crawling on HER neck. I’m onto you, Pi! I might not have understood the first time I watched you, but that’s because the DVD was screwed up so nothing but static and a loud electric squealing came on when I played you, but I’d been told you were a cult film that was really hard to get into and was very jarring in it’s production, so I just sat there and watched for… too long. Longer than I’ll admit. I turned the sound way down because it was hurting my ears, but I kept watching. Fucking blew my mind when I was given another copy of it later and the actual movie played. WAY better movie than the squealing static show.
Bug go squish!
Back outside… we’re trying to get to… an airstrip? I think?
He’s still following. And still clumsy.
She’s holding her keys in one of those self-defence punchy-grips that isn’t going to do anything at all.
No, she’s throwing rocks.
And yelling. Calling him a stalker. More of a staggerer.
“I ought to kill you!” Yes. That’s what I’ve been advising. You address this zombie, then you have time to think. And pee.
Didn’t even bother to throw the final rock.
“You look like a used car salesman, you fucking douchebag!”
Words hurt, but words don’t hurt zombie. Pity, ‘cause she’s really trying.
REALLY trying.
And she names the zombie “Smalls”
She’s taunting it with her ass.
Ok. There’s all these fucking sharp rocks. Just start dropping them on his face.
“You know what’s great about coke? I don’t even need to eat or anything. I could probably walk through the night to be honest.”
Dude. Smalls made her drop her stash!
“Such a dick move!”
I think she’s going to be significantly less jubilant sans cocaine.
Flashing back to her career as a dancer.
Drinking vodka is not a good decision at this juncture.
Wow. She’s… going through the stages of grief? Using the zombie as free therapy?
Oh, she’s making me really appreciate chap-stick.
She’s not quitting, Smalls! She still has anger to rage at you!
SANDSTORM!!! (I just wanted to be dramatic)
But it’s kinda making the same sounds that the one in The Mummy did.
Shit! Smalls almost just got her!
And… the storm has passed. She’s… dirty. Looks like if Gwen Stefani was half melted into the sand.
A pickup with a couple guys… Are they gonna be good guys?
Dude seems like it. They have water. That’s good.
Ted and Jason. Off looking for her bag.
She’s got AC. Seems like all she needs in life.
Oh. They’re not good guys. They’re… escaped prisoners.
A plastic bag from behind. That’s evil.
Calling names like that. That’s evil.
Rape. Is evil.
Smalls… is a filthy avenging angel.
Dude’s getting his face eaten and its REALLY well done.
Flashing back to doing cocaine in front of children.
Smalls is going to town on those intestines.
A super-raft! In the middle of the desert? Like a fish with a super-raft.
Another breakdown. Can’t say I blame her.
She *is* using the zombie for therapy.
She has found where old tires go to die.
Ok, that’s good. She’s got him pulling her super-raft for her.
If you’re not cut out to take care of a child, don’t have a child. Remorsefully ranting at a zombie isn’t going to help anything.
She somehow managed to tie him up.
And now she’s feeling guilty about leaving him.
I have had that same shit yelled at me so many times before.
Zombie is throwing a temper-tantrum.
And it appears to be swaying her. Yeah, she’s a shit mom.
“If I take that tire off, do you promise to be good?” Ummm…
She just yelled at it to stay and it did. So… yelling at them not to attack you is suddenly effective as long as you’re stern enough.
THAT’S why she’s carrying an empty tin can around.
Lots more flashing back to before, when she was a stable person in a domestic world.
Made it to the highway.
An army convoy is coming… She hides the zombie off the side of the road. Is this the zombie version of Stockholm Syndrome?
She’s a really bad liar.
Pretty sure soldiers would radio in before leaving a bloody woman alone in the middle of the desert.
Smalls! Shit! They gon shoot him!
No, she’s… blocking their shots with her body.
“You know what? You two have fun.”
“I told you to stay!”
“You’ve been shot before.”
“You bit me. What the fuck, Smalls? Do you realize what you just did? Do you?”
Oh, that’s bad. She’s infected.
Oh. No. Don’t… Jesus, that’s hardcore.
Evidently loosing a finger leads to further reminiscing.
I can’t watch this. I’m looking away. It’s that graphic. I’m that much of a wuss.
Duct tape. So many uses. And that’s actually one of the approved ones.
She’s dragging the zombie in the super-raft.
And bleeding heavily in the process.
The zombie… is dying?
Going through Small’s wallet…
That is one hell of a large rock. She should have done this three days ago when she still had ten fingers.
Zombie head go squish!
Finally made it to the airport. Nice old… GTO? Maybe? With bloody rags in it.
And someone shooting at her. Or it. A shame either way.
Some guy with weird tattoos and the coke jitters is in charge.
After locking a bunch of his infected guys in a closet?
These are not the guys to start a future with.
Good choice.
Phones are still up but there’s nobody home.
She got her son on the phone.
Her son is under the bed.
She’s making promises that will be hard to keep.
She needs those keys.
Have pipe wrench, will… commit acts of insane bravery.
Looks like a dead zombie Hitler. They’re the best kind.
Lots of splat. Lots of splat.
Handy power drill happening to be lying there.
The masonry bit was a bonus.
She’s got red on her.
I think she’s heading back to Vegas to rescue her son?
Band sounds like a male lead version of Mazzy Star. Not a good thing. Wasn’t a good thing with a female lead, either.
Nice “Suburbs after apocalypse” footage.
I think that newspaper headline was a nod to the original Night of the Living Dead. Or maybe it was… Plan 9 from Outer Space?
Signs of things going poorly at her sister’s. There’s a dead husband on the floor.
Oh, a note on the glass window in blood.
A Rage Against The Machine corpse
Kid isn’t under his bed…
Oh, jeeze… the children’s funhouse. Is there anything more scary?
Zombies at the front door.
Lots of zombies.
Oh. She goes out swinging. Pretty cool ending. Unexpected, sorta.
————End Transmission——————–
Introduction
Introduction
I’ve got a cup of coffee next to me, and somehow I ended up with blueberry juice all over my fingers. I used a spoon, so I’m a little perplexed. The unfortunate thing is, being perplexed is probably the best I’ve achieved over the past few days.
I’ve got a full head of medications right now. I’m not feeling too participatory, so I’ve wandered through my pharmacology taking one of each. I’m doing ok on the typing front and aside from a compulsion to get a review done tonight and my inability to correctly spell every third letter I can’t really tell that I’m altered.
Which, of course, is the fucking shame. I want my hands to swell up “just like two balloons”. I’ve got a note that history is a series of cycles, although, sometimes there are sub-cycles that culminate into cycles- but history, nature, math, everything is a spiral- either in, or out. Look at fashion. Look at politics. Look at how high kids are wearing their pants. Look at what toys are re-released every decade? Look at the passing, then repealing, then passing again of motorcycle helmet laws.
Overall, we’re moving in lots of different directions, especially if considering time as a factor in that movement towards B along the same vector becomes movement away from B once B has been reached if momentum is not arrested.
Everything is a cycle. The wheel turns. History repeats itself. Those who are unable to learn from it are doomed to repeat it; and with a lower standard of living, most probably.
Speaking of, I just ate an almond sliver off the table out of lack of anything else to do with it. It didn’t seem right to brush it onto the floor, it didn’t seem worth the effort of taking it to the trash. Gosh. If that’s not a self-esteem check, I don’t know what is.
I wonder if investment bankers or gamblers have a more favorable view on suicide? I think I read that the career with the least amount of suicides was being a garbage man. When I was in undergrad and getting close to graduation, one of my study buddies was this random jock dude that I don’t really remember that well, except that I perpetually regarded him with the love-hate bromance mixture of awe, jealousy, and revulsion that you find when you’re in the presence of a really stupid yet amiable Greek god that needs you to explain everything three times.
That’s not completely true, now that I think about it. I think he kicked ass at the mathematical or factual parts of class, but I often had to explain the simplest metaphors and similes to him. Whenever he was stumped about something and then realized it was much simpler than he’d been thinking, his go-to was that he’d developed a specific routine at the gym based on the garbage-man’s ergonomics of jumping up and down off the truck and twist-dumping heavy garbage cans.
I wish I could remind him of how ridiculous things were then and see if he sees it with fondness or regret? What, exactly, is regret? “Daddy? What does regret mean?” I really wish the pills were hitting harder. I mean, I totally spaced out through the entirety of Sweat Leaf there, so maybe I’m floating a bit without noticing it. I still feel tethered. I want to be lost in a maelstrom that lands me somewhere new with sun and space.
This is the 4:20 episode. I should feel happier. But it’s just another fucking day. The worst thing about being an alcoholic are all the “party days” when non-drinkers feel obligated to go out and cut loose for the eve. St. Patrick’s day. Christmas. Halloween. New Years. Cinco De Mayo. These are just fucking days if you’re not a participant in the ritualistic forced stupidity. People don’t belong in your bars, your safe places- now no longer safe. They don’t notice that they don’t belong. They spill shit on your shoes. They don’t notice. They’re having SUCH a great time and gaddimit, they’re gonna let erryone know how much they love them all.
So if everything is a cycle that repeats itself in either expanding or contracting circles, if not remaining on the exact same path, then moving backwards far enough would be the same thing as moving forward. The distance left to move forward can also be expressed as the negative distance to return back to the starting place, but this can be calculated from both directions around the same circle.
It’s sort of like how here in the valley, we have 99E and 99W, but 99E runs North/South, while 99W runs South/North.
If I draw a dot on a donut and then an ant leaves that dot and begins walking around the donut, are you going to refuse that donut because of the ant? If not, what about 2 ants? What is the number of ants that you would stop accepting a donut at?
My arms are feeling a bit tired. I’m yawning a bit. I’m working on this cup of coffee, which feels good. My hands are sore from the gym today, which feels good. I’m trying to be productive and remain focused, which must look better than it feels, like an ill-fitting yet fashionable jacket.
What I really want to do is smoke a gram of Indica oil, grab a couple Terry Pratchett books, and cuddle up in bed with the dogs. I’ll get there. I have to find something to watch. I think I want… I want… Fuck, I want Zombie Mutilators from Space or something equally… splashed with red.
I thought I was going to be watching a French movie, and I was kind of even looking forward to the subtitles, but then it turns out that there’s no zombies and actually, the bad guy is just a bad guy dressed in a coat and a dirty mask. Thank god I did my due diligence.
I have the writer’s block and secretly dirty laundry that I need the town’s opinion on yet somethings are best done British, meaning, awkwardly, painfully, rectally reinforced, and if possible, colonially inclined.
I need movement in my life, I need the surrounding and support of other like-minded people, I need the accountability, I need the challenge. I need to write down whatever the fuck it is that I’m supposed to want to get out of therapy, too, but this isn’t the first assignment I’ve had trouble finishing. Can therapy give a card that says “I’m not mute nor dumb, but I’m a lonely, weird motherfucker who you don’t want to start conversationaizing with because he’s only going to say non sequiturs and awkward shit?”
If “Doesn’t play well with others” wasn’t such a pathetic claim by all the guys who never went anywhere in life except across the tracks to buy the occasional third-hand pickup, I’d consider it.
Consider that Northman movie that’s coming out. I’ve seen the trailers, but never heard them- I’ve seen them at the gym, and I’ve got earbuds in, so… It’s some lean dirty intense dude solving all the problems with fire and axe. I think there should be a secret government agency that watches for the inevitable “The Northman”, “Northman USA” “#1 Northman” follower-wanna-be social media accounts and goes after the worst offenders. Take them to a remote island work camp. Give them something useful to do with who they are.
For that matter, if you’re walking around in shitty drawers, you need to come in off the streets and get the right meds and pills and off the crap that got you accepting sitting in your own shit as a lifestyle to begin with. A friend of mine whose family is from South Korea says that the commutes are so bad in some places that people spend 3 or 4 hours in their vehicle in each direction, so they’ve just resigned themselves to wearing diapers.
At what point does a grown adult look at a paycheck and think “Yes, I will shit myself once, if not twice on a daily basis for this much money.” If that’s not a self-esteem check (pun intended) I don’t know what isn’t. This 4:20 can sit and spin, or not spin, for hours. I need to find a movie that feels the same way.
It Stains the Sands Red. In the throes of a zombie apocalypse, a troubled woman from Las Vegas with a dark past finds herself stranded in the desert with a ravenous zombie on her trail.” I’ve watched this once before, and I remember really liking it, although I think that a lot of it is kinda slower. Sorta like in The Dead series, where walking somewhere with a zombie following 13 steps back is pretty normal. That’s why rule #1. Cardio. I’d think that “in the throes” of a zombie apocalypse, more than one person would be “troubled.” *I’m* troubled that they used the word “throes” there. I mean, sure, but Twain woulda told you to use something less purty.
You know what? This review can go fuck itself tonight. I want to sleep, I haven’t smiled writing yet. Fuck 4:20, fuck the twenty-twenties at that, too. The only thing I want right now is to be Val Kilmer’s character in Heat, right after the big heist has gone to shit. I want there to be no hope of survival but plenty of ammunition and heavily armored targets. I want to run and shoot for the sake of there being nothing else to do, yet know my running and shooting is a meaningless Missio gesture against the odds and Gods.
To abuse His wisdom by paraphrasing “Nothing you do matters, but it is vitally important that you do it.” If I thought there was a chance in hell of getting a straight answer, I’d ask Why. What would go so wrong if I sat one of these plays out? I’m pretty certain that a tangible answer is going to continue to elude me until I’m no longer able to further my line of questioning.
I’m a useless fucking ant right now.
*Picking things up here where I dropped off last night. Today was much better. While buying $60 worth of snack junk food, I got in a yelling… thing… with a random woman who was being a dick to the cashier. Basically told her to shut up and listen to the guy. Caused her to turn and start yelling at me. I said the right words and she went away.
I was walking through the parking lot when she drove off- but not before driving up to the front of the grocery store and laying on the horn for 5 or 6 seconds. As I walked to my car, I was a bit worried about her confronting me. No one hits me twice, and I don’t want to get arrested again, especially for punching out some old tweaker lady done gone off around the bend.
When did it become a sign of being a man to let someone beat you due to their gender being different than yours? Aggression must be met with overwhelming, unrelenting force until the aggressor is defeated. Anything less than attacking in defense is simply setting yourself up for another attempt. “Retreat, hell! We’re just attacking in a different direction!” Let’s pull a tube and get this going.