Dementia Part II
Overall Recommendation
Recommendation?
Really good movie that I missed the boat on, and that misses it’s own little dance steps here and there itself. But hey, we spent the night dancing, and we had a great time. The drool effect was used too much. Some of the timing was off. During that one dancing scene, you stood motionless on my foot for 2 minutes. But we spent the night dancing, and we had a good time. This movie really needed to be let out of the building it was housed in. Suzanne has far too much range to run a real gambit in such confines- and she did a damn good job within the scope she was given. This movie should have gotten a bigger budget and better treatment, but then again, I should have held off on the mushrooms LAST night and taken them for this. It’s not a psychedelic movie by any means, and honestly, that was too much shrooms for any zombie movie, but this one is way farther out there in where they’ll go with what little they have. I’m looking forward to watching the first of these, now that I’ve finished the second. I don’t think Matt is in the first one, though, but I’m sure it’ll be strange and fun. I’m really glad the cat glitched the way it did this evening, I’m really glad that I’ve been productive and it’s only 10:30. I know it’s hard to believe, but these reviews take 5-6 hours sometimes (Part of the review is using a stupefying amount of drugs, so that does explain a lot of it) and I’m more used to finishing them at 2 or 3 in the morning. I am looking forward to sleep. I’m looking forward to my wife getting home and cuddles. This was the perfect nightcap of freshly thought zombie comedy.
Plot Autopsy
Plot Autopsy
- Matt goes and meets a very confused old lady names Suzanne.
- Suzanne insists on dancing with Matt, then runs him out of the house with an M16.
- Suzanne lets Matt back in, and they play dress up, and then Matt gets really woozy.
- Matt pulls a Poltergeist and ends up in historic Canada, being attacked by Harold
- Matt’s PO shows up and makes the movie about him for 20 minutes
- Eventually, they get the money and run and everyone lives happily ever after.
Zombie Description
Zombie Description
These are strange semi-zombies, where dementia is transient, as is the urge to kill and eat, and, then, the zombies have some level of remorse, and reasoning skills. Like Henry Rollins said in He Never Died “Money. People like money.” These zombies use weapons, and sort of go through a slow transition from human to drooling black all over the place… Even indistinct talking. I get the feeling that they never really defined anything specifically, so when it came time to shoot, everything was thrown at the wall in a fun way, and they used what stuck.
Where the money went
Where the money went
Right out of the gate, let me say that this movie did not have a fraction of the budget of the other two movies I’ve seen Matt in. That doesn’t mean that this had to be lesser, but it did necessitate that it needed to be smaller. The whole story is smaller, the cast a handful. Of that cast, everyone but one was great. Reggie, I’m sorry. You brought the scenes you were in down, your earnestness and unhappiness at not being in more of the movie just radiated out, man. It was a bummer. You forced yourself on the other actors instead of working with them. But where did the real money go? Into a 5lb jar of “instant insta-drool thickening agent”. They used, what was it? Rubber cement? For every single special effect in the movie. Just as Contracted suffered from overuse of mealworms, this movie had the same special effect rammed into it until all the pipes were clogged. This movie used sticky-mucus the same way Peninsula used car-drifts- whenever they couldn’t think of anything else to do.
Best Weapon
Best Weapon
Not a whole lot of weapons here, not a whole lot of fighting. I enjoyed watching them play with a flame-thrower, but when it came time to fight, there wasn’t much. I think the item from the movie most spiritually aligned with the intent of this space to be the traditions of zombie movies, and traditionally, there is an arming up montage. Guitar solos, chainsaws, sparks, hockey-helmets, angle-grinders… Instead, this movie ran it through the zombie’s playbook… Putting on her makeup for the evening. It was a wonderful original scene.
Can I get a hand?
Can I get a hand?
Yeah. Just look… about… anywhere in the house. In the fridge, in the toilet… Suzanne had a good stash of spare body parts lying around. Now- was there any real traditional zombie stuff? A decent transition. A lot of good zombie babble. But the hands through soil, the neck-biting, the moans for fresh brains… this isn’t that kind of zombie movie. This is a MATT MERCER movie.
That was new!
That was new!
Whole lot of shit here was new. Never seen a zombie bribe anyone before. Never seen a zombie spit out intestines, apologize to the corpse, and then sheepishly try to stuff them back in the corpse’s abdomen. I’ve never seen a zombie movie that was so dedicated to acknowledging that Canada exists. Question- what was with the electricity-revive Suzanne scene? Why would you zap someone’s temples with 110v when they’ve puked and spit red all over you? Why the fuck wouldn’t you be in the shower, screaming as your first few layers of skin scald off in the name of sterilitization? I’ve gotten shocked many times. It’s not fun, but it shouldn’t kill you. Nor should it revive you- especially when administered to the temples. I just don’t really understand where they thought they could get from that.
Review Notes
Review Notes
A typewriter. A recorder. A glass of whiskey. An attempted murder confession.
“My appetite frightens me. I must return to the land of beaver and maple.”
Oh… I thought he was having a stroke, but that’s much worse. Dribbling black goo.
Cue the Stars and Stripes!
MATT!! YAY!!
Chinese food, parole paperwork… what more could you ask for?
My wife wakes up with drool like that.
I eat like that.
Nice. The trowel killing scene from NOTLD on tv. Very mixed feelings about the scene.
On our way to our temp contracting job.
Dingle-bells. Foreshadowing. Maybe not this movie, but some future someday.
Strange ass game of peek-a-boo…
Music reminds me of The Pink Panther series.
“Would you like to come in?”
“I’d have to, I suppose.”
Is the whole movie in black and white?
Why’d he spit the tea out? I don’t think it was really hot.
Skynet!! Wow. This lady is out of her mind.
A squirrel bit Harold?
“Not long after that he went to sleep. With the barrel of his trusty old M16 in his mouth. It was one of those freak accidents, you know?”
I think she’s hearing things.
“taught me to field dress a badger in under a minute.”
I approve of AK47s in the playroom.
“What did I say my name was?”
That’s bad touch.
She is OUT of it.
Oh. She… oh, shit.
She’s fucking nuts…
Suzanne. I have issues with that name.
“I don’t have a problem with my plumbing, Wesley!” (Slaps him)
This light giggle thing… that’s my mom after too many glasses of wine.
Matt, don’t take advantage of her inability to understand fractions.
Handing out $100 bills like crazy. But he’s fixing a lot of shit.
Slow-motion of Matt in a Diet Pepsi add…
Suzanne, you are seriously creeping me out.
Dude, she’s got her fingers in his ass-crack!! HA!!
Suzanne, Don’t go away mad…
Get your hand out of the disposal unit!
Or at least… let the fuck go of that!
She looks like she can use that M16.
Holy shit. That was intense.
Needs his tools…
Got everything but the work order signed.
She’s eating raw meat.
And referring to Matt as Harold.
Suzanne, don’t take this there.
Matt, don’t lie.
Reggie saves the day!
“I already passed one kidney stone this morning.”
Oh… the handprint… it’s red, even though it’s black.
That sounds like some awfully phlemy coughing. Emphasis on awful.
She just puked everywhere… She pulled a Bernie.
Matt, you’re a better man than I…
I’m almost puking, I can’t watch this.
Oh, it COULD get worse.
Matt is covered in blood. And puke. That’s almost as bad as my poor wife- she got a dead man’s puke in her eye once.
Oh. Enter… sexy nurse? “I heard that you were feeling ill!”
“Some sort of granny sniffer?”
Oh, she’s got roller-skates? Maybe she’s not a nurse. Or maybe she’s a super-nurse.
Quick with the knife though.
Dammit, I chose the wrong night for all the mushrooms. Matt is tripping balls.
Who is this mean jerk?
“That means hello and goodbye, bye the way.”
Matt is tripping BALLS.
That was me last night.
Although, no horned demon squirrel.
Oh. Lotta static.
“I think I ate too much pho.” That, Matt my friend, is fucking impossible. You must not love pho well enough. Come to visit me, I will take you out to good pho. As absolutely ridiculous as this is, I have friends in the local Vietnamese community. They’ve shown me where to eat. Places where you can never eat too much pho. Never ever, man.
WHAT THE FUCK??
Matt reached out into the white noise, and now he’s… in one of her memories?
He’s a Mountie?
Whoah! Old man attack!
Whoah! Old man splitting himself in half!
Whoah, WAY too much trippy shit in this movie. I chose so poorly. Should have frizzled to this one.
Lady is a good negotiator.
Good actress, too.
She’s got Harold’s uniform out…
“A real man’s man he was.”
Dude, fucking LEAVE now.
Matt, you obviously have never been chased by a naked mental patient trying to kill you.
Yeah. Should have been tripping for the dancer. Wonderful flashback. Felt Coenestic.
“And some days he would come home with nothing on his mind but his hat.”
No, you don’t play dress up in dead men’s uniforms.
Matt, you are seriously fucking up.
Damn, Matt. You better have been honest about that box.
Matt looks like Tom Green dressed up like Kurt Cobain.
Now LEAVE. You’re free. LEAVE, MATT.
Or… stay.
Yeah. Leave.
Suzanne has the black drool…
Matt, what the fuck are you doing?
What the… where the fuck are we going with this?
That’s not proper… medical… anything. If anything, you’re giving her a fucking lobotomy, not jump starting her heart.
Yuck. Yuck. Ear. Yuck.
Well… no acting credit to the P.O.
“Do you get off on this shit?” I like her.
“I can feel that he’s hard.”
“Yeah. Yeah I am.” Very strange dynamic between these two.
That fat fuck is within headbutt distance and I would be back in jail.
A pee test? That’s where the movie has gone?
Reggie, did you intend to dress up like a Renfaire extra today?
“I’d offer to go for you but I’m not really sure how that would help anyone.”
Yes, Suzanne. Kill this stupid fuck.
Why is the toilet flushing black?
Oh. Human organs. Maybe Bernie is in there.
Zombie Suzanne is bribing Reggie with, well, a knife through the abdomen.
She’s pulling out all his intestines…
At least they’re not going to waste.
That was some of the best chewing…
“What have I done? Sorry!” (zombie Suzanne shoving the guy’s intestines back into his stomach.)
I like it- a zombie-putting-on-makeup montage.
Luring her with music…
Oh, shit! The plan has gotten punched in the mouth!
HAAA!! The ending summaries!!
————End Transmission——————–
Introduction
Introduction
I guess it’s interesting to note that I opened up this doc at 4:20. I’m not even high. My head feels raped, like the mushrooms last night left graffiti and litter all through my brain as it frizzled. I remember blowing my nose as hard as I could- thinking to myself “I’m blowing my nose at an Olympic proportion.”
I’m too old to be making up new sports. I’m also too old to be staying up the entire night, but I really wanted to see my wife. So that’s the what and how of it- it’s early evening, at least, it’s getting a bit darker out there, and it is so dense in here. My brain is made of sand. I’m dehydrated.
I want to put my head down on the desk and rest. I’m going to take a couple days off of mushrooms. You could say that for the immediate, my appetite has been whetted. Which is a fine thing, save the mushrooms for a purpose. Also, hopefully we’ll be taking on another recipient, one of my wife’s co-workers husbands is a veteran and having a hard time with anxiety out in public.
I mean, as long as he doesn’t mind his evening being put on hold for an hour while he half-nakedly examines all his pants trying to decide which ones to wear, I’ve got the mycology skills to help out. I hope that this comes to fruition, since it’ll not only help someone live easier, but it will help us establish a foundation for a social circle; we have such high hopes for our new house and hosting fun and warmth.
Last night I realized how much love my wife has brought into our home. I needed to smell her so I stuffed my head into the dense ranks of her closet, inhaling as powerfully as I could. I cradled the remains of one of her thongs that either the dog or washing machine chewed up. I spent an entire night wishing for company, wishing that she was with me, but also… very aware that I’d essentially turned into an organic vegan version of a tweaker.
I stalked the house, my gait not my own, someone else walking, rubbing the sides of my head. I got deeply involved in tweezing. I tried for what seemed like an hour to get music to play on my phone, and when I did, it was Arrested Development. I don’t know the name of the woman singing the hype lines of People Everyday but lord, you MAKE the song. I put you on repeat just to hear your beauty and power over and over… your energy helped me through the trip, it reminded me that I was balls-out on a drug that was going to fade away, that eventually I’d be back to being myself. My everyday person. Except… like I said.
Still not quite there yet. It’s like my body disincorporated for a night out on the town, and then not-everyone was there at the “ride home” rendezvous, but since people had to work in the morning and no-one missing was answering the phone, everyone there just went home. And, like, three hours later some minor controlling mechanism from my brain comes staggering down the sidewalk looking for familiar cars and faces and yelling into a dead battery cell phone.
That little drunkard brain module- we’ll call him Bernie… Bernie is gonna wake up half-propped against a shrubbery, leaning over, gazing into a pile of his own cold, congealed dinner. Bernie is going to stagger upright, wipe his mouth, look around, and then promise Never Again. But at the moment, I can’t find Bernie, and even though he’s really low on the management level, he inexplicably has the password for the database encrypted on a thumb drive and until we can find it and get clearance again, higher level functions are going to be significantly impaired for the next few.
I’d like to say hours, but after that wallop to the 3rd eye, I’m content to abide and breathe and try not to eat too much. Last night I ate dry packets of powdered oatmeal. I’m struggling to get this out- I just want to eat pills and crawl into bed and snuggle my dog and sleep.
For the moment though, I would settle for ceasing this coughing jag. I believe we have a first in this review, which is really saying something since I haven’t even mentioned what movie I’m going to do, but that’s because things got too interesting and I’m telling the joke all out of order.
See, last night I watched the sequel to Contracted, which is named, well… Contracted: Phase 2. Both of the movies star a dude named Matt Mercer, who under the influence of mushrooms can look very much like Pinocchio. And, as I’ve said, I ate way too many mushrooms last night. Hence: Burnout. Sandbrain.
But- bracketing last night’s mushroom-fueled freak-out, I really enjoyed watching Phase 2. Later, in the delirium of morning whilst waiting for my wife to return, I was traipsing through the Amazon, looking for stuff to add to the watch queue. I must have 30 or so zombie movies saved away. An entire month of reviewing. Non-stop. That’ll be fun. I’ll try that someday. But not now. Not with brainsand.
But even with sandbrain, this evening when I glanced into the queue, the first thing that I noticed was that at some point last night I’d added another sequel to my queue. Dementia Part II. I suppose I can write that “Dementia Part 2”, can’t I? Are there rules about who is allowed to convert Roman Numerals into normal digits? Can I do that? Do you need some sort of certification?
The bewilderment coursing through me feels like the day I realized I could learn to ride a motorcycle if I felt like it. And was willing to break both thumbs. Which, you know, long story short, I have really bad arthritis for a whole plethora of reasons. But! I also have a movie to watch… and here’s where the fucking cat has glitched already, glitched on the first page of intro and called out into stone on the second; this second sequel of as many nights ALSO STARS Matt Mercer. What are the fucking odds?
Not only that, but he co-directed this one as well. So… I’ve seen him in at least two really good zombie movies, and now I’ve found him in a third, and this one has him with even more creative control over something he’s proven quite adept at crushing. To say I’m looking forward to this would be an understatement. “Suzanne wasn’t always this confused. She wasn’t always dead either – When an ex-con takes a job as a handyman for an unstable elderly woman to avoid a parole violation, it becomes a choice he may regret.”
I’m willing to bet my donuts (that I don’t have, because I am addicted to sugar and am trying to better myself) that Matt is the Con. I hope that this also means that I don’t have to watch him decay in front of me like an elderly octopi, too. I will say this (banishes fist threateningly)- if I see any mealworms tonight, I’m going to write you an intervention letter, since you’ve obviously achieved and grown and hopefully could be receptive to positive criticism.
That’s right there next to not eating as much sugar for me, too. My self-improvements can be multifaceted. That said, I think I’m going to focus on a goal of achieving what I want, as opposed to what I believe I need. Let’s bust this Mercer-Fest! Now, where the fuck is Bernie?