BEFORE: OK, I reviewed one of the two October movies that I really watched in advance, because those movies were in theaters, and I had no idea if they'd be available on iTunes or On Demand or streaming when October rolled around. It turns out the time period from big screen to small screen has gotten much shorter lately, but you can't be too careful - so I spent $20 (OK, $30 with snacks) to see "Godzilla" in the theater, but if I'd only waited, I could have watched it on iTunes yesterday for just $5.99. My plan was great for ensuring my chain would continue, but not so great for my wallet. As for the second film I watched this summer but saved for October, that will have to wait until I get back from vacation.
Now, I could have used my free day yesterday to double-up, post the previously-written review of "Godzilla", then watch a second film - but that gets me to the end of my horror chain too quickly, plus I needed a full day just to clear my DVRs. I can't have either one (the movie one or the TV one) filling up while I'm away in Vegas. So I powered through a week of Jeopardy! and the late-night talk shows, plus a couple episodes of "The Orville" (I'm halfway through Season 2), and a couple episodes of "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" and "Carnival Eats" to get my TV DVR down from 75% full to a little over 50% full. I'm going to have to keep at it all week before our trip. And I dubbed 4 movies to DVD today, so that gets me a little more room on the movie DVR, holding at 68% full. Yes, for me the prep work for a vacation begins about a week before.
Charles Dance carries over from "Godzilla: King of the Monsters"
THE PLOT: Five sisters in 19th century England must cope with the pressures to marry while protecting themselves from a growing population of zombies.
AFTER: And a weird chain of films gets even weirder. This is an example of a "mash-up" of two styles, most often we're used to dramedies (drama + comedy) and then there's sci-fi combined with horror, in films like "Alien" and "Predator". Less successful mash-ups have occured when writers have put together sci-fi and Westerns, like "Cowboys & Aliens", but other people like Mel Brooks had great success putting comedy together with Western ("Blazing Saddles") or horror ("Young Frankenstein") or mystery thriller ("High Anxiety") or sci-fi ("Spaceballs"). Comedy can go with anything - even a zombie story, like in "Shaun of the Dead" or "Zombieland".
But a few years back, someone made a parody novel that mashed up Jane Austen's "Pride & Prejudice" with a zombie story, and it was a big hit in bookstores, along with a follow-up novel, "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters". But this film version was apparently a box-office bomb, so it doesn't look like they'll be filming that sequel. In the end I think it comes down to a film's tone, and maintaining the style and tone of both a romance movie AND a zombie movie at the same time was just too difficult. So while there's an audience for rom-coms, the world wasn't ready for a rom-zom film (zom-rom?). I feel their pain, because back in 2004 I was a producer on an animated film called "Hair High", which was pitched as a comic romance film set at a high-school prom, where the lead couple died and came back to life. Yep, it was a prom-zom-rom-com. (And believe it or not, it's finally coming to streaming on October 15. End of plug.)
But I think the problem I have with today's film is this - once you introduce the zombies into the story, it STOPS being "Pride & Prejudice", and once that happens, you just can't go back to it. Some strange hybrid animal was created here that is neither this NOR that, just a genetic aberration that never should have been born in the first place. It serves no purpose, it does not enhance either story to mix them together, unless you have a weird fetish for corseted women dispatching zombies, and that would probably lead me to ask why. You know what, never mind, I don't want to know. I don't understand steampunk, like why it amuses or entertains someone to mix modern technology with the Victorian era, and likewise I don't grok why it's entertaining to schedule a zombie attack in-between high tea and the ball at the Featherstone manor.
Besides, the traditional zombie story had to be bent over backwards to accommodate the storyline, like there had to be zombies that could "pass" for normal humans, just to have the shock of exposing the one trying to fit in at the card game or the croquet match. That's NOT how zombies work, they're supposed to shuffle towards you (not run, only they do that here, too) mindlessly seeking brains to eat, and they're supposed to be incapable of speaking, let alone passing for a live human.
Likewise, I didn't understand the way Elizabeth defended her sister Jane, who got attacked by a zombie and then developed a fever. Mr. Darcy wanted to determine if she'd caught the zombie virus, but Elizabeth wouldn't let him examine her. Why not? Look, either she's been turned to a zombie or not, and if she has, what's the plan, keep protecting her and not tell anyone she's a zombie? Let her continue to live with the family, alongside four sisters who have been specifically trained to kill zombies? How is THAT going to work? And if she hasn't caught the zombie virus, then what's the big deal, why not let her get examined and find out for sure? This was very confusing.
There's also a sect of zombies that goes to church, which seems weird, and they refuse to eat human brains, because then they'd go "full zombie", and they live on pig brains instead. There's some weird suggestion that maybe these zombies can co-exist with humans, since they're not trying to kill the humans and eat their brains. That's the English for you, they can't commit to being zombies, just like they can't commit to the E.U. OR the full Brexit plan. Always worried about being proper and polite, even when they're undead. "Oh, no, we simply couldn't eat human brains, what would the neighbors think of us? Pass me another cucumber sandwich, won't you, Beryl?"
I wish I cared more about Jane Austen - I did watch the 2005 movie version of "Pride and Prejudice" a couple of years ago, but the plot details just didn't stick in my brain, so as a result it was sometimes hard for me to tell when this movie deviated from the original source material. I mean, any time there were zombies on screen, sure, but I mean with regards to Mr. Bingley's interest in Jane and why there was a falling-out between Mr. Wickham and Mr. Darcy. Maybe I'll go review the plot again on Wikipedia, but it scarcely matters, since I'm pretty sure the original novel didn't involve destroying the bridge into London to keep the zombies out.
NITPICK POINT: What the heck is a "zombie graveyard"? You kill zombies, you don't bury them. Unless this is something done to keep the zombie virus from spreading, but back in the 19th century they didn't know what viruses were or how diseases spread, they still thought you got a cold from being out in the cold. And anyway, the zombies buried were still moving around, their arms were reaching up from the ground, so they were still alive, or undead/alive. So what's the point of burying them, then, if they're only going to climb out of the dirt again later on?
Also starring Lily James (last heard in "Sorry to Bother You"), Sam Riley (last seen in "On the Road"), Jack Huston (last seen in "Ben-Hur"), Bella Heathcote (last seen in "The Rewrite"), Douglas Booth (last seen in "Loving Vincent"), Matt Smith (last seen in "Terminator Genisys"), Lena Headey (last seen in "Twice Upon a Yesterday"), Suki Waterhouse (last seen in "Billionaire Boys Club"), Emma Greenwell, Ellie Bamber (last seen in "Nocturnal Animals"), Millie Brady (last seen in "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword"), Hermione Corfield (ditto), Sally Phillips (last seen in "Bridget Jones's Baby"), Dolly Wells (ditto), Aisling Loftus, Tom Lorcan, Jess Radomska, Morfydd Clark.
RATING: 4 out of 10 topiaries damaged during sword practice
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