No-budget writer/director David Heavener’s DAWN OF THE LIVING DEAD is the kind of movie MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 would have had a heyday with. And from all evidence, I’m fairly sure it was intentional. This is – in more than ways one – a messy film, as if the zombie genre raped the Indian burial ground genre, and this was the bastard child.

Here, a woman (Amanda Bauman) still reeling from the death of her daughter moves to a California home near little more than the Mexico border with her husband (Joe Estevez, quickly morphing into Gary Busey’s dopplegänger), who also happens to be her sponsor for her post-tragedy addictions. She starts experiencing strange visions at all hours of the night that feel very real, but her hubby tells her these are side effects of all her crazy meds.

Yet she actually has good reason to be freaking out. Her humble abode once was a safe house for illegals, and a whole family was slaughtered there. And now they’re coming back alive to pay the new owners a visit! And, hey, they’ve even brought a zombie baby!

Heavener himself shows up midway as the guy in charge of keeping the local windmills running, because, he explains, “When you have no energy, you have no life.” He wisely scripts himself some nudity-laden slow-motion sex with the missus, and appears to playing his role for yuks, whereas everyone else (Bauman especially) seem to be fully invested in motivation and all that nonsense. You don’t motivation for a movie in which some white-trash woman starts stripping for no good reason for two Mexicans her husband has captured (”We left Mexico for this?” the subtitles read. “Look at those melons. Ripe.”), complete with cheesy ’80s-style music video effects.

The gore effects are actually pretty good for this sort of thing (look for blood as thick as Welch’s grape jelly to ooze out that aforementioned zombie tot’s empty eye socket), even if all other production values are sacrificed. Yet this thing is full of entertainment – not for general audiences, but the Friday-night-beers-with-the-guys crowd who can appreciate bad films for their sheer, utter B-ness. –Rod Lott

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Although the story may be as stripped-down as the Spartans themselves, 300 is one of those phenomenon films worth seeing just for imagery alone. Of course, it has Frank Miller and Lynn Varley’s graphic novel to thank for that.

Proving his DAWN OF THE DEAD remake was no fluke, sophomore director Zack Synder lensed this rooted-in-fact actioner, based upon the ancient Battle of Thermopylae, in which 300 determined Spartans held their own against exponential armies of Persians.

Gerard Butler – to me, he’ll always be DRACULA 2000 – stars as King Leonidas, the Spartans’ leader. He looks just like the character from the book, and indeed, this is a recurring trend. The film makes a better point of Leonidas’ internal struggle between doing what is right for his people vs. doing what is right for himself.

Much of this hinges on the film’s one true departure from the book: the addition of his wife, Queen Gorgo, played by a radiantly beautiful Lena Headey. While the Spartans square off against legions of spear-wielding soldiers and the occasional monster, the queen is shown defending her husband’s honor back home, by any means necessary.

The first half of 300 is all buildup – and admittedly, boring at patches – as it paves the way for the true reason moviegoers turned over $210 million for tickets: the battle scenes. And, oh, those battle scenes! They’re as visually exciting as anything you’re apt to see all year. Actually, even the slow stuff upfront is stunning, with every scene a marvel of production design and a work of art. One could grab a random frame from the film, have a print made, and hang it above the fireplace, and visitors would be envious.

In these sequences, one can see how panels from Miller’s work were lifted directly onto Synder’s viewfinder. The latter does an excellent job of using the former’s work as a template, but then building bridges between the individual scenes to fill in the action and make it come truly alive. Has there ever been a case where a film followed its source material so closely?

The DVD’s bonus features make just how clear, with side-by-side comparisons of certain key scenes. More interesting is a conversation with Miller himself, in which he reveals his main – and unlikely – influences in writing 300: hard-boiled crime writers like Jim Thompson and Mickey Spillane, particularly for their to-the-point approach in dialogue.

At the end of this feature, Miller turns to Snyder and asks how in the heck the director is going to make his next project work: an adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ WATCHMEN. One thing’s for sure: It won’t look dull. –Rod Lott

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