Today's good movies are brought to you by the letter D!

Yeah, its been quite here.
Between Stac finishing up finals and me in the middle of house hunting its been a touch busy in the world outside the interwebs. But as usual, this too shall pass!

But until then, here's a couple of recommendations to sling at you from the movie world!


Doomsday

Its technically not a horror film but it does have lots of gore and zombies. That has to count for something, right? I saw this a while back and I've been wanting to mention it but kept getting sidetracked. Doomsday is an awesome film about the post Apocalypse. A deadly virus has swept most of Scotland turning it into a zombie wasteland. So they quarantined it. About 15 years later the virus is popping up in England. So they have to send in a special team back into Scotland in an attempt to find some form of cure. We quickly find out that during this time in isolation, Scotland has been taken over by soccer hooligans and a local chapter of the SCA. Car chases, encounters with a guy in the gimp suit, and lots of shit blowing up ensues.
The team is headed by the incredibly awesome and bad ass Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra). She is going on my list of angry bitches. Probably somewhere in the top ten. How can you not love a woman who takes out her fake eye to use as a spy camera? And a big scene stealer is Craig Conway as Sol, the head of the cannibalistic hooligans who are ruling the urban dwellings of Scotland. His entrance alone is enough to make you want to bounce in your seat in cheesy glee.
The movie is extremely over the top. People don't just chew the scenery. They chew it, spit it out, then attempt to hump its half masticated leg. But that is what makes Doomsday so much fun. It does get a bit slow when our heroes end up in a medieval castle. Luckily the sequence is quick and its back to the insanity. There are some wonderful action sequences including an intense car chase that puts Death Proof to shame and a very unconventional Barbecue/Rave/Riot moment that pretty much sets the tone for the film. Definitely worth a look.



The Devil's Backbone
This is what Guilermo del Toro said was the "prequel" to Pan's Labyrinth. While its not a direct prequel and the stories are not directly related you can definitely see the similarities. I would consider the two movies to be book ends. Pan's Labyrinth is for girls while The Devil's Backbone is for boys...roughly speaking.
The movie follows the story of Carlos who is taken to a boy's home during the Spanish Civil war after his father was killed. There he encounters the ghost of a boy named Santi who was killed by someone at the boys home. Carlos gets wrapped up in the mystery of who killed Santi as well as a lot of other things that happen to him and the boys in the orphanage.
While I don't think its as tight a story as Pan's Labyrinth its still a fantastic film full of great characters, creepy ghosts, and some wonderful acting. It really book ends Pan's Labyrinth well with the theme of growing up during the Spanish Civil War. But where Pan's Labyrinth was more fantasy based, The Devil's Backbone has its roots more in horror. Plus the ghost imagry is amongst some of the creepiest and beautiful I have ever seen in film. This film is definitely worth a look at.




Dance of the Dead
Stac already did a write up of this and everything she said I completely second! So this will be short.
If her review hasn't convinced you to see it, perhaps BOTH of us screaming "WATCH THIS MOVIE, DAMNIT!" will light a fire under your hinder. This is one of the best horror comedies since Shaun of the Dead. If only my prom was as awesome. Prombies rule.