NinetyForChill.com: The #Podcast
Episode 95: The Sadness...Holiday Appropriate? (Featuring Gregory Carl).
The Sadness…Holiday Appropriate? (featuring Gregory Carl)
November 22, 2022
To get you ready to defend yourself against the madness of Black Friday, Gregory Carl and Cool Movies Darth take on the Chinese viral outbreak movie, "The Sadness". It is a COVID-19 inspired tale about a virus that will not kill you via lung failure, but by the perverse whims of the infected. This is a case of what does not kill will you makes you stranger, more violent, and what is most shocking, hornier.
Allow me to get out of third-person. Happy Prof. Shurtleff of Illinois Central College? I (CM Darth) will try not to make so much light of violent death in this summation. This is my declaration of changing perspective.
We always seem to think the "zombie" film fad is about to pass, and then a feature like "The Sadness" comes along. This feature is not a zombie flick, but an outbreak feature, but to the layman it is tomayto tomahto. The dead are not coming back to life, and if the dead were to reanimate, they would not run.
Zack Snyder had screwed up this subgenre of horror with his "Dawn of the Dead". It really lacked the satire that made George A. Romero's original the classic that it is, and for that alone I was not a fan. The director has his missteps, and that just happened to be a financially successful accident. I am a fan of his DCEU efforts, "300", and "Watchmen", but even there, he does not have a clue about the messages these stories try to get across. There is no way I can get too angry at this director because he did allow us films like "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies" and the "Zombieland" franchise, but the Western zombie scene had lost its way.
Fortunately, "The Sadness" is the course correction that we need. To its credit, it demonstrates that there are those in the West who agree with me. This feature was directed by a Canadian animator, Rob Jabbaz. The frustration with this is that he had to go to China to make it. I have no issue with foreign films, but if I was not looking for material to podcast about, Greg probably would have remained turned off by the subtitles.
The most important thing about "The Sadness" is the degree of satire. It presents over the top violence that will shock initially, but as it continues to be displayed, you cannot help but embrace the ridiculousness of it. Having watched the feature a handful of times for this episode of the podcast, Greg and I end up with a similar relationship to the film that Beetlejuice had with "The Exorcist".
The satire stems from our "need" to resist authority's suggestions for safety. How do they know what I need?
It was featured in a far more relatable sense with Romero's "The Crazies" which is honestly more disturbing. Jabbaz's film shocks you every chance it can get, but with so few protagonists, you do not get attached to anyone. Thus, you can impress the gore-hounds with the blood and the critics with the stunning visuals. There are some filthy scenes, but they do not seem personal, so it is easy to get comfortable while watching this.
With all of that said, I had difficulty deciding whether or not to censor the most obscene language from this episode. Should children have access to such ideas? Well, I am not a parent. Gregory is. He starts the podcast by asking his grade schooler if he wanted to watch this along side him because "You don't have school tomorrow". So, this leads me to rely on Sheila Broflovski to justify cutting out the F-bombs from our conversation:
Remember what the MPAA says; Horrific, Deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don't say any naughty woids! That's what this war is all about!
Follow me on Twitter @catbusruss. If you want to be on the show, contact me on Twitter or send an email to russthebus07@gmail.com. All we need is a theme, movie, director, or actor and a focus on sub 100-minute material. As long as the credits start before the 1:39:59 mark on the runtime bar, the movie qualifies.
No comments:
Post a Comment