a review of 僵尸游乐园
Could have been a cute Spooktober watch for kids had it not been one of those animated movies that can't seem to decide on what age range it wants to pander to. There's plenty of child-appropriate physical humor, but also light profanity, hyper-sexualized female character models, the threat of everyone suffering eternal damnation, a crap-ton of vampire lust, child abuse, and a surprising amount of murder. Studios like Pixar and DreamWorks have been slipping in more adult content into these kinds of films for years, but this the most blatant a supposedly family-friendly flick like this has been with its more mature elements since the first Shrek. My only real problem with the movie though is actually just how overstuffed the plot is. It has a very brisk 1h 20m running time which causes things to move at a breakneck pace to the point where not every aspect of its story gets as fleshed out or plays out as smoothly as it otherwise could have. It tries to wrap up too much a bit too quickly, and it didn't really need to as its monster filled world is one I wouldn't have minded spending more time in. There are plenty of exciting sequences ensuring there's never a dull moment and the unique style it has lends itself to some gorgeous visuals even if I was able to pick out a few graphical glitches and some less than stellar lip-syncing here and there that may just be due to this being what I'm guessing is an English dub (this is a French-Belgian production). I really dug it. It looks like something you'd rightfully find at the bottom of a Wal-Mart bargain bin at first glance, there's some quality entertainment here for the right audience. Of course, it also did let me peep on a snooty, highly-tattooed, Nine Inch Nails t-shirt wearing, goth witch's tramp stamp for a significant portion of the the time which is totally one of my kinks. So I may be a bit biased...