Little life updates
I know this post is totally late. I have been very busy with work and some health problems, but I need to talk about this movie because it’s weirdly one of my favorite war-zombie movies. Lately, I’ve been considering quitting my job and moving to the Maine North Woods and never being seen again, but then again there are no movie theaters up there. I’m so excited for Alien: Romulus, and I didn’t want to see Deadpool and Wolverine, but I’ve heard it’s somewhat of a love letter to the X-Men films so now I’m eagerly awaiting the streaming release. I’ve rented Abigail and look forward to watching it tonight.
Review
Valley of the Dead is a 2020 nazi-zombie film set during the Spanish Civil War. Jan, a rebellious Spanish captain facing the death penalty is given an out by his uncle: deliver an important letter through enemy territory. Along the way, Jan must join forces with various rival soldiers to survive and uncover a secret nazi plot.
The core of the movie is the characters. I appreciate the setup of forcing characters from all sides of the conflict to work together to blow up some nazis. I don’t know much about the Spanish Civil War, but I immediately found it a bold move to have the movie’s main character being from what I presume to be the wrong side of the conflict. I tried to do some reading on the war before writing this, but my brain is too mush right now to really grasp what was going on so please forgive me if I get some stuff wrong. From what I can understand, we’ve got some questionable shit on both ends. Jan may be from the sketchier side, but it’s very clear throughout the movie he’s a rebel and wants no part in it. With so many “us vs them” war movies, sometimes it’s nice to have an “us working with them to shoot nazi-zombies”. The whole cast gave great performances and made the film a fun experience.
Valley of the Dead is definitely a horror-comedy, and for once it worked for me. I found it a great blend of genuinely enjoyable characters, blood, and funny dialogue. I’m sure some nuance got lost in translation (the movie is in Spanish), but most of the humor was universal.
It’s not a very unique film, but it executes what it is to a level that I cannot help but love. The second act is a little slow, but overall I found little to critique other than a lack of original bite. A diamond in the rough, I’m sad Valley of the Dead never really got its flowers.
Why can’t I own this movie?
We’ve all heard about the death of physical media. I cling to my DVD of 28 Days Later like a lifeboat after seeing it’s been removed from all streaming services. I hesitated to recommend Valley of the Dead because it’s a Netflix Original. I hate the idea of films only being available on a certain streaming service. I love movies like Society of the Snow, The Ritual, and Apostal, but I hate buying a Netflix subscription to enjoy them.
This issue always comes up for me during Oscar season. I try to watch all the Best Picture nominees, but inevitably there’s that one film on Apple or Netflix, and I cannot rent it anywhere. I know it’s probably cheaper to just get a subscription for a month, but I want to own the movies I like. I don’t want my favorite films at the mercy of a Netflix catalog purge. I believe some Netflix Originals are available on DVD, but from what I can tell they’re expensive and few and far between.
In my recent move, I gave away most of my DVD collection. I think that was a mistake. I miss my X-Men discs ( I kept First Class, you can pry that movie from my cold dead hands), but maybe that’s just the FOMO from Deadpool and Wolverine talking. I have a Netflix subscription, and I’ve been considering canceling. It feels like I’m donating my DVDs again.
Logging off
Do I recommend Valley of the Dead? If you have a Netflix subscription yes, but don’t get one just for this movie.
Bonus
Some recent movies I watched that I recommend:
Alien: Covenant (2017) - if you disliked Prometheus like me, you’ll like Covenant
Dark City (1998) - So cool, so stylish
Jack’s Back (1988) - Not 1, but 2 James Spaders