The same is the case with poker movies. The directors and producers saw the growing popularity of poker games and therefore decided to make movies and TV shows with this trend.  People often go after the latest trends and this gave them a chance for making their movies a success at the box office. Tilt and Lucky you were the movies of that era.

The movie The Grand depicts a detailed description of the poker world. Actually this movie seems more like a documentary. This is because the movie was hot in a simple style without taking much of pain. The style of the movie can be related to that of the gonzo. A sprinkle of humor is there in between and it can create a giggle in people of any age group.

The Grand is actually set round a big poker tournament. It is a world championship of poker and a huge amount of money is offered as the winning price. The price will amount to ten million. The main character of the film is Jack Faro who is played by Woody Harrelson. He is depicted as the grandson of a casino owner. He inherits the Rabbits Foot casino in the film and he is portrayed as a figure that has gone through seventy failed relationships with women.

The movie features poker tournaments as games of characters. It gives importance to these characters and some of these characters point out to the hero of the movie and most of these characters have no names.

Harold Melvin is a popular character in the movie and it is he who entertains the people on a high note. He is a mathematician in the movie and he adopts special mathematical technique s to out beat his opponents. The movie has cameos and the poker game is played by celebrities. This gives more splendors to the movie and thus makes it a must like. It is one of the best movies that have ever been produced with poker games as the central theme. Only the movie called Rounder can match up with this movie. T

Set three months after his destructive run through Los Angeles, Hitman Chev Chelios (Statham) launches himself on a literally electrifying chase through Los Angeles in pursuit of the Chinese mobster who has stolen his nearly indestructible heart and replaced it with a battery-powered heart that requires regular jolts of electricity to keep working

Crank 2: High Voltage origina posters

New Crank 2: High Voltage movie poster

10. Chucky. Okay, the Child’s Play franchise has gone from all-out horror to comedy-horror over the course of five films, but any way you look at it, the Lakeshore Strangler is one mean SOB. Let’s also not forget Tiffany, Chucky’s wife, in Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky. Be prepared for Charles Lee Ray to return in a remake of the 1988 original.

9. Ghostface. With a mask inspired by Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream, Ghostface is actually five people over the course of three films. Scream, brought to us by Wes Craven, revitalized slasher flicks in the mid-90s. After two successful sequels, and the Scary Movie spoofs, Ghostface deserves to be on this list.

8. Michael Myers. John Carpenter brings us Mr. Myers, who killed his sister when he was a kid, went to a mental institution, escaped 15 years later and now kills people on Halloween. Originally in theaters in 1978, Halloween spawned seven sequels, not including a remake of the original by Rob Zombie. Another one is slated to be released by Zombie.

7. Jigsaw Killer. Unlike others, Jigsaw does not intend to murder. He wants to see if the victim has the will to survive, thus inflicting enough psychological trauma for them to appreciate their life and save themselves from their own demons. If anything, he’s doing them a favor. Saw VI will be out on the fall, but only the first one is must-see.

6. Freddy Kruger. Robert Englund plays the dream killer in the Nightmare on Elm Street series, also brought to us by Wes Craven. Kruger’s motives are to kill teenagers as revenge on their parents, who had burned him alive years before. Expect more Nightmares to come, but this time reportedly without Englund.

5. Jason Voorhees. Slashing up teens at Camp Crystal Lake through 12 Friday the 13th flicks (most recently a remake of the original), Jason did wonders for the old school hockey goalie mask. Met another legend, Freddy Kruger, in 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason (That was the most fun I ever had at the movies, as audience members were loudly cheering for their favorite of the two.) Unlike Kruger, Jason has a sad backstory, having been deformed and humiliated as a child. Eight of the Friday films came out in the 80s, 1 in the 90s, and 3 in the 00s.

4. Leatherface. Loosely based on real life killer Ed Gein, Leatherface is severely mentally retarded and disturbed, often using a chainsaw and sledgehammer to slaughter his victims. His family of fellow cannibals abuse him and tell him what to do. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre came out in 1974, the first in line of more slasher flicks to come. Six films have been made over the years, including a remake of the original in 2003.

3. John Doe. After killing five people who are, in fact, sinners, John Doe, played by Kevin Spacey, delivers a this-all-makes-sense monologue to Brad Pitt, justifying the murders and making the Seven audience nod along in agreement. But then he turns out to be a sinner himself, “envy,” to be exact, and completes his masterpiece with his own death by the hand of “wrath.” This is the only killer on this list in a stand-alone film.

2. Norman Bates. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho, most notably the shower scene, set the tone for just about every serial killer made after that. The cross-dressing, momma-loving motel peeper was based on real life killer Ed Gein (Gein was only convicted of killing two, but his grave robbery and hobby of making trophies out of bones and skin made him arguably the top killer that influenced other very famous fictional serial killers.) Five movies have been released in this series, including an unnecessary remake of the original in 1998.

1. Hannibal Lector. Lector, played by Anthony Hopkins in three films (Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal and Red Dragon), was voted by The American Film Institute as the most memorable villain in film history. Why? Because the audience rooted for him, unlike his former patient, transvestite wanna-be woman killer Jame Gumb (also inspired by Gein). Lector was popular even before his tragic backstory was told in 2007’s Hannibal Rising.

Yes, there are some I purposely left off, such as the guy in American Psycho, the Driftwoods in House of 1,000 Corpses, the Leprechaun, and many, many others. Argue amongst yourselves.

VIA

Nicolas Cage’s new movie Knowing is once again putting a fictional New York in the path of destruction.  Being one of the most iconic cities in the world means that Manhattan is ripe for filmmakers looking to make a visceral impact. After all, what could be more gasp-inducing than torching the Empire State Building? Or flooding Grand Central Station? Or stomping all over the Brooklyn Bridge? New York has always been a prime target for disaster, and even after real disasters have toppled some of its towers, filmmakers still can’t stay away.

20. Independence Day (1996)

Despite some geographical inaccuracy (the Empire State Building does not straddle an North-South street), serial New York–abuser Roland Emmerich certainly makes his point anyway. When the hovering alien spacecraft get the “go” sign, Gregory Johnson’s iconic design gets lit up like a Roman candle, and Manhattan learns the hard way that not all tourists want to pose for pictures in Times Square and catch a matinee of Legally Blonde.

19. The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

Emmerich again. This time, severe changes in the Earth’s climate cause New York to get flooded like a cheap Chevy, and then frozen solid. Why this also causes giant werewolves to appear is cause for debate (we choose the “bad CGI” argument), but this was one circumstance where New Yorkers actually would have preferred the snow turn to a slushy gray muck like it usually does ten seconds after a blizzard.

18. Godzilla (1998)

OK, Emmerich, we get it. You like to see New York decimated. Fine. This time, the German director unleashes a giant lizard in the city so nice they named it twice, and a great many recognizable landmarks suffer as a result. We’re not sure if that ending. Godzilla is finally stopped by the criss-crossing cables of the Brooklyn Bridge was meant to be a subtle joke for Manhattanites who equate moving to Brooklyn with death, but we like to think it is, anyway.

17. Men in Black II (2002)

To think, the MIBs spend so much time covering their tracks and erasing memories and yet, if you told the average N.Y. commuter that giant, subway-car-sized space slugs lived in the tunnels, they probably wouldn’t bat an eye. They have seen far more disturbing things inside a subway car. MIB2 is relatively gentle on the big city, though, and even its predecessor saved most of its destructiveness for Queens where, let’s be honest, no one’s really going to notice.

16. Superman II (1980)

When Tim Burton made Batman‘s Gotham City, he made it so that it didn’t resemble any other city the audience knew of (well, maybe some areas of Berlin). Richard Donner, however, wanted people to buy his location as “Metropolis” even though THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING is sticking up right in the middle of midtown. That’s like painting wings on an elephant and calling it an eagle. When Supes throws down with General Zod and his flunkies, there’s no mistaking that it’s Times Square feeling the brunt of the super-fisticuffs.

15. Q (1982)

It’s an old New York joke that you can tell who the tourists are because they are the only ones looking up. New Yorkers don’t need to gawk at their skyscrapers, making Q‘s conceit that a giant winged serpent could nest atop the Empire State Building without anyone noticing until it starts eating people utterly believable. Hindered by 1982 special effects, the movie opts for “mystery” over large-scale carnage, but thinking of monumental buildings as home to man-eating monstrosities is disturbing enough.

14. When Worlds Collide (1951)

Before Roland Emmerich got the notion to turn Manhattan’s cavernous streets into a log flume, legendary sci-fi producer George Pal busted out the miniatures and the garden hose in When Worlds Collide. The tale of a rogue planet on a collision course with Earth (see? The title isn’t a metaphor), the end is not a pleasant one for New York. It gets flooded with enough seawater to drown everything save the cockroaches.

13. Deep Impact (1998)

Before Roland Emmerich got the notion to turn Manhattan’s cavernous streets into a log flume, but after George Pal did the exact same thing, director Mimi Leder…aw, forget it. Meteor. Hits earth. New York floods. Let’s move on.

12. The Warriors (1979)

Not all destruction has to be an extinction-level event. In The Warriors, the Big Apple is rotting from the inside — the generally good, hard-working, no-nonsense New Yorkers who are the city’s heart and soul have been chased to the periphery and replaced by elaborately-dressed and ultra-violent gangs. These clown-faced crooks have the run of the entire island (and the surrounding boroughs), and civilians are hardly seen at all, which leads to the chilling conclusion that unless you pick a clan, you’re pretty much a walking ghost.

11. Planet of the Apes (1968)

After all the hunting, capturing, escaping, and laying on of stinking paws, Charlton Heston wanders down a desolate stretch of beach to discover…the Statue of Liberty! All this time, he’s been among ape-men who have built a civilization on the ruins of what was once New York. Well, OK, it could have been New Jersey. But still — we blew it up! Damn us all to hell!

10. Escape from New York (1981)

In John Carpenter’s dystopian thriller, New York’s crime rate gets so uncontrollably bad the U.S. government decides to simply wall it up and let it exist as a giant prison. While this scenario doesn’t look too kindly on New York, the film’s production doesn’t look too kindly on another city: East St. Louis. Unable to find a N.Y. location suitably burned-out, run-down, and pathetic enough to convince as a city-prison, Carpenter had to film nearly all of Escape’s exteriors in the sad sack Illinois city.

9. The Siege (1998)

Taking a much more grounded tact that some of the other films listed here, The Siege preyed on our worst real life fears — rampant terror attacks in major cities — several years before 9/11, and showed us a devastated Manhattan under martial law. It kind of makes giant lizards and supervillains seem kind of cozy and safe, doesn’t it?

8. 2019: After the Fall of New York (1983)

An Italian cheapie knock-off of Escape from New York, 2019 envisions a nuclear-decimated New York inhabited by radioactive freaks and monsters. Luckily for the filmmakers, the “post-apocalypse” setting allowed for much of the action to take place in nondescript parking lots and empty patched of desert, rather than, say, having to hire the manpower to shut down large portions of Fifth Avenue. All the saved money is on the screen, folks.

7. Ghostbusters (1984)/Ghostbusters 2 (1989)

Look, having the world’s only paranormal janitors based in Tribeca is bound to bring some undesirables into your neighborhood. First, large sections of the Upper West Side get stomped on (and ultimately covered in charred marshmallow), then a river of slime underneath the city streets conjure up a vengeful spirit from the past. The Ghostbusters‘ means of disposal may not be tidy — they wreck as much of Manhattan as the ghoulies — but at least they do something. Nobody steps on a church in their town.

6. Armageddon (1998)

Michael Bay might have gone the hackneyed “New York landmark destruction” route, but give him some credit for at least picking two slightly lesser-used landmarks. In illustrating a meteor showers’ path of destruction, Bay shows the Chrysler Building and Grand Central Station getting torn apart by hunks of space rock in addition to several taxi cabs near a “53rd Street Station,” which is in that trendy N.Y. neighborhood known as “Obvious Studio Backlot.”

5. King Kong (2005)

Forget Mel Brooks, a thousand chorus dancers, or a Stephen Sondheim song — remember the simple days when all you needed to open on Broadway was a big ape in chains? Once Kong got out, however, things go very bad for 1930s Times Square. Cars are thrown, buildings crushed, and Central Park’s frozen ponds subject to inhuman levels of sentimentality. The Empire State Building, despite being the location for the final showdown, gets by with a few dings and scratches. The streets below, however…

4. A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Like Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow, the Earth’s fragile ecosystem is to blame for New York’s eventual flooding and destruction — but unlike Emmerich, Steven Spielberg only shows us the aftermath, not the disaster. And like Planet of the Apes, the Statue of Liberty is used as the chilling reminder of what once was (her torch barely peaking out above sea level is eerie in much the same way her beach-logged torso was in Apes).

3. War of the Worlds (2005)

Perhaps realizing he missed an opportunity with A.I., Spielberg made up for it by piling on the N.Y. decimation in his remake of War of the Worlds. From the vantage point of Bayonne, New Jersey, we see bridges twisting like licorice and entire swaths of the city getting ripped apart. The entire Eastern seaboard feels the brunt of the alien attack, so for once New York isn’t unfairly singled out for termination.

2. I Am Legend (2007)

There is nothing more chilling than the sight of a New York City completely devoid of people. It’s somehow more unnatural and more disturbing than an alien invasion, giant meteor, or epic tsunami. People surrender their desire for piece and quiet the minute they sign the rental agreement on a N.Y. apartment, so the idea that there could be more vegetation than people on Fifth Avenue is tough to swallow. New Yorkers being wholesale turned into vampires isn’t any easier.

1. Sex and the City: The Movie (2008)

Without a doubt, the combined forces of Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda have been more devastating to life in New York than anything dreamed up by Roland Emmerich or Michael Bay. As a cable series, Sex turned New York’s way of life upside down — convincing millions of Midwest dreamers that they could afford a one-bedroom Manhattan apartment by writing a single newspaper column every four months, that they could subsist entirely on Cosmos and pastries, and that they would magically have enough free time and disposable income to lunch with the girls in between Manolo Blahnik shopping sprees. Utterly devastating.

from: premiere.com

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2. The digital television signal can transmit pictures composed of up to 1,080 lines. That’s a long way from the first TV, demonstrated by John Logie Baird in 1926. It used just 30 lines to create a coarse image.

3. Baird’s television looked like a peep-show device, held together with scrap wood, darning needles, string, and sealing wax. His invention was partly mechanical, relying on a spinning metal disk with a spiral of holes to chop up images for transmission.

4. Two years later, Baird demonstrated color television, but black-and-white TV ruled for decades. People who watched such television as kids are more likely to dream in black and white than those who grew up with color TV.

5. Yes, it existed before Monty Python. On August 22, 1932, the BBC began regular broad­casts using the Baird system.

6.  By 1935 there were some 2,000 Baird TVs in use. They cost £26 each—the equivalent of $7,700 today.

7.  The largest plasma TV now available, a 103-inch monster made by Panasonic, will set you back $70,000.

8. Are television execs playing with hellfire? The inventor of all-electronic TV, Philo T. Farnsworth, called television a gift from the Lord and warned that “God will hold accountable those who utilize this divine instrument.”

9. By the age of 14, the average American child has seen 11,000 murders on TV.

10. The first television advertisement, broadcast in New York on July 1, 1941, was a 20-second Bulova Watch spot that aired before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies. The cost for the air buy was $9.

11. In 2008 the average cost for a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl broadcast was $2.7 million, the most expensive airtime in the world.

12. Still trying: Last March, 80 years and a lot of cardboard glasses after the first experiments, the BBC once again tested a 3-D TV system—this time on 200 sports fans watching a special broadcast of a live rugby match.

13.  Bad show: In August 2006 NASA announced that it had lost all the original tapes of Apollo 11’s TV transmission.

14. Gift of the gab? The long­est-running talk show in the world is either Ireland’s Late Late Show, first broadcast in 1962, or The Tonight Show, which began in 1954.

15. The debate over which show came first arises because The Tonight Show’s format and style didn’t settle down until Johnny Carson’s arrival a few months after The Late Late Show began airing.

16.  When Sony started selling VCRs that could tape television shows in the 1970s, film studios sued it for promoting copyright piracy. The Supreme Court ultimately backed Sony, enshrining everyone’s right to time-shift the Survivor finale.

17.  Is TV doomed? The amount of video delivered by the Internet and viewed on computers is rapidly increasing: 7.5 billion video streams were watched in May 2008.

18.  We are amused: Fifty years after her first televised Christmas address to the people of the U.K., Queen Elizabeth II launched her own YouTube channel.

19. About 36 percent (and rising) of cell phone users can now watch video beamed directly to their phones.

20. We can guess what they’ll be watching: A survey of 20 countries revealed that CSI: Miami is the most popular show on the planet.

Pandorum movie poster

According to Variety, “Pandorum… centers on two crewmen who awaken aboard their spacecraft unaware of their mission or identities and then make a discovery that threatens the survival of mankind

Pandorum was announced in May 2008 with Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster in lead roles. Christian Alvart was attached to direct the film, based on a script by Travis Milloy. The film was financed by Constantin Film through a joint venture deal with subsidiary Impact Pictures. The partnership helped fund the US$40 million production, as Constantin drew subsidies from Germany’s Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (MBB) regional film fund, the German Federal Film Board (FFA), and the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF). The German Federal Film Fund provided US$6 million to the production, the fund’s second-largest 2008 payout, after US$7.5 million for Ninja Assassin. Filming took place at Babelsberg Studios in Berlin in August 2008.

Summit Entertainment is handling foreign sales and will present Pandorum to buyers at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Due to Constantin’s involvement, the film will likely see a strong German release. Overture Films will distribute Pandorum in North America, Icon in the United Kingdom and Australia, Svensk in Scandinavia, and Movie Eye in Japan. The film is set up as a possible franchise, so if it performs strongly, Impact Pictures will greenlight sequels.

Terminator Salvation poster

Set in post-apocalyptic 2018, John Connor (Christian Bale), the man fated to be the leader of the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators, and the future he was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet’s operations, where they find out a terrible secret that may lead to the possible annihilation of mankind.

At the beginning, Connor does not start off as leader of the human resistance, but he will work his way up through the ranks in the film. He is also mistrusted by other soldiers due to his extensive knowledge of Skynet. McG said that it will be about the development of the Model 101 Terminator as well: scenes involve humans being captured and studied by Skynet in order to perfect their cybernetic organisms and Connor explaining “if we let these things go online, the war is over.” Skynet captures Kyle Reese because it is aware Reese is Connor’s father, and uses him as a bait in an attempt to kill Connor.

No.10 - Head in the Clouds (2004)

Penelope Cruz & Charlize Theron

Set in 1930s Europe, Head in the Clouds is a British/Canadian melodrama about the choices young lovers make when surrounded by political unrest. With the Spanish Civil War as the political backdrop, two passionate women (Penelope Cruz and Charlize Theron) find themselves living with a guy named Guy in Paris. One night, with Guy looking on and the ladies casually dressed in silk negligees, the ladies begin drunkenly consoling each other on the living room davenport. Soon enough, straps are sliding off shoulders, tears are streaming down powdered cheeks and the ladies are all over each other. It is a quick scene that ends after Theron’s character bites Cruz’s lip and the two are left with blood dripping from their lips.

No.9 - Chasing Amy (1997)

Joey Lauren Adams

The script for Kevin Smith’s third film, Chasing Amy, was inspired by his relationship with Joey Lauren Adams, who stars in the film as Alyssa Jones, a bisexual who Holden McNeil (Ben Affleck) can’t help but chase. The film is full of frank sexual banter, but from our chicks kissing point of view, the highlight occurs after Alyssa performs a song for her true love who, much to Holden’s shock and chagrin, turns out to be some random platinum-blonde dyke. The two ladies then proceed to suck face for the next few scenes, while Holden looks on in disbelief, and his buddy Banky (Jason Lee) applauds the hotness of finding himself in a dyke bar surrounded by girls who like girls.

No.8 - Bitter Moon (1992)

Emmanuelle Seigner & Kristin Scott Thomas

In Roman Polanski’s ultra-kinky film Bitter Moon, Fiona (Kristin Scott Thomas) and Nigel (Hugh Grant) play a straight-laced and repressed British couple whose conservative relationship is thrown overboard while on a cruise ship. The catalyst for the change is their encounter with Mimi (played by Emmanuelle Seigner) and Oscar, whose sadistic sexual past is the polar opposite of Fiona and Nigel’s. However, when Mimi, a seductive French woman, pulls the sexually unfulfilled Fiona onto the dance floor of a rocking ship, the two women lock hips and then lock lips. And as the scene ends, the ladies stroll past their respective husbands toward a cabin down below.

No.7 - Higher Learning (1995)

Jennifer Connelly & Kristy Swanson

Higher Learning is about the personal, the political and the racial. However, if we ignore the dramatic dilemmas facing the cast of university freshmen, we can focus on the sexual awakening that blossoms between Kristen (Kristy Swanson) and Taryn (Jennifer Connelly). While both are working for a women’s group, the girls discover that they may just be pitching for the other team, and so they kiss to seal the deal, and then retire to their dorm where they strip down to their panties and roll around in bed.

No.6 - Cruel Intentions (1999)

Selma Blair & Sarah Michelle Gellar

The famous kiss in Cruel Intentions is a lips-and-tongue close-up that leaves the naive Cecile (Selma Blair) wanting more. The trouble is, her high-society coach is Kathryn Merteuil (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a wealthy society girl who is only teaching Cecile how to kiss so that she will sleep around enough to damage her reputation. What better fodder could there be for a chicks kissing scene than a manipulative bitch and an innocent fox who’s as easy to mold as Silly Putty?

No.5 - Gia (1998)

Angelina Jolie & Elizabeth Mitchell

Gia is an HBO film that documented the rise and fall of Gia Carangi, one of America’s first supermodels. Angelina Jolie plays the voluptuous Gia, a tough and reckless woman from Philly who ventures to New York, willing to do whatever it takes to rise to the top of the modeling industry. It’s during her rise that Gia meets Linda (Elizabeth Mitchell), and the depiction of their steamy relationship is full of taut skin, luscious lips and licking tongues. Sadly, Gia also spent a fair bit of time shooting heroin, from which she contracted HIV and died by the time she was 26.

No.4 - The Hunger (1983)

Susan Sarandon & Catherine Deneuve

The Hunger is actually something of a horror flick based on the bizarre love triangle that emerges between a doctor (Susan Sarandon) and a chic vampire couple (David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve). Bowie’s character is John, who visits the doctor when he begins an accelerated aging process. The good doctor, intrigued by her patient’s unique symptoms, decides to visit John at his home where she is greeted by Myriam (Deneuve). Naturally, Myriam hungers for Dr. Sarah Roberts’ healthy blood. After a martini, a little small talk and some elegant shots of the two women, Sarandon wets her thin white T-shirt when she spills her drink over her breast, leading erotically to tender kisses on the good doctor’s lips and then all over her goose-bumped body. Finally, when the fatal bite comes, it is just as tender, as blood drips from Deneuve’s lips and appetizingly down Sarandon’s leg.

No.3 - Bound (1996)

Jennifer Tilly & Gina Gershon

Before the Wachowski brothers hit the jackpot with the Matrix trilogy, they released Bound, a neo-noir crime thriller that features one of cinema’s hottest chicks kissing scenes. The plot begins with the squeaky-voiced Violet (Jennifer Tilly) on the hunt for a way out of her relationship with her mob boyfriend. Enter ex-con Corky (Gina Gershon), a bull-dyke who happens to move in next door and is then commissioned to do some plumbing for the unhappy couple. Violet, desperate to get her own pipes running properly, sets out to seduce Corky and what a job she does. Dressed in black lingerie with cleavage that begs to be touched, she talks dirty, rubs the tattoo on her breast and then when Corky starts touching her, Violet pants and moans like a female tennis player. Finally, with Corky’s hand pressed firmly up her skirt, Violet pleads for a kiss.

No.2 - Wild Things (1998)

Denise Richards & Neve Campbell

Wild Things is downright ridiculous. Although it could be described as an erotic crime thriller, the plot is entirely too frivolous to call it anything other than first-rate eye candy. So when Suzie and Kelly (Neve Campbell and Denise Richards) find themselves in bikinis near the pool, we shouldn’t be surprised when a catfight breaks out and the girls finish in the pool where they kiss each other better. After all, the plot is only window dressing and an excuse for showing off the luscious curves of the two leading ladies.

No.1 - Mulholland Dr. (2001)

Naomi Watts & Laura Harring

David Lynch is an erotic filmmaker. In the old-school Greek sense of eros, Lynch withholds and conceals, teasing his audience with possibility rather than gratifying us with fulfillment. So, when it comes to filming the sexually erotic, Lynch knows how to build a seductive mood, leaving his audience on the verge, lusting for more.

In Mulholland Dr., Naomi Watts plays a naive blonde who’s desperate for Hollywood success, while Laura Harring is an amnesiac who can’t recall whether she’s ever made love with a woman. In a sense, the scene captures the allure of self-discovery by bringing the innocent blonde and the innocent brunette together. It’s like Betty and Veronica coming of age by choosing each other over that freckled loser Archie.

Could we do the same thing to classic films? Well, the technology to add extraneous enhancements to movies exists. Just check out The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for proof. But like Pride and Prejudice, we’d need to “enhance” films in the public domain if we wanted to get away with it. Fortunately, there are hundreds of such titles (see a list at Wikipedia), some of which actually already have zombies (Night of the Living Dead, White Zombie, Revolt of the Zombies, and in a way the “scientific” film Experiments in the Revival of Organisms).

Avoiding the majority of public domain movies already consisting of horror and science fiction elements, we’ve come up with ten great classic films that would be even greater with the addition of zombies.

Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstin, 1925)

New title: Mutinous Zombies of the Battleship Potemkin

Synopsis: A Soviet cinema masterpiece, Eisenstein’s film depicts the 1905 uprising of zombies on the titular vessel against the oppressive officers of the Tsarist regime. It begins when soldiers aboard the Potemkin are forced to eat rotten, maggot-infested meat, which turns the men into mutinous zombies. Later, the city of Odessa becomes overwhelmed with undead citizens and the Tsarist military is sent in to massacre them. In the end, though, even the soldiers are converted. Other Eisenstein films, particularly October, may also appropriately receive similar special zombie editions.

The General (Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton, 1927)

New title: The General and the Zombies

Synopsis: Buster Keaton’s greatest silent blockbuster is kind of like the Shaun of the Dead of its time. The film begins with Keaton’s character losing his girlfriend due to his inability to prove he’s not a coward and a bum, but then by happenstance he ends up a hero and, most importantly, salvages his relationship in the process. In this special edition, Johnnie Gray still has to rescue his train (and his girlfriend) from the Union army, but now those Northern spies are zombies. Like the title character in Shaun of the Dead, Johnnie must in one new scene impersonate a zombie in order to fool them. The stone-faced Keaton is a natural for this masquerade, but of course then soldiers on his side mistake him for being a Union zombie, with hilarious consequences.

Abraham Lincoln (D.W. Griffith, 1930)

New title: Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies

Synopsis: Griffith’s biopic about the 16th President of the United States was filled with historical inaccuracies when first released almost 80 years ago. The main complaint? Griffith left out Lincoln’s triumphant one-man battle against a Confederate brigade made up completely of zombie soldiers (yep, the South had them, too). Now, in a special edition release timed to coincide with Honest Abe’s 200th birthday, scenes depicting that battle, as well as a new ending, in which Lincoln recommends the enslavement of zombies, because they are not technically men and therefore are not guaranteed Constitutional freedom, are included. Also, on the DVD: a bonus behind-the-scenes supplement featuring a still-undead Lincoln zombie overseeing the restoration; an exclusive look at Lincoln’s famous stovepipe hat, which he wore to keep zombies from getting at his brains. (The above image of Abe Lincoln, Zombie Hunter is from this t-shirt.)

At the Circus (Edward Buzzell, 1939)

New title: At the Zombie Circus

Synopsis: The Marx Brothers’ films were crazy enough without the addition of zombies, but this late episode from Groucho, Harpo and Chico just wasn’t anarchic enough for their fans. So, now the plot involving the stolen money has been eliminated and the film consists of the three Marx boys trying to stay alive inside a circus tent filled with zombies. There’s a strong man zombie, a dwarf zombie, and then there’s Margaret Dumont, who is so dull Groucho thinks she’s a zombie. Or maybe he just stabs her in the brain for fun?

His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940)

New title: His Girl Zombie

Synopsis: Despite the new title, Rosalind Russell is never turned into a zombie. Rather, the zombies are merely in the background, causing even more fast-paced hysterics (yes, they’re the quick sort of zombies that are all the “rage” these days). Actually, at one point Ralph Bellamy’s character is thought to be a zombie, but then it’s realized that as much as he appears to be the walking dead, he’s just too slow to be one of the zombies running around outside the courthouse. Again, His Girl Zombie has something in common with Shaun of the Dead (not to mention Twister), in that it’s another story in which a couple attempts to separate but is thrust back together during a chaotic event.

Angel and the Badman (James Edward Grant, 1947)

New title: Angel and the Badman and the Zombies

Synopsis: In this early precursor to the ‘80s Harrison Ford classic Witness Zombies, John Wayne plays a shootist and womanizer who is wounded near a Quaker family home. Brought in and nursed back to health, he attempts to tame himself after falling for a young Quaker woman. But his desire to become a pacifist is made difficult when brain-hungry zombies attack the house, and he must choose to either commit himself to the Quaker ways and “die” with his new religious society of friends, or go out and kick some zombie ass.

D.O.A. (Rudolph Mate, 1950)

New title: Z.O.A.

Synopsis: The film begins with Frank Bigelow, filmed from behind, entering a police station to report that he’s been murdered. The reason he is able to do this is not because he’s not yet died from the poison; it’s because he is a zombie, which we finally discover when the camera finally shows us his face. The film then goes to flashback and details the events that lead to Bigelow’s zombification. After the back-story is complete, the film returns to the scene in the police station, where cops proceed to shoot Bigelow in the head. His file is then marked “Z.O.A.,” meaning “zombie on arrival.”

Royal Wedding (Stanley Donen, 1951)

New title: Zombie Wedding

Synopsis: Fred Astaire and Jane Powell star as a brother and sister song and dance duo in this musical classic, which features two of Astaire’s most famous scenes. “Zombie Jumps” has him dancing first with a coat rack, then with a corpse, Weekend at Bernie’s-style. The latter of these objects ends up coming to life, a metaphor for Astaire’s famous ability to animate the inanimate. In “You’re All Zombies to Me,” Astaire playfully escapes from the zombie he’s created by dancing on the walls and ceiling of a room.

Beat the Devil (John Huston, 1953)

New title: Beat the Devil and the Zombies

Synopsis: It’s been called the first camp movie, but unfortunately it wasn’t the first camp zombie movie. That all changes now with newly added scenes in which Humphrey Bogart and a great ensemble of character actors, including Peter Lorre, must fight off zombies while killing time at an Italian port. It’s very likely that Huston and co-screenwriter Truman Capote would have no problem with this additional subplot. Anyone familiar with the background of the film knows its makers didn’t take it seriously in the least. Actually, let’s just go ahead and add zombies into every section of the film. Zombies on the boat, zombies in Africa, zombies everywhere. Heck, make Bogie a zombie due to a lack of money. After all, as his character sets it up with the line, “I’ve got to have money. Doctor’s orders are that I must have a lot of money, otherwise I become dull, listless and have trouble with my complexion.”

It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)

New title: It’s a Zombie Life

Synopsis: On Christmas Eve, George Bailey wishes he were a zombie. But before he can find another zombie to bite him, an angel comes down from Heaven and shows him what his life would be like if he were undead. Zombie George infects the whole town of Bedford Falls, all except the wealthy Mr. Potter, who manages to take over the town by enslaving and exploiting the zombified citizens. In the end, George realizes that he’s better off simply shooting himself in the head so that he can’t possibly become a zombie. (Note: It’s a Wonderful Life is actually no longer in the public domain, but we just couldn’t not include it).