Return of the Evil Dead

(Also posted at http://www.revenantmagazine.com/ )

AKA Return of the Blind Dead / El Ataque de los muertos sin ojos

I figure it is about time to watch the 2nd film in the quadrilogy of Blind Dead films before I forget the whole plot of the original. After all I saw the 1st one about 3 months ago, and with my memory that may as well be 3 years.

Although this is the 2nd in the series it is as much of a sequel to ‘Tombs..’ as Evil Dead 2 is to it’s predecessor. i.e. not a sequel at all, but more version 1.5. - Take the ‘zombies’ from the 1st film, keep the setting more-or-less the same but totally ignore everything that happened in the original and just redo everything from scratch using old footage from version 1 where appropriate.

We open with a flashback to the original Templars who are in the process of sacrificing a fair maiden by stripping her, removing and eating her heart, and drinking her ridiculously bright red blood. (which I suspect was stolen from a Hammer Horror film set). This probably doesn’t go down well with the villagers who catch up with these Templars, blind them by fire and burn them alive.

Cut to present day and The Blind Dead zombies\ghosts\mummies are reanimated by the local village dribbly Murdo for some reason or another. Something to do with revenge I think, although for what is unclear. (Maybe he’s annoyed that the villagers always throw rocks at him whenever they see him, who knows?)

Presumably having watched the beginning of the film himself Murdo has found a lady underneath some hay and straps her up, strips her and stabs her in the chest, which he knows will cause the Blind Dead to rise from the grave (using the same footage as the first film). Bizarrely these zombies are still armed with swords, which is surprising considering when they were killed they promised to return for revenge, and if I were threatened by immortal beings the last thing I would do is bury them with all their weapons. Hmm.

From here on in we are treated to the spooky slow-mo zombies chasing and hacking up everyone in the nearby village (who are celebrating the anniversary of the original murder of the Templars, involving possibly the longest firework display in history). Naturally most of the villagers are slaughtered (in slow motion usually) by swords to their guts, but a few do escape and hide away in the church to wait it out, somewhat unsuccessfully. (lesson - if someone in your party gets decapitated sticking his head out an underground passage DO NOT scream in panic and stick your own head out the same hole. Although this is more common sense than learned knowledge to be honest).

Easily the films highlight comes in this church where the Mayor sends out a small 6 year old girl out to the zombies so as to distract them while he tries to escape himself. Sheer genius!

Although there is some reasonable gore here (particularly in the Spanish version) I think the original Tombs of the Blind Dead was spookier and more effective as a horror film. The zombies themselves were creepier, stalking by sound rather than slaying at random and it was generally more suspenseful. However this version does have better effects, characters and budget. Plus I think it has a higher nork count so it depends what you’re after I guess.

Gore Score C+
Norks Score C+
Overall Score C+

The Dead Pit

(Also posted at http://www.revenantmagazine.com/ )

So, it’s the day before Grand Theft Auto 4 is released which means it’s probably best I get this review up now. My horror film geek hat has to come off to make room for the XBox one, if only for a week or so.

The Dead Pit doesn’t really start off particularly impressively, or with much originality. A crazed doctor in a mental hospital is murdering patients and performing bizarre brain experiments on them in the hospital basement. What he’s trying to achieve isn’t fully explained, except that ‘The Brain is a Parasite’ and is a barrier to freeing the mind, apparently. Ah, so filling dead peoples heads with formaldehyde and dumping the bodies in a pit is the way to go then.

Anyway, after this mad surgeon has been killed off by another doctor the story cuts to 20 years later. A new patient with amnesia is admitted who suffers from flashbacks and nightmares - strangely involving being tied up in a shower and hosed down with water by a nurse until all her clothes fall off - I know we’ve all had that one.

From here onward it plays out like a creepy ghost story, at least for most of the film. The amnesiac woman sees visions of the murdered doctor around the hospital that nobody else notices, the dribbly mental patients wander around and act as bog standard cliche mental patients do, and hospital residents go missing all the time without the police ever becoming involved.

Of course, it turns out the amnesiac woman wasn’t totally mad at all. There is a ghostly zombie doctor murdering patients again, and this time he’s somehow managed to bring them all back to life to go on murderous brain gathering rampages.

It’s actually quite nicely filmed, with the nighttime shots filled with ghostly luminous colours, and the gore effects, when they actually get going, are also pretty decent. Faces melt with holy water (the only way to kill these zombies apparently), brains get ripped out and fondled (although never eaten) and the Zombie Surgeon prods around in unwilling victims skulls with needles. Overall it’s a reasonably creepy little number but the shuffling zombies took far too long to make an appearance, which is a shame as they’re proper zombies too - rotting, shuffling along and searching for Brains! What more would you want from the undead?

Gore Score C+
Norks Score C
Overall Score C

The Video Dead

(Also posted at http://www.revenantmagazine.com/ )

It has taken me a few days to get around to writing up this film due to an extensive weekend of Guitar Hero which consequently screwed up my wrist. Still, it’s an ace game so well worth the 2 day pain it caused. It’s quite a relief to chill out and watch a piece of nonsense 80’s trash to help recover from such a workout.

The Video Dead is a relatively obscure little film nowadays, and one that I still don’t think has had a full DVD release. This is a pity as it’s considerably better than many zombie films that followed it. Well, that is assuming that decent scripting, acting, editing and direction are not required as a measure of quality. What is of class here though is the story, which is thoroughly enjoyable and pretty original by zombie standards, although still utter nonsense.

It centres around a television which is apparently possessed by some sort of unexplained psychic phenomenon, causing it to constantly show the film ‘Zombie Blood Nightmare’ on an infinite loop. Should this TV be switched on (sometimes all of it’s own accord) the zombies from this film escape into the real world to get involved in all sort of comedy escapades. Completely unsurprisingly this television turns up in an old dudes house who accidentally releases the zombies and gets the movie underway.

There follows scenes of zombies trying on women’s hairpieces, zombies hiding in washing machines, zombies sitting around for dinner together and zombies giggling to themselves about how funny all their japes are. Oh yes, not forgetting zombies murdering every human they come across in long drawn out death scenes. It is down to a man from Texas with a Chainsaw and a local kid with a bow and arrow (yeah, nice weapon choice dude) to save the day and track down these Zombies. These 2 guys head off into the nearby woods armed with their weapons as well as some mirrors (zombies hate their reflections apparently, as memorably discovered by Vincent Price in ‘The Last Man on Earth’) to set a trap for the undead to wander into. However this is possibly the least intelligent trap in movie history, as it consists of hanging the kid from a tree as bait while the Texan goes off for a nap. Obviously this all ends badly for our stupid heroes, and the zombies head off to the local kids house to visit his (masonry-block jawed) sister, who promptly invites them in for a dinner party. As you do.

The Zombies themselves are pretty impressive looking, and some of the gore scenes are nicely done (zombie innards contain live rats, apparently). If you can overlook the terrible acting and dodgy filming it’s actually an enjoyable and unusual addition to the zombie film catalog. However, it does seem to be misleading in it’s title - there was no ‘Video’ anywhere to be seen in this film. Oh well, ‘The Black and White Television Dead’ doesn’t really have the same ring to it.

Gore Score C
Norks Score D
Overall Score C

Planet Terror

(Also posted at http://www.revenantmagazine.com/)

For the first time in a long while, (perhaps even the first time ever) I sat down to watch a Zombie film that belongs to my Flatmate and not me.  Sure, I saw this film months ago at the cinema but I never got around to picking it up for my own collection.  I guess that my desire to find zombie films at paltry prices through eBay and other *cough* miscellaneous legitimate sources *cough* means that the thought of paying around £15 for an easily available DVD just doesn’t sit well with me.  Besides, i’m kind of trying to get hold of the Japanese 6 disc version of the whole Grindhouse release - with the proper theatrical release that only the lucky USA peeps got to see originally - but that’s looking like it’ll cost me around £50 so I shouldn’t really complain about the price other people pay for individual movies.  Anyhow enough winging about the price of DVDs these days and onto the film itself.

Planet Terror is pretty much the type of movie I would make if I were a reasonably famous Hollywood director with free reign to film whatever I choose.  Take a bare bones nonsense zombie plot, borrow several well known actors, chuck in liberal and stupendously O.T.T. CGI special effects, not to mention various lovely ladies and you’ve more-or-less got the ideal film for lovers of pure cinematic guff.  There are no morals to this story, no dippy romances, no character development, just a bunch of ridiculous people and some chemically poisoned zombies shooting the bejeezus out of each other.  What more could you want?

OK, possibly there are too many human characters here as each of their ’stories’ gets a tad lost in the mixture, but each one serves their purpose, (ie, for us to enjoy their misfortune).  There is a female doctor exposed as a lesbian by her husband who consequently anaesthetises her and locks her in a closet, an ex-stripper with a machine gun for a leg, a child whose sole role is to shoot himself in the face by mistake, and some army jocks who are infected with zombie virus but are gassing themselves in an attempt to prolong their lives.  The film also features the typical gun slinging outsider, a couple of useless sheriffs, some other randoms i’ve no doubt forgotten at the moment and of course Tom Savini (who else would you give a substantial cameo to in a Zombie homage movie?).

The gore effects and unique storytelling techniques are way too sensational for a mainstream movie, with bloody gunshot wounds splurging miles into the air and a comedic Missing Reel screen midway through - which allows all the humans and zombies to mass around the same vacinity with no explaination as to how everyone arrived at this situation.

Everything about this movie it utter, utter nonsense.  How do you pull the trigger of a gun attached to your stumpy leg without using your hands?  Why would you collect a jar of testicles?  Why would you stay with your abusive husband when your lesbian lover is Fergie from Black Eyed Peas?  None of this matters as the whole experience was the perfect mix of gore and comedy.  It’s just a pity that the only norks on show were during the fake trailer for Machette at the beginning, but then that’s essentially still part of the film so I’ll accept it.

Gore Score B
Norks Score C-
Overall Score B

Night of the Living Dorks

(Also posted at http://www.revenantmagazine.com/ )

The ‘Horror Comedy’ genre is not a particular favourite of mine, I suspect because I find plenty of comedy in the terrible over-the-top blood & gore special effects that are present in the majority of genuine horror films from my collection. Heck, I even laughed at the head explosions of the Burmese villagers in the latest Rambo film, (and was the only person in the whole cinema to do so I might add). I think my sense of humour is being warped due to the deluge of guts and gore images that I pour into it on a near daily basis.

Although Horror Comedies themselves do not usually float my boat (Scary Movie i’m talking to you) the actual ‘Zombie Horror Comedy’ genre does contain some gems. Obviously ‘Shaun of the Dead’ is at the top of the pile and embarrassingly I did enjoy ‘Dead Heat’ as well as ‘Night Of The Creeps’ despite neither having much to do with actual Zombie ideas. I imagine this is probably down to my juvenile sense of humour.

With this point of view in mind I embarked into the previously unexplored world of German Comedy Horror with ‘Night Of The Living Dorks’, and was pleasantly surprised. Sure, the Zombies look more like a bunch of kids who have just stayed awake for 5 days playing World of Warcraft as opposed to being members of the Undead and there is very little gore at all, but it was good to know that the Germans do have a sense of humour, although they do seem to be about 20 years behind the rest of the world and based very much on the Dick and Fart Joke school of comedy.

The plot involves 3 nerdy kids accidentally becoming Zombies and trying to find a cure while fending off the Jocks using their new zombie strength, stapling back any body part that comes loose, and trying to stop one of their number from going on a cannibalistic rampage against all those who bullied him in the past. Not forgetting trying to get laid by the hottest girl in school (who I felt had a rather horse like face, but perhaps that is what the Germans are into. Still, at least she got to show off her cracking norks). Oh yes, this is typical 80’s teen-comedy fare but with a zombie subplot, and while no Night of the Creeps it does still have it’s charms.

It is without doubt the finest German comedy film I have seen, although due to my lack of exposure to the genre it is consequently also the worst. Particular enjoyment came from spending the first 15 minutes flipping between English Dubbing, German language with subtitles and combinations of the two. It was at its funniest in English with English subtitles though, as it produced some amusing script alternatives.

“If we had that attitude at Stalingrad we’d never have won the war!”

Apparently a Hollywood remake is in the pipeline which might be interesting. I wonder if that will have so many naked guy butts and detachable testicles?

Gore Score D
Norks Score C
Overall Score C

Zombie Flesh Eaters

 

AKA Zombie, Zombi 2

There was an England football match on TV last night so the plan was to watch that instead of our usual Wednesday movie.  However, come the 2nd half we all figured we’d seen enough so I suggested sticking in a Zombie film, just for a change.  I had first dibs here as over the weekend a decision was made to watch Star Wars Episode 1-3 end-to-end, so in order to get my own back I chose to watch ‘The Best zombie Film Ever Made’ aka Zombie Flesh Eaters! 

Although I don’t think i’ve seen it since starting this blog it is good to know that having seen so many new Zombie flicks in the last year, (well new to me anyway) my favourite film still holds its own against them all.  It is a full blown classic. 

Forget adding Romance, Comedy, Social Commentary, or Satire etc into the plot, this film is just straight forward Zombie goodness.  The music is amazing, the set pieces are great (Zombie Vs Shark?  Get In There!), there is some quality norkage, and lets not forget the most famous Eye Gouging scene ever put to film.  Zombie Flesh Eaters is the ultimate in zombie filmdom.

It is the perfect mix of traditional Zombie legend, 70’s Italian gore and exploitation, with quality music and not a single dodgy CGI effect to be seen.

Perfect from start to finish (and that final shot of the zombies invading NY, with the great radio commentary over the top is the perfect way to finish a film).  Fulci went onto make other classic Zombie films, but none as fantastic as this.  It is just a pity that everyone in my flat fell asleep during it.  Oh well, that means i’ll have to watch it again just for them!

Gore Score B
Norks Score B
Overall Score A+

Zombie Night

I don’t mind watching cheapo SOV zombie films because usually the people who make them have some interesting ideas to bring to the zombie movie table.  (Shatter Dead, Automaton Transfusion…) They are made by zombie fans who feel that the films they want to see just aren’t being produced by the mainstream movie industry, and so it is often the case with these films that you have to look past the crappy acting, directing and special effects and just appreciate the original story idea that the film makers had to offer.

However, this particular film seems to break with this tradition, as they have just cobbled together a rather crappy remake of Night Of The Living Dead, but included dozens more human characters, and have the film take place in an abandoned warehouse instead.

Perhaps the angle here is that we should be interested in how real people deal with a zombie outbreak crisis, but if this were the case then surely at least one of these 20 odd characters would have a shred of personality, rather than just be a bunch of nameless nobodies who have no reason to be here and no discernible talent of any form.  All that happens here is that a bunch of people end up in an empty building and discuss how to keep the zombies away.  Then they move on to another building, meet more boring characters and shack up together so that there are more people to ponder the best way to baracade themselves into the building.

OK, there is one other character who is just a cliche crazy dude, who for some reason or another thinks he’s better off by himself and proves this by randomly killing a few survivors and then leaves the group, only to return every 10 minutes or so when the film is getting boring just to kill a few more characters for no reason.  Then he gets strung up to die himself.

This film is pointless.  I have dozens of decent ideas for a zombie film that haven’t been seen before, but even if I didn’t I still wouldn’t think it was a good idea to get my life savings together and make a crappy film that just rips off a Romero classic.  What’s the point?  What a waste of money and time (theirs and mine).

Gore Score D
Norks Score C
Overall Score E

Stacy

Being on holiday without a single real plan is great. Two Zombie films in one day! This particular gem was easily the best of the two, and one of the better ones i’ve actually seen recently.

Stacy is one of the strangest Zombie films i’ve seen in a long time, and probably the best Asian zombie film from my collection even though I don’t really have a faintest idea what is going on.

Schoolgirls are all dying off when they hit their late teens and are somehow resurrected as flesh eating zombies (called Stacies for some reason). Before they die these girls become maniacally happy, suffering from “Near Death Happiness” which seems to cause them to dance around and giggle as only Japanese schoolgirls can. There are some government zombie killing squads (The Romero Repeat Kill Squad), who get called in to dismember (into 165 pieces) the zombie girls. They can be killed off with Shopping Channel bought chainsaws (Branded - “Blues Campbell Right Arm #2″), but you gotta chop ‘em up good, or the parts keep on a’wrigglin. Oh yes, and these zombie girls glow blue and telepathise with each other. Toss in some scientist blokes, and a puppeteer who falls in love with a Near Death Happiness schoolgirl and you got a bizarre little zombie number.

But oh, The Gore. Oh my, this one is one of the gories films i’ve seen in a long long time, and will probably creep into my Top 3 Gore list (see right panel). Heads are blown apart, eyeballs shot out, disembowlings’, gut eatings’ and many many decapitations’ (leaving the spinal cord attached no less). Despite being so gory it never really seems to be that gross, as the film is so bizarre that all the gore just seems comedic.

There is probably some meaning behind all this nonsense, but I’ll just assume it is because dozens of 18 year old schoolgirls prancing around is a great concept for a film. Heck, replace the Zombies with Geography teachers or something and i’d still watch it.

Gore Score B
Norks Score F
Overall Score B

Toxic Zombies

Well it’s day one of my full week off work, and so far my plans stretch as far as ‘pick up the crisp packets that have blown into the garden and…..’ well, that’s it. After all that exertion I felt I needed to relax, so I opened a bag of Haribo and picked out a trash zombie film from my stack.

Toxic Zombie is a proper tacky Zombie film from 1980. It opens with a shotgun toting Peter Sutcliffe lookalike and his mate searching through some forest for something or other. Turns out they are actually very scruffy FBI agents and they are hunting hippies. One such Hippy happens to be a topless young lass sat in the undergrowth sponging herself down with a bucket and sponge, so naturally these government types shoot her through the neck then her hippy mates stab and strangle these agents to death. Oh yes, these are violent hippies indeed, and soon to get more so.

It turns out these hippies have been growing some Marijuana in this woodland and the government somehow know about this, but don’t actually know where exactly. Their plan to deal with this horror? Send out a drunk crop-duster pilot in a plane full of human-mutating pesticides. Naturally this pesticide covers all the hippies and they go off on a murderous rampage, chasing everybody around the woodland for the remaining 60 minutes of the film.

This film wins bonus points for its totally inept gore, plus there is a Father character who calls his own son a retard, then runs away from the Zombies shoving his wife out of the way and on the floor in the process. Then there is the opening gratuitous nork shot with the lady and her bucket, which is nice.

Gore Score D
Norks Score C
Overall Score C

Automaton Transfusion

I had heard quite a bit about this film on the rumour mill that is “The Internet”, so when it was released in the US on DVD I thought i’d take the plunge and pay the £15 or whatever it was to get it imported. That was quite a risk for me really as I don’t usually like to pay more than a fiver for my DVDs. Luckily it wasn’t a waste, as there was plenty of enjoyment in this bizarrely named Zombie film.
Worryingly it appeared to start off as a standard Teen Horror film, which usually means it’s gonna be crud (see Return of the Living Dead 4 for example!), but I needn’t have worried, as this was so far away from that crapfest it puts it to shame.

There is some plot in here but it’s pretty bog standard stuff - Corpses are somehow reanimated when they die, and try to eat everyone in sight until the film finishes - but that doesn’t really matter. Also, this film uses the often disliked Speedy Zombies which I myself don’t usually go for, but it seems to work pretty well here as this film is much more action based rather than story focused, and slow shambling zombies would slow everything down (which would be a worry as this film is only just around 70 minutes long).

Mixed up in all this action is some surprisingly decent gore, particularly the jaw removal and the pregnant woman having her foetus ripped out (with subsequent devourment). Also there is a nice little eye gouge scene, which I took as an Homage to Zombie Flesh Eaters rather than an original addition.

Apparently this film was shot on a budget of only $30,000 (£15,000), which is pretty incredible considering how much action, gore and effects are in this. However the cost probably didn’t stretch to decent cameras as the framerate is pretty dire, plus the picture is of the non-anamorphic squished up variety.

I don’t mind all these little quirks though, as it’s obviously a film made by real Zombie fans, rather than a quick moneyspinning corporate effort. A sequel is in the works, which I shall certainly be picking up. The story did end rather abruptly though, just like this blog entry.

Gore Score B-
Norks Score D
Overall Score C+