Devouring the flesh of the living

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

Wow, a zombie movie more-or-less based on a true story?  Made by a famous director?  Featuring a famous and ubiqutious lead star?  Oh yes, there are no toxic-waste spewing, brain-chomping undead rotters in this 1980’s flick.  Hot on the heels of the awesome ‘Spaceballs’, Bill Pulman kicks off his 3-random-films-every-single-year-from-then-until-eternity career with this Haiti set real life voodoo exploration.

Having been attacked, drugged by a creepy voodoo Bokor and then stalked by jaguars in Haiti just after the opening credits, Bill Pulman returns to the US only to be told that he has to head back to the country to root out some mystic death-faking (ie zombie) drug that could be used by the American government for some reason.  (Probably for misguided and unexplained military purposes, as is the way in zombie movies.)

Anyway, old Bill turns up over in Haiti and starts hanging out with some doctor lass who he surprisingly takes a liking too, even going so far as boning her under a waterfall. However, being the only white dude in the country he attracts suspicion from the local government and they take it upon themselves to attack, drug and then provide him a (slightly unwanted) scrotal body piercing service.  Still, at least it was free, eh?

Thankfully he manages to get up and about the place following this incident, and goes about his task of trying to find this magic zombie anaesthetic while still getting his end away with the doctor chick and hallucinating quite a bit on a daily basis.  He still gets chased around by the evil baddies though, it’d be boring if the just let him go and forgot about him.

The Serpent And The Rainbow was a really enjoyable affair. While a decent thriller in its own right, it’s also good to see a film that truly goes back to the roots of zombie culture, which this film does better than any film I’ve ever seen that’s not in black & white.  Educational, bloody, and a great ‘zombie rising from the grave to grab Bill Pullmans crotch’ scene.  What else could you wish for?  (Well ok yes, there are even Norks in this too).

Gore Score C
Norks Score D
Originality Score B
Overall Score B

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

I recently saw the multi-award winning ‘The Wrestler’ on the big screen, and loved all the OTT wrestling action, but I felt that there was just something missing from all the serious self-destructive character story-lines.  True, it had plenty of strippers but where were all the dudes in stupid wrestling masks taking on a trained army of the undead?  I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that this is the reason it missed out at Oscars.

Thankfully I discovered a movie that fills in all the blanks from The Wrestler, and removes all the boring plot.  “Enter…Zombie King.”

Featuring a cast of Mexican-wrestling-mask wearing heroes, (who wear their masks constantly, even when chilling out drinking beers on the veranda) who travel the country for some reason on another.  Ulysses is the main hero here, who rocks on up at an old mates house – who is also a wrestler – to stay for a few days.  He hears that there is a rival wrestler in town who is planning on wrestling a bunch of ‘live’ zombies in the ring.  Obviously thinking these zombies can’t be trusted he pops along with his crew to witness this event.

Unfortunately for all concerned, while inside watching the match a couple of chicks are attacked outside and one gets killed by some feral Zombies, and it’s the zombie wrestler Tiki who gets the blame.  However, Tiki’s zombies have been neutered so it must be another sort of undead that killed off the young lady, so the whole team of masked heroes set off to discover what’s been happening with these killer zombies.

Featuring copious amounts of nudity, loads of fantastic wrestling-action and a bad guy with possibly the greatest villain name in history ‘Murderliser’, “Enter… Zombie King” is outstanding from start to finish.  OK, the acting is pretty sub-par and the gore effects are mostly of the Plastic-Jokeshop-Limb variety but it all works so superbly together none of that matters, and in-fact it just adds to the enjoyment.  Why do they never take off their masks?  Who cares.  How come nobody seems bothered that zombies have roamed the forest for years?  So what.  Why would anyone sunbathe in the snow wearing a wrestling mask?  Pah!  Just go with the flow and enjoy the action.  Heck, if actual Wrestling was this exciting I’d start watching that instead of the UFC!

Gore Score C
Norks Score B
Originality Score A
Overall Score B+

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

What are the prime ingredients for my favourite Zombie movies?  Made in the 1970’s – Check.  Terrible overdubbing – Check.  Rubbish effects – Check.  Unnecessary nudity – Check.  Yes, everything in Vengeance of the Zombies is present and correct.  Infact there are even more ludicrous elements to this movie, of particular note the daft jazzy score which plays over many of the tenser moments, totally ruining any sense of suspense or horror.

Aside from these novelty moments, Vengeance of the Zombies actually has a reasonably decent story of a particularly old-school living dead nature.  A mysterious voodoo master dressed incredibly similarly to ‘V’ from ‘V for Vendetta’ – mask and all – is murdering a bunch of people using a few zombie ladies he’s resurrected and some wax voodoo dolls for good measure.

Elvira falls victim to these voodoo shenanigans but luckily manages to escape while her father gets killed off instead.  To come to terms with this bereavement she decides to get out of the city and head to a little English village to shack up with her Buddhist teacher, who she also has the hots for.  However it appears that the voodoo trickster has followed her there and the bizarre killings continue.  It probably doesn’t help matters that the house Krishna the Buddhist is living in has an infamous history for debauched Satanic worshiping and murder.  Oh well.

OK, so the story is reasonable enough and the acting is of an acceptable standard, but overall it’s not really that gripping.  Unless some back story was edited out of my really terrible ripped from VHS DVD version there is not a hope that you’ll ever guess who the voodoo master is or what his motivation is until the big reveal at the end.  Not that it matters really, these Eurohorrors are best viewed for the cheesy nonsense, of which this has plenty.  It’s worth watching for the soundtrack alone.

Gore Score D
Norks Score C
Originality Score C
Overall Score C

I want to find out who invented the idea of a Zombie Comedy (and more importantly who coined the term “Zomedy”) and punch them in their stupid face.  It’s probably the same person who thought that ‘Vampires’ and ‘Romantic Movie’ would be a great combination.  Oh. My. God.  Zombies are rotting corpses that eat people.  Vampires wear stupid cloaks and chew on peoples necks.  Where’s the comedy or romance in that?

Still I can’t complain too hard because, like everyone, I love Shaun of the Dead.

Anyway, let us depart from the irrelevant, dubious and obviously drunken grammar\punctuation and get back to the film in hand.

Hide and Creep is a comedy zombie movie, but despite all that it is one of the most enjoyable zombie flicks I’ve watched in a good long time, and possibly the most dead-pan zombie comedy I have ever seen.

Sure, there is not one iota of originality in the whole film. Rednecks, government agents, strippers…  They are all present and correct, but it’s all done so well and should be a lesson to all wannabe zombie movie makers out there.

Hey, if a film can open with a chubby ugly naked dude with his wanger on show and yet still keep me interested in the movie then there’s something going for it.  It’s a pity the director had to combine it with his own ego project and cast himself as a wannabe-Tarantino-dialogue-spouting hero, but hey, if it’s your film then do what you want.  At least he made a decent film, even though he was boring and predictable in it.

Oh yeah, the film itself…  Well, the plot from Plan 9 From Outer Space comes true, and a bunch of dead rednecks come back to life as zombies, and the living hicks have to defend themselves and the town from undead invasion.  That’s pretty much it, except that the script, characters, acting and even direction are amazingly good for such a low budget film.  Plus it has lesbian zombies in it, which cannot be a bad thing.

Gore Score C+
Norks Score B-
Originality Store C-
Overall Score B+