Also posted at http://www.revenantmagazine.com/)
“If there’s one thing I wouldn’t want to be twice, zombies is both of them”
Ah, googly-eyed Mantan Moreland. A star from back in the day when there was no such thing as Racism. Playing the standard role of ‘Scared Servant’ in almost all of his films, he parts with tradition for King of the Zombies and takes on the roll of ‘Scared Servant’. His job here is apparently to accompany his employer and friend on a plane which crashes onto a graveyard on a miscellaneous Caribbean island, and to be scared of everything.
This Island is the property of Miklos Sangre (Bela Lugosi – sorry, some actor called Henry Victor doing his best Lugosi impression). Sangre is an Austrian who has fled to the Caribbean, and apparently uses this base to radio out to some unknown people who all speak German.
Mantan and his team crash land on this island in 1941 just before WWII breaks out (or rather slap bang in the middle of WWII for the rest of the world) and are taken to Sangre’s mansion to await rescue. Because Mantan is a Servant (ie Black) he is told he cannot take a bedroom in the mansion with his employers but has to sleep in the Kitchen with the other Servants, and it is here that he meets the Zombies. Although being Pre-Romero these Zombies don’t actually do much other than look creepy while they queue up for their rations.
Well, it turns out that Sangre is actually an evil Nazi and has kidnapped another plane crash victim from the US army and is trying to extract war information from him by turning him into a hypnotised zombie. Stumbling into this plot is old Moreland who gets zombified by Sangre (for a while), which means he too has to act creepy and eat his rations. (Eating rations is apparently all that Zombies did back in the 40’s.)
It’s not a bad little movie really, although the plot is thread-bare the enjoyment comes purely from Mantans’ jokes and ludicrous scared expressions. Everything else is pretty much just padding between Moorland’s scenes, but that’s no bad thing. It’s also of interest to see just how Black actors were cast and treated back then, which would be hugely offensive if released in modern times but is now just an interesting snapshot of an outmoded era of cinema.
Gore Score D
Norks Score F
Originality Score F
Overall Score C
There are surprisingly few zombie movies where the undead call out for ‘braaiiins’, so when one comes along I’m all for it. The zombies in Last of the Living go one better by being particularly farty aswell – if there’s been one thing that the undead have been lacking in it’s flatulence.
Last of the Living is a high-art entry into the zombie canon, and follows three mates who have somehow inexplicably survived the zombie holocaust, despite being a bunch of lazy worthless bums. They have got the right idea though, as they have the run of their hometown to themselves and just move from vacant mansion to vacant mansion playing drums, watching the amazing ‘Great Bikini Workout’ DVD and listening to music. (Electricity is still working for some reason). Sadly this is all interrupted by their lack of food, so the boys tool up and head to town to loot some snacks, wading through the packs of undead.
One of the zombies they encounter happens to be one of the lads girlfriends, but unlike similar films he sensibly takes the opportunity to kill her off without any complaining, or even uttering the standard ‘but she’s my girlfriend…’ comment. (Bonus points for this!)
Anyway, in amongst all this shopping and house-moving they bump into a young lady who has developed a potential cure, and the bunch of lads decide to chaperon this lass to to the local hospital in order to perfect it. As is the way with Zombie films, trying to do some good doesn’t turn out that well and they’re swamped by the undead and fighting for their own survival when they could’ve been lazing about in some luxury apartment keeping to themselves.
This was a superb low-budget comedy zombie movie. The actors are clearly great mates and that relationship comes across superbly. The original soundtrack is impressive and coupled with the music video-style direction this is a great modern zombie comedy, and it’ll find a place alongside the Peter Jacksons’, Romeros’ and the Fulcis’ on my regular re-watch zombie shelf.
Gore Score C
Norks Score F
Originality Score C
Overall Score A
Also posted at http://www.revenantmagazine.com/)
At last, a decent Zombie Movie! After a few weeks of boring unoriginal zombie flicks I felt I needed a reboot so turned to Troma to help me out of the lull. Thankfully Zombiegeddon delivers the trash I have been craving, and more.
The plot of Zombiegeddon is just some insane nonsense about the Devil summoning up a bunch of zombies to wipe out the whole population, but it is basically just an excuse to get from set-piece to set-piece, with a bunch of b-movie celebrity cameos thrown in for good measure. We have Jesus Christ (Tom Savini) in bed with Brinke Stevens, Lloyd Kaufman as a cowardly caretaker and Linnea Quigley as a school principal. There is a zombie hunter who takes his son and his pet zombie-eating tiger out on patrol with him, some incredibly corrupt cops who just murder innocent people for kicks and a cop vs zombie kung-fu fight!
The highlights for me were Lloyd Kaufman’s homophobic janitor who mistakes the zombies for some homosexuals, and runs off to hide in a closet for the remainder of the film, as well as a scene where the 2 cops pull over a carload of boys using some very suspect interrogation techniques.
If it were to be judged on technical merit then it would fail abysmally. The quality of the filming here is pretty dire, with some bottom-drawer acting, terrible sound recording and laughably bad gore (seriously, I swear I saw the bucket come into view when a load of blood was spurted\thrown onto a wall), but none of this matters when you’re watching a who’s who of trashy horror complete with a zombie-eating tiger in it.
For extra laughs I highly recommend reading some of the user reviews on the IMDB site for this film. Seriously, some people just don’t get it.
Gore Score C
Norks Score B+
Originality Score C
Overall Score B+
