How best to discuss this unusual little number then? Shall I talk about the theme of unhealthy obsessions, and how such neuroses affects you and those around you? Should I approach it as a commentary on male teenagers and their dehumanisation of the female? Or shall I just take my standard approach and chat about this film as it really is : 3 kids finding a zombie tied up in a basement and using her as their own sex toy?
Yes, who hasn’t dreamt of finding a naked and rotting undead corpse tied up in an abandoned hospital and what you could do with such a Discovery? Obviously the last thing to cross your mind would be to report such a unreal scene the police. No, you’d decide to keep hold of it and visit ‘her’ every evening with your mates to play an elaborate game of hide the sausage. Heck, if you did find yourself in such a situation not only would you not be ashamed of your actions, you’d positively revel in it, so much so that you’d want your mates to stand around and watch while you violently defile the trussed up zombie.
It’s a strange situation our characters find themselves in for sure. Rickie and J.T. nip out of school to go boozing in an abandoned hospital. After getting smashed on one 6 pack of transparent beer between them they wander off exploring the building. Among all the smashed windows they discover a much more unusual sight : an unexplained bound naked zombie female on an operating table. Sure, they’re not the luckiest lads when it comes to love, and for our star who has pined over some ginger lass for his whole childhood it even crosses his mind that romancing the undead could be a valid lifestyle choice. Not so for J.T. – he doesn’t even need to think about it, this is the opportunity he’s been waiting for! His own sex slave, albeit slightly rotting and disgusting. Hell, there are worse lookers out there I suppose.
It all goes pretty gross as you’d imagine. People start to hear about this bizarre situation and want some of it for themselves. Dogs get eaten, teenagers lose their intestines, and our ‘heroes’ get beaten up by a tough lady after whacking her over the head with a tire iron on one of their rare excursions away from the freaky zombie.
Depending on how you look at it it’s either a very brave and unique zombie film with numerous fascinating underlying themes, or it’s a sick film of teenager-zombie rape. Either way it’s a great original movie that will certainly stay with you forever. Hmm, maybe that’s not such a good thing after all…
Gore Score C-
Norks Score D
Originality Score A
Overall Score B
AKA Gates of Hell
I guess it must have been about 3 months since I last watched a Zombie film with the Girlfriend (Night of the Living Dead) so that means I get to inflict another one on her. Apparently I am allowed 1 every quarter, so that’s 4 a year. I’ve pretty much given up choosing ones that I think she’ll like and have decided to go with one I know that I like. I’ve been getting the itch to watch ‘The Beyond’ for a while, but realised that I’ve not seen the 1st in Fulci’s pseudo-series ‘City of the Living Dead’ in even longer, so why not start at the beginning then?
City of the Living Dead is without a doubt a classic of the genre. Featuring several highly memorable scenes that only Fulci could imagine, we start off with a daft seance where we see a vision of a priest hanging himself. This is so traumatic it causes the young lass who has seen it to have a spectacular heart attack and die. Actually she was only ‘mostly-dead’ as during her unattended burial she comes back to life. Sadly it’s a bit too late as she’s already 6 feet under, although a passing journalist hears her screams and decides to bust her out of her coffin. Stupidly of all the tools to use to open a coffin I would have thought that a pick-axe would be the most dangerous option, particularly when you’re whacking it into the coffin lid directly over the body’s head, luckily this doesn’t cause any problems aside from adding to the already immense stress the buried alive lass is suffering. (I wonder, had he speared her in the face and killed her, what would he have been charged with?)
Anyway, this journalist and lady decide to head off to the village from her vision to try to stop the dead from taking over the world, which has already started in earnest. People are dying all over the place in bizarre fashion, and the locals aren’t dealing with it too well. One of the obvious highlights of the whole film is the death of a young lady who it hypnotised by the zombie-priest and promptly vomits up her whole internal organs. Yes, hell unleashed on earth is apparently pretty gruesome.
There are several awesome scenes here, (a drill to the head anyone?) and coupled with the fact this film actually has some semblance of plot it’s overall a highly enjoyable movie. Even my Girlfriend quite enjoyed it, which was perhaps the most unexpected aspect of the film, (although the drill scene where the villagers turn on the local nutjob didn’t meet with her approval, but seeing as that’s my favourite part I guess we even out nicely.)
Gore Score B
Norks Score F
Originality Score B
Overall Score A-
Also posted at http://www.revenantmagazine.com/)
Having arrived back from this years Glastonbury festival I needed to remember the details of the film I watched before I went away. Now, I don’t particularly have any desire to re-watch it to familiarise myself as it wasn’t all that decent or apparently memorable either. However, I reached a compromise and just stuck it on fast-forward to speed through the 80 minutes in about quarter of an hour. It reminded me of some of the decent aspects of the film, but sadly also the ending, which surprisingly I had forgotten about considering I could see it coming from a mile away during my first viewing.
Anyway, Zombie Virus on Mulberry Street – simply Mulberry Street outside of the UK – centres around an apartment-block in New York, home to around half a dozen standard residents and a caretaker who has unfortunately recently been bitten by a mysterious undead rodent. In possibly the greatest moment of the film we see this caretaker transforming into a mutant Rat-man, a not too dissimilar scene to Jeff Goldblums ‘The Fly’. He then tries to munch on any of the residents he comes across. There isn’t much escape for the locals as numerous ratzombies are roaming about the whole city, so they hole up in the apartment to fend for themselves.
Now, while not officially zombies the rat-creatures are for all intents and purposes members of the undead, who were brought about by infection spread from rats (possibly due to some weird experiment conducted on a pet rodent by a Mulberry Street resident). The makeup effect of these creatures is pretty decent for a low-budget film, and in particular I loved the hairy little ratty ears the infected display. There is also some mild gore on offer, mostly just blood effect here and there though.
Mulberry Street does invoke a quite impressive sense of claustrophobia and tension for quite a lot of the film, but where it falls down is when the action scenes kick in. Maybe it’s the filming style of theses moments but any sense of tension that was built up pre-action is just blown away whenever anything actually exciting happens. People get killed and attacked and there’s just no interest when it does happen, and appears quite amateurishly handled. It’s a pity really because there are some really good moments here, but when the plot actually kicks in the film is just dull.
Sadly, this film doesn’t compare to the awesome Ratman although the rat-creatures do bear a slight resemblance to the diminutive Nelson De La Rosa, albeit much taller.
Gore Score D
Norks Score F
Originality Score D
Overall Score D-
