Zombie Self-Defense Force

OK, it’s probably about time for some mental Japanese zombie horror. Having recently gone through a phase of watching Japan-o-gore movies, none of which were Zombie films (Meatball Machine, Machine Girl and the awesome Tokyo Gore Police) I felt it about time I dive into some Japanese Zombie gore, and this wierd little number fit the bill perfectly.

I shall start this review with some choice words summing up the film : cheap, gory, psycho zombie-baby, cyborg and a space octopus. Now, that’s gotta get your attention, surely. Space Octopus?

Opening up with some CGI so awful that my GF sat for about 1 minute of the film before heading straight to bed moaning that she’s never seen such cheap CGI in all her life – and I’m almost inclined to agree – ZSDF kicks into the live-action in a forest somewhere, and we meet a few pockets of nefarious weirdos all separately going about their business. Such business includes some drug addicted Yakuza burying one of their victims, a group of army types on a training exercise, a J-pop starlet on a photo shoot and a sleazy husband breaking up with his pregnant mistress.

All these parties see a crude CGI flying saucer flying overhead, which crash-land somewhere in the forest emitting a bizarre green-glow of radiation. Obviously this strange gas thing has the side effect of reanimating the dead, and the remaining people meet up while running from the undead and seek refuge in a local bed and breakfast place.

Holed up in this venue with the undead knocking at the windows and the humans slowly succumbing to the zombie virus we get treated to loads of excellent low-budget gore (the best kind of gore hands down), a fantastically mental zombie-baby going on the rampage and the transformation of one of the characters from confused human to badass robot-cyborg. And then there is the aforementioned Space Octopus. Yes, (s)he only gets a screen time of about 2 seconds but it was the highlight of this bizarre cheapo gorefest.

An original film? Well, not particularly. Cutting-edge effects? Certainly not. Plot, script and storyline? Hell no. But bizarre comedy and loads of gore? Why yes please.

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

 

Wasting Away

Ah, the old ‘chemical experiments on recruits to create a new breed of super-soldiers’ plot. The current standard for zombie films. Can’t we kick off another Cold War or have a new Nuclear Arms Race or something? Anything just to get a new idea for reanimating the dead.

At least Wasting Away tries to do something reasonably original, that is by infecting the stars with zombism – via neon green zombie beer ice-cream no less – without their knowing. Yes, these 4 losers have become zombies and don’t even realise it. They see each-other as full-on normal chaps, but to everyone else they are the walking dead. This is done quite cleverly by showing the scenes of the main stars in colour, while whenever anyone else glances at them the film switches to black-and-white and we see them as they really are – veiny, shuffling members of the undead.

As unique as this sounds for a film it does present some problems. The first minor issue is that blood and gore looks a lot more exciting when it’s in colour. Secondly – and this is the main problem – having one unusual interesting idea is not really enough to base an entire movie on. Oh yes, it’s all good and fun the first couple of times the camera switches to Black and White and we see them transposed as zombies, but when that is the whole plot device and we have to sit through it again and again it just gets irritating. If they actually wrote a story around this idea then maybe it wouldn’t be so annoying. But there isn’t one. It’s just some crappy characters becoming unexpected zombies who spend half the film hanging out together not realising their condition, and the other half hanging out still not really doing anything but this time with an army private who has the same condition.

I guess they were trying to go for the ‘Return of the Living Dead’ comedy angle, but the film it really reminded me of was Idle Hands. And that’s a shame as I quite like that movie, but I don’t want to be reminded of this plotless borefest the next time I watch that.

OK, the acting is actually pretty good for a low budget film, there are a couple of genuinely funny moments, and having one unique idea is better than none, I suppose. But surely there needs to be something more to fill out a whole film? Hell, there’s not even any nudity or any real gore? Seriously, what’s the point of that?

Gore Score D
Norks Score F
Originality Score B
Overall Score D-

 

Zombieland

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

We’ve all have conversations about what we’d do if we were the last person alive, and although Zombie movies often present this situation nobody ever seems to take advantage of it. Sure, recently we’ve had Last of the Living where the guy do spend a while just kicking back, squatting in big mansions and raiding the nearby stores for cool CDs, but eventually it all goes pear-shaped as expected. Not so with Zombieland.

Making the most of the seemingly endless electricity and petrol (best not ask how these are still working) Tallahassee just kicks-ass, drives his big 4×4 searching for the last box of Twinkies (soft, yellow, delicious bastards) and beats Zombies over the head with whatever comes to hand. Columbus, however, is a geekly World of Warcraft fan who has survived by following his own series of rules, such as having good cardio (although how a skinny loser who survives on Golden Grahams and Mountain Dew has such good cardio is bizarre.)

Naturally there as some chicks involved, who do what women are good at : getting in the way of the fun, being annoying and not putting out for the guys! Sheesh.

Anyway, these 3 peeps get together, have some arguments, get to know each-other and start bonding (well, the film does have to be about something I suppose).

In amongst the thin plot are some great zombie movie moments. There is some of the best use of Slo-mo since Baywatch, some great zombie kills (death by banjo, rollercoaster, grand piano and even car door) as well as the accidental murder of a celeb. Sure, there could’ve done with some more zombies, and the ones that were there don’t really have the look of the undead about them (just the odd bruise and lots of bloody faces, no limbs hanging off or suchlike). However it is highly refreshing to watch such a gleefully enjoyable zombie movie, one that doesn’t restrict itself to a typical siege plot and especially one that doesn’t attempt to give a nonsense explanation to the zombie epidemic, it just gets on with it.

Gore Score B-
Norks Score D
Originality Score B-
Overall Score A

 

Tokyo Zombie

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

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have a particular soft spot for Japanese Zombie movies. Stacy, Bio-zombie, Junk – all have some bizarre yet awesome quality. Tokyo Zombie certainly falls into this category, albeit being less of a horror and more of a comedy than the others in their camp.

Fujio and Mitsuo are a pair of slackers who spend most of their time practicing their Jiu Jitsu rather than getting on with their jobs, whatever that may be. They are interrupted in the middle of some martial-arts action by their boss, who naturally doesn’t take too kindly to these shenanigans. A small tussle erupts between the two guys and the boss and he ‘accidently’ gets knocked over the head with a fire extinguisher. Instead of reporting this incident to the police the decide the best course of action is to take the body and bury it up Black Fuji, the nearby garbage pile where everyone dumps their unwanted goods and relatives.

Naturally being a Zombie movie this is the point where the dead bodies buried here decide to return to life and chomp on the local residents. Using their impressive Jiu Jitsu skills these two friends fight their way to their van and embark on a road trip toward Russia, because obviously that’s where the real men go.

While not really a Horror movie (although it does have more than its fair share of decapitations) Tokyo Zombie is more of a buddy comedy film, with the two friends joking, wrestling and arguing with each other for the majority of the time they are together on screen. That isn’t a particularly long time however, as one of the two meets an unfortunate end following a kidnapping of a young lady, and the other is forced to take this lass as his, er, wife. This is where the film switches from a Zombie Outbreak film to a Zombie Aftermath one, as we get to see what happens to the survivors of the zombie plague once everyone else is mostly dead. (Apparently the world becomes much like Romero’s Land of the Dead.)

It was certainly an enjoyable movie, although it could have done with more zombies. And more Tokyo too, to be honest. Still, there is some pretty impressive Jiu Jitsu, some slapstick farcical comedy and the odd bit of gore here and there. Plus it was good to see a film that covered 2 different eras of zombie outbreak – the before and after. It’s just a pity that the ‘after’ section was pretty barren of both laughs and plot.

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

 

RetarDEAD

When I heard of this film I pretty much knew instantly what sort of film it would be. I could practically hear the genre reviewers writing out the phrase ‘if you like the title you’re pretty much guaranteed to like the film’ And oh, how true that is. Appealing to the Troma fan in everyone (although it can take a bit of effort to bring it out of some people), RetarDEAD is a trash classic excelling in script, gore, offensiveness and utter, utter nonsense.

A mad scientist, fresh from resurrecting a turd monster in the previous film (MonsTURD) escapes the clutches of the boozy cops and sets up a new science lab in some abandoned factory. From there he sets out to find some test subjects for his (well meaning, but misguided) intelligence boosting experiments. He naturally selects the local mental hospital, and volunteers his services as a teacher.

While conducting his experiments the town police are hunting down both this escaped loon as well as the local pervert affectionately know as ‘the Weenie Waggler’. After being tracked down, this pervy nutjob points the cops to the new special needs teacher who has started working at the Special School in which he is the caretaker, so the cops rock on up to investigate. Unfortunately this is the point where the doc’s magic intelligence serum starts to backfire, causing the recipients to turn into flesh eating blue-grey Dawn of the Dead-style zombies.

This is the point of the film where the originality goes out the window, and the gore and slaughter kick off. The zombies start spreading, and the ridiculously cheap yet awesome entrails flow, more-or-less until the end of the film.

There are some excellent scenes in this movie : The cops tooling up ‘Here’s a handgun, another handgun, a sword, another handgun…..’), the mad scientist and his assistants dissecting a corpse for bait (involving A LOT of puking), plus the gore-gore girls surrounding and attacking their prey in the doc’s laboratory and dancing them to death.

Sure, we’ve seen a lot of this before, but such a great script and budget spent almost totally on latex gore effects and cameos (Jello Biafra!) this is something I love to see in my low budget B-movies. Hell, if there was some Nudity then it would’ve been perfect!

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

 

Last of the Living

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

 

Zombiegeddon

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+

 

Undead Or Alive

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

I had to check once or twice that I didn’t already own this movie, as it seems suspiciously similar to one of my previous films ‘The Quick and the Undead‘. It shares a similar looking sleeve design, a Western setting, a terrible pun title and was also a cheapo supermarket-shelf bought DVD, but no, this is a different movie. Whether or not it is any better is debatable though.

I have mentioned before how I loathe the Portmanteau ‘Zombedy’, but at least that was only used by writers as a shorthand description for a zombie-comedy. However, when films start to use that term in their own opening credits then I know that I’m not in for a good thing. It is particularly annoying when the comedy present is about as funny as it would be to wear cowboy-boots with the spurs on the inside. Maybe I can coin my own term of “Painfulny”, or ‘Painfully-Unfunny’, for that is more accurate. Never before have I watched a film that tries with every single word uttered to be amusing, but fails so miserably it almost becomes unbearable after the first 10 minutes.

It’s not just the script that is disgraceful, but the comedy set-pieces too. A guy gets invited into a lake with a young lass, so cue the Benny-Hill sped up footage as he undresses! A zombie gets his foot stuck in a bucket and then stands on a rake which whacks him in the face! The heroes end up in a dark basement so to be able to see they light a match, only to hilariously discover there are loads of Dynamite barrels down here! Wow, it’s like Elmer Fudd humour here.

Anyway, the plot. Well a cowboy has somehow been infected with Geronimo’s white-man curse which caused him to turn zombie and eat his family. He gets locked up by the Sherriff, but managed to bite a few people in the process. The two heroes of the film have just escaped from this jail and the Sherriff and co try to track them down but get infected before even leaving town. The rest of the film follows these zombie sheriffs chasing the two heroes across the plains as they try to get somewhere or other. Oh yes, there’s a private-schooled Native American woman along for the ride too.

Without the painful comedy this would have just been a rubbish zombie movie, but the humour is so bad that it drags the whole film down by several notches. There is some potential here – a zombie sheriff who can track by smell and never slows, never stops until he catches his prey could be a genuinely unnerving movie – but that’s not how it pans out here. It’s just utterly painful from start to finish. The gore is mostly rubbish (when someone does get bitten the camera flashes and cuts so much that you barely see anything), the soundtrack is cheesy beyond belief (and not in a good way – we’re talking heartfelt ballads here) and it’s all just irritating. Maybe we’ll get a good zombie western sometime, but judging by this effort it’s probably a long way off.

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

 

Choking Hazard

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

I can count the number of Czech films I’ve ever seen on the fingers of one stumpy fingerless hand. Well that would equate to zero, whereas actually I mean one. This film to be precise.  Naturally this makes it both the best and the worst Czech film I’ve ever seen, and in the grand scale of zombie movies this rates somewhere… in the middle.

A bunch of students shack up in a mostly abandoned hotel to discuss the meaning of life. Bizarrely a Porn Star / Jehovah’s Witness dude rocks on up at the motel by accident and gets wrapped up in all the metaphysical discussions, although I don’t recall him ever discussing how he can be both a Porn star and a Jehovah Witness at the same time. But hey, at least he seems passionate about both lifestyles.

Anyway, the film is not particularly scary, there is not much gore, and the nudity is also below par.  So what’s left?  Well the actual story, direction and plot are actually pretty decent. There are plenty of unusual scenes going on here – such as the electroshock zombie dance – which is as ludicrous as it is entertaining.  In fact the whole film is like that.  It’s pretty bizarre, nothing makes much sense, but it’s quite enjoyable none-the-less.  Nobody involved seems too bothered that Zombies have started attacking everyone, there are no reasons given for this outbreak, and nobody is remotely concerned about what will happen after this whole hotel zombie affair has ended.

Also I seem to have missed out on the philosophical viewpoints in this film, probably because I watched the (Czech language subtitled in English) film late at night and had a fair few glasses of wine inside me, but apparently the point is that the Religious get their heads bashed in while the Nihilists get to copulate with numerous ladies while filming it on portable cameras.  Well, that seems fair enough.  There were other worldviews on offer but I guess they weren’t as memorable.  I did like the zombie with a massive saucepan on his head that had a smiley face drawn on the front, but I don’t know what that means.  Probably something to do with Communism.

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

 

Enter…Zombie King

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+