Saturday, February 9, 2013 Z is for Zombies: M is for More Brains!

M is for More Brains! A Return to the Living Dead
USA, 2011

The Zombies: O'Bannon Brain-Eaters.

The Source: A chemical spill (2-4-5 Trioxin!)

The Result: A fantastic in-depth look at a genre classic.

Bill Stout attempts a second career as a horror host.

I first saw Return of the Living Dead during its original theatrical run in the summer of 1985.  I had just graduated high school and was at the peak of my zombie phobia, having finally caught Dawn of the Dead at a midnight show the year before.  To say RotLD rocked my world is an understatement.  The film kicked over all the new-found conventions of the zombie genre and managed to be both hilarious and scary.  The soundtrack was great, the movie's punks actually looked like punks*, and oh, that graveyard dance...

Return of the Living Dead has built up a massive following over the years, and most of us were disappointed by the US blu-ray release.  The original soundtrack was replaced by a director-approved version that tweaked the sound effects and dropped some musical cues to the detriment of the film.  When I heard that the UK release had the original soundtrack, included the More Brains! documentary as a bonus, and was compatible with Region A PS3s, it was not a difficult decision to order a copy.

It turns out the blu-ray will play in most if not all US players.  Once you get the region warning screen, simply hit the menu button and the HD content - the main movie and the fantastic documentary - will play just fine.  However, your player does need to be able to play PAL SD content in order to view all of the bonus features.  My PS3 wouldn't play the extras but my Philips handled it swelegantly.

More Brains! features just about everyone still above ground who was involved in the making of the film.  At just over 120 minutes, the documentary is a half-hour longer than the film it covers.  However, the doc never outstays it's welcome.  The cast and crew reminiscences are put together in a way that feels like a lively conversation instead of a parade of talking heads.  The animated link segments and thematic set design for the interviews also keep things peppy, and the behind-the-scenes footage will be new to most fans. I loved every minute of this documentary, not least because it shows that those who made RotLD have just as much affection for it as their audience. 

The blu-ray comes in a handsome steelbook with groovy interior art and a cool booklet (presented as the notepad of Ernie Kaltenbrunner).  Amazon UK asserts that the steelbook is shipped in "guaranteed crush-proof packaging".  Well, Brit guarantees don't mean nothin' to Americans - the US Postal Service managed to put a nice little ding in the bottom back half of my copy.  USA!  USA!  USA!

Halloween is a time for family.

More Brains! easily rates at least a 4 for fans of Return of the Living Dead.  Add in the classic film itself - with its original soundtrack - in some nifty packaging, and the blu-ray is an absolute most-own.

A mighty 5 Ghouls!

* I hung with a punk/New Wave crowd during the mid-80's.  I was the "Chuck" of the group, albeit a lot more self-aware and clad in bomber jackets instead of suits. I didn't beg for sex**, either, though I might have if someone as hot as Linea Quigley was around. 


**I just sort of whimpered.

Friday, October 26, 2012 Z is for Zombies: Z is for Zombies of Sugar Hill

Z is for Zombies of Sugar Hill
USA, 1974

The Zombies: Voodoo zombies.

The Source: Voodoo, dumbass.

The Result: Foxy Brown with zombies.

Despite all his supernatural power, Baron Samedi still had a weakness for blondes.

When her man is killed by gangsters, fashion photographer Sugar Hill enlists the aid of Baron Samedi and his army of zombies in her quest for vengeance.

Zombies of Sugar Hill follows the same formula AIP used for its other blaxplotiation films with female leads.  The protagonist is an independent career woman who loses a loved one to criminal elements the law can't touch, so she uses guile and her sex appeal to lure those responsible to their doom.  The only difference here is that Sugar's preferred weapon is voodoo instead of shotguns or razor blades hidden in her hair.

This movie makes it look really easy to summon Baron Samedi.  Like, so easy that a Gilligan / Curly Howard tag team couldn't mess it up.  If Catholic saints were that easy to conjure, I might have gone through with my Confirmation.

Maybe my expectations have finally hit rock bottom, but the zombies are actually kind of neat when they first turn up.  In daylight shots, however, the tiny L'Eggs Sheer Energy shells they wear over their eyes look goofy.  Do you guys remember L'Eggs in the plastic containers?  Nah, you're probably too young.  Google it sometime.

It's notable that every time Sugar gets her zombified revenge on, her hairstyle changes from a straightened Vanessa-Williams-meets-Farrah 'do to a big, beautiful afro.  Either the movie is implying that voodoo is reconnecting Sugar to her true identity as a black woman, or it's really bad at continuity.

The film's portrayal of Baron Samedi is obviously inspired by Live and Let Die, but Don Pedro Colley is no Geoffrey Holder.  Which is a shame, because Marki Bey is no Pam Grier and this sort of film lives or dies (ha!) on the strength of its leads.  Neither Bey nor Coffey have enough presence to keep things lively between the kill scenes, which are rather perfunctory themselves.  Although the homicidal chicken leg is a hoot.

Oh no!  Not the chicken foot!

Still, if "Coffy with zombies and an animated rooster foot" sounds appealing, you owe it to yourself to check out Sugar Hill.  

2.5 Ghouls

Thursday, October 25, 2012 Z is for Zombie: L is for Last of the Living

L is for Last of the Living
New Zealand, 2009

The Zombies: Romero Ghouls mostly, with some souped-up Snyder Sprinters near the end.

The Source: A virus, apparently.

The Result: An utter waste of time.

When she learned the in-flight movie was Last of the Living, Jane took the easy way out.

Three slackers with odious personalities are coasting through the post-apocalypse until a chance encounter with a female scientist - the only living woman around - sends them on a quest to find a cure for the zombie virus.

Spoilers ahoy, but trust me, I'm doing you a favor.

As the movie begins, it's cozy catastrophe time. The protagonists live a life of ease, enjoying a never-ending supply of gas, water and electricity and changing up luxury dwellings when they're bored.  The streets are clean with no sign of junked automobiles or rotting carcasses.  The boys can grab whatever they want from the local supermarkets with no fear of shortage or spoilage.  And zombies?  They're something to be killed for fun.

Now, there's a chance that this is all a commentary on Millennial males.  You know - manchildren still living at home, isolated from the trials of adulthood and sponging off the 'rents until they are forced to grow up through the influence of a mature, capable woman.  Except that statement would be completely undermined by the fact that the guys get killed following said woman on her ultimately futile quest.  So unless the intended moral is, "stay in your parents' basement where it's safe", I think we can safely dismiss any higher meaning here.  Especially after the fart jokes kick in.

Fricking fart jokes.

Anyhoo, the three asses follow Dr. Ladygirl through what is supposed to be hilarious hijinks and thrilling escapades.  Then, in the last act, the movie suddenly decides it wants to be serious and poignant and scary.  So the zombies, who up until now were literally punchlines, suddenly have to become a threat.  And because the movie is completely incapable of establishing dread or suspense, it takes the path of least resistance and just has the zombies start running.  At super-speed.  Yes, the formerly shambling goofballs can now keep pace with a speeding automobile and track a fleeing human across miles of brush in a heartbeat.  Whee.

I won't mention many of the movie's other failings, such as establishing characters that will only appear in a single disconnected scene and make-up effects that were apparently supervised by a boardwalk face-painter with a bad NyQuil habit.

After Bozo's Circus went off the air, Cooky the Clown joined the ministry.

Look, I know the film was shot on a miniscule budget.  But good ideas cost the same as bad ones.  Last of the Living isn't as funny or clever or exciting as it thinks it is, which makes its smug tone rather tough to endure.

1.5 Ghouls

Sunday, October 21, 2012 Z is for Zombie: H is for Hell's Ground

H is for Hell's Ground
Pakistan, 2007

The Zombies: Romero Ghouls.

The Source: Polluted drinking water.

The Result: Classic horror filtered through a distinctly Pakistani lens.

This actually happened to me in India.

A group of young Pakistanis skip out on school and family commitments in order to attend a rock concert. Unfortunately, they stray off the main highway and end up in a region with the richly deserved nickname of "Hell's Ground".  Hi-jinks ensue.

Hell's Ground is clearly the result of a filmmaker's love of classic horror films. There are early nods to the Universal monsters, slashers like Maniac, and the seminal Lollywood vampire film, The Living Corpse.  Even the plot is a mash-up of old favorites; the film is actually kind of light on zombie action as there's an early swerve out of Romero territory and right into Texas Chainsaw Massacre country.

But Hell's Ground doesn't just retread ground blazed by earlier films.  Writer/director Omar Ali Khan injects a strong Paksitani vibe throughout the proceedings.  The language is a mix of English and Urdu with a healthy dose of slang.  While conforming to horror film archetypes, the kids also represent a cross-section of Pakistani society.  And the music, costumes, and cultural references all add a distinct sense of time and place.  Hell's Ground is like an old pop standard being covered by some crazy foreign combo; the tune may be familiar, but the groove is strictly local.

There's a scene in Hell's Ground that has particular resonance for me.  During one trip to India I was in a van that was literally swarmed by a horde of beggars who pounded on the doors and windows and thrust grasping hands through every opening.  Flashbacks to every zombie movie I had ever seen kicked in, and I was torn between hacking away at the intruders or collapsing into a sobbing, doomed wreck.  The same situation to the kids in the movie, except with actual zombies of course.

Luckily, this did not.

But you don't need to have had nightmarish experiences on the other side of the globe to enjoy Hell's Ground.  You just have to love horror movies.

4 Ghouls

Tuesday, October 18, 2011 Z is for Zombie: P is for Pathogen

P is for Pathogen
USA, 2006

The Zombies: Romero Ghouls.

The Source: Nanotech in the drinking water.

The Result: The bestest zombie movie ever made by a twelve-year-old girl.

I honestly believe this is how most tweens would react to a neighbor being devoured by zombies.

When nanotechnology developed as a cancer cure contaminates a suburban town's drinking water, the inhabitants suffer some rather unfortunate side effects. 

Pathogen is the first feature film from Emily Hagins, who was only twelve when production began. I first heard about it when the documentary on its making, Zombie Girl: The Movie, hit the festival circuit a couple of years back. Intrigued by the idea of a pre-teen girl producing her own zombie flick, I ordered a copy directly from the filmmaker herself.  It's been sitting in my to-watch pile for a while, and I'm glad I finally got around to viewing it for my current project.

I don't want to set unrealistic expectations.  This is a film written, directed, and edited by a twelve-year-old using a minuscule budget, an amateur cast, and ambient lighting.  But there's definitely talent on display here, and despite all limitation Ms. Hagins has managed to create some nicely framed shots and a very effective opening credit montage.

More importantly, though, Pathogen is a lot of fun.  There's a conversation in the movie that's essentially this:

SCIENTIST: "Hey, have you seen my slides with that hazardous nanotech
                on them?"
ADMIN: "Nope! But I wouldn't worry about it! Just go home and relax!"
SCIENTIST: "Oke-doke!"

I exaggerate only a little. We've seen and groaned at variations on this conversation in a thousand different horror films.  Pathogen just distills it down to its purest form.  Pathogen distills all zombie movie conventions down to their purest form, whether it's survivors standing around slack-jawed while others are being eaten or the guy who just won't open the damn door while his friends are being attacked on the other side.  Pathogen plays out like a kid relating the highlights of a horror show to a hushed crowd on the school playground.  It's spooky, innocent fun.  It's what Halloween is all about.

"Bieeeeeee-berrrrrrrr!"

Pathogen may not have scared me, but it certainly impressed me.

3.5 Ghouls

Friday, October 14, 2011 Z is for Zombie: A is for Apocalypse of the Dead

A is for Apocalypse of the Dead
Serbia, 2009

The Zombies: Romero Ghouls, with a couple of random Snyder Sprinters.

The Source: Ancient plague exposed to ammonia (?!?)

The Result: A rehash of other, better movies in an Eastern European accent.

This film even put the zombies to sleep.

A Yugoslavian construction crew unearths an ancient plague pit in the 1980's.  Thirty years later, a Serbian railroad tanker  is ruptured by an inebriated American soldier in town for a UN military exercise.  A strange gas escapes from the tanker and zombifies the local populace.  Survivors from various walks of life - including a group of Interpol operatives transporting a mysterious prisoner - band together to fight off the undead and make it to the end credits.

This one was literally painful to watch.  As the directors decided to use shaky cam for every damn scene, they had to resort to incessant crash zooms in and out to spice up the action moments.  Trying to keep my eyes focused on anything happening in the movie caused my work-induced headache to blossom into a full-blown migraine.

Apocalypse of the Dead is a Serbian production shot in English.  Aside from mistaking camera movement for dramatic tension, this is the film's biggest hurdle.  As language ability seems to have been the primary hiring consideration, the acting ranges from acceptable to embarrassingly amateurish, with the chap playing the professor deserving special mention for ineptness*. Throughout the film are scenes in which half the actors are dubbed and the rest are recorded on-set, which is a bit disconcerting until you get used to it.  (Yet for some reason, a trio of mush-mouthed party-goers get to keep their original voices intact.)  And even the native speakers sound uncomfortable in English due to having to work with screenwriters and directors who were not entirely facile in the language. The dialogue for the religious fanatic is particularly grating, and not in the way the writers may have intended.

The decision to shoot in English might have been a marketing call, but I think there's plenty of evidence that the guys behind the camera were simply big fans of American zombie movies. There's a lot in-joke character names and some rather clunky references to other (better) films. Apocalypse also brings together more action movie stereotypes than an RPG player character group - the badass American cop, the mysterious stranger with a katana, the two-gun hottie, and the psycho killing machine. And then there's the presence of Ken Foree, iconic for his role in the original Dawn of the Dead but not what you would call a zombie movie staple. 

Trouble is, Apocalypse takes it's love of other zombie films too far. It follows a well-worn path without adding anything new.  It's almost as if the directors are working from a checklist; the character that gets bit and dies a slow but noble death, the character that goes crazy and throws herself into a pile o' zombies, the character that betrays everyone else in an attempt to save his own skin, etc.  The only new and interesting gag is the scene pictured above, where the survivors come across a bunch of undead sprawled out in the sun.  But the movie doesn't really do anything with this concept, except set up a poorly-executed take on a memorable scene from Aliens.

I can't make up my mind if Apocalypse of the Dead is a homage to American zombies films or a calculated rip-off of them. I can say that if the filmmakers had tried to be a little more original and, well, more Serbian the results would have been infinitely better.  And for the love of Cthulhu, STOP WITH THE DAMN SHAKY CAM!

Worst. Pagliacci. EVER!

Half a ghoul for good intentions, half a ghoul for hiring Ken Foree, half a ghoul for making a drunk American directly responsible for the apocalypse.

1.5 Ghouls

*His performance took me back to 80's Hong Kong action flicks and the 90's Godzilla series, where random gweilo/gaijin were hired for key roles simply because they looked European and understood the local language. Acting ability was not required in those cases, either.

Monday, October 3, 2011 Z is for Zombie: F is for Flight of the Living Dead

F is for Flight of the Living Dead
USA, 2007

The Zombies: Snyder Sprinters.

The Source: Engineered virus.

The Result: A good old-fashioned monster romp.

Homeland Security has gotten really invasive.

A burgeoning biomedical corporation produces a "virus" that allows soldiers to keep on fighting after they've been mortally wounded, then compounds this error by transporting the test subject as luggage on board a transatlantic flight.  As expected, the excrement makes physical contact with the electrical oscillating air current distribution device.

Flight of the Living Dead is surprisingly light in tone for a movie about reanimated corpses devouring people.  The filmmakers seem to have been aiming for a Tremors / Deep Impact old school monster movie vibe, and while Flight doesn't quite succeed like those other films it's still an entertaining ride.  The actors look like they're having fun (especially Kevin J. O'Connor, the 21st Century's answer to Peter Lorre), the zombies scoot about with prop limbs hanging from their mouths like rubber chew toys, and there's more than a few clever gags scattered here and there.

Younger viewers probably won't pick up on how Flight is structured like Airport and other 70's disaster flicks.  Nearly the first third of the film is spent setting up the personal dramas of the myriad characters before catastrophe strikes and forces them to ignore all that and get busy living!  Or, you know, get eaten.

"Peeeeannnnnnutssssss!"

Flight of the Living Dead is not bleak, it's not nihilistic, and it doesn't dwell on pain and suffering like almost all of the "horror" flicks clogging up your nearby RedBox. For that alone it's worth a rental.

3 Ghouls

Sunday, October 2, 2011 Z is for Zombie: Night of the Living Dead - Reanimated

N is for Night of the Living Dead - Reanimated
US, 2009

The Zombies: Classic Romero ghouls.  Duh.

The Source: Unknown.  There's some hoo-hah about a Venus probe, but nothing is ever confirmed.

The Result:  A bona fide classic that inspired an entire genre of horror.  Now with puppets.

Begun as an internet project, N is for Night of the Living Dead - Reanimated collects the work of nearly 150 international artists and animators who chose their favorite scenes from the classic film and re-envisioned them through their own artwork, with no restrictions on style, media or process.

This is definitely not the best way to experience the story for the first time, as some of the art styles make things difficult for a novice to follow. Yet the more abstract animations were some of my favorite segments. At one point the ghouls surrounding the house are reduced to flashes of white motion in the darkness that are still quite frightening on a primal level; the peaked triangle shapes evoke KKK hoods as they closed in on poor, doomed Ben.

I also loved the stop-motion segments using material such as Lego, paper cut-outs, and dolls (including "official" NotLD figures). And yes, puppetry is represented, by some clever use of hand puppets and some really beautiful shadow puppetry.

Some styles are repeated too often, so that at times it feels like the entire project is dominated by only a handful of contributors. Maybe they were simply the most prolific artists involved, but I can't help feeling that there had to be a better choice than returning again and again to the clumsy Poser-like CGI used by one "animator"; off-the shelf models that look nothing like the characters in the film, on sets that resemble nothing from the movie, moving crudely in ways that do not match the action in the original.  Especially since the brief glimpses we get of the Lego stop-motion and shadow puppetry (to pick two examples) definitely left me wanting more.

But the merits of Night of the Living Dead - Reanimated outweigh its flaws. It serves as a great example of the creative and innovative work that can be done with public domain films - and serves as a reminder why we have the public domain in the first place.

3.5 Ghouls

Saturday, October 1, 2011 Z is for Zombie: G is for Garden of the Dead

G is for Garden of the Dead
USA, 1974

The Zombies: EC Vengeance Seekers. Hardy, but vulnerable to conventional firearms.

The Source: Huffing formaldehyde. Yes, huffing formaldehyde.

The Result:  A reallllllly long fifty-eight minutes*.

They're making zombies.

A group of inmates at a prison work farm spend their days doing unspecified yard work and getting high off of formaldehyde. The cons are gunned down during an escape attempt, only to rise from the dead after even more formaldehyde is leaked onto their communal grave. The zombies are intelligent (well, sentient anyway) and go on a killing spree until their one weakness is discovered - blue balls. The pretty young wife of one of their fellow prisoners is used to lure them into a hail of bullets. Fini.

Garden of the Dead is a zero-budget affair, and the absence of every dime is right there on the screen. The climax is especially lackluster given that the film spends time establishing the zombies' weakness towards bright lights; having the girl distract the undead until they were destroyed by the rising sun would have been a more poetic and satisfying ending (even if Nosferatu did it fifty years earlier).

Ted really needs to work on his grip.

The zombies use garden tools to dispatch their victims. Evil Fozzie would make some kind of "hoe" joke here, but he passed out during the film. Let's let him sleep, shall we?

1.5 Ghouls

*IMDB claims an 83 minute runtime for the film. Retromedia's horribly misframed print runs just over 58 minutes, and that's more than enough.

Z is for Zombies

Gathered from the depths of my unwatched DVD pile and the dark recesses of the internet are 26 zombie flicks with one thing in common - I haven't watched any of them yet.

Because I still can't trust RapidShare and their ever-changing business model, there isn't going to be much of a Halloween Countdown this year. I still wanted to do something special, and so came up with the brilliant idea of watching and commenting on one zombie movie for each letter of the alphabet. To make things interesting, I decided that they should all be films I haven't seen before.

Once the caffeine and sugar wore off, I realized what a monumental task I was setting for myself, especially given my crazy work schedule. And the brutal truth is that I have already seen the cream of the zombie crop, and thus I will be subjecting myself to a buttload of crummy flicks. Still, I want to give it my best, even if I end up stretching this past Halloween.

To make things easier on me, I will be jumping around the alphabet instead of driving straight through. I will also be adopting a simple format for my "reviews" that will keep the required input to a minimum, though of course I will still babble on when inspired by particular gems. As part of this format, I will be using the following categories to describe the monsters in each film:

• Classic Voodoo Zombies: Created by black magic, these are mindless but inhumanly strong creatures who exist only to serve the whims of their masters. They are deactivated when their reanimating spell is broken or by certain other traditional means. The most common variety of movie zombie until the late 1960's.
• EC Vengeance Seekers: Intelligent undead with unfinished business. Usually unstoppable until they have achieved their goals, they are often possessed of supernatural powers. These zombies proliferated during the 1950's in tales published by EC Comics and gave Voodoo Zombies a run for their money in the 60's and 70's.
• Romero Ghouls: Slow and stupid flesh-hungry fiends. Destroying or damaging the brain takes them down. The zombie of choice since 1978.
• Snyder Sprinters: Essentially just Romero Ghouls on fast-forward.
• Brain-Eaters: As featured in Return of the Living Dead and its successors, these ghouls are fast, smart, and virtually unkillable.
• Other: Because some of us just don't fit into your button-down world, dig?

Finally, I'll be rating each film on a scale of 1 to 5, with a "5" representing a classic like Shaun of the Dead and "1" representing the kind of movie that sells for a buck at truck stops.

So sit back and get ready to watch another human being suffer needlessly. Happy Halloween!