vector image for zombie movie Dance of the Dead

“You get the machete”
“But I don’t know how to shoot a machete.”

Ah another day another zombie comedy.  Dance of the Dead has been on my radar for months having heard all the praise lavished on it following its showing at the South By Southwest festival earlier in the year.  So how does it actually stand up against all the hype?

More-or-less set during a single day (which is surprisingly common for zombie films, unlike most mainstream movies) Dance of the Dead follows a bunch of highly cliche schoolkids as they try to survive the unoriginal zombie attack on their school.  Having been raised from the dead (presumably due to the nearby nuclear power-station) on the evening of the high-school prom, the zombie plague ravages the little town, finally converging on the school.  The Sci-fi club were naturally too nerdy to get dates to this event, but were unfortunately stupid enough to be spending their evening playing Ghostbusters in the nearby cemetery during the zombie uprising.  They have to group together to find all their fellow dateless losers and formulate a plan to come to the rescue of the prom guests.

Pure wish-fulfilment fantasy from start to finish, Dance of the Dead might well have been a script John Hughes accidentally misplaced in the 80′s and rediscovered in 2008.  Losers talking back to teachers, Nerds rescuing cheerleaders, schools exploding, kids saving the day… all this harks back to the glory-days of teen cinema.  The actors here actually are the age they’re playing, the jokes are brilliant and not just tacked on, and the horror is played straight giving the perfect example of how to pitch a horror-comedy.

There are some great scenes here, in particular the grave-rising which reminded me of the motorcycle zombie scene from Dellamorte Dellamore (as did the gravekeeper).  Also we have zombies who actually call for “braaaiiins!” (which is strangely a stereotype that is almost never seen in zombie films), and a cheerleader who turns undead at a particularly unfortunate moment for the geek she is about to ‘romance’.

I found this a great addition to the zombie genre.  Sure, it’s ludicrously unoriginal as everything in this whole film has been done over-and-over elsewhere, but who cares?  It was genuinely funny and brilliantly acted, and the whole package was top class.  I hope that one day people look back on this movie with the same fondness we give to Return of the Living Dead.

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

vector image for zombie movie city of rott

Right, I feel it’s about time I try out something new here.  Up until now I’ve seen big-budget Hollywood horror, foreign language zombie flicks, gory comedies, and the ubiquitous shot-on-video fan productions.  Where else can this genre go?  How about a one-man production, animated, OTT zombie gorefest?  Well here we go.  Frank Sudol pretty much single-handedly put this little number together.  And by single handed I mean he directed, voice acted, designed, animated, scored, edited, produced, scripted, and just generally did EVERYTHING.  That is one hard-working dude!

City of Rott tells the story of Fred, one of the few survivors of an apocalyptical zombie plague as he wanders around town looking for a new pair of slippers.  With only a talking walking-frame for comfort, Fred plods around buildings, bridges and streets fighting off all the hundreds (maybe even thousands) of the walking dead using his badass ninja moves, as well as just clobbering them over the head with his walker.  Well, mostly just using the walker. (he is pretty old, after all).  He does meet several nutjob survivors along the way, but they either want to just nail themselves into wooden boxes, or just get out of the city all together.  Neither of these are options for Fred because they don’t involve him finding new loafers.

For the first 50 minutes or so of the film all that basically happens is that Fred moves from setpiece to setpiece, bashing in Zombie skulls with his handy walking frame.  This is all well and good.  Gore flies liberally around, there is some comedy, and even a little bit of plot!  However, when Fred starts to realise his predicament thing start to turn somewhat sour (for both Fred and the film itself).  The final 20 minutes seems like an entirely different add-on, with several new characters thrown in that were never around beforehand, and a bizarre sidestory which suggests that the cure for all this zombism lies in Donuts.  (Mmm, donuts!).

However, the majority of the film is pretty decent.  Once I got used to the cartoon style effect (which reminded me of an old childhood cartoon – Ivor the Engine) I started to sit back and appreciate this movie.  OK, the story isn’t much deeper than a (bloody) puddle, and nothing much happens for the majority of the film, but there is a lot to enjoy.  Cartoon gore and some great nods to Romero (for example a poster on the mall wall states “At Night, Dawn Day will sing This Land”!), as well as some digs at consumerism and how we are all turning into automatons for trying to be just like everyone else.  Plus it gets bonus points for being a fanboy flick that doesn’t just involve the director getting some mates together and throwing some fake blood on them.  Frank actually put A LOT of effort into this, and it shows.

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

Vector image for zombie movie Day of the Dead

Now, I was thinking of just doing a 1-line review for this movie, along the lines of “Day of the Dead – easily the best Romero Zombie film”, but it appears that (as is often the case), people don’t seem to agree with me despite the fact that I am always right.  So apparently I will have to justify this claim.  Now, all of his zombie movies are pretty spot-on (yes, even Land of the Dead, while not a patch on the others is still far superior to most other zombie films), and I am sure most people would more-or-less agree.  Where I am in the minority is in my knowledge that with Day, George got everything pretty much spot-on.

The characters in Day are much more interesting than the Night or Dawn chaps.  Tell me that Flyboy doesn’t annoy the bezeesus out of you, or that you don’t want to leave Barbra out for all the monochrome zombies to devour just to shut her up?  With Day, the only character who is nearly as irritating is Captain Rhodes, but this is acceptable as we are supposed to hate him, and we both want and expect him to get his comeuppance.  He’s the bad guy, for gawds sake!

With Day of the Dead, the gore effects that were trialed out on NOTLD, and were given a bit of a budget (and tested out in colour) in Dawn reached their peak in Day.  The zombies don’t look like they are made of plasticine as they do in Dawn, and they do not utilise cheap looking CGI as in Land of the Dead.  How often have you seen effects from this film ripped off and mimicked in more recent movies?  Rhodes’ death itself is so iconic it’s been copied to death!

And then there is the story.  Night of the Living Dead is your typical siege film, locked in a building with no escape and plenty of infighting.  Dawn is a meandering tale that takes an age to get going and tries to encompass the whole of society, but in the end is too caught up with anti-consumerism and has far too many characters resulting in a rather disjointed affair.  Day of the Dead discusses the utter futility of life itself.  Here the whole of human existence is condensed into one location, one generation and a few short weeks.  Should we spend our existence fighting for survival, studying and trying to find a purpose to life, or simply sitting back and making the most of what you have?

To delve even deeper into the sociological metaphors, here the military take on the role of the politicians, the scientists as the philosophers and the civilians are the proletariat.  A condensed yet concise slice of society.

Anyway, this is getting a bit too ‘film studies’ now.  It is a great movie because the story, characters and effects are superb.  There are numerous memorable set pieces, fantastic music throughout, and it is a thoroughly consistent film from start to finish.  This is his best film for these, and many more reasons, just accept it eh?

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

Vector image for movie American Zombie

Zombie movies, possibly the most versatile genre in horror.  Ranging from comedy, drama, satire, straight up horror, even Zombie Musicals, there are always new and interesting interpretations of these tales.  Currently we are experiencing a period of Zombie Documentaries, which is the category American Zombie probably falls into.  However that would unfairly suggest comparisons with “Zombie Diaries” or “Diary of the Dead”, both of which take a more Cinematic, rather than Journalistic approach that American Zombie utilises.

It is very much a documentary in structure employing interviews rather than standard character storytelling.  The film focuses of 4 high-functioning Revenants, each of whom are dealing with their undead status in different ways.  The 2 documentarians follow these zombies and interview them about their daily lives, how they are treated and what their expectations of life are.  Of the 2 directors, Solomon more interested in the ‘guts and gore’ angle, whereas Grace wants to present a snapshot of life as a zombie without all the exploitation.  Their filming takes them to a zombies only festival ‘Live Dead’, where the film changes from a standard documentary about the zombies into a horror film in which the filmmakers themselves take centre-stage.

The film is an interesting one, yet again showing the versatility of the undead genre.  In this case the zombies are representative of any minority group, although being undead we feel no guilt in assuming them as an underclass.  This allows the viewer to arc from disgust through to acceptance, a feat which would be harder to achieve had a standard minority group scenario been under discussion.

Anyway, enough intellectualising.  I loved the zombie hunting private-eye, who discusses (and demonstrates) in detail all his favourite methods of dispatching those pesky zombies, and the whole 2nd half of the movie set in the hippy festival was particularly creepy.  However, I side with co-director John Solomon – where’s all the gore and flesh eating?  Pah! Honestly, it may have quality acting, genuine originality and believable character development but it’s no C.H.U.D.

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

Vector Image for zombie movie The Ghost Galleon

AKA Horror Of The Zombies

Yeah, mid-way through another well deserved week off work but the only Zombie film i’ve managed to get through is this number, the 3rd in the Blind Dead quadrilogy.  I really should try harder.  Well, there are still several days left to fill with zombie crud!

The Ghost Galleon – When even the box of a film says it is considered a ‘surprising’ film warning bells should really start to sound.  Whereas the first 2 Blind Dead films take place around atmospheric ruined medieval cities this particular entry involves an obviously fake miniature galleon ship, which I assume we are supposed to believe is a full size vessel.

A couple of bikini-clad ladies involved in some marketing scam of some sort are left adrift in a little powerboat for about a month apparently, and although they do not seem to have any supplies on-board they seem perfectly happy, spending their time chatting on their radio to their bosses on the shore somewhere.  However a mysterious fog from another dimension sweeps over them and they crash into the ghostly galleon.  Sensibly, one of the ladies decides that an abandoned and ancient rotting sailboat is a better place to wait out the rescue, so she climbs aboard never to be seen again, (although we do hear her screaming for a bit).  Her girly companion decided to remain on the smaller boat and doesn’t hear the screaming, but then still decides to go aboard to investigate later.

Oh yes, the Templar knights are aboard this boat for some reason. In traditional Blind Dead style they spend 10 minutes slowly rising from their coffins before slowly chasing the girl around the ship.  That’s pretty much it.  Her friends and boss from the shore do fly out to the ship to try to find them and manage to locate the inter-dimensional galleon, but it all ends badly for most of them as you would expect.

I don’t really want to spoil the ending here, but the ship burns down and the survivors float to shore, although the Zombie have followed them…  Actually, that was the ending.  Still, this review makes it sound like slightly more happens in this movie than really does.  Zombies slowly chase women.  Women die.  Ship burns.  People escape.  Zombies escape too, ready for film number 4.

Easily the most boring entry into the series so far (i’m yet to see #4 though).  The gore is practically non-existent, there are no norks on show despite the overabundance of bikini clad ladies, and the plot is equally as desolate.  Still, it’s always good to see  Skeletor and friends in action, and the film did keep me watching for some reason.  I just wonder if the final film finishes the series on a high.

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

Vector image for zombie movie Versus

I love my Asian zombie films.  Junk and Bio-zombie were reasonably decent if rather cliched, while Wild Zero and Stacy were full on classics.  Then there is Versus – a Zombie film I’ve had on my shelf for some time now waiting for an appropriate time-slot for viewing.  Well, that time arrived the other day after our guests had left the house for the night and my housemate and I were sat wondering what to watch that would suit our alcohol content.  (ie lots of wine\cider).

After the standard battle we usually have with foreign language DVDs (spoken language with subtitles or dubbed into English? – we went the subtitle route) we chilled out ready to enjoy some zombie fighting action.  Well, what we got was a whole film of choreographed gun battles and martial arts, with a few token zombie thrown into the mix.  The story is tosh – some nameless gang dudes kidnap another nameless woman and meet an escaped (nameless) prisoner in a forest.  The prisoner and woman escape into the trees just as the living dead (who have been buried there by the aforementioned gang) return to life.  Now we have loads of gunshots, fights and cool slow-mo posing for the entirety of the film.  Sure, the fights are pretty cool and some of the gunfights are well put together, but that is all that goes on for about 2 hours.  It got so repetitive that my housemate fell asleep and started snoring by the end of it.

Not that this was a bad film, it was just more John Woo than George Romero, with not nearly enough originality or zombie gut munching to satisfy me.  Maybe I was just expecting a different sort of film, an I may enjoy it on a martial arts gunfight action level next time I watch it.  Oh well, I think I’ll just go watch ‘Stacy’ again instead.

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

Vector image for zombie movie Shaun of the Dead

Some of the recent films I’ve watched for this blog have flirted briefly with the mainstream (Undead, Return of the Living Dead 4-5, and REC) but recently I felt it time I stop beating around the bush and just go with it. What better way to scratch the mainstream itch than with Shaun of the Dead – possibly the greatest British zombie film of all time. It’s not too embarrassed to call itself a Zombie film (*cough* 28 days later *cough*), and I don’t think the Living Dead at Manchester Morgue counts as a UK film, even with all those great regional accents!

Here we have a film that knows how to play the homage card. Subtle references along with blatant imitation all wrapped up in an original, funny and great little British movie. And oh how British it is. Smashing people around the head with cricket bats, listening to Queen records, having cups of tea and sandwiches around at your Mums, and of course… The Pub.

All us Brits know that the solution to life’s problems can be found down at the pub, so when a Zombie outbreak occurs for Shaun and Ed they decide that easily the best thing to do is to go to the boozer. Just as when Shaun needs to think of a place to take his girlfriend he suggests the pub. And also when he gets dumped by his missus the best thing to do is to… go to the pub. And why not? There is beer there, snacks, games, music and TV so why wouldn’t you want to spend your time there?

Featuring a great British cast from some of the greatest TV comedies of recent years (Black Books, Spaced, The Office, League of Gentlemen…) they are all obviously just mates, but great at what they do here too – mostly playing for laughs, but going for the serious moments when needs must.

Anyway, I should discuss this film for it’s Zombie credentials I suppose. That’s what i’m here for after all. The zombies here are PROPER zombies, all shuffles and groans, not running and vomiting or anything these new-fangled undead seem to do these days – just straight up flesh eaters. Slow and stupid enough to easily escape from, but it’s the quantity that’s the problem, as it should be. Loads and loads of the pesky critters litter the streets, and get smashed, run over, gored and shot at. Plus they eat and dismember plenty of humans too, which is to be expected.

It’s a great little number, and one of the best Zombie films of the past 10 years. And amazingly it’s possibly the only Romantic Comedy that I can actually enjoy without wanting to tear my own limbs off.

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

vector image for zombie movie Undead

I remember when starting this blog one of the first comments I received suggested I review Undead. Well, this blog has been up for almost a year now, so I guess I should crack on with that request.

In simple terms, Undead is a Zombie, Meteor, Alien gore-fest. It features a Triple-Barrel-shotgun toting Clint Eastwood (or Evil Dead’s Ash, depending on how you look at him) who is briefly abducted after becoming involved in a Zombie-Fish fist-fight. In order to save the world from future invasions when he is returned to his boat by the spaceship he stocks up on guns, builds a massive underground bomb shelter in his cellar and waits for the next alien attack.

Obviously a new invasion does occur, this time in the form of a huge Zombie outbreak in his little town. A few lucky survivors converge on his place by accident and become involved in the plan rid the town of Zombies. These people include the standard ‘Arguing Pregnant Couple’, a pretty Brunette, a daft policewoman starting her first day and a policeman who is possibly the sweariest human-being that has ever existed.

After hiding out in the cellar for a few hours the pregnant woman predictably goes into labour, so the crew have to vacate the premises in order to get to a hospital (despite it probably being infected with zombies). Obviously, the house is full of Zombies that need dispatching using highly gory methods (cue spilling guts, knives to the head, shotguns to the face, and flying limbs). Unfortunately, when they do manage to escape they find everyone has turned into Zombies, and discover a mysterious spiky Berlin-Wall encompassing the entire town, meaning there is no escape.

It’s a pretty weird film, and a great mix of Sci-fi, Horror and Comedy. The characters are reasonably cool if slightly cliché (as is always the case with Zombie films I guess), and the direction and plot are excellent. However, the standout aspect of this film is the gore! A Zombie gets his torso separated from his legs leaving a pair of trousers with spine cord still attached wandering around, heads are smashed through and brains eaten, (I think this is the 1st film since Return of the Living Dead where the Zombies actually call for ‘Braaaaaiiinns!’), not to mention the numerous limbs chopped off by circular saw, shotgun or anything that comes to hand.

Zombie fans love good gore, and when it comes from an original, well directed film it’s all the better.

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

Vector image for zombie movie Quick and the Undead

I recently had a conversation about how on earth Zombie movies can still have even a modicum of originality, considering they have been around for over 70 years and almost exclusively revolve around dead people coming back to life and eating people.
“Well” said I, “recently we’ve had Fido”… and then that was as far as that conversation went.  However, had I been thinking properly instead of just drinking wine I could have remembered I had this little number on my shelf awaiting its first viewing, which certainly had the potential to be rather interesting.  A Zombie Western.

Set around 80 years in the future after a virus has turned most of the world into shuffling Zombies, The Quick and the Undead follows a bounty hunter who makes a living hunting down and killing off any Zombie throughout the country, and collecting their fingers as evidence to claim his reward.  However, he’s soon double crossed by his old gang and left for dead, his haul of fingers stolen.  Luckily being invincible he comes back from the dead and heads off after his old gang to reclaim his bounty.

However that is basically all that happens, one dude wandering around until he catches up with his old gang.  That’s it.  Sure there are some Zombies along the way that need dispatching \ running away from, and there is a slightly interesting parallel storyline involving the leader of the nasty gang trying to increase his haul by infecting healthy villages with the Zombie virus so he can kill them off and claim a larger bounty, but none of these ideas go anywhere.  Heck, even the idea of an indestructible hero is barely covered and is rarely used at-all in the movie.

The gore is reasonable, the direction is actually rather good, and the cinematography and overall look of the film is top drawer.  There is a great concept there but sadly the whole thing is spectacularly dull-ass boring.  It’s neither scary, funny, or tense.  The characters are uninteresting and really badly acted and to cap it all off there’s not a single nork shot in sight!  Sheesh, what a waste of time.

Gore Score C
Nork Score F
Originality Score B
Overall Score D

Vector for zombie movie REC

Woah. It’s taken me a good few days to get around to writing up my report on this crazy movie, partly due to my own laziness but also because it was so damn scary it’s taken this long to get it out of my system.

REC is a little Spanish zombie movie set almost completely inside an apartment building stairway. A cute little Spanish television presenter and cameraman turn up at around midnight following some Firemen who have been called in. They are investigating some mental old woman who has been growling and stomping around in her apartment freaking out the neighbours. Old people are pretty scary at the best of times, but unfortunately this old woman isn’t just your regular sort of crazy lady, but a chubby rabies infested zombie with a fair amount of pace on her, as we find out when she starts chasing and chewing up the helpful firemen.

Word of this rabid lady must have got out pretty sharpish because when the firemen and other building residents attempt to run out of the building they find they’ve been sealed in by radiation suit clad government agents and have no way of leaving the building.

Surviving in a rather small apartment building (which at my count consists of only about half a dozen residences) with nowhere to run to, while having to avoid the ever increasing number of bitten-turned-zombie residents means that this film just doesn’t let up for a second. Nobody is safe for more than a few minutes as they move from room to room trying to somehow find a way out of this locked down building, each time failing and having to return to where they came from, fighting their way past the zombies they have just managed to avoid. And then gets really scary.

Sure, fumbling with the door keys while the bad guys race up behind you is a pretty cliche horror film staple, but in this situation I actually had my hand in my mouth wishing the survivors could get a break. The same can be said for all the other cliches here, of which there are many. Plus there is no nudity at all which is usually a big fail in my book but I’ll forgive that just this once, and after all the gore is great.

OK, the ending is pretty daft and annoying but it had to end somehow, and it was so creepy right up until the last few seconds that it doesn’t really matter. This is without doubt the scariest film I’ve seen in a long time, which is good because I was beginning to think I was getting desensitised to that sort of thing. It gives me faith that there are still decent scares out there. I just hope the remake ‘Quarantine‘ isn’t the shot-for-shot revamp the trailer seems to suggest. How retarded is that?

Gore Score B
Norks Score F
Originality C
Overall Score A

Vector image for zombie movie Stacy

Being on holiday without a single real plan is great. Two Zombie films in one day! This particular gem was easily the best of the two, and one of the better ones i’ve actually seen recently.

Stacy is one of the strangest Zombie films i’ve seen in a long time, and probably the best Asian zombie film from my collection even though I don’t really have a faintest idea what is going on.

Schoolgirls are all dying off when they hit their late teens and are somehow resurrected as flesh eating zombies (called Stacies for some reason). Before they die these girls become maniacally happy, suffering from “Near Death Happiness” which seems to cause them to dance around and giggle as only Japanese schoolgirls can. There are some government zombie killing squads (The Romero Repeat Kill Squad), who get called in to dismember (into 165 pieces) the zombie girls. They can be killed off with Shopping Channel bought chainsaws (Branded – “Blues Campbell Right Arm #2″), but you gotta chop ‘em up good, or the parts keep on a’wrigglin. Oh yes, and these zombie girls glow blue and telepathise with each other. Toss in some scientist blokes, and a puppeteer who falls in love with a Near Death Happiness schoolgirl and you got a bizarre little zombie number.

But oh, The Gore. Oh my, this one is one of the gories films i’ve seen in a long long time, and will probably creep into my Top 3 Gore list (see right panel). Heads are blown apart, eyeballs shot out, disembowlings’, gut eatings’ and many many decapitations’ (leaving the spinal cord attached no less). Despite being so gory it never really seems to be that gross, as the film is so bizarre that all the gore just seems comedic.

There is probably some meaning behind all this nonsense, but I’ll just assume it is because dozens of 18 year old schoolgirls prancing around is a great concept for a film. Heck, replace the Zombies with Geography teachers or something and i’d still watch it.

Gore Score B
Norks Score F
Overall Score B

Vector image for zombie movie return of the living dead 4 necropolis

So I did have a copy of this film recorded from the Sci Fi channel, but I figured that i’d rather watch a film without advert breaks and bleeped out swearing so I purchased both this film and the 5th one at the same time.  Man, that was a mistake.  Having no adverts is no real redeeming feature, except that I suppose that no adverts means that this lasts about 10 minutes less, but that still leaves the 90 odd minutes of actual ‘film’ to sit through.  Urgh.

Where to start with this dog turd of a film?  I won’t bore you with any plot details because it is almost as irrelevant as the rest of the film, so I guess i’ll just get the good bits out of the way to fill a sentence or two: There are some pretty girls in this film.  And the actual Zombie makeup itself is kind of cool I suppose.

That’s pretty much it as far as enjoyment goes.  This film is so clearly a corporate zombie film, put together with no actual respect for either the Return of the Living Dead series itself, or even Zombie films as a whole.  Oh, let’s get some sexy and highly cliche teenagers (and terrible actors), group them together and send them off on stupid adventures!  Sounds like a winning plan there.  It is also apparent that the filmmakers invented (ie stole) 3 gore methods and reused each of them over and over and over and over and over.

“Ooh, squibs under some Scrubs makes it look like gunshots so lets do that every 5 minutes!”
“Ooh, a bullet to the forehead where blood squirts out looks cool, lets do that every 6 minutes!”
“Ooh, a Zombie pretending to bite the back of a guys head and coming out with a mouthful of hair looks pretty dumb, but lets do that every 7 minutes anyway!”

AWESOME!

Sure, each of those effects looked okish first time I saw them in the film, but who wants to see them used to dispatch every single Zombie (of which there are hundreds)?

Please.  The Zombies are about as tough as the Fraggles, and seem to be killed just with a bullet wound to the chest or two.  Have the film makers even SEEN the original film?  (Well they may have, as there is a passing quote “Send More Security Guards…” which is just insulting more than anything).

On top of all that there aren’t even any Norks on show.  What is the world coming to eh?

Gore Score C
Norks Score E
Overall Score E

Lets see how Part 5 compares to this one eh?  Well, it can’t be much worse.

Vector image for zombie movie Shockwaves

So it’s Sunday night, and what better way to set up another week than by watching yet another Zombie film that I have never seen.

Having been somewhat disheartened in zombie films following the abomination that was Zombie Creeping Flesh I felt that I needed a nudge back into the enjoyment territory and thought that a cult classic was called for, and after a rummage through my shelving (ooh eer!) i settled on this little number starring a certain Peter Cushing and John Carradine.

Surprisingly, this film joins Zombie Lake as another entry into the “Nazi Zombies Living Underwater” genre – a genre that I would not have expected to contain more than 1 entry to be honest, yet here we have another. However this film came along a good 2 or 3 years earlier, and is an infinitely better film.

A diving tour are shipwrecked on an almost desert island, save for an old Peter Cushing Nazi commander who has been living in a wrecked hotel for the past few decades. By some uncanny coincidence the visiting castaways have turned up on the island at exactly the same time as the Nazi Zombies living in the ocean decide to rock on back up to the surface for a murderous rampage.

Naturally most of the entire crew are slaughtered in many (sadly unbloody) methods, although it is not the deaths that make this film so enjoyable but the creepy zombies themselves. Slowly rising up from the sea in unison, dozens of freaky goggle-clad zombies stalk the remaining survivors, usually drowning them, before returning to the sea.

Some of the acting is pretty dodgy and the whole story doesn’t really go anywhere, but despite all this I really rated this film as an original entry in the zombie market and a surprisingly creepy little number. It makes me think that horror films are highly effective when set in and around the ocean, as it provides a vast apparent wilderness where anything can be lurking just metres away. Who really knows what lurks out there? (Besides giant sharks, of course).

Could’ve done with a nudey volleyball match though, but then that probably applies to most films.

Gore Score 2\5
Norks Score 0\5
Overall Score 3.5\5

Vector for movie Zombie Nightmare

Oh my. This is what happens when I decide to move away from mainstream zombie films and venture into the dark underbelly of crappy 80′s horror. This film was so ludicrously bad that I naturally loved it straight away.

Starring none other than the always awesome Jon Mikl Thor and an incredibly hammy Adam West, Zombie Nightmare starts off with a random murder which may or may not have happened sometime on the past. (It is never explained). Then cut to the present day(?), and Mummy’s boy Thor goes off shopping for the family groceries, baseball bat in hand. After saving the shopkeeper from some random ruffians he is duly rewarded upon leaving the store by being run over and killed by a bunch of teenagers. Naturally the shopkeeper does the obvious thing, and takes the corpse of Thor back to his mothers house, and dumps him on her lawn. The mother, not best pleased about her giant son being killed sends for the village voodoo priestess, who brings Thor back from the dead and sends him off on a revenge mission to take out the kids who killed him.

During all this fun and games, the kids are off being disgraceful, such as getting thrown out of nightclubs and hassling ladies. “I’m old enough to be your older sister” is possibly the best put-down I have ever heard uttered in any film. Ever.

Sure, Thor being the Zombie that he is (still sporting the same 80′s fashion he was wearing when killed, but now having gone from long blond hair to short dark mop-top with special bald-spot for no apparent reason) manages to track down these kids, and using his super strength snaps their necks, or impales them on his baseball bat.

Adam West does turn up every so often, as a cliche cigar smoking police chief. He manages to work out the whole plot, and meets up with the Voodoo lady and a graveyard. Here the woman explains the whole back-story part of the film, but it’s in such a bad OTT Haitian accent that it is impossible to actually make out what she was saying, but it had something to do with Adam West having done something or other in the past that may or may not have been related to the opening scene. Who knows. Anyway, Adam does a big Zombies=bad speech, gets grabbed by a new zombie summoned by the priestess, and gets pulled into a glowing red grave. The end.

There is pretty much no gore, certainly no norks whatsoever, and everything from the directing to the acting are pure bottom drawer. However, unlike Hard Rock Zombies, this film was genuinely trying to be a good movie but failed utterly. If ever you have wanted to see a perfect example of ‘So bad that it is awesome’ then this film is it. Utter Utter trash.

Gore Score 0\5
Norks Score 0\5
Overall Score 4\5

Vector image for zombie movie Dawn of the Dead

Yes, this makes it 2 mainstream (more or less) Zombie films in a row, and yes both are Romero, but i’ve had the Ultimate Edition box set of Dawn for a few weeks now, and it’s just been sat next to the TV just calling to me, so I had to oblige.

There isn’t much to say about this that hasn’t already been said. 4 characters, all of whom are highly annoying shack up in a shopping mall and live in a stockroom above the stores. Occasionally they nip down and get into some stupid trouble that could have been easily avoidable by not dicking around in the shops, but they do it again and again, leading to half of them being eaten by Zombies and coming back from the dead. If the Zombies weren’t troublesome enough, Tom Savini and some biker mates break into the mall and trash the place, and then either get eaten by the zombies or killed off by the remaining annoying survivors. To cap it all off the zombies get into the stockroom so the few who are left have to escape by helicopter.

The gore is pretty stupid looking, even by 70′s standards. The blood looks like bright red melted crayons, and the zombies are a weird blue-green colour. Nonetheless, despite the bizarre style of the gore it is still highly impressive, with loads of genius effects in there. Helicopter decapitations, machete’s to the face, exploding heads, and gunshots wounds a plenty. Tom Savini surely is the Lord of Gore, as he goes on to prove in later films, (the superior Day of the Dead as an obvious example).

Obviously this is a quality film, with unmistakable comments about the pointlessness and indeed the danger of consumerism. However, if I were trapped in a shopping mall to live out my days i’d probably do the same. I mean, all the shops are unlocked and there is plenty of cool gadgets to play with in there! It’d be pretty awesome, I reckon.

Gore Score 3\5
Norks Score 0\5
Overall Score 5\5

As part of this box set the European Argento cut of Dawn is included which i’m looking forward to watching. That will get it’s own entry I think. However, I feel the need to go back to the underground for my next Zombie flick. I wonder what i’ll pick?

Vector image for zombie movie children shouldn't play with dead things

I am enjoying my week off work where my plan was to do as little as possible. Eat Pringles, Drink Guinness and Wine (separately of course. I’m not weird), and watch quality films. However tonight it hit 10:30 and after kind of watching the England football match (it was on TV in the background while I pissed around on t’interweb) and my housemate went to bed, which meant that the quality film idea went out the window and I could watch a decent film that nobody else cares about watching. (I inflict enough zombie trash on him it seems unfair to make him watch every one of my films). This is why I chose to watch Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, as I believed it would be nonsense rubbish.

How wrong I was – This film was great, and is something like a cross between The Evil Dead and Night of the Living Dead.
This 1972 film started off very strange. A troop of 70′s theatre types (thespians – ha ha ha) for some reason decide to go to an island graveyard at midnight to bring a dead body back to life. Their plans fail, so they take the dead body back to the local forest hut and chill out with this cadaver for the night. Nobody seems to care about sharing their evening with a rotting corpse, but hey, that’s actor-types for you.  Maybe they think they’re hanging out with Clive Owen or something.
Surprisingly enough, the raise-the-dead spell from earlier on has a delayed reaction, and the whole graveyard population come to life and turn their attention to the little forest hut.

It is at this point that the film turns classic horror. The little forest hut comes under siege, volunteers attempt to run for help, but get only about 10 feet before getting killed off, and a dude tries to drag a lady to safety but instead opts to throw her to the zombies to aid his own escape.

There is precious little gore here and nothing in the Nork count, but the makeup effects are awesome (even more so considering this was made in the early 70′s!) and the whole story moves from comedy-bizarro to outright horror, so I loved it.
I was expecting so little, but this gem turned out a, well, gem.

Gore Score – 2\5 (For zombie makeup, nothing else).
Norks Score – 0\5
Overall Score 4\5

Vector image for zombie movie Graveyard Alive

The evening is winding to a close and i’ve yet to even open any wine. My housemate is still travelling back from work, because he is a mentalist who enjoys 5 hour round trips to get to and from his office every day, with added craziness as he even works late some evenings, such as tonight. Half the fun of watching so many obscure Zombie films is inflicting them on other people, so I decide to wait until he romps on home, and thusly my choices for films are limited to short(ish) DVDs.

Graveyard Alive is around 80 minutes of black and white soap opera. With added Zombies, naturally.

Set in a Hospital, Graveyard Alive follows the adventures of Frumpy Patsy Powers as she gets bitten by a patient (with an axe in his face), who turns out to be a Zombie. Therefore Patsy turns slowly into a zombie herself. However, having not actually died she remains straight in the brain and is still able to date weird blokes, dress up all sexy-like, and kill off patients for her to chop up and feed on. (Or store parts of in her fridge). All the while trying to get her groove on with the currently engaged Doctor Dox, and accidentally turning most of the people she meets into zombies themselves.

The acting here is what I like to term ‘deliberately over the top panto style’, with the dialogue (intentionally overdubbed) to match. This just adds to the fun, which is good as there is precious little gore, and not even a hint of norks. Still, like most zombie films I loved it.

I’m not sure if the comments about a sequel at the end of the DVD are true, but I kinda hope they are, ‘cos I could watch more zombie nurse adventures.

Gore Score 2\5
Norks Score 0\5
Overall Score 3\5

Vector Image for zombie movie Fido

I use EBay to get most of my films for several reasons. Firstly, the local ASDA doesn’t seem to stock the DVD monstrosities that I love. Secondly it is the best way to get the proper uncut DVDs, (Not the ones ruined by our BBFC chumps). And finally, films that have been out for months abroad that don’t even have UK release dates are available to buy, often much cheaper than they would be over here anyway. This is how I came to purchase FIDO, a Canadian Zombie film released in 2006 and not out over here for god knows when.

Fido is a great example of just how versatile Zombies films can be. I can’t think of another Zombie film set in an alternative 1950′s history where Zombies have been domesticated (of sorts) following the harrowing ‘Zombie Wars’ to be kept as servants for their human masters. Sure, they still have the urge to kill, but not when they have been collared up in fancy metallic choker with built in kill inhibitors.

Set in a fenced off little suburb somewhere in America (the fences keep the feral Zombies out), the family Robinson get their very own Zombie, so that they are no longer the only house in the street without one. Being a scrawny loser, Timmy Robinson can’t actually get any real friends of his own so starts to hang out with the zombie, naming him Fido. Somewhat surprisingly Fido’s collar malfunctions and as a result he goes off and kills. Well, he only gets the chance for 1 kill before returning to his normal subdued groaning, but one new zombie leads to another, and then another, and another, until the colourful little village has their own little plague of zombies.

I hope it gets a decent UK release over here, much as Black Sheep did, because I think it will go down well with the cult crowds. True, there is practically no gore, and not a hint of nork (even the neighbours’ sex-zombie doesn’t get up to anything!), but it was funny, brilliantly filmed, has some great acting (especially Billy Connolly as Fido the star zombie, and Carrie-Anne Moss as Timmys Mother), and is one of the most original zombie films that I have seen for a long time. And i’ve seen an awful lot of zombie films.

Gore Score 2\5
Nork Score 0\5
Overall Score 4\5

I have had this DVD still wrapped up in cellophane for several months without a decent occasion to check it out.  The suggestion to watch a film that I have heard described as the ‘most relentlessly depressing film of all time’ doesn’t usually go down well, but I am glad I checked it out when I did.
The story revolves around a PHD student (in some science course or another) being bitten by a zombie while out collecting field samples.  While still compos-mentis he decides to kill a few people to eat, and then rent his own flat somewhere in London where he can (somehow) bring back chloroformed victims to feast on once a week.
From then on he spends his time having hunger fits, having dreams of his ex girlfriend, and giving himself a few wanks.  (As you do).  Of course he goes out and gets people to eat back to his house.  He does only appear to eat small parts of these victims, such as their chest or their face, but there is no mention of how he disposes of the remains, apart from burning their clothes.  I assume he just eats the whole lot.  Waste not want not, I suppose.  All the while he is recording his ongoing rotting (in both a physical and mental sense) on dictaphone and notebooks.  Once a scientist always a scientist, eh?

There are some great scenes here, such as when he breaks his leg dragging a corpse, so makes his own splint by drilling a metal bracket into his shin. (I particularly enjoyed how it was filmed – just as the drill is about to enter his flesh the camera pans away to avoid distressing the audience, only to settle on a mirror next to him so you can still clearly see what’s going on), and when the old wives tale regarding too much masturbation actually comes true.

The whole film is a rather unsubtle metaphor for drug addiction, with the withdrawal symptoms and need to feed his habit every few days, but even so was not as depressing as I had been led to expect.  It is certainly not a date film or a film to watch if you’re looking for a laugh, but definitely worth checking out as it is possibly the only film I can think of that is from the point of view of the Zombie.
Bonus points for the nice minimalist piano soundtrack and some first class zombie makeup effects.

Gore Score 3.5\5  (Fantastic makeup effects, but no real flesh munching gore).
Nork Score 0\5 (A girl starts to take her top off, but he tells her not to?!?  That’s pretty crazy).
Overall Score 3.5\5

City of the Living Dead – Classic Fulci, nonsense plot, awesome gore and great music.  4\5
Nightmare City – Radioactive Zombies, with plenty of gratuiotous nork shots, and a dumb\great ending 4\5
Kung Fu Zombie – Terribly subtitled, mostly kung fu film, but worth sticking on after the pub. 2\5
The Last Man On Earth – A classic Vincent Price film.  Apparently they are Vampires not Zombies, but who do they think they’re kidding?  4\5
Living Dead at Manchester Morgue – Fantastic.  As far as Zombies go these are actually bordering of genuinely scary.  Plus all the dubbing of OTT english dialects is amazing 5\5
Plague of the Zombies – Another classic, and a decent Hammer film! (Yes I know, they did good here).  Dream sequence is rightfully a highlight in zombie film history 4\5
Night of the Living Dead 3D – Stupid ‘remake’, with shoe-horned in 3D glasses effect.  Pretty funny though and well made.  3\5
Dead Heat – Buddy cop Zombie move.  Spectacularly 80′s, and pretty funny. Kinda like an 80′s version of Dead and Deader. 3\5
The Beyond – Stone cold classic.  I find myself watching this every few months, so a post on this soon is very likely 5\5
Dead and Buried – more supernatural than Zombies, and I was pretty drunk while watching it so don’t remember much.  Think it was good in a traditional rather than trashy way though.
Shatter Dead – Shot On Video film.  Has a great plot and would be good to see a remake or an update of some sort.  3\5
Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires – A Hammer Vampire film, with some zombies that don’t really do much apart from loiter around.  2\5
Buttcrack – Stupid Troma film.  The main character is hilarious, but when hes not on screen it’s dull beyone belief. 2\5
Zombie Diaries – Interesting idea, but done much better in Diary of the Dead.  3\5
Planet Terror – Spectacularly OTT zombie farce.  Gory, stupid and awesome.  Just how I like it. 4\5

I’m sure i’ve forgotten loads too, but this is a pretty substantial list here.

Right, from now on I’ll have my Laptop next to me while watching them, so I can brain-dump into it after watching the films.  I just hope I don’t spill wine or something into it, as i’ll probably have polished off a few glasses by the time the film ends.  Hopefully I won’t build up such a back catalogue this time.

On another note, I just received a nice Christmas email from eBay, telling me that my copy of the uncut I Spit on Your Grave has been dispatched.  It’s not a zombie film I know, but I thought I should mention that I do watch other types of films.  (Yes, it is a horror I suppose, but I don’t like to stray to far into regular film territory.  I had enough Jane Austin crap-fests to endure when I had a live in Girlfriend, so now I can watch decent stuff.)

So, that’s probably the last post of the year.  I’ll start off the New Year in style I think.  I have a week to pick what to watch.  Hmm, this could take some time…

Vector image for zombie movie Diary of the Dead

Back in November ’07 I had the privilage of attending the Film Four all-night frightfest, the highlight of which (for me anyway) was the UK premier, (and possibly only 6th showing in the world) of the new George A Romero film: Diary of the Dead. In attendance was George himself, who gave a talk before and after the showing of the film as well as taking time out to chat to fans and sign autographs.

Watching horror films in the company of a room full of horror geeks is quite a good laugh, i’d recommend it to everyone. The whole audience laughs at the right places, clap at particularly special moments and all together joke around with each other in a manner that you just wouldn’t get if you saw the same films in a regular cinema.

However, it was not just this great atmosphere that caused me to enjoy this film, but the quality of the film itself. I initially had low expectations for it due to the poor Land of the Dead, but after the first zombies start to appear (rising up from an ambulance gurney outside a crime scene) all was forgiven.

The film follows a group of teen filmmakers as they try to escape the impending zombie apocalypse, while taking turns at filming the ongoing chaos. Set mostly on the road, it avoids the single location of previous Romero films (excluding the polished turd that is LOTD), instead the group drive from one zombie territory to another, taking in Hospitals, Mansions and farm buildings on their way, meeting up with various characters at each stop. As will doubtless be talked about in the future, the “Mute Amish Guy” is a highlight character that they stumble across.

The Hand Held POV style was perfectly suited to this film, as it fits with the whole social commentary aspect that Romero bases his Living Dead films around – in this case as a response to the seeming unending number of amateur reporters and journalists that have sprung up all over the Internet, through Blogs, Facebook, Myspace and Youtube, each providing their own version of the ‘truth’.

Obviously for Romero the death scenes for the Zombies are fantastic. I don’t want to spoil too much here, but this film can take the award for ‘most unexpected death using a Scythe’, as well as the ‘grossest ever use of a Debribulator’ medal hands down.

Yes, POV style films seem to be all the rage these days, with Cloverfield, Zombie Diaries, [REC] and Paranormal Activity among others, and Romero will doubtless be accused of ripping off Blair Witch, but hey that film totally ripped off Cannibal Holocaust anyway, and it’s not like nobody has ever ripped off a Romero film, eh?

The only bad parts of this film that I could even find are that the Professor who accompanies them on their trek comes from Portsmouth, UK (as if any intelligent person could ever come from Portsmouth, but he is a drunk so they got that part right at least), and the fact that Romero still isn’t putting any Norks in his zombie films. Come on George. Shame on you.

Gore Score 4\5
Nork Score 0\5
Overall Score 5\5

Just try and stop me from visiting my local cinema to watch this again finally released.

Vector image for zombie movie Dead and Deader

Although I watched this film a few weeks back I never got around to sticking it up here. This is the case of many films, so i’m working back through memory for my next few posts.

Dead and Deader stars Dean Cain as a Zombie army bod who wakes up on the autopsy table still semi-alive. After cutting the Zombie Parasitic Scorpion out of himself he goes off exploring, trying to find his (now full on) zombie cadet mates, and trying to prevent the inevitable zombie carnage. All this despite a constant hungering for raw meat. Such carnage revolves around the typical Government Experiments style plot, and some zombie scorpions.

For a modern Zombie film, this is surprisingly decent. the gore is pretty well done, if not OTT enough for gore-hounds like myself, and the story is way more original than I had expected.

The several ‘self referencial’ nods to zombie films I found pretty annoying, but then I hate that sort of thing. (Just get on with the trash, don’t try to be clever), but these are minimal and pretty well scripted.

Overall for a throwaway zombie film, it’s not too bad. Some nice ideas, and it shows that there are still plenty of avenues to explore for our Zombie buddies in the 21st century.

Gore Score : 3/5
Nork Score : 1/5
Overall Score : 3/5

Vector Image for zombie movie Braindead

AKA Dead Alive

Having watched Zombie Holocaust and only rating it 4 for gore, it got me wondering what it would take for a film to actually hit the 5 that all Zombie films should be aspire to. This pondering lasted for ooh, at least 5 seconds, as I realised I had this gem on my shelf just waiting another viewing. Could my memory have decieved me and Braindeads’ gore factor been imagined, or was I right in remembering that it is the benchmark that all splatter is marked against?

Oh how right I was to trust my own opinion – Braindead is fantastic. Although rather slow to start, come 30 minutes and the ridiculous gore comes a-pourin’. Skin is ripped off, dogs devoured whole, priests kick ass (for the lord) against zombie bikers, and numerous limbs and heads go flying.

And how could I forget the intestine-zombie, the zombie baby, the priest:nurse love-in, a tasty pus and ear custard pudding, rat monkeys, and especially the classic lawnmower death.

For a film to get 5\5 from me without a single nork shot must mean it’s fantastic. What else is there to say

Gore 5\5
Norks 0\5
Overall 5\5

Vector image for movie Bio Zombie

Bio-Zombie

Ah, zombies in a shopping mall. What a great idea!

Hong-Kong horror\comedy with zombies, mostly following 2 guys, Woody Invincible and Crazy-Bee. (Oh yes, i’m giving my kids these names!), as they work, go on the rob, drink and kill zombies.

Carrying around biological warfare chemicals in Lucozade bottles is probably not a good idea. Also, having it poured down your throat and then getting locked in a car boot in a shopping centre car-park after almost being run over probably isn’t going to make for your ideal day. This is probably why the guy Woody and Crazy-Bee left in said car-park goes ‘a bit mental’ and turns Zombie, and starts eating all the people in the Mall.

Cue lots of terrible makeup effects, fantastically bad English translations, and rampaging Shopping Mall Zombies, with some Computer Gaming references thrown in for good measure.

Certainly the best Zombie film from the East that I know of. Actually, it’s the only one. It’s pretty funny in places, and once the action ramps up after the 1st 45 minutes it’s actually a pretty decent zombie film. Pity the Gore isn’t that exciting, but then it does look like it had a budget of only a few hundred quid.

Gore Score 2\5
Nork Score 0\5
Overall Score 3\5

Vector image for zombie movie Plane Dead

AKA Plane Dead

“Your ‘Side Effects’ have eaten half the passengers!”

In simple terms, Snakes on a Plane. But with zombies. Certainly not the greatest Zombie flick in history, or even in recent years, but reasonably enjoyable.

Cryogenic zombie being transported in passenger jet. Lightning strikes plane…. off we go!

US Jocks on their way to a surfing holiday – in Paris, (hmm) get eaten. Nun gets eaten, but doesn’t get to go Ninja-Nun on some zombie ass beforehand, OR even eat anyone else as a Zombie Nun! (Wasted opportunity). Japanese man gets turned into a zombie while wearing his seatbelt, and spends the film sat there trying to bite passengers from his seat. (And even tries to eat a whole fighter jet. As you do).

Sounds brilliant, yes, but really lacking in the primary areas of trashy zombie films – gore and norks. The gore consists of just blood being sprayed everywhere. Very little actual munching or gory bits. Guy does get his head knocked away with a golf club, and some legs get ripped off, but that’s it though. Very tame. Also, what’s going on with the couple sneaking off to the lav for a quickie, but then just cutting to them returning to their seats! (Even Snakes On A Plane managed a nookie scene). Dear o’ dear.

If you’re making a trashy zombie film, it needs the trash.
Gore Score – 2/5
Norks Score – 0.5/5
Overall Score – 3/5
Low on trash, but still enjoyable.