The Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse

The pre-WWII potboiler King of the Zombies is more spy movie with zombies as a plot device than zombie movie, and it’s a dull, plodding spy movie at that. Two men and their faithful, comedy-relief black servant (I mention his race because it’s a constant theme in the movie) crash land on an island somewhere in the Bahamas. There they find a Nazi (not identified as such, but not hard to decipher) scientist who’s using voodoo to raise a zombie army and interrogate a captured admiral. A lot of not very much happens, the black servant (played by Mantan Moreland) does a lot of icky playing to broad stereotypes, some “zombies” shuffle around not very menacingly, the scientist gets caught and killed, the end.

I’m not one to hew to political correctness, but the way blacks are presented in this movie is hard to ignore. I know it was a different time, but it’s a very “gee, aren’t uppity negroes just hilarious! And isn’t it even more hilarious when they get put in their place!” kind of thing. It essentially takes over most of the movie, making it into a grotesque, anachronistic race-relations slapstick. Moreland seems a decent, perhaps even gifted actor, but he’s given a shitty row to hoe, here.

The bottom line is, this isn’t much of a zombie movie. The zombies are just stiff-shouldered black guys who don’t do anything. Pass on this one unless you’re determined to thoroughly explore the history of zombie film.

King of the Zombies/US/1941

Note: King of Zombies has entered the public domain, so if you’re curious, you can watch or download it from the Internet Archive.

In Awaken the Dead, a priest with a dark past teams up with a shut-in prostitute (the daughter of the man he worked for in said dark past) during a citywide zombie infestation. Together, they rescue survivors, kill zombies and eventually uncover the secret behind the zombie outbreak.

Sound promising? Perhaps, in its small way. But the execution here was so flawed that any promise of the premise was quickly squandered. For starters, the whole thing was shot in the ugliest, blurriest, shittiest style I have ever seen. At least 90 percent of it used this horrible faux sepia tone effect. As a result, it was often difficult to tell what was going on. I couldn’t tell you if most of the zombie makeup and effects were good, because I could barely see them. The zombies did seem inconsistent — some had a sort of a demonic visage, others just looked like people with bloody faces.

The story was flimsy, but not terrible. The writing was frustratingly inconsistent: fairly solid at one minute, ridiculous the next. Same with the direction. The acting was actually decent, at least in the case of the leads (the priest, the prostitute and a Jehovah’s Witness they pick up early on). It was nothing special, but higher than usual quality for a film of this caliber.

All told, Awaken the Dead is entirely forgettable and not really worth your time. Its few positive points are outweighed by the terrible look, inconsistent execution and general dullness.

Awaken the Dead/US/2007

The second film in auteur Gary Ugarek’s Deadlands series, Deadlands 2: Trapped, manages to improve in almost every way from the original Deadlands: The Rising. The zombies look decent, it moves at a much better clip than the original and it’s well shot considering the minimal budget, with an oversaturated and washed-out look that’s questionable, but not necessarily bad. The acting is passable for a microbudget zombie flick, but the dialog is execrable and the story is derivative and meandering. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a group of strangers are trapped by the strange, murderous mobs of zombies that are suddenly everywhere as a result of a government test… Derivative can be okay, but you have to execute well enough to make it enjoyable, and D2:T simply does not.

In my review of the original Deadlands, I noted that apart from a whole lot of enthusiasm for zombies, writer/director/producer/star Ugarek had little or no skill in any of the areas needed to bring a zombie movie to life. That’s no longer true. He’s wisely abandoned acting. He’s a competent producer. His direction is decent, but shooting his own writing, he doesn’t have the distance to see where it doesn’t work, leaving us with interminable stretches of back story and needless setup. I’m pretty sure Ugarek could take a decent script and make a decent movie, but his inability to write either dialog or story torpedoes any gains made in other areas.

Deadlands 2: Trapped/US/2009

I do love a movie with a great name, and The Earth Dies Screaming is a great name if I ever heard one. The movie itself? Not bad, but not great either. The whole thing kicks off with a sequence where everyone dies. Trains crash, planes crash, people fall down dead in the street — your basic apocalypse. A few survivors in England group together and figure out that it’s some kind of gas attack, perpetrated by robots — alien robots to be more specific. And the alien robots reanimate corpses to use as slaves, which is where the zombie element comes in.

In terms of rough plot outlines and imagery, TEDS seems a clear predecessor to Night of the Living Dead. You have the same ragtag group of survivors thrown together by circumstance — and a very similar interpersonal conflict within the group fueled by its more weaselly members. You have the same staggering, reanimated corpses — although these don’t eat anyone and can be dispatched with a few shots in the gut. But what it really lacks is the grim, gritty realism that made NotLD so special — this feels stagy and typical of movies of its era. Everyone is remarkably chill considering they’re the last  people on Earth and are being stalked by both alien robots and the walking dead. And it has a resolutely upbeat ending that’s pretty cheesy. As I said, not bad — just a little slow and finicky, and a bit hard to swallow.

The Earth Dies Screaming/UK/1964

Take a whole lot of enthusiasm for the zombie genre and a complete and utter lack of talent or skill in any of the disciplines needed to make a movie, stir well and you will get Deadlands: The Rising. The debut feature from director/writer/producer/star Gary Ugarek, D:TR is a run of the mill zombie apocalypse tale. Bioweapon is used, the dead walk, society crumbles. Ho hum. The story is not only utterly pedestrian, it’s executed poorly. For example, I do not need interminable scenes of dudes shooting guns at bottles. This does nothing for me, or for the movie.

As apparent as it is that Ugarek loves zombie movies, it is also painfully apparent he has no idea how to write, act, direct or produce one. The movie is technically shoddy, the makeup is perfunctory, the acting is … well, the best actor is the wild-eyed, scenery-chewing redneck that tries to organize a shelter full of refugees to prepare for the onslaught of zombies. And despite being the best here, he is, by all standard measures, one of the worst actors I have ever seen. Everyone else is just listless and boring; at least he’s good for a laugh. The whole thing meanders, and even at a brief 63 minute runtime, it still feels slow. It’s not the worst zombie movie ever made (I still give that nod to Zombie Night) but it’s also pretty much without merit as entertainment, much less art.

Deadlands: The Rising/US/2006

The French may make great wine, but I have yet to see any evidence they can make a decent zombie movie. The best thing that can be said for Jean Rollin’s The Grapes of Death is that it is much better than his other undead attempt, Zombie Lake. Considering Zombie Lake is one of the worst films ever, that’s the very definition of damnation by faint praise. The other thing that can be said for it is Brigitte Lahaie naked. Of course, the woman made porn, so it’s not like this is your best chance to see that.

The Grapes of Death is about a nasty pesticide blend that poisons a batch of wine so thoroughly that everyone who drinks it becomes a rotting, sore-covered maniac/zombie. The film begins with our heroine on a train. A rotting dude gets on the train, kills her friend, and kicks off an interminable series of painfully slow pursuit sequences. Each is the same: our girl runs; meets up with another woman; the other woman gets killed and naked; repeat. Okay, near the end she meets up with some dudes who don’t get naked but do get killed. Wow, what a plot!

The languid pace strips any tension out of the already meager formula, leaving us with a cheap, sleazy and boring exploitation flick. At least the naked scenes are more or less evenly distributed and all the girls are hot, but a few gratuitous nude scenes and some tainted wine are all this zombie movie has to offer.

The Grapes of Death/France/1978

This movie was viewed as part of my second annual Zombie Movie Marathon Month — see the initial reaction piece here.

It’s probably a bit of a stretch to say that Plan 9 from Outer Space is the worst movie ever made – not in a world with Uwe Boll and Troma films. Still, it’s not difficult to see how director Ed Wood’s disasterpiece earned that reputation. This is a bad movie. At points, it is so bad it’s good. But for the most part, it is just bad.

The movie is the story of a half-baked alien plot to resurrect the dead to convince Earth people of the existence of aliens, or take over, or both (it’s kind of unclear) and to stop them from discovering how to make sunlight explode and thereby destroy the universe (yes, really).

This story is told in voiceover, through lots of exposition by the characters and with a few weak action scenes. We do get some dead people wandering around – one of them, Tor Johnson, is actually even kind of menacing – and occasionally attacking people, but we get a lot more talking: poorly written, terribly acted, interminable talking. And then the occasional terrible effects sequence, including the pie plate on fire that serves as the movie’s climax.

If you love bad films for their badness, there are a few laughs here. If you are interested in film history, especially zombie film history, it’s worth seeing. But don’t expect much in either case or you’ll be disappointed.

Plan 9 from Outer Space/US/1959

This movie was viewed as part of my second annual Zombie Movie Marathon Month — see the initial reaction piece here.

Look at that cover and read the title and you’ll know pretty much what you are getting with Dead Heist. It’s an exceptionally cheesy blacksploitation heist movie with some zombie-like creatures thrown in. And it has Big Daddy Kane as some sort of one-man anti-zombie army.  It’s a brain-dead b-movie action flick with a chewy, undead center, but hey, that can be fun. In it, a band of none-too-bright dudes rob a bank, get stuck inside and then the pseudo-zombies come. Then Big Daddy Kane comes to kill the zombies.

Those zombies seem lifted directly from the old Vincent Price chestnut The Last Man on Earth (itself an incredibly important film in the development of the zombie genre!), which is to say that they are sort of weird zombie/vampire hybrids. They only come out at night and they hunger for blood — which implies vampire — but they are dumb and they are many — which is more zombielike. Regardless, this isn’t the kind of movie that necessitates deep analysis. It is the kind of movie you can enjoy while drunk, or high or perhaps both. I think the highlight is the climactic fight. It is one of the worst choreographed fight scenes I have ever witnessed: so bad, it circled around to being good.

Dead Heist/USA/2007

The alternate/original title for Zombie Doom is Violent Shit 3: Infantry of Doom and it is infinitely more informative than the title it is marketed under. This movie is violent, it is shit and, although it certainly does have zombies, there aren’t enough to qualify for the name Zombie Doom.

This movie is the work of the infamous Andreas Schnaas, a low-budget, ultra-sleazy German schlockmeister. It’s shot on video, it features the worst dubbing I have ever seen (conceivably it’s more tolerable in the original German, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it is just as bad) and it is one of the more painful movies I have ever endured. The plot shipwrecks three guys on an island populated by an army of machete-wielding, zombie-breeding nuts. The army of crazies is led by an enormous fat man in a fur thong. There is a mad scientist. There are some kung fu masters fighting the nutjobs. And some ninjas fighting the kung fu guys. And a lot of other random shit. None of it is really explained, and it makes very little sense.

I suspect the plot was a last-second addition to give the ultra-cheap — yet still somehow disturbingly graphic — gore, the  brutally graphic rape/murder/necrophilia scene and the regular violent deaths something to stick to: story as an excuse for the fact that every frame of this movie is suffused with sleaze, to the point where you want to take a shower after watching it. The main takeaway from this for me was to avoid everything else Schnaas has ever done. I suggest you do the same.

Violent Shit 3: Infantry of Doom/Germany/1999

What do you get when you cross an Italian zombie movie with an Italian cannibal movie? You get Zombie Holocaust (aka Dr. Butcher M.D.). And it literally borrows from at least one other movie — footage, actors, characters and plot elements are all lifted. I recognized footage and actors (reprising basically the same characters) from Lucio Fulci’s Zombie (aka Zombi 2, aka Zombie Flesh Eaters) and I’ve heard some of the cannibal stuff and padding footage is lifted, too, although I can’t confirm it first hand. Besides stealing from at least one really great movie, it offers plenty of gratuitous gore and nudity. There’s one great kill scene with an outboard motor that basically justifies the entire movie’s existence. Also, lots of boobs and a bit of full-frontal nudity from a passably attractive actress.

The plot gives us some cannibals in New York City, who come from an island full of cannibals and zombies. Some people go to the island to investigate. Cannibals chase them. Zombies show up. Its tidy plot “twist” is a mad scientist who’s creating the zombies and converting the natives to cannibalism simultaneously; that’s right, he’s responsible for the whole thing!

For reasons I don’t really understand, I find all Italian zombie movies far more watchable than they have any right to be judged strictly on their quantifiable merits. It’s not of much interest for casual fans of the genre, but of moderate interest for the more dedicated student.

Zombie Holocaust/Italy/1980