The Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse

Apart from the merest whiff of filmmaking competence and a few nice sets of boobies, the horror comedy Brain Dead really has very little to offer. The plot throws two escaped convicts, a couple of hikers, a televangelist and his pretty little assistant together to face some alien parasitic brain eaters. It steals liberally from both Night of the Creeps and Slither (which itself had to have been influenced by Night of the Creeps) but doesn’t do much with what it takes. There’s some completely insane violence (strangely, more from one of the cons than any zombie), a laughable upskirt gross-out effect and, as mentioned, some nice boobs. Unfortunately, all the boob shots come in the first twenty minutes, never to return. That makes the remaining 70+ minutes nearly unbearably dull. The terrible acting doesn’t help things.

Mash up Lucio Fulci’s Zombie with Tombs of the Blind Dead and then mix in a healthy dose of incest, a dwarf, gratuitous sex, sweet ‘70s ‘staches, lots of mutilation and some seriously whacked out space music. That’s Burial Ground: Nights of Terror. It’s not particularly original or well made, but it earns some serious points for batshit insanity. The plot sees a group of six friends (and one “kid” who is played by a dwarf – that’s him in the picture, fucking weird) visiting their professor friend in a secluded manor. Unfortunately, the prof has accidentally awakened the dead in an ancient crypt on the property. Friends arrive, crypt opens, mayhem ensues. Plenty of nudity in this one and lots of gore and violence, especially against women (the Italians always seem to lean that way…). Some of the gore is well done, some not so much. If you like zombie movies enough to be reading this it’s worth seeing, though, without a doubt.

Return of the Living Dead 2 is a bad sequel, inferior in every way to the original. The two leads from the first movie return, as different characters fulfilling the same purpose. Here they are much less sympathetic – they’re grave robbers as well as morons. The army loses a canister and two bullies open it with a couple of random button pushes (awesome security, army guys!), and the zombies take down the suburban neighborhood. It’s paced and structured much more like a traditional horror movie than the apocalyptic zombie mayhem of the first, complete with a resolution that sees the heroes kill the supposedly unkillable (in the first movie) zombies with surprising ease – it turns out electricity is their downfall.

The humor is dumbed down from the first. The gore and makeup isn’t as good, though it is still impressive in spots. The writing is worse, and so is the acting. Director Ken Wiederhorn is terrible. Some irritating continuity gaps test the patience of fans of the original. You get the picture? I will say that the pacing is a bit tighter, but it still drags because the movie sucks. At least the zombies move more slowly and shambley than in the first, which, for my taste, is slightly superior.