The Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse

It’s not often you see a movie that is both better and worse than you expect it to be, but that is exactly what happened with the Greek zombie apocalypse movie Evil, known  as To Kako in its original language. The little I’d heard about it suggested it was a pretty mediocre, run-of-the-mill low-budget foreign knockoff. The truth is the majority of it never rose to the level of mediocre, but the best bits were pretty goddamn awesome.

Let’s start with the cookie-cutter story. The premise is three workers uncover ancient evil in a cave, lose time, return home confused and then turn into ravenous zombies a few hours later, much to the dismay of their families, dates and friends. That is, by far, the most original part of the movie. The rest of the plot follows the usual group of survivors thrown together by circumstance as their personalities clash and zombies run rampant, until the ambiguous but ominous ending. Sound familiar? If you’re reading this, of course it does.

There are a few other problems. The leads lack charisma. They can’t act. The wisecracking funny guy is not funny. The insane soldier, easily the best character, comes in late then disappears for most of the movie. The writing is terrible and the translation is crap. The directors strangely chose to use a lot of gimmicks, including an unforgivable amount of split screen shots. The zombies act inconsistently. They are totally mindless one second, then sneaking up on people and pausing for dramatic effect the next. A lot of terrible CGI is used in the backgrounds.  It’s shot on video and it looks and sounds like crap.

That’s the “worse” part. What redeems the film is the completely over-the-top and utterly ridiculous gore and violence. It’s just a step below something like Dead Alive in both quality and quantity. In essence, anytime the zombies catch up to the survivors, it’s wacky time. Limbs are severed — and then used as bludgeons. Zombies get sliced, diced and cut in half, heads are squashed, blood spurts by the gallon and a good time is had by all.

During these numerous and zany action sequences, the leads magically transform from hapless city folk to something like urban ninjas. They bust out some sweet martial arts moves, throw knives like professionals, jump over shit, punch through zombies’ heads, etc. Suspension of disbelief is out of the question, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun. It’s also worth noting that the movie moves at a brisk pace, with very few dull or slow spots.

Despite the movie’s issues, these elements make it hard to not enjoy it. Sure, it would be a lot better if it wasn’t laboring under the weight of terrible acting, gimmicky direction and editing, poor writing, half-assed subtitles and ridiculous CGI. It would be a better movie if it didn’t play like a rip-off of 28 Days Later spiced up with the mood of Dead Alive. All true. But being what it is, it deserves a spot alongside other such ridiculous, shoddy trash gems such as Nightmare City and Burial Ground in the “so off it’s on” category. Go in expecting to very little but a few laughs and WTF? moments and you won’t be disappointed.

Evil/Greece/2005

Uwe Boll’s House of the Dead has a reputation as one of the worst films of all time, the kind of movie that can put you off the entire genre. For that reason,  I’ve avoided seeing it for some time, as I find I have to carefully moderate my intake of terrible zombie films so as not to deflate my affection for the genre. I’ve had it in my possession a couple of times, and always found an excuse not to watch it. But when I saw it on on-demand recently, I knew it was time and finally bit the bullet.

And you know what? It wasn’t that bad.

Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t good by any means. There’s no question about it: this is a bad, bad movie. But it isn’t one of the worst — I wouldn’t replace any of the movies on my worst movies list with this, and it isn’t even close.

The plot puts a group of pretty people on a zombie-infested island. They are there for a rave, naturally. And they catch a ride to the rave with a couple of gun smugglers, naturally. It’s all very stupid and little more than an excuse to throw the characters into the zombies’ way. Once they get there, people start getting attacked and the corpses are dragged off to become zombies. They hole up in a house, they leave the house, they meet more characters, return to house, learn back story about a Spanish prison ship and the evil scientist it carried to the island, they die off one by one until just two are left, they face the big bad, the end.

It’s all cursory, clumsy and stupid. The writing is perfunctory. The acting is terrible, even by the few actors that are capable of better (Clint Howard and Jurgen Prochnow, how did you come to be in this turkey?). I got the impression that director Boll was either encouraging them to act poorly or just didn’t give a fuck. There were some elaborate action sequences, but they were so poorly filmed and edited that they were really more annoying than anything else. The zombies were okay, but nothing special. They reminded me a bit of Burial Ground‘s zombies, with the addition of glowing red eyes. The gore was skimpy — way too many of the kills were off screen, usually cut away from just before the deed. And it isn’t like they were going for a PG-13 here — the gratuitous nudity pretty much guaranteed an R, so it seems more like laziness, or perhaps Boll blew the effects budget on explosions.

There were some good points, or rather, points that lifted it out of the realm of true bottom dwellers. Some of the jokes, dumb though they were, were worth a chuckle (I loved when the blond chick got puked on, for one). It was more or less technically sound (clumsy, yes, but well-lit, shot, recorded, etc.). The pacing was surprisingly, almost shockingly good. What was consistently frustrating was how lazy and half-assed it all felt, from the moronic plot to listless acting to the haphazard insertion of footage from the videogame. It seemed like Boll watched Resident Evil, maybe a few classic zombie flicks, said “Yeah, I can do this” and proceeded to make the movie with all the dedication to craft and enthusiasm for their work that the average hipster coffeehouse barista brings to the job. It was so apparent that the filmmakers didn’t give a fuck about the movie that it was impossible to care about it. Not that I tried very hard, mind you.

House of the Dead/Germany, Canada, US/2003

Zombies of Mass Destruction does not skimp on the blood.

The tagline for Zombies of Mass Destruction is “A Political Zomedy” and that pretty much tells you everything you need to know about it. There are zombies. It is political, and a comedy. And it isn’t subtle — it telegraphs every one of its punches. But this is zombie film we’re talking here; subtlety is strictly optional.

The film is set in a small island town where an unfortunate zombie outbreak occurs. Caught up in this small-scale apocalypse are a young Iranian-American woman who’s abandoned her heritage to hang out with a cute rocker boy, her traditional father, her redneck neighbors, a gay couple trying to come out to a conservative parent, a fundamentalist preacher, the ultraconservative mayor and his liberal challenger. Do these sound a little stereotypical? They are, but again, it doesn’t matter all that much.

As the outbreak unfolds, things get worse and worse for the main characters as they face the prejudice and half-buried hostility of the small town stereotypes around them. Oh, and there are the zombies to deal with. And it’s mostly presented in that order — sociopolitical commentary first, zombie mayhem second. None of the political or social jabs are quiet or refined — this movie wears its politics on its sleeve and wields its commentary like a ten-pound hammer.

Arguably, this limits the audience. The degree to which you enjoy it is probably largely dependent on how much you agree with its positions. On the other hand, there’s plenty of splatter and broad phsyical comedy between the political jabs at post-9/11 America, so even a die-hard conservative could probably find something to enjoy here — supposing they didn’t walk out before they got to it.

Those points might sound like complaints, but really they are just observations. Ham-fisted sociopolitical commentary is endemic to the zombie genre and the stereotyped characters don’t really hurt the movie that much.  More of an issue is the generally weak acting. None of it is terrible, but it’s all a little dodgy. Add to that the fact that there’s very little chemistry between any of the actors and the results weigh the movie down a bit and keeps it from being as funny as it could be. It’s nothing terrible, but it is worth noting.

Apart from that the only real problem is that it all feels a little dated. If it had come in in 2003, this film’s political jabs would likely feel rapier sharp. In 2009, it’s a little out of step with the world. Not to say that the issues raised are not legitimate or aren’t still issues — it’s just that today, they’ve taken on different nuances that simply aren’t addressed here.

But make no mistake: there is plenty to enjoy. The zombies look good. There are some fine jokes and visual gags (weedwhacker vs. zombie, anyone?). The direction is good, things move along at a decent clip and the movie is well shot. It’s not amazing, but it’s a solid, well-executed movie. It may offer slight returns, but it’s still got enough to offer to put it in the top third of the genre’s offerings.

Zombies of Mass Destruction is showing as part of the Denver Film Festival. You can see it tonight, November 20 at 11:30 p.m. and tomorrow, November 21 at 10:30 p.m.

Zombies of Mass Destruction/US/2009

Part zombie, part vampire and pretty much entirely awesome, The Revenant is the latest film of 2009 to contribute to making this one of the best years ever for zombie cinema. It’s the story of Bart, a typical guy with a girlfriend, a slacker best friend and the piss-poor luck to get shot to hell during a tour of duty in Iraq. Then, once his friends have had a chance to bury and mourn him, he has the (arguably) worse luck to be reanimated as a decomposing, blood-hungry member of the walking dead. From there, he seeks the aid of his best friend Joey and begins feeding on creeps and criminals, until the complications mount (as they invariably do) and things go awry for him, Joey and pretty much everyone they know.

As mentioned, Bart is a weird hybrid of zombie and vampire. His buddy uses the Internet to determine he’s a revenant — a spirit returned in corporeal form. He looks like a zombie (moldering, gross, awesome) and acts like a vampire (sleeps all day, drinks blood) but lacks most of the traditional vulnerabilities, as revealed in one hilarious scene. He’s also damn near impossible to kill — sunlight doesn’t do it, bullets are a joke and even some extreme measures result in little more than some unfortunate handicaps.

The Revenant plays out as part black-as-sin buddy comedy, part gore-fest and part action movie. There’s also an underdeveloped and slightly overwrought love story subplot and some pretty interesting (although also underdeveloped) exploration of the morality of the situation and its parallels to warfare. It’s well acted, nicely paced and well-written, with excellent dialog and a compelling story.

The film is the work of writer/director/producer D. Kerry Prior, whose only experience writing and directing is the 1996 obscurity Roadkill. Apart from that, he’s worked on the effects of several Phantasm movies, one of the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, Bubba Ho-Tep and numerous other films. With that pedigree, it’s no surprise that the zombie makeup is fantastic, with lots of great wounds, copious amounts of blood and general grue.  What’s more surprising is how well the rest of the movie is executed — Prior is a talent to watch and probably won’t have much time for effects in the years to come as he’ll be too busy directing and writing.

There are some minor complaints to be made — it’s a bit long and several of the story threads seem to be abandoned without much thought — but these barely get in the way of the overall experience of the film. You’re not going to have much time to notice the blemishes while the film is cruising along at a 100 MPH, delivering great action sequences, brutal kills and snappy one-liners, and you’re not much going to care if not every thread of the plot is full developed by the time you get to the nice little twist ending. No, you’ll be too busy laughing at the hilarious dildo-voicebox scene, wincing at the beheadings and blood-vomit and generally having a great time at the movies.

Right now, The Revenant is making the festival rounds (I saw it as part of the Denver Film Festival) but if you aren’t lucky enough to have a festival with impeccable taste in genre film in your area, keep your fingers crossed for the wider theatrical release this film so richly deserves — or just keep an eye out for it on DVD. It’s definitely worth a look, even for zombie and/or vampire purists — after all, he’s a revenant. Regardless of name, he’s zombie enough to make the cut for me, in no small part because, frankly, I love this film.

The Revenant/US/2009

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

Bitten by a zombie? You need help. The kind of help offered by Zombies for Zombies: Advice and Etiquette for the Living Dead by David P. Murphy. Aimed squarely at those who prefer their zombies with a twist of humor – and there are plenty of those folks out there, especially among casual zombie fans – Z4Z is a “Dummies”-style self-help book for the newly turned (or, more precisely, about-to-be-turned) zombie.

In Z4Z’s world, a mad-cow like disease called the Provo virus has created zombies and a massive corporate-government conglomerate has taken drastic steps to stop it – and profit from it in the process. If it sounds like the world of Fido, you are not wrong, although this is more modern and Halliburton-y. In this world, the moderately zombified get shipped off to special “retirement” homes, while the full-on zombies are the Horde, kept at bay (barely) by high fences and intense security measures.

With chapters such as “The 14 Habits of Highly Effective Zombies: Etiquette and Behavior” and “You Are Who You Eat,” and detailed suggestions for medication options, sex tips (yes, there’s an entire chapter on zombie sex, if you like that sort of thing) and even post-life fashion, Z4Z takes a much broader, frequently silly look at the undead world than, say, Max Brooks’s work, which is humorous without being precisely funny.

The brief looks at the behavior of the Horde and the effects of the zombie virus on society were fascinating – there’s a more serious (although probably somewhat light hearted, still) book in there if Murphy wants to write it. The book would have benefited by including more of that sort of material and a little less of some of the other, less-zombie specific humor. The few serious elements work really well.

The problem is it’s more than a little drawn out at 230+ pages. It would have been twice as good at half the length, most likely. The zombiecentric humor gets stretched plenty thin (seriously, the brains thing is done in just about every possible way) and too much non-zombie humor gets thrown in, seemingly at random. Z4Z is funny – there are several laugh-out-loud moments and plenty of chuckles to be found, and it’s a decent read. It just run out of steam before it runs out of pages.

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

You think there are no new ideas in the zombie genre? Well tell me how many historically based comedies about two shiftless grave robbers who specialize in the undead you can name? The number, as far as I know, is one, and that one is I Sell the Dead, a charming little tale from first time director Glenn McQuaid. And, to be fair, it isn’t really a zombie movie. But it is a movie with zombies in it (as well as a vampire, some undefined weirdness and one thing I can’t reveal without ruining one of the movie’s best scenes) and hey, that’s enough to qualify it for inclusion.

Set sometime in the 18^th century, the story is told in flashback. On the eve of his execution, grave robber Arthur Blake recounts the highlights of his career in the “resurrection trade,” as he calls it, to a strange priest. From his first grave robbing to his last job, Blake expounds on the vagaries of digging up corpses — some quite lively — for cash. Each story is essentially self contained, yet a clear narrative thread runs through and connects them all. It’s a nice mechanism that allows the film to explore a much wider swathe of story than would have been possible with a more straightforward tale and it keeps things moving along at a consistently brisk pace.

One of the film's zombies

It’s the last, climactic vignette that introduces the clear-cut zombies of the film. In attempting to recover two of them, the luckless heroes clash with a rival gang, with fairly disastrous and generally humorous results all around. The zombies look good, with an exaggerated, almost cartoonish design and are quite expressive for zombies – especially the one who, while caged, seems to display a bit of affection for both the heroes. The look of the zombies fits well with the obvious influence of old-school, EC-style horror comics. The other main influences here seem to be the British horror of Hammer and Amicus – the period setting, fog-drenched moors and other atmospheric clues nod towards those classics. It’s a nice mix and it works well.

The script is good and the funny bits are actually funny. The leads – Dominic Monaghan and Larry Fessenden – are fine actors and display a good on-screen charisma. Two familiar genre vets – Ron Perlman and Angus Scrimm – do a nice job in supporting roles as well. And the twists of the ending, while not completely unexpected, work well and leave things open for a sequel – or even a series (the format would work very well…). All in all, a pleasant, light horror comedy that’s a great way to get a zombie fix without treading much – if any – familiar ground.

I Sell the Dead/US/2008

The hype for Zombieland has been, at times, overwhelming. As a defensive mechanism, I’ve maintained what I consider to be a healthy skepticism. But I have to say, now that I have seen the movie, the hype was largely justified. By the time the opening credits rolled, I had little reason to doubt that this is a fine zombie film.

Now, make no mistake, many a hardcore zombie fan will find reason to hate this movie. These are fast zombies, for one thing. I know that’s enough to earn a “how about no?” from plenty of people. Possibly worse, in many eyes, is these zombies are probably closest to 28 Days Later zombies. That is to say, there’s no reason to think they died and reanimated. Technically speaking, these are just very sick people with an appetite for eating their former friends, not reanimated corpses. Over that? Okay, this is also not a film with a heavy — or any, really — social commentary. It’s just not. It’s an action-movie buddy comedy with zombies. If you haven’t swallowed your tongue in apoplectic horror yet, read on. It’s smooth sailing from here.

Zombieland is the story of four people thrown together by unlikely circumstance — the zombie apocalypse. That’s pretty standard fare for any buddy pic, and especially familiar to zombie fans. But the chemistry between the four, especially main leads Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg, is enough to make it work. The foursome, after some intitial hijinx, are headed for Pacific Playland (read: Disneyland), an amusement park rumored to be free of the zombie scourge. That’s it. That’s the story. Now twists, no turns, no fanfare.

Okay, there are a couple of subplots (Eisenberg falls for the older girl, there’s a hilarious interlude with a famous actor I’d hate to spoil) but the point is, this is all very straightforward, by the numbers, action-oriented zombie stuff. But it works, in part becasue director Ruben Fleischer does an excellent job of keeping things moving as he puts the characters throughout their paces. That, and there are some really great effects, inspired musical cues, clever jokes and utterly awesome zombie kills and set pieces. It does slow down a tiny bt in the middle, but by the time you notice it, things have revved back into high gear and you’re headed for the climax full steam ahead, so it’s no big issue.

Call it shallow, call it slick, whatever. It’s fun and that’s the bottom line. I don’t know that this moves the zombie genre forward. But I do know that it could easily introduce zombies to a whole generation of fans that haven’t ever paid much attention to our walking dead frenemies. I’ve said many times before that Shaun of the Dead is an excellent “gateway drug” zombie movie. In all honesty, this may be even better for the purpose of introducing newcomers to the living dead. It doesn’t have the same kind of reverent, deeply rooted respect for the genre that Shaun displayed, but it’s not really any worse for lacking that. And just as Shaun was a deeply British movie, this movie 100 percent all-American. It may lack depth and substance but it more than makes up for that in sheer awesome. If you have doubts, let them be banished. Zombieland is a kickass good time and you should absolutely go see it.

Edit: Added a clause to clarify comparison to Shaun of the Dead.

Zombieland/US/2009

A while back, I caught wind of a new, zombie-themed energy drink. In the post I mentioned I was sure it was some generic swill, but that I’d be happy to try it to see if I was wrong. The distributor took me up on the offer, sent me a can and now, my review.

Ingredients: Pretty standard mix of energy drink basics. 1000mg taurine, 75mg caffeine, some guarana (basically more caffeine) and panax ginseng extract (smooths out and boosts the buzz, in my experience). 27 grams of sugar for extra zing! All that adds up to 110 calories, in case you’re counting. Me, I’m a scrawny fuck, so I am not.

Appearance: You can see what the label looks like up top, there. It’s a little cheesy, but not too bad. The actual drink has a pale, golden color, similar to ginger ale and definitely less “colored” than Red Bull. Actually looks quite appetizing — see for youself there to the left.

Flavor: The flavor reminded me of Monster’s base flavor, with the caveat that I haven’t had a Monster energy drink in two years or so — I could be misremembering or they could have changed the flavor in that time. It seemed slightly less sweet than what I remember Monster tasting, which was good because the reason I haven’t had Monster in two years is it is way too sweet for me. Honestly, this was also a bit sweet for my taste. And it had a lingering aftertaste that would not go away. It wasn’t bad, but definitely not one of my favorite energy drink flavors.

Buzz: The most important measure of an energy drink is the kick and I thought this one was just fine in that regard. I substituted it for my morning coffee and was able to get my day off to a reasonable start with its help. And it had more legs than my morning joe — the one can kept me going through lunch time.

Mixability: I didn’t get to test its ability to mix with booze, since, as mentioned, I kicked my day off with it and I try hard not to start on hard liquor first thing in the morning. I think some vodka would cut that sweetness nicely, so I could see this going down just fine as a mixer at a haunted house party. Just supposition, though — I have no evidence. If they want to send me another can, I promise to mix this one with vodka and get back to you, though…

Verdict: Not bad, but not great. Monster fans who want to honor the undead might really dig it. I’d drink it in a pinch, but that sweetness and lingering aftertaste keep it from being top tier for me. Worthy of the name zombie? Well, it’s not going to bring anyone back from the dead, but it certainly opened my eyes in the morning and I have to admit I am yearning to develop a vodka zombie cocktail using it as a base.

Get more info or order a case from the Screaming Zombie website.