I’ve already reviewed Burial Ground: Nights of Terror and I stand by that review. By most standard, it is a terrible movie. Terrible acting, terrible effects and makeup, terrible writing, dubbing, you name it. Yet somehow, it totally works. Probably because of the rule of Spinal Tap: everything works better when turned up to eleven. And this film is constantly turned up to eleven. Or maybe eleven and a half — everything is just a little but louder, or, in this case, just a little bit crazier.
Every crazy thing that could happen does, not to mention a bunch of shit that has no business happening (the incest “subplot” is just unbelievably off the wall, in particular). If you were to look up “exploitation film” in the dictionary, you should see a picture of this movie. Sleazy sex, sleazy gore, a dwarf (Peter Bark) playing an adolescent, random bear trap accident, five disembowelments (four shown in loving, graphic closeup), which I believe is some kind of record — that’s just the start.
The makeup is utterly crap, with little consistency from zombie to zombie, and all of it borrowed from better movies (Fulci’s Zombie mixed with the Blind Dead films). The effects aren’t any better, and are similarly ripped off, mostly from Fulci. A soundtrack that is equal arts cheesy lite jazz stock music and some dude high as a kite dicking around with a synthesizer and organ, horrible dubbing, shaky handheld camera work, poor continuity and weird editing … it’s a frigging mess, top to bottom. But somehow, totally hypnotic and irresistible, with a strange dreamlike quality in parts. It wasn’t quite as riveting the second time through (I watched it maybe four or five months ago) but I still had no issue getting through it. Recommended!
Oh, and Final Girl is doing a Film Club on it this month, so look for a link to that shortly!
Next up, Hell of the Living Dead takes us deeper into the heart of Italy.
I quite enjoyed the Night of the Living Dead remake, just as I did the first time I saw it years ago. I have to say that this remake compares really well to the original classic NotLD. Of course, with George Romero doing the screenplay, Romero, John Russo and Russ Streiner producing and Tom Savini (who did effects for Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead) directing, it damn well should have — that’s an impressive pedigree. It’s weird that this movie got such a lukewarm reception on its release and that Savini hasn’t directed anything else. The direction here seems fine — some of the acting is a little questionable (but never bad enough to derail the movie) but apart from that, this is a great remake. The zombies looked great (not surprising from an effects guy as director), the story was nicely updated (especially love the new ending) and the nods to the first were all very clever and not cheap at all. Considering some of the hack directors working today, Savini deserves another shot behind the camera.
For a long time, if you said, “Worst movie ever made?” any respectable film geek would reply, “Plan 9 from Outer Space.” Well, years of shot-on-video crap and Uwe Boll films have taken away that easy, go-to answer, but make no mistake, Plan 9 is indeed a bad film. So bad it’s good? Yes and no — there are definitely parts where the badness transmutes to pure comedy gold, but there are long, interminable stretches of pain between those parts. I will say Tor Johnson made a good zombie, though. The overall verdict on this one is: ridiculous — but worth seeing for historical value and a few laughs.
In all honesty, I liked Resident Evil a lot more than I thought I would — and a lot more than I did the first time. I guess when I saw it the first time back in 2003, I had only seen maybe a dozen zombie movies, and mostly the cream of the crop. Since then, I became a zombie obsessive and watched another hundred or so, covering everything from genuinely fine cinema to punishing trials of endurance. Seen in the proper context, Resident Evil is really not that bad of a zombie movie. Yes, it is dumb. Yes, it is as subtle as a hammer to the face. The direction uses way too many pointless slow-motion shots, exaggerated action bullshit and cheesy effects sequences such as the laser grid.
I said yesterday we were hoping to class things up with The Walking Dead, and you know what? We totally did — or rather, Boris Karloff did. The man has gravitas. The movie itself, while it didn’t conform to many tenets of what one might expect from a zombie movie, was well made and fairly entertaining for a 1936 movie, but Karloff is why it is special. He has a real presence, and he lends this odd tale of a man returned from the dead to witness supernatural revenge befall his murderers (they frame him for a murder and get him executed). His accusing stare and the way his eyes communicate remorse and sadness as he witnesses each death are brilliant. Note I say witness — this isn’t really a revenge tale, because he has little or nothing to do with any of them dying, and as I said, he looks genuinely sad when they die (although he seems plenty angry beforehand). So far, the pre-’60s selections have been awesome. We’ll see if that trend continues when Plan 9 from Outer Space gets its turn.
I think the argument can be made that no zombie movie marathon would be complete without at least one cheap, shitty, shot-on-video bomb in the mix. Well, Redneck Zombies is that cheap, shitty, shot-on-video bomb. It’s the usual Troma formula – lots of cheap, goofy gore effects, terrible acting and offensive jokes thrown about haphazardly. Every offensive stereotype you can imagine is in here: it’s an equal opportunity offender. Gays, blacks, rednecks and even upper-class white folk get a few digs, all beyond the pale of good taste. The gore is unbelievably crappy but still kind of gross, the story is more or less irrelevant and almost nonexistent and the pacing is measured in geological time. In other words, it stinks. There was a really cute zombie baby, though. I’ve included that picture so you needn’t watch the actual movie.
!["Return of the Dead Hen" [cadre]](http://www.inevitablezombieapocalypse.com/wp-content/cache/8749131259_b19e561272_s.jpg)
