Ken Foree is Peter in Dawn of the Dead
Four more days, four more movies! Without further ado…
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
I got to watch the original Dawn of the Dead in a theater, with an audience, for the first time ever! It was sweet. You notice the funny stuff more with a hundred and fifty people there to laugh when they hit. Before the show there was a good Q&A with Tom Savini and Ken Foree. Mostly standard stuff, but they told a funny story about the shooting. Seems that the Brown Derby bar in the mall stayed open until 2 a.m., so zombies would go in there and drink. One night, two of the zombies got loaded, “borrowed” a golf cart, and ran it into a column, causing about $7,000 worth of damage. Funny stuff. Oh, and I interviewed Ken Foree, too.
Also, Dawn of the Dead is never not fantastic.
ParaNorman
So, yeah, they make zombie movies for kids now. Wild, huh? I am not a big kids’ movie fan, despite having kids, so I wasn’t too sure about this one. That said, I do feel it is a sacred duty to see all the zombie movies, so… The thing is, this was pretty entertaining. It’s about a kid who sees and talks to dead people, and the obligatory kids’ movie message is about accepting people different than you for who they are, which a freak like me can get behind easily. Nice stop motion animation, too. You could do a lot worse for your kids’ “My First Zombie Movie.”
Frankenweenie
Since there are two kids’ zombie movies out, I figured I might as well just knock them out back to back (also, I’d watched two previously seen films back-to-back for logistical reasons, so this seemed like a good way to get two new ones out). This one is barely a zombie movie. More like a monster movie with one sort-of zombie in it. Still, kid resurrects a dead dog, that’s a zombie dog, right? It was just okay, I thought, but my wife liked it. She’s a Tim Burton fan, I am not, so that probably explains it.
When it was over, my wife leaned over and asked, “So, is Frankenstein a zombie movie?” to which I could only reply, “That is an excellent question that I have been meaning to address.” And I do mean to address it someday, but it is a deep topic, so I don’t have time to go into it now. Let’s just say “Sort of” and move on, shall we?
Night of the Living Dead (1990)
Last time I watched the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead I quite liked it. This time… well, less so. The zombies didn’t look as good as I recall (spoiled by The Walking Dead‘s zombies, I guess) and the acting was way worse. The writing too. It’s like half as smart as the original, which makes it pretty dumb. It was still a decent watch, and it belongs at the top of the middle, mediocre third of zombie movies, but that’s as good as I can do right now. I still think Savini should have gotten a shot to direct again, but I guess I can see why no one was too eager to hire him.
That brings us up to speed. Pretty sure tonight I am going to brave the depths of awful presented by Beyond Re-Animator. I’d like to believe it will be good, but Bride of Re-Animator was the worst piece of shit, so my expectations are basement level.
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