All You Need is Brains

Madison, Wisconsin, where I make my home, is a very zombie-friendly town. We have an annual Zombie Lurch with respectable attendance (created by your humble Zomploitation Blog proprietress and since renewed by a local couple as a family-friendly event). Madison Horror, a recent and enthusiastic collective, brings the occasional zombie movie to its film festival.

Now local rockstars and innovators The Gomers have taken their undead Beatles act-- a Halloween mainstay rightfully unleashed into the off-season because some zombies cannot and will not be constrained by mere holidays-- from stage to screen, thanks to undead Scottish comedian and documentarist Angus MacAbre. (He's also been known to credit himself as writer, director, and producer Doug Gordon.) All You Need is Brains officially premieres January 23 at the Annex as part of Madison Horror's Bordello of Blood webcast launch party.

I saw my first Zombeatles show in aught five, still high off the unexpected success of Madison's inaugural Zombie Lurch a week prior. As my zombified friends and I staggered around the dance floor (Method acting or the High Noon Saloon's excellent tap selections? I'll never tell) we suspected we were in the presence of something great. It's no surprise that this modern monster archetype with its natural affinity for puns improves when paired with the mockumentary genre. It's fertile territory. Want proof? Try this Hard Day's Night of the Living Dead video and the All You Need is Brains trailer.

All You Need Is Brains boasts more puns than a Stan Lee comic and the best ever use of forearms as drumsticks. I defy you not to smile at MacAbre's ominous warning (delivered in an aggressive Scottish burr) "But the severed arm of fate was about to give the Fab Gore... the finger." I hate to risk spoilers by listing the clever puns that made me smile most (Pool of Liver. Drat! Revealed one!) but I have to share my smile at the rumors behind not Paul's undeath but his suspected life. Trivia-prone music fans will no doubt catch subtleties I missed, but even zombie enthusiasts girded with the basic Beatles mythos will appreciate this living dead parody.

A brief discussion with Gordon revealed a grand vision that enriches subsequent viewings of All You Need Is Brains. The Zombeatles' world doesn't contain only the superstar zombie band; it's a zombie world of zombie celebrities. Perhaps musical genius like the Zombeatles, Elvis Grissly, and Dead Zepplin is fueled by ongoing consumption of more and smarter brains. I hate to be the one to point this out but who better to do so than a zombie blogger free of journalistic standards: that concept is not unlike the Marvel Zombies comic books, but with better music and more jokes.

Contribution to the zombie canon: As far as I'm aware, it's the first zombie music mockumentary. True zombie innovation occurs in these unexplored niches so this is exactly the kind of thing that will keep zombie cinema vibrant.

Favorite moment: Dingo Scarr lurching off camera to attack unseen film crew during interviews.

Moral: All you need is brains and a drummer you don't want to eat.

Further viewing: If All You Need is Brains doesn't fully sate your hunger for musical zombies, try these:
• Hard Rock Zombies
• Wild Zero
• Dead and Breakfast
• Death Metal Zombies

Or, for a slurp of relentlessly non-humorous zombie documentary, try:
• Diary of the Dead
• I, Zombie

Zombie Strippers

Directed by Jay Lee, 2008

Thanks to an Easter tip from Russell, I’d had weeks to anticipate opening night of Zombie Strippers (an honor Madison was given alongside many larger towns-- how magnificent to see our zombie-friendliness recognized!). This is, of course, the Jenna Jameson vehicle that by virtue of its star and its title leaves the plotline fairly well telegraphed. It’s likely that your assessment of zombie strippers is close to complete without my input. But while the evening’s first crowd settles into the theater (I saw an afternoon show) I’m going to bang out a quick review. Timely? Me? There’s a first time for everything. Now let’s get some more butts in those seats, because it was a good movie for fans of zombies and comedic horror.

You know that contemporary trend that dictates half a movie’s budget should be spent on its artistic, engrossing credit sequence? Zombie Strippers hates that trend. The way it drops almost immediately into zombie action is one of the more transgressive things I’ve seen on the screen in months. The smirking premise: George W Bush’s fourth term and eighth war are in full swing, and while he disbands Congress and declares public nudity illegal, insufficient American lives exist to fight on multiple fronts. Are zombies partisan? I can imagine Republicans loving them as much as I, a self-avowed bleeding heart liberal Democrat, do. But don’t worry; if you’re not offended yet, you will be later in the movie (probably while laughing aloud). With soldiers’ lives an increasingly nonrenewable resource, a virus is created to reanimate the dead and encourage unstoppable supersoldier behavior.

And so we have our science-born zombie virus. In a neat nod to other epidemiological threats we have a transmission vector named Byrdflough, pronounced Birdflu. Oh, how I chuckled. When our infected soldier falls into an illegal strip club, Zombie Strippers kicks into high gear and strips away (groan) any doubt that a cinematic debut was a fluke. And I do not say this solely because Jenna Jameson is taking her clothes off. I am female and not so easily swayed by cinematic eye candy, and therefore you may trust my unbiased judgment in this matter. (Did you buy that? Cool.)

When a soldier returns from the dead, his reanimation has reduced him to primal pursuit of his training: he is a supersoldier. When a stripper zombifies, she too harnesses her training. Superstripper. Jameson’s philosophy-quoting star stripper leads a personable stable of dancers (goth, cynic, ingénue, rival, coward, firecracker, et cetera) on and off stage and in and out of death. The passionate performances of superstrippers brings in copious cash, even if it results in a little backstage blood, so fastidious club owner Robert Englund encourages the zombie stripper trend-- for a while. The zombie stripper performances really are fantastic; there’s enough dead girl to the choreography to maintain an edge of revulsion but despite bloody wounds these are unequivocally beautiful women.

I mentioned that you would be offended at some point, but perhaps I should downgrade that promise to “grossed out.” The gore is great, but it’s the broad sexual ribaldry that makes it a laugh-out-loud horror comedy. Englund insults his dancers’ herpes and carries disinfectant to spray in their wake. Rival strippers engage in a final showdown using cliché sex acts made hilariously terrifying by superstripper strength. At my early afternoon showing two of the three people in the theater laughed themselves out of breath. Not telling which one I was.

Less plot, more reviewing! The zombie makeup was excellent-- I love good zombie design, and many of the strippers and victims alike were superb examples of what’s possible with enough budget and creativity. (I see so many movies that have neither, when a decent quantity of either one would suffice.) Characters were certainly broad caricatures but the right nuanced script turns those caricatures into comedy delivery systems instead of endpoints in and of themselves. The editing was tight (not something you take for granted when you watch as many amateur horror movies as I do) and the story was perfectly paced. I would see it again, and plan to.

But then again I am an unrepentant zomploitation fan.

Zombie explanation: A super-soldier virus designed to supply multiple wars of American aggression under an illegal administration.

Contribution to the zombie canon: It has zombie strippers in it. Duh. It’s also a good contribution to the ongoing subgenre of zombie comedy.

Favorite moment: A recently resurrected zombie stripper, laughing to herself as she reads Nietzsche: “This makes so much more sense now.”

Favorite zombie: I will avoid the obvious “goth stripper zombie” response and instead nominate a split-jawed fellow reminiscent of the iconic Dr. Tongue from Day of the Dead, one of cinema’s best and scariest zombies.

Night of the Living Dead Peeps

Happy Easter, Blogspot!

Rest assured that Zomploitation continues to monitor the world's zombie films. Our master list of movies watched is expanding like an epidemiological threat.

Until such time as sanity and energy combine to produce new reviews, please enjoy Management's zombie confectionery diorama based on Night of the Living Dead.

Doomed

Directed by Michael Su, 2007

Doomed is a strange melange of styles. Whether or not that's deliberate is unclear.

When zombie movies meet video games, good things can happen. Junk was a grand movie in that style; I cheered the hero on as he fought his way to the final boss. A few years later we saw Resident Evil competently fit a videogame into zombie movie conventions. Uwe Boll didn't even try to choose a style; he just slipped game footage into House of the Dead.

But even Boll acknowledged what he was doing. Doomed purports to use reality television as its undead framework and although the Battle Royale homage is evident, there's an unmistakable videogame feel that undercuts it all. Each human/zombie fight, for instance, is halted by constant freezeframes with a list of type of shot and points earned. Body shot: 350 points! Choke hold: 150 points! Kill shot: 1000 points! I'm friendly to the styles birthed from videogames and cinema mating. And I certainly respect an editing choice that doubles the length of your action sequences without additional fight choreography. But this didn't gel for me. I wanted the irony and spirit of Series 7 with the dire psychology of Battle Royale, and neither is in Doomed.

There's a zombie movie tradition you'll see in films from about 1960-1988 in which zombie hordes-- usually on an island-- dress identically. It's a cheap way to reuse extras and costumes. I've never been a fan, because when you depersonalize the zombie that much it might as well be a robot, alien, or other impersonal enemy. Beyond the budgetary rationale I've always suspected that homogenous zombie hordes arise from xenophobia as well, as in the 1930s and 1940s movies with black or foreign zombies threatening white heroes. Romero reclaimed this tendency to a gloriously buffoonish extreme: the costumes on his zombie hordes (ballerinas, clowns, cops, Hare Krishnas, doctors, cheerleaders, the spectrum of humanity) imply defeated individuality. And that's a horrifying prospect. Acknowledging that each flesh-eating creature was once a human being is a crucial element to zombies. I'm rarely moved by films that use them en masse.

But this movie does. Picture, if you will, a lovely tropical island (named Isla de Romero) upon which teams of reality show contestants (formerly criminals, I gather) are deposited. Money is at stake. Very shortly, so are their lives. Years ago on the island a military super soldier test failed and the island was nuked. The undead test remnants hunt our contestants. Like a videogame, caches of weapons and water are hidden at convenient intervals. Also like a videogame, entering a dangerous setting was signaled by the distant growl of generic zombie which would grow louder as combat neared. Pick any team to root for; all are equally descipable and portrayed by equally amateur performers. Teamwork and criminality alike are rewarded by death with no apparent purpose behind the characters chosen to grace the screen for longer than the others. In the end, I gleaned no lesson for or against reality television, its participants, or any individual character's choices. Perhaps I was meant to root for the nameless zombie hordes.

Zombie explanation: A super soldier program, insufficiently destroyed by nuclear bomb decades before, now cultivated for reality television/prisoner execution.

Contribution to the zombie canon: One more baby step in the direction of games and movies coming together to destroy everything good about each other.

Favorite moment: I felt pretty sure I knew who the heroine was. Then she died meaninglessly. I always appreciate a bit of misdirection, particularly when I'm feeling smug about a movie's transparency.

Fido

Directed by Andrew Currie, 2006

Yes, yes, I know this opened in Canada a year ago or more. As you Canadian zombie enthusiasts of my acquaintance dressed for premieres and traded excited reviews, I watched jealously and awaited the day Fido would arrive in a nearby theater or mailbox.

Sundance beat Netflix, as it turns out, and I got to watch it in a clean new theater while noshing on pomegranate gummy pandas and Perrier. Hands down, Sundance was the nicest location from which I have ever watched a zombie film. It suited the movie — both Sundance Cinemas and Fido hide a typically grubby subject under a relentlessly clean and upbeat facade.

Fido presupposes a clean-scrubbed 1950s small town built on the back of post-war industry. The war was against zombies, and the industry is ZomCon. ZomCon's perimeter fences permit an idyllic lifestyle safe from the zombie wastelands. Their collars suppress flesh-eating instincts so zombies can be set to menial labor. And their military controls law and media. It's 1984 in 1954.

Billy Connolly (who isn't exactly restrained, but stuck without dialogue nevertheless seems underused) is the eponymous Fido, a zombie house servant to the socially self-conscious Robinsons. He slowly supercedes the head of the household, standing in passively but admirably as husband and father. Interspersed with the lukewarm lessons on family, of course, are occasional zombie rampages that bring ZomCon's attention to the Robinsons. This rare violence is gently comic. The movie wants to inspire laughter, not nausea.

The squeaky-clean setting is the movie's running gag and greatest strength. In a culture that emphasizes respect for one's elders, obedience, and etiquette above all else, a general mistrust of the elderly (who could die at any moment and come back as zombies) is pretty effective. In this world only the elite can afford funerals to ensure they don't return as docile undead laborers. I love the details that went into demonstrating this economic structure. It's one of the most thoughtful post-zombie societies I've seen in any movie.

It's a rare zombie movie that doesn't require suspension of disbelief. Even the best of them-- Dawn of the Dead, for example-- get to the part with the pie fight, you know? Enjoying Fido demands that you make peace with a hefty dose of senselessness. Do not ask why a healthy eleven-year-old cannot climb a fence. Do not question the wonky zombie collar. Events are frequently more improbable than the setting. But because it's such a stylized setting, these improbabilities rank closer to charming than irritating.

Oh, and Carrie-Anne Moss is absolutely radiant.

Contribution to the zombie canon: Fido is a pleasant continuation of the zombie romantic comedy (zomromcom) subgenre made famous by Shaun of the Dead, and it calls to mind that and other cinematic predecessors. The idea of a fantasyland fenced away from zombies was done very well in Land of the Dead, whose denizens also allowed authoritarian abuse in order to maintain an illusion of safety. Setting zombies to work was raised in Shaun of the Dead. And during an invasion of wild zombies, the mindless flood reminded me of some of Romero's notable zombie swarms, particularly Day of the Dead-- though, sadly, without the costumes that made those so funny and disturbing. And zombie-human love has popped up in several movies, most notably Zombie Honeymoon.

Favorite moment: "Helen! Propriety."

Capsule reviews

• Hot Wax Zombies on Wheels: There is a level of camp that goes beyond groans and eyerolling straight into actual physical pain, and this movie finds that level and then descends further. A new waxing parlor menaces a small town and turns good townspeople into "ravenous, hairless, horndog zombies." No people eating or rotting undead in this one, but there are plenty of farm animal sound effects and shrieking scenery chewing.


• The Grapes of Death: A lovely young woman runs screaming through gorgeous, misty French countryside for most of the film. Experimental pesticides have infected local wine production, and anyone drinking the tainted alcohol (and in France, that's everyone) zombifies violently. It's a slow movie, with atypical and occasionally conflicting zombie behavior. The plot, though, is among my favorites (besides zombies, another of my passionate hobbies is wine appreciation).


• Feeding the Masses: This is a bad, bad movie. I'm going to tell you some things it does well, but please don't forget that it's fundamentally a painful film. Now, when communication majors make a zombie movie, it's natural that they'll be curious about how an undead epidemic affects the news media. Some of the exploration here is interesting-- if being in the right place at the right time could launch Diane Swayer and Ted Koppel, then ambitious young newscasters will quite understandably risk their lives to report from the center of the zombie outbreak. There's also a creepy little strip club scene in which a young soldier conflates his lust for a girl with lust for killing-- it's not a well done scene, but the concept is sound.


• Raiders of the Living Dead: There was a kid who made a death laser. There were some cars and an island. It hurt. It hurt so bad.


• Zombiez: Billed as an urban zombie film, I felt cheated by how much of it took place in the woods. Sometimes there was a factory, though. I don't know how the zombies were made, or why they attacked people with sickles and butcher knives, or why the lead character thought she'd find her husband in the forest when he'd been abducted from their city apartment, or who that big bad guy was she tussled with at the end. I do know that if asked to recommend a zombie movie that (more or less) thoughtfully evokes likely issues of zombie infection in America's inner cities, I'm going to name Hood of the Living Dead.


• Shadow: Dead Riot: It's always a pleasure to see Tony Todd do his thing. He plays Shadow, a sort of necromancer whose execution in prison was merely the prelude to his zombie-based invasion decades later, when a tough girl with a mysterious connection to Shadow is sentenced to the same prison. Did I mention it's a women's prison now? Yep: Tony Todd, zombies, women's prison, even a zombie baby. You already know if you're gonna like this or not.

The Quick and the Undead

Directed by Gerald Nott, 2006

Oh my God; it's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly with zombies. To my knowledge (which is extensive though admittedly imperfect) this is the first film to transplant zombies into the Wild West. The Quick and the Undead benefits from this additional genre, as it effectively cannibalizes (pun intended) horror, comedy, and westerns.

In fact, fans of westerns will probably get more out of this than I did with my limited exposure. I identified character analogues of Blondie, Tuco, and Angel Eyes right away but I'm sure I missed plenty of cinematic homages. Everyone's familiar with the showdown trope, though, and it's particularly delicious when mapped onto horror: the zombies won't voluntarily come out and fight you in the middle of town, so you might have to lay a trail of dismembered body parts before you can start shooting. Cool.

The familiar storyline takes a right turn soon enough, and comes down to two groups of zombie bounty hunters. Their career depends upon compensation for zombies' index fingers, and there are a few ways to maximize your payout. You can steal a bag of fingers from your rival, for starters. And the bad guy's thought of some even juicier methods.

The director's style reminds me a bit of David Twohy's Pitch Black. Jump cuts add a feeling of action to something as simple as a walking scene. As the landscape holds still and the raiding party jumpcuts their way along it the audience is reminded of the permanence of the land compared with the transience of humanity, especially when a virus has made most of humanity into zombies for the past 85 years. The look and feel of the movie is so vital that I'm surprised I hadn't heard of this before-- seems like this could have been given an effective marketing push due to its original mix of genres. It might be too vital an editing style-- but I've seen a dozen low-budget zombie films with interminably overlong timing and I'm favorably disposed toward the MTV style at this point.

Zombie explanation: Virus.

Contribution to the zombie canon: Introduction to a good old-fashioned western.

Favorite zombie: The bloated, bald, pale zombie in the early shootout. Something about all those folds of flesh makes for a scary zombie-- there's a big fat zombie in Savini's Night of the Living Dead remake that scares me, and there's Henrietta in Evil Dead 2, too. It probably all comes back to Tor Johnson.

Hide and Creep

Directed by Chuck Hartsell and Chance Shirley, 2004

Before the opening credits were over I was laughing out loud. "Evil Dead's not a zombie movie. No it isn't. It's Kanderian demons that take over the living." "Oh, you want an American zombie movie? There are only about three good American zombie movies, and Romero made those." Oh, Hide and Creep. You know me from tip to toe.

The humor continues in this good-natured Alabama piece about a small town and its archetypal residents battling the zombie menace. Southern rednecks and zombies are both inherently funny, and the film cleverly goes for comedy over horror.

The zombie makeup is pretty rudimentary, but so affable was the script that I didn't mind a bit. Apparent budgetary constraints mean violence is implied through clever cut shots and gore is minimal, but the camera tricks are nicely timed and it doesn't come across as particularly cheap. The makers of Hide and Creep acknowledge their limits and work so well within them that the end product is perfectly charming. This movie reminded me that indie zombie films can be a pleasure to watch.

Zombie explanation: Aliens! Or possibly Communist China. It's really not particularly important-- like Romero's films, Hide and Creep knows the meat of the movie isn't in the "how," it's in the "what now?"

Contribution to the zombie canon: Low-budget zombie comedy that works! Small town caricatures dealing with the undead is not a new scenario in zombie cinema, but it rarely fails to be entertaining. I would also like to note for the record that there was arguably more male nudity than female.

Gratuitous zombie movie in-joke: The discussion of zombie films (parts of which I quoted above). A VCR used as a zombie-bashing weapon falls to the ground and spits out a copy of Night of the Living Dead. A lead character is named Barbara.

Favorite zombie: Naked stripper zombies, who made making out and consuming one another indistinguishable.

RSS vomited.

Blogger moved to a new platform and updating the blog spit out the entire RSS feed all over again. If the site could apologize I'm sure it would.

New zombie movie reviews and information coming soon.

Zombie films sorted by year

High time I sorted the zombie movies I've seen by year of their release. I believe this tells a fascinating story about zombie culture and influence-- look, for instance, at the explosion of movies after Michael Jackson's Thriller video was released, and also at the number of movies coming out after 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead popularized zombies in mainstream cinema again.

Earliest films
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 1920
White Zombie 1932
Revolt of the Zombies 1936
King of the Zombies 1941

1960s
Carnival of Souls 1962
I Eat Your Skin 1964
The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies 1964
Terror Creatures from the Grave 1965
The Plague of the Zombies 1966
Night of the Living Dead 1968

1970s
The Snake People 1971
The Night Evelyn Came Out of Her Grave 1971
Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things 1972
Messiah of Evil 1973
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie 1974
Shock Waves 1977
Dawn of the Dead 1978
Zombi 2 1979

1980s
Hell of the Living Dead 1980
Nightmare City 1980
The Children 1980
City of the Living Dead 1980
Evil Dead 1981
Zombie Lake 1981
The Beyond 1981
The House by the Cemetery 1981
Zeder 1983
Michael Jackson - Thriller (music video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4-IlviV8Ao 1983
Oasis of the Zombies 1983
Night of the Comet 1984
Hard Rock Zombies 1985
The Return of the Living Dead 1985
The Stuff 1985
Day of the Dead 1985
Zombie Nightmare 1986
Bad Taste 1987
Zombi 5 1987
Evil Dead 2 1987
Dead Heat 1988
Return of the Living Dead 2 1988
The Dead Next Door 1988
Zombi 3 1988
Zombi 4 1988
The Serpent and the Rainbow 1988
Chopper Chicks in Zombietown 1989

1990s
Night of the Living Dead 1990 1990
Nudist Colony of the Dead 1991
Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh Eating, Hellbound, Zombified Living Dead Part 2: In Shocking 2-D 1991
Dead Alive/Braindead 1992
Army of Darkness 1992
My Boyfriend's Back 1993
Return of the Living Dead 3 1993
Cemetery Man 1994
I, Zombie 1998
Bio Zombie 1998
Ravenous 1999

2000s
Junk 2000
The Dead Hate the Living 2000
Meat Market 2000
Wild Zero 2000
Versus 2000
Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies 2001
Biker Zombies from Detroit 2001
Meat Market 2 2001
Resident Evil 2002
28 Days Later 2002
Undead 2003
Zombie Night 2003
Blood of the Beast 2003
House of the Dead 2003
Enter...Zombie King 2003
Peaches featuring Iggy Pop - Kick It (zombie music video directed by George Romero) 2004
Re-Penetrator 2004
Shaun of the Dead 2004
Zombie Honeymoon 2004
Vampires vs. Zombies 2004
Dead and Breakfast 2004
Dawn of the Dead 2004 2004
Choking Hazard 2004
Dead Meat 2004
Night of the Living Dorks 2004
Pot Zombies 2005
Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis 2005
The Stink of Flesh 2005
Zombiez 2005
Boy Eats Girl 2005
Day of the Dead 2: Contagium 2005
Hood of the Living Dead 2005
Mortuary 2005
House of the Dead 2 2005
Land of the Dead 2005
Slither 2006

Re-Penetrator

Re-Penetrator:
Look, zombie pornography
Is the next big thing.

Hardcore with a heart!
Porn passion without a pulse!
(Like, literally.)

Dead girl on a slab.
Mad scientist above her.
Will they have sex? Yes.

A new limit, breached!
Blood and arousal entwine—
Add queasiness; shake.

Distasteful? Well, yes.
Fake blood for lube is unique,
Not appetizing.

False zombies, fake breasts
La petite morte and more mort
Gentlest of snuff films.

You don’t want blood there!
I cannot watch the whole thing.
Retreat; nausea.

Capsule reviews

• Nudist Colony of the Dead: A campy musical along the lines of Cannibal: The Musical. Literally campy, actually, since it's set at a religious summer camp built atop a former nudist colony. Attacked by the church, the nudists committed mass suicide rather than see their land taken away. Now, they rise from the grave at the touch of a zealot's foot upon their property. Naked costumes, ethnic stereotypes, unexpectedly impressive gore effects, and charming musical numbers ensue.


• Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies: Japanese horror American-style featuring a writhing mass of uniform-clad undead schoolgirls. Looks like a fantastic movie, but unfortunately I've only found it in Japanese. I'm sure it'll be worthy of a full review once I experience it aurally as well as visually.


• Oasis of the Zombies: Nazi zombies lurk in a nominal oasis, enjoying their hobbies of snarling, occasional staggering, and waiting for attractive young adults to murder. Flashbacks tell the tale of wartime ambushes and star-crossed multicultural lovers. A character named Robert Blabbert elicits giggles.


• Zombie Nightmare: This eighties clunker was immortalized on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and I urge you to uncover that version. Voodoo brings a baseball bat-wielding dude back from the dead to avenge himself on his careless teenage murderers. Adam West is a corrupt detective on the case. Mike and the bots offer much-needed levity.


• Carnival of Souls: While not technically a zombie film, this 1962 horror film nevertheless influenced a great many movies. In particular, the famous scene of ghouls emerging from the water directly inspired a similar scene in Romero's Land of the Dead. It's a good scene in a surprisingly good movie, and brings forth some life versus death concepts that zombie movies tend to explore. A horror classic.

Hard Rock Zombies

Directed by Krishna Shah, 1984

Okay. Call your friends, get your casual drug of choice, make some food, and track down a copy of Hard Rock Zombies. I think it replaces Troll 2 as the #1 Bad Movie Night pick.

A (nameless?!) hair metal band (that actually plays corny synth-pop) is on the road trying to make it (maaaan). They're amusing enough...the drummer stands on his stool spinning his sticks most of the time, the sensitive frontman has a mullet + moustache combo to die for, and they like to spend their free time frolicking and practicing mime (really). However, after the show a young girl ominously warns them not to continue on their tour.

"The gig is waaaaack...the sound guy suuuuucks, and you won't get paiiiiid"

(not really)

In the hick town of Grand Guignol, they end up staying at a big old house with a family who is like the Addams Family meets the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. With midgets. Hijinx ensue (both funny and "funny"), but after awhile the lo-fi production and the lack of any actual zombies begin to grate. That is, until about halfway through when the movie goes COMPLETELY OFF THE RAILS.

Okay, you guys. Are you ready? You can stop reading now if you don't want me to spoil Hard Rock Zombies for you. Okay. So the band's manager is having dinner with the creepy family (the band having already been murdered at this point, if I forgot to mention it). The patriarch is a 95-year old German dude who still bumps fuzzies with his wife ("And our freakish midget grandchildren want to watch? How could I say nein?!"). In the middle of dinner, the Nazi Alarm goes off, and he rips off his face Scooby Doo-style to reveal...yes, yes, HITLER. And, OMG you guys, not only is Hitler behind everything, but he is in cahoots with WEREWOLF EVA BRAUN.

Obviously the rockers cannot let this stand, so they come back from the grave to fight back. Even better, they are not sporting zombie make-up, but KISS MAKE-UP. Really.

I won't pore over the rest of the ridiculousness, but I can't let the ending go un-noted. How does one kill Hitler and his Nazi Zombies? YOU FUCKING GAS HIM IN HIS OWN GAS CHAMBER, THAT'S HOW. Yeah. They did it.

Zombie explanation: HITLER.

Favorite Zombie: That would have to be Phil Fondacaro's character. What's the only way to trump the zombie vs. shark scene from Zombi 2? MIDGET NAZI ZOMBIE VS. COW, THAT'S HOW.

Phil, I'm truly sorry that you had to be involved in this debacle. As Maddie put it, "I feel like this movie touched me in a bad place." Enjoy.

Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis

Directed by Ellory Elkayem, 2005

In a move of unprecedented economy, Ellory Elkayem (New Zealand-born director of Eight Legged Freaks) apparently added two sequels to the Return of the Living Dead series in one fell swoop. Same cast, filmed at the same time, in the same place (Romania). Different movies.

The first one, Necropolis, involves a gang of high school seniors trying to rescue their friend from an evil megacorporation that's (of course) building a zombie army to take over the world. One of the friends (of course) has a part-time job as a security guard at the corporate research facility, so a'infiltratin' we will go. Hackers meets the O.C. meets zombies, basically.

Let's not mince words -- this is a bad movie. It had so much potential: great special effects, good-looking shots, zombie bums played by Eastern Europeans, etc. However (just like the zombies themselves!) something went wrong and instead of a fun movie there is a soulless, shambling thing that takes too long to die.

My guess is that the director is trying to avoid horror movie cliches, to zag whenver you expect him to zig. Instead of creating any sort of tension, however, he sets up plot points and then tosses them away nonsensically. Pyromaniac baby brother who knows how to make bombs and then somehow infiltrates the research facility before the heroes do? Nope, he doesn't save the day, he just dies without ceremony. Orphaned kid finds out that his parents have been resurrected as Borg-like super soldiers? Nope, they don't help him out with the zombie invasion or do any super soldiering. Elkayem takes David Mamet's "if a gun is shown in the first act, it will be fired in the third" axiom and says, "What gun? There was a gun? Oh yeah, that fell out of dude's pocket in act two."

We watched this on the heels of Hood of the Dead, and the two are polar opposites. Hood has flow and tension and cares about its characters, and gets things done on a shoestring budget. This feels flat and rushed, with no stakes. I only wish that the Quiroz Bros. who did Hood had the money and cinematographic chops that went into Necropolis.

That said, we haven't tracked down the companion piece Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave To the Grave, and I'm actually interested in doing so. It sounds like a more fun plot (zombie-making drugs on a college campus!) and I hope Elkayem redeems himself.

Zombie explanation: The last few vats of Trioxin (the military-developed chemical referenced in earlier Return of the Living Dead movies), which somehow ended up at Chernobyl.

Gratuitous zombie movie in-joke: One of the girls is inexplicably nicknamed Romero. Groan.

Also, "Send more security guards!" but that one was pretty good.

Saving grace: The fake commercial that opens the movie is the best part ("Hybratech: not a single recorded zombie outbreak in ten years"). I would have ended the movie with a dude writing on a whiteboard:

"Days since a work-related zombie incident: 0"

Hood of the Living Dead

Written and directed by Ed and Jose Quiroz, 2005

Hood of the Living Dead had a lot to live up to even before the opening credits began. First, any play on "...of the living dead" invokes His Holiness Mr. Romero and instantly sets up a high standard to which many movies cannot afford to aspire. And second, my movie-watching companion professed doubt that any urban horror film would surpass the seminal Leprechaun In the Hood. Skeptical, we settled in to watch.

We were rewarded with a surprisingly sincere and good-hearted zombie film. Oh, certainly the budget is low, and of course the directors' amateurs friends populate the cast, but Hood of the Living Dead loves zombie cinema. Cheap? Yeah. But when it’s this cheap, you can clearly ee where LOVE holds it together.

Ricky works in a lab during the day and as a surrogate parent to his younger brother at night. He dreams of moving out of Oakland. Before this planned escape, however, his brother is shot to death in a drive-by. Ricky's keen scientific mind presents an option superior to CPR or 911: injections of his lab's experimental regenerative formula. Sadly, little bro wakes up in an ambulance as a bloodthirsty Oakland zombie! Chaos and mayhem! I think it's more economical to eat your enemies than take vengeance in a drive-by, but then again, I'm a poor judge of the complexities of urban life. (How poor a judge? In response to a gory scene involving four men, I opined "Ah-ha! White t-shirts on everyone so the blood shows up. Economical! I used the same technique in my own low-budget horror film." Jordan replied, "No, that's gang dress. White t-shirts were banned from New Orleans bars for a time as a result." Oh.)

A lot of the movie is set in someone's living room, so there's a great deal of hanging out and waiting for the zombies. But the characters are sympathetic and the movie is sincere-- it surpasses its budget in spirit.

Zombie explanation: When man plays God, zombies arise! Or, perhaps: Follow FDA-approved testing rules before human experimentation!

Contribution to the zombie canon: This is the first zombie movie I've seen with a drive-by shooting. As far as the actual zombies go, infection is spread with a bite as usual, but quite unusually head shots don't work-- it's heart shots that kill. Zombies have pulses, the absence of which proves true death. And these zombies make pretty cool jaguar-growl noises.

Gratuitous zombie movie in-joke: A mercenary named Romero. Groan.

Favorite zombie: Jaguar-noise little brother zombie, of course!

Zombie Honeymoon

Directed by David Gebroe, 2004

Zombie Honeymoon official website

Zombie Honeymoon is a surprisingly sweet love story that just happens to include a bit of zombie in it. Once the initial psychobilly furor calms down and it focuses on the young newlyweds, it's easy to overlook the husband's zombie bite and appreciate the psychology of relationships. In fact, as we watched we felt that zombies seemed inserted into the story as an analogy for something else. My theory was that the ongoing tension between a living wife and an undead husband echoed an abusive relationship. However, as bonus materials on the disc show, Zombie Honeymoon was made for the director's sister, whose husband died shortly after their wedding. This is probably why the movie captures the grieving process so uncannily. It's really touching.

Things I particularly liked:

• The couple starts out vegetarian, which is always a nice counterpoint to cannibalism.
• The first zombie's appearance is quite creepy. He slowly floats through the ocean waves, initially unidentifiable, finally rotten and threatening. We giggled and posited that a zombie had escaped from Shock Waves.
• This is quite possibly the first time we've witnessed a feasting zombie protesting “it’s not what it looks like!”
• Zombie movie shout-out: a video store clerk wears a Zombi 2 shirt.
• The slow descent into zombification is compared to fatal illness in the film's IMDB write-up, but the inherent animosity of zombies clears the way for the survivor to wish guiltlessly for the zombie's death. It's a strange way to commemorate one's dead brother-in-law (even though his representative character is very sincere and truly wants to protect his wife from his appetite).

Zombie explanation: Just being bitten won't do it; these zombies have a specific life cycle. At the end of their feeding phase, as they start to rot beyond the ability to hunt, they vomit contagious zombie ooze into their victims' mouths. It's an odd viral tic, but after the crazed biology of the zombie-alien-things in Slither, I will never again complain about zombie biology.

Contribution to the zombie canon: The movie is an incredibly sincere and accurate depiction of zombie survivor psychology when losing a loved one, though the slow corruption differs from traditional films. This zombie knows what's happening to him and he's even able to hide it from his beloved wife for a while. Technically, there's also living-undead sex. There aren't a lot of zombie love stories (and I don't mean living love set against a backdrop of zombies as in Shaun of the Dead-- I mean the exploration of love in spite of zombiedom as in Cemetery Man, Day of the Dead 2, Night of the Living Dorks, Return of the Living Dead 2, and possibly RotLD), so I appreciate additions to the genre.

Favorite moment: Well, I got a little teary-eyed at the romantic candlelight dinner. I'm going to break my tradition of spoiling the hell out of these films because this one is worth seeing on multiple levels and I think you'd enjoy this moment unspoiled.

Favorite zombie: Why, the cute emo surfer husband zombie, of course. He loves his pretty wife and wants to make all their dreams come true. He's just so hungry.

Return of the Living Dead 2

1988, directed by Ken Wiederhorn

Ironic that a movie about brains should have so few. Did the Romero series-- each installation of which begins with complete knowledge of the prior film and builds upon that established world-- so thoroughly spoil me that I'm unable to appreciate sequels of another stripe? Perhaps it's not the fault of Return of the Living Dead part 2. The fault lies with me. I've seen too many zombie sequels that closely echo the original instead of creating new ideas.

One military officer offers a cursory “not again” but no one else in RotLD2 acknowledges that RotLD occurred. A shame that the excellent set-up for a sequel in RotLD wasn't adopted. Instead, we have a retread of events and causes, this time enacted by kids. It is my opinion that child protagonists add very little and offer a cheap way to spark audience sympathies with a minimum of characterization.

Because we know the RotLD formula is in effect there's very little tension to build. This time is instead devoted to comedy-- an interesting choice that didn't quite work for me but one I respect anyway. Two extremely likeable lead characters from RotLD return here in completely different -- and far less likeable-- roles. There are even certain dialogue echoes for fans of the first movie.

The slapstick increases when the zombies appear. I have never been a fan of slapstick humor though I think I'm pretty open to genre experimentation. Oh, I don't hate the idea of zombies joyriding in a stolen army vehicle, but I'm highly critical of the gag's execution. If a late 1980s horror-comedy starring a shrill and constantly screaming cast excites you, I recommend this movie.

Oh-- it also has Dana Ashbrook, whom I love a little bit.

Zombie explanation: 245-Trioxin, a military chemical experiment.

Contribution to the zombie canon: It's a bit unusual to offer a child protagonist, and I did enjoy the way they set our hero up against his nemesis-, the zombified neighborhood bully. It's also an example of a straight zombie comedy (RotLD was highly comedic but maintained a genuine sense of terror as well). Finally, it shows the zombies consuming all the animals in a pet store, marking one of the few films in which zombies consume living flesh indiscriminately. (The original Night of the Living Dead was the first, and despite an undisturbed crocodile living among the zombies in Day of the Dead, I believe this is canon for Romero's films.)

Favorite moment: The zombie kid eating his mother's head was a moment of successful tension and humor. Bon appetit!

Favorite zombie: So closely does this sequel mirror its predecessor that the tar-monster emerges from a cannister again. I bet you thought he'd be my favorite, wouldn't you? Especially since he's portrayed by the same creepy mime as the first? But no; whether through costume, mime, or other factors, the shimmying shimmering horror isn't quite the same here (and is far too quickly dispatched by a child-- blasphemy!).

Instead, my favorite is the ravenous zombie boyfriend played by Thom Matthews, who was so charming in the original RotLD. Through logic, love, and overriding hunger for brains, he convinces his girlfriend to let him eat her brains. It's sweet, really. We've seen love between zombies before (Wild Zero), and between the dead and the living (Cemetery Man, Night of the Living Dorks, White Zombie), but aside from Cemetery Man I cannot think of another film that shows a lover offering him- or herself to a zombie out of love. And this is the kind of trivia for which I watch these movies.

Return of the Living Dead

1985, directed by Dan O'Bannon

Let us commence with a brief summation of why RotLD is among the finest zombie movies ever made.

• It opens with this legend: “The events portrayed in this film are all true. The names are real names of real people and real organizations.” This begins the film with ABSOLUTE THRILL-POWER.
• Tar-monster is one of the scariest zombies ever. He makes my Top Five list. They hired a mime to portray this tall, shimmying slime monster, and he moves as though his bones are liquified.
• This is where the brains fetish started. Prior to this movie and its emphasis on human brains, zombies ate any part of humans they could reach. You’d be surprised how few films offer brains as a specific driving force, though it’s one thing everyone associates with zombies. All thanks to this little gem of a film. This significance cannot be underrated.
• Relentless, inexorable, undefeatable evil. EVERYTHING dead returns to life—dissection specimens, butterflies pinned to boards. Zombie dogs! Zombie bugs! There is no escape. But most importantly, there is no shortcut to zombie destruction here. Decapitation, destroying the brain, cremation — these zombies don’t die.
• Zombies can think, act, and speak, though they’d prefer to just dine. “Come in, dispatch. Send more paramedics,” might be the grandest zombie plan ever.
• Linnea Quigley nude. A lot. There you go.
• If you don’t want to watch the whole film, the credits roll over a selection of Greatest RotLD Moments, telling the story in brief, hilarious snippets! And it ends on a very meta question — please enjoy the irony!

This review must open with a personal story. I saw this movie at a slumber party around 1989. My twelve-year-old self was traumatized. It would be thirteen years before I watched another zombie film! Even then, I only watched 28 Days Later because I’m a Danny Boyle fan—and the zombie content inspired nasty nightmares. After several insomniac months I realized I had to confront this fear. I began to rent zombie movies in hopes of finding the initial movie — in particular, one scene—that had scared me so badly. By the time I rented Return of the Living Dead I’d seen enough good zombie movies to spark my enthusiasm. So sixteen years later I returned to this film with appreciation for the genre as well as the psychological satisfaction of confronting my primal zombie fear. Thanks, RotLD. You made me the self-styled zombie queen and scholar that I am today.

RotLD is camp horror. Laughs outnumber screams. But laughing at these characters inspires goodwill faster than drama might so the audience’s sympathies are engaged early. I also genuinely like the older male characters; I could find myself getting a little teary-eyed at the slowly dying man who knows he’ll soon be a zombie and reverently removes his wedding ring before locking himself in the crematorium. Character stereotypes are saved for the young Brat Pack types, including a mohawked Molly Ringwald lookalike and poor Linnea Quigley, whose clothes keep falling off.

The scene that ripped my poor 12-year-old mind apart and placed within it zombie trauma timebombs that would go off 13 years later underscores the inexorable evil of these zombies. I think it’s also where the funny-scary nature of the movie turns into pure horror. Survivors trapped in a funeral home capture half a decomposing zombie. Strapping her to an embalming table, they proceed to interrogate her while her exposed spine leaks fluid across the metal. The pain of being dead, she moans, is only lessened by eating living brains. So there’s no hope and no escape, only swarms of fast, hungry zombies. It’s still a bit brain-bending, if you ask me; most other zombie interpretations offer some hope of killing individual zombies (destroying the head, usually), outwaiting the threat (28 Days Later), or even living in relative harmony with them (Shaun of the Dead).

How hopeless is the zombie plague in this movie? Headshots don’t work—a pickaxe through the skull only pins it to the floor. Decapitation? Now you have a headless zombie running around. Even sawing it into pieces won’t help; the pieces live on. Cremation destroys the body but releases the zombifying chemical into the air. Hiding doesn’t help… they can smell your brains.

Only solution? Nuclear bomb. Oh, silly U.S. Army. Didn’t we learn anything about releasing the chemicals into the air? Next up: Return of the Living Dead part 2!

Zombie explanation: Military chemical. The title, of course, implies a continuation of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Original bodies from that plague were stored in the basement of a medical supply company. Container failure releases the gas (and some zombies) into the doomed city of Louisville.

Contribution to the zombie canon: Indescribable! This is essential viewing for zombie fans. Here’s where the brain-eating concept of zombies begins.

Favorite moment: Some of the lines just kill me—“Rabid weasels.” “Send more cops.” “I can smell your brains.”

Favorite zombie: Tar monster is fantastic—he moves as though he has twice the joints of a living human, and all of them are double-jointed. Shining with slimy decay, he’s slightly more skeletal than zombielike but nevertheless terrifying.

Undead

2003, directed by Michael Spierig

"When I was a kid, we fucking respected our parents, we didn’t fucking eat ‘em!"

Generally speaking, I do not enjoy alien zombie movies. Romero himself was one of the first to use this excuse for zombie contagion, but he quickly dropped it after Night of the Living Dead. The alien excuse might be gaining some power again—aliens themselves are still on a downward course from their prior movie villain popularity, but alien-zombies permit a mélange of cinematic styles and seem to usher in a more humorous movie. Both Undead and Slither, for instance, use them to great effect. For my part, I feel that both aliens and zombies encapsulate the perfect guilt-free Other. They’re both superb stand-ins for whatever enemy culture fears at the time. Using both in one movie seems like overkill.

Undead begins with flaming meteors, and so introduces the alien menace well before the zombies. When eviscerated by one of these meteors, a sweet little old lady gets right back up and adopts a policy of beheading drunks. So begins the blight on Berkeley, a tiny farming town somewhere in Australia. Added to the zombie threat are burning rain from apocalyptically clouded skies and alien beams that suck up life forms. Our lead characters — the newly crowned small town beauty queen, her pregnant vengeful rival, an asthmatic rookie cop and her hair-trigger partner, a few others — have a problem.

Within short order this motley group of survivors bands together in a distant farmhouse. (The classic deserted farm house besieged by zombies is a great setpiece for survivor psychology and gory hijinks, of course.) The house belongs to Marion, a bespurred John Wayne-like farm man whose talents are guns, survivalism, and zombie bisection with a triple-barreled rifle. Marion appears surprisingly Amish to my American eyes but that just makes the ensuing violence better. I like Marion. It’s so nice to see the joy of a character who’s known for a long time that the world will end and has spent his time preparing. "Aliens,” he says dourly. “We MUST fight them."

Marion has some of the best action scenes in any zombie film. And the action is deliciously clear and even occasionally presented in slow-motion so that we can follow every impossible move and spray of blood. It’s a welcome change from the prevailing ADD trend of blurred split-second shots that obscure the action. Also of note are the clear homages to Sam Raimi. The Evil Dead series is evident in framing, pacing, and the way the undead rise stiff-backed from the floor straight into a standing position.

Undead provides fantastic, hilarious zombie gore — fists that punch straight through heads, torsoless legs that walk around with their bloody spine sticking out, humans punching out zombie fish, and flesh peeling from faces. The effects are phenomenal, particularly when keeping in mind the film’s relatively low budget.

Zombie explanation: Aliens. Zombiedom comes and goes among Berkeley’s populace. The cure and infection are caught up in alien interference, but in a fantastic twist, the humans never figure that out. What they assumed was a life-saving gameplay instead brought about post-alien secondary infection and bam, we’ve got more zombies and a potential sequel. Love it.

Contribution to the zombie canon: Undead re-energizes the alien-zombie connection. It’s also one of the few movies in which there’s a cure for zombiedom. (Night of the Living Dorks comes to mind, as do various voodoo movies like The Serpent and the Rainbow and White Zombie.) And while this isn’t necessarily a contribution to zombie canon, I’d like to acknowledge it as one of the better homages to Sam Raimi’s style.

Favorite moment: Scalded by the stinging rain, our band of misfit heroes strip off their burning clothes. As they march into an abandoned store naked or in their underwear, they perfectly embody the helpless, delicious zombie buffet that everyone else has fallen prey to. And for favorite gory moment, the defaced zombie wins. *shudder*

Night of the Living Dorks

Original title: Die Nacht der lebenden Loser. Directed by Mathias Dinter, 2004.

The annual Wisconsin Film Festival afforded us the opportunity to see this German gem in a theater full of zombie and film (and zombie film) fans. No comedy fails to benefit from a full theater-- especially one that serves alcohol. Bearing in mind that the raucous laughter of 200 people may have ennobled this movie beyond its worth, let's dive in.

Night of the Living Dorks is, at heart, a high school film. I hate high school films. Their empty stereotypes, their comedic injustices perpetrated against my cinematic avatars, their formulaic plots and facile resolutions... we hates them, precious. But (you knew there was a but coming, right?) the movie uses all of these expectations to great advantage. Zombie comedies already rely upon genre conventions; the addition of another genre's conventions only adds spice. Setting up social cliques doesn't give me Vietnam-style high school flashbacks when I know that zombies will rip through the popular kids by the second act.

This is a tight, fast, clever movie. And it's the little touches that make it. The zombifying agent-- cremated zombie remains-- are transported from Haiti to Germany via eBay. Our three hero-nerd-zombies attend Friedrich Nietzsche Gymnasium. As soon as they suspect that they might be fearsome flesh eaters, they watch Romero's Day of the Dead and celebrate by shouting "We're so the undead!" A zombie on meth crashes a house party and dances Thriller by the pool. Body parts like ears and testicles fall off and have to be stapled back on. Each of these things is awesome unto itself. Together, they create the feel-good zombie movie of the year. (That year apparently being 2004.)

There are some ludicrous suppositions in this film, but they spring from the high school formula. The general opinion of goths, for instance, and the vacationing parents cliche grate a little. But really, zombies aren't often placed in a strictly adolescent context. This novelty alongside the humor and craftmanship assisted my willing suspension of disbelief.

Zombie explanation: Voodoo-- marginally. The goth kids' graveyard ritual happens to involve real Haitian zombie ashes, and the nerd trio is accidentally doused. Then they die. Then they come back. As zombies. And continue going to class as usual.

Contribution to the zombie canon: Besides serving as a worthy heir to Shaun of the Dead in terms of zombie comedy, Night of the Living Dorks combines zombies with typical high school clique film conventions. Awkward adolescent hilarity ensues! Also gore!

Favorite moment: The wicked zombie and his insatiable appetite for flesh and vengeance appealed to me.