Wyrmwood: Road Of The Dead (2014)

28 Days Later, Mad Max, Bad Taste, The Paul Hogan Show, The 'A' Team and everyone's favourite book of the bible. Hilarious, bloody and ingenious.

An OckZomCom!

Letterboxd Review

Return of the Blind Dead (1973)

The grubby, crusty, devil worshipping zombie-mummy-vampire-skeleton-Templars on fucking HORSES are back but this time aided by a doom-saying Igor (played by a post-stroke and monobrowed Al Pacino) who wakes them from their evil slumber.

Is the sequel as scuzzy and atmospheric as the original? Generally speaking, yes. There are some great gruey effects with lashings of Humbrol red Euro-blood. It's simpler, faster-paced, more bloody and with a larger cast than the original. I even liked the sub-Carry On comedic scenes with the Commissioner and the miming maid. Unfortunately, some of the creeping atmosphere of the first film is lost amid the town location and the large cast, although that shot, near the end of the film, of the Templars standing still outside the church at dawn is fantastic. Lastly, what is it with zombie horses that cause a weird time-dilation whenever they're ridden?

As well as Igor, the cast includes, an eyebrowless (I think Igor got her share) woman whom everyone seems to have fallen head-over-heels in love with; a real bastard of a mayor; a rapist henchman; and a sexist ex-army firework technician.

You know what I'd love to see? The Blind Dead Versus The Flashing Blade!

This review was for the longer Spanish cut.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

Letterboxd Review

Burial Ground (1981)

Burning zombies, awful dubbing, Michael, scantily dressed ladies, terrible dialogue, Michael, maggots, icky body fluids, zombies with tools, rampant canoodling, intestine munching, Michael, a completely nonsensical plot, incest, Michael, decapitation, climbing zombies, inappropriate breastfeeding, zombie monks, Michael.

As wonderful and skanky as the rubber-masked and latex encrusted zombies are, they pale into insignificance once you've met Michael! A man-child so weird and spooky that the term 'uncanny valley' just doesn't do him justice. He's at the bottom of an uncanny crevasse, deeper and darker than the Mariana Trench!

At the 30 minute mark, you're thinking "how the fuck can they keep up this pace for another hour?" but it just keeps on giving! Could this be the perfect Italian zombie film?

I'm left with a migraine-inducing amount of questions but...

1) What the fuck was a bear-trap doing in the garden?
2) Why is green paint so flammable?

Fucking bonkers!

"You're getting a raise from me all right, but it has nothing to do with money."

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

Letterboxd Review

Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972)

Sure, it's slow but... grubby, crusty, devil worshipping zombie-mummy-vampire-skeleton-templars on fucking HORSES!

WARNING: This film contains the weirdest, most inappropriate and lecherous mortuary technicians ever!

"She was asking for it. Going around flaunting herself. It's as if they want to be bitten." -- Mortuary technician

Letterboxd Review

Frozen Scream (1975)

Frozen Scream does have an odd, trippy atmosphere in places but beware of an awful script, jarring edits, terrible performances and dialogue, killers who look like Rowan Atkinson and Marty Feldman with porn moustaches, and the loudest and most inappropriate voice-over ever. Low on gore, high on crappiness, Frozen Scream will only be of interest to those of us who like shitty, low-budget films or are trying to complete the video-nasty list and have found this at the bottom of the pile.

You know how, sometimes, bands cover a song and then change the lyrics a little to avoid copyright and paying the subsequent royalties? Well, Frozen Scream has some of the worst I've ever heard, played during a totally pointless dance scene: "there's a whole lotta shakin' goin' on" becomes "we're goin' to try to get it on" and "We're goin' to rock around the clock tonight" becomes "We're goin' to jack around the shack tonight". Fucking hilarious!

The picture and sound quality on the Vinegar Syndrome DVD is not great but still bright and very watchable.

Letterboxd Review

Zombi 3 (1988)

Silly, great, funny, ridiculous, illogical, wooden, hilarious, amazing, cheap, gruey, fast, inept, terrific, stupid, bloody, foggy, slow, slimy, putrescent, trashy, wonderful, insert adjective here.

"I'm feeling better Patricia, but I'm thirsty... for your blood!"

Letterboxd Review

Return of the Living Dead (1985)

A rewatch with the kids.

Burt, Ernie and the rabid weasels bring on the zombie love yet again!

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Original review

Dark Power (1985)

The film starts with a young boy, aged about ten, walking through the woods with his toy bow and sucker-tipped arrows being chased by a pack of dogs. What! A boy aged ten in the 1980s should have made his own bow and nail tipped arrows and also had a belt full of pipe bombs! To be honest the dogs look more cuddly than vicious and I'd have been more afraid of being licked to death than mauled. Anyway, the snivelling and ill equipped boy is saved from his canine fate by an old beardy boy scout with a bull whip... Ladies and gentlemen I give you Lash Larue. Get used to the whip because he sure likes to use it! It was like party time at Madam Cyn's house during Parliament recess!

So the story is that an old man who kept some Toltec evil buried under his house dies and it's up to Lash Larue to put that genie back in the proverbial bottle. Unfortunately the house is soon let to four nubile young women and a creepy, racist brother. After that we just have to wait for the rather ridiculous killing to start.

The first half of the film almost like a show-reel for Lash Larue and that damned whip of his. Enough with the fucking whip! Plus his wise old man shtick gets a little tiring after a while.

There's a fair amount of "everyday racism" and a few n-bombs and I was hoping that the perpetrators were to be quickly dispatched as punishment. No, it took far too long. In fact it took way too long for any of them to die. Every one of these little bastards seemed to have stepped straight out of a shitty Porkies rip-off. At one point one of them flosses her teeth! Why do that on camera? Why not have a shit as well? Please stop it!

The four Toltec zombies are terrible with some of the worst masks and outfits I've seen in a horror film. Their bows seem to have strings made from underwear elastic, most of the killing scenes are pretty disappointing, and the comedic zombie routines were utterly misplaced. And that fucking xylophone that played when ever they were on screen drove me nuts! Plus that house must have the best sound insulation ever to stop the girls inside from hearing the zombie shenanigans going on outside.

Then, at long last Lash Larue and that fucking whip turns up to save the day. What do we get? Fucking "cavalry charge" music! That's right, a bearded white man turns up to save the poor women from the Native Americans with a trumpeted charge and a whip! Oh dear. A little while later, during a very, very, very dull bull-whip duel, he even calls one of the zombies "boy". As far as saving the day goes I don't think you could get any more racist unless there were a few burning crosses on the lawn.

Dark Power's biggest problem though is that its nearly 50 minutes until you see any blood! Simply inexcusable!

Unfortunately the picture on my Dead of Night DVD was bright and clear with reasonably clean audio, although the soundtrack does tend to drown out the dialogue a little.

Rubbish. Do yourself a favour and pass this one by. Anyone want to buy a DVD?

Letterboxd Review

Demon Resurrection (2009)

A young ex-cult member gives birth to a demon, whilst all around her zombies threaten the lives of her friends.

Demon Resurrection was shot on digital but has a real SOV feel to it. Maybe it's down to the 4:3 aspect ratio, but you could really imagine this being shot in the 80's. Where a lot of low-budget underground horror films take the easy route of cheesiness to counter any claims that the film is silly, Demon Resurrection has the balls to take itself seriously. There are no crappy jokes, no over-the-top performances, no gross-out scenes for the sake of it. Instead writer/director William Hopkins takes several elements from other films to create a decent and believable plot, builds atmosphere, and gives us a nice pay-off at the end. This is a film that wears it's influences on it's sleeve, from the one building location of Night of the Living Dead, the impregnation and subsequent birth of Rosemary's Baby, to the feel of Hammer's "Witchcraft" films The Devil Rides Out and To the Devil a Daughter. The influences don't stop there, there's also the cosmic horror of Lovecraft and even a Cthulhu-like beast makes an appearance, admittedly in book form, but it all adds depth.

Sure the film looks amateur but the director has a real feel for film making and there are some really nice shot choices. Occasionally you can tell that he was limited by lenses when he has trouble framing several subjects in an interior shot, but really, who gives a shit. The editing is nice as well, I have no idea if more than one camera was used but it really feels like there were several just like in a more expensively shot movie. The performances are well above the standard of usual low-budget films and no-one stands out as being particularly crappy. The sound can get a little muffled and fuzzy in places but otherwise it's nice and clean. The soundtrack is subtle, unobtrusive and adds to the creepy enclosed atmosphere. The video effects were minimal and well used; pretty much all the special effects were practical with CGI being limited to a green fuzz that surrounds the zombies and a couple of other scenes.

On to the blood and guts. The zombie creatures were really quite good. Sure you can tell they were wearing rubber masks and but they had a sort of endearing Rawhead Rex feel to them. I loved them! The blood was standard corn syrup and the guts were either good latex or pig innards. We've got some typical disembowelling (a windowpane evisceration was a stand-out), a broken zombie arm piercing a neck, the demon baby birthing scene (reminiscent of Alien), some boob chewing, and something you don't see in many films... someone pissing their pants. There are a couple of naked scenes but these are handled well and don't come over as softcore porn shoehorned in to sell DVDs.

Demon Resurrection has a good plot, decent effects, tension, jeopardy, and a nice twist at the end. Overall, really good fun for SOV junkies but glossy Platinum Dunes multiplex horror fans should stay clear.

You can buy it straight from the director here

Letterboxd Review

Night of the Creeps (1986)

During the late-fifties, an extra-terrestrial spaceship jettisons a biological experiment of brain-loving slugs that lands on earth and infects a college boy. Put on ice for 30 years only to be re-awakened by Rusty Griswald and his wise-cracking sidekick, the fratboy popsicle and his army of brain slugs seek to infect the local population of co-eds, dead axe killers and doughnut eating cops. Can Rusty save the day? Will Tom Atkins succeed in killing himself? Will that cop ever stop eating around dead bodies? Is that Fred from Scooby Doo?

Fred Dekker takes 80's slasher films, 50's paranoiac sci-fi, b-movies, zombie films, film noir, throws them into a blender and pours out a frothy milkshake of yummy goodness.

The opening B&W filmed opening scene was wonderful and, if I were honest, I'd have been quite happy if it had continued. However this is linked quite beautifully using the quite similar music, fashion and attitudes of the eighties.

Tom Atkins was, as always, terrific as a down-at-the-heels, suicidal detective who lives in a jazz playing, Marlowe-like alternate reality.

The effects are great with heads being split open, entirely believable slug creatures, zombies and explosions.

Night of the Creeps was on heavy rotation at mine and my friends houses back in the late eighties. If we didn't know what to watch, on would go Night of the Creeps. It was just as good as I remember and I would recommend sticking this on a double bill with The Stuff or Return of the Living Dead.

The picture and sound on the director's cut Blu-Ray are outstanding and I'm looking forward to watching the extras.

Far too good to be classed as a cheesy b-movie.

Letterboxd Review

The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

The plot couldn't be simpler. A pair of medical supply company numbskulls accidentally crack open a barrel containing "2-4-5 Trioxin" gas, a military toxin responsible, according to Frank the warehouse man, for the zombie outbreak captured in the film, or has Frank would have you believe documentary, The Night of the Living Dead. Adding to their already impressive incompetence they manage to seed rain clouds with the gas, causing a cemetery full of corpses to zombify and seek sustenance of the cranial type... brains!

The back story to the film is actually more interesting than the plot. John Russo (co-writer of Night of the Living Dead) and George Romero (director and co-writer of the same) had a bit of a falling out over the direction of any sequels, with each man going their own way. George using the "of the Dead" suffix and John the "of the Living Dead" suffix. Kids huh? So we all know how George's films ended as the social/economic/military commentaries that would shape all future zombie films, but what about John? Well after a writing a sequel script to be directed by Tobe (Texas Chain Saw Massacre) Hooper that went nowhere, he teamed up with Dan (Dark Star, Alien, Life Force, Total Recall) O'Bannon, wrote a new script. The rest, as they say, is zombie history.

Is it as good as Romero's Dawn of the Dead? Really it does a disservice to both films to make a comparison as they are both so different to each other in the direction the story is taken... but, I'd say yes it is just as good, just in a funnier, goofier, more comic-book way. The Return of the Living Dead is entirely successful in its aims; to make you laugh and spew in equal amounts. It's a zombie film as made by the three stooges and is laugh-out-loud funny but not in that nasty post-modern ironic way that seems to have infected films nowadays.

The "Quincy" style punks are great and their teenage nihilistic dialogue is hilariously earnest:

• "You think this is a fuckin' costume? This is a way of life"
• "I like death"
• "Do you ever wonder about all the different ways of dying? You know, violently? And wonder, like, what would be the most horrible way to die?"

And then there's Linnea Quigley, who after disrobing to dance naked on a grave keeps her clothes off (except for a pair of woolly stockings!) for pretty much the entire film.

The film is jammed full of little touches like the zombie butterflies, the eye test poster, the "Fuck You" football jacket, and the fact that the fate of the world rest on the shoulders of Bert and Ernie - a right pair of Muppets. There are so many memorable moments that it'd be unfair listing any of them as you really should watch this film yourself. I will say don't have a mouth full of coffee when the "rabid weasels" line pops up like I did.

The undead are fantastic - imaginative, gory, fast, intelligent and nothing like the grim shambling grey dead of previous zombie films. There's the stumps-for-legs zombie, the torso zombie, tarman zombie, zombie half-dogs. The makeup and gore effects, influenced by the multicoloured splatter films of the time, are still shit-hot. The famous tarman zombie alone make the whole film worthwhile!

And finally to the soundtrack. The Return of the Living Dead has one of the greatest punk soundtracks ever created (even if it does come down on the psychobilly/goth side of punk), with tracks by 45 Grave, TSOL, The Flesh Eaters, Roky Erikson, The Damned and The Cramps. It's up there with Repo Man, Dogs in Space, and The Decline of Western Civilisation.

The Return of the Living Dead is a hilarious zombie romp with high-quality effects. It is the Airplane of the zombie genre. Funny, gory, great music, fast paced with barely a minute with nothing happening - what's not to like?

There's only one thing the film needed and that's Lee Ving - he would have been awesome in it.

Laugh out loud, coffee-spitting, fucking hilarious.

"Ahh, my favourite brain soup; Cream of Nowhere!"

Letterboxd Review

The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (1974)

March Around The World 2015 Challenge - Spain

This is going to have to be short and sweet because I'm exhausted and I did nod off in places but this was not necessarily due to the reasonably slow pace of the first half of the film. There's some decent, nasty grue and "life-like" zombies complete with autopsy scars. Way more interesting than most of the zombie movies released nowadays.

One day I'll re-watch it and write a decent review but for now you're just going to have to watch it yourselves as I'm off to bed...

Original letterboxd review

World War Z (2013)

I've not gone out of my way to watch World War Z. I like my zombie films with blood, guts and a little humour on the side. I don't want romantic zombie movies. I don't want 15 cert zombie movies. I don't want A-list actor zombie movies. I want my zombie movies from Italy or Pennsylvania. And I want brains! But wait a minute, this is the "unrated" version! Woo hoo!

The film starts with the beautiful and happy Pitt family sitting down to a peaceful breakfast. Hey, you do need a full stomach if the dead are about the walk the earth.

A quick question. Does your average American eat pancakes for breakfast? This is something I've always wanted to know. I'd assume that most people would just throw down a bowl of cereal and a coffee then run out the door. So, I guess the Pitt family's pre-infestation breakfast of pancakes is cinematic shorthand for "Hey, this is your average, loving, post-nuclear, terrorist aware, American family"? Honestly, I'm really not taking the piss out our American cousins; I really am curious. I just have a glass of grapefruit juice. I used to have a cup of coffee. Instant. I love a cup of freshly ground coffee, but found that it played havoc with my, shall we say "internal workings" that early in the morning. Oh and I mix a little water with the grapefruit juice so I goes down a little easier as sometimes it can be a little thick. Definitely no pancakes. Who has the time? I'd have to get up at least 30 minutes earlier, get everyone else up - and I think they'd complain about getting up at 5:45am - just for pancakes and bacon. I think they'd kill me. Which brings us to bacon. Over here we mostly eat smoked, back bacon (I think our Canadian brothers and sisters eat the same), but the US family seems to eat, what we call "streaky" bacon. Less meat, more fat. Is it difficult to get decent back bacon in the States or do people really prefer the taste of streaky? Well, I suppose you can fit more in the pan as it's narrower than back bacon. Notice I say "narrower", this is to differentiate between the width of the bacon slice and the thickness. Thickness is probably the most important element to a good slice of bacon. I like to get ours from the local butcher. It's dry smoke cured, thick cut back bacon. Sometimes we get an end cut which is as thick as a piece of gammon steak. Gorgeous! Bacon, however, we eat in the evening, if I fancy a rest from cooking a fancy meal. Bacon, sausages (from the same butcher), chips or sometimes hasselback potatoes, tomatoes and brown (never tomato) sauce. This is known as a "Full English Breakfast", and yes, we have it for dinner. So, Our family all sit down together, in the evening, for a full cooked breakfast. The exact opposite from the Pitt family. Does that make us weird? Would we fail a zombie apocalypse because we eat our bacon in the evening and just a cup of grapefruit juice in the morning. Is this why Pitt succeeds? He has a belly full of pancakes and bacon to give him the fuel to fight the zombie horde! Anyway, the question still stands. Do Americans really eat bacon and pancakes together for breakfast?

To tell you the truth, I wrote the above before watching the film, assuming it would be crap. Then I could say "whatever you think of the review at least it's more interesting then the movie". Well, I was wrong. It's not your classic zombie movie however. It's an overly long, coincidence packed, flashy disaster movie with zombies in it and it's really good fun.

Fun coincidence(?) to look out for: Peter Capaldi plays a doctor at a WHO facility near Cardiff!

Original letterboxd review

The Stink of Flesh (2005)

Knocking another film off my DVD List of Shame

A disparate group of people end up in a ranch with a pair of sexual deviants and a woman with a conjoined sister growing in her side during a zombie apocalypse.

In this film the humans are way more fucked up than the zombies and this is what the story focuses on. That's not to say we don't get treated to oodles of latex and corn-syrup blood though. Some great dialogue, decent but occasionally terrible acting and a corking soundtrack (think Calexico crossed with the Gun Club) make this movie a treat for lovers of exploitation, zombie and cheap-ass horror films. Excellent stuff!

Original letterboxd review