Here’s a Japanese contribution to the genre. VERSUS is a zombie flick with the proverbial samurai works thrown in. Set in modern times (or at least the year 2000), this revolves around a group of gangsters who, unwittingly, are positioned right by the portal in the woods where all hell was about to break loose.
And it did…
The dead buried in the woods come alive to seek revenge. Swords and bullets galore!
To complicate the already grave situation, one of the gangsters had used the ground as a dumping station for all the doomed individuals whom he had killed.
Bad move… Now the buried are alive and smacking their rotten lips for revenge…
Okay… this next movie, 28 Days Later, may have the zombie purists gagging since it does not exactly fit the classical zombie mold. With the dead coming back alive that is. Instead a biological virus starts the transformation of the living into the dreaded gruesome monsters. Further, a different take on the classical zombie rule… These suckers move fast.
28 Days Later almost set the precedence for fast moving zombies. Maybe someone finally asked the question “Why can’t these folks get away from such slow-moving sloths in rotting human form?”
Good question… and I guess someone listened.
We can’t finish today’s blog without giving some credit to one of the newest zombie flick which I thought is a classic. ZOMBIELAND threw in the comedic dust in the gory storyline and the constant mixture of laughter and pursing of the lips with disgust was a unique experience. Again, it relies on some virus that transforms the living into the flesh-craving hellspawns.
Throw in Woody Harrelson, the Twinkie-craving modern-day Cowboy, and how can you go wrong! Hilarity to the hilt!
And the final battleground inside the amusement park is the perfect zombie-killing playground!
The page today will be dedicated to zombie movies from across the Atlantic.
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The next movie to be discussed is VIRUS. A European make, directed by Bruno Mattei, this movie has a message within its story, unlike most of the zombie movies. Just to put out the summary of all summaries out there… a chemical leak turns the staff and employees of an organization in Papua New Guinea into flesh-craving zombies. Of course, the mishap spreads like a virus and before you know it… you have an island full of hungry zombies…
Oh yea… the message here was that if you don’t take care of the 3rd World countries, they will take care of you…
We can’t talk about zombie movies without talking about LUCIO FULCI – the Italian horror maestro and his classics. One of Fulci’s classic is CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (aka GATES OF HELL).
After a priest hangs himself in the cemetery, he opens the doorway for the living dead to be revived and cause havoc on this terrestrial plane. What makes these zombies unique is that they can teleport and levitate too!
Supernatural Zombies!
A psychic and a journalist realize that this was just the beginning of the prophecy of the Book of Enoch and that it is up to them to plug the Hell’s portal by All Saint’s Day before the spirits of the dead take over the living…
Okay… you probably will deduce that I like Fulci when I bring up this next movie…
ZOMBI 2
ZOMBI 2 actually catapulted Fulci to a throne in the Horror Movie Kingdom. The gore and violence in the movie was too much for the then Conservative British Parliament.
An abandoned yacht drifting into the New York Harbor. The problem was that the yacht was not exactly empty…
Here’s the trailer for the movie.
There are two unforgettable scenes in the movie. A zombie fighting a tiger shark! First one at that.
And an eyeball being gouged out by a splintered wood…
Yes… you are correct. This blog vent will be devoted to Zombies. Specifically, Zombies in movies. I have to concede to the fact that the discussion can only be done in 2 parts. We start with Part 1.
Before we start… a disclaimer. Due to the fact that there are tons of zombie movies out there and covering even 50% of them will yield a 2-inch thick book, we are not able to cover all of them for obvious reasons.
And I would like to start with the Grand Pooba of them all… WHITE ZOMBIE. That’s right. Before I Walked With A Zombie. Before 28 Days Later. Before Lucio Fulci’s Zombie… And yes, even before Night Of The Living Dead… there was WHITE ZOMBIE.
Starring the legendary Bela Lugosi, this 1932 classic indeed set the foundation for future efforts. The zombies were actually scary (considering this was made in the 30s). And, most importantly, WHITE ZOMBIE set the rule that you can’t kill a zombie by shooting him/her (or it) in the chest. The movie also inspired the creation of a rock band!
I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943). Just a little deviation from the stereotypical flesh-and-bone-gnawing monsters. Christine Gordon stars as the one of the most beautiful “zombies” on the silverscreen. She does not gnash her teeth or walk around with a blood-smeared face. Darby Jones stars as a convincing zombie slave. Not just pure gore. Penned by Curt Simak (the screenplay author of the original “Wolfman”), the movie features intrigue and suspense.
Next in line is an European offer – LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE (1974). AKA LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE. This movie has it all. Cops. Hippies. Dangers of Pesticides. And of course… dead people rejuvenating as Zombies! This movie, as I see it, has got one of the longest flesh-gnawing sequence in celluloid. Pretty graphic… if you are into that kinda stuff.
Okay… I confess… this is not truly a vampire story but a vampire is involved. My memory of this incident started tripping back after I saw a couple of neatly-dressed kids doing the God’s work, knocking door after another.
And my memory raced to that day, way back in time, when I was back in college, when I had an unusual experience with the Bible-carrying evangelists. Yep, back in the good ol’ days when a crisis was defined as trying to get the term paper completed the night before D-Day.
I was living in an apartment then and I was also lucky enough to land up with an apartment mate who shared my interest of science fiction and horror movies and books. See… back then, as I am today, science fiction and horror revolved around my passion.
We had books that reflected our passion. Stephen King, Ben Bova, Isaac Asimov, Poe, Daniel Koontz, and tons of others. Being college students, with limited funds, we had fashioned our own version of a bookshelf. Planks of wood separated by cinder blocks. We had constructed our book shelf in the living room, next to the television and had even decorated it with 2 black candles which were fashioned as bookends.
One afternoon, it was the Halloween season if I remember right, my apartment mate and I were done with our college chores and were relaxing watching television. The TBS Channel was going full force with horror movies to align with the season. Both of us were thrilled and it reached a crescendo when we realized that “Salem’s Lot”, one of our all-time favorite was showing. This was the rerun of the old, classical version. With David Soul, James Mason, and other actors of the late 70s. By the way, I still love that version.
Anyway, we were deeply involved with the movie, with our eyeballs transfixed to the small screen in front of us. We had ample chocolate cookies and milk on the coffee table.
We were prepared.
No need to take any food break during the long movie.
Though we both had watched that movie several times before, we always anticipated the scene when Barlow first appears on the screen. Now, this was a vampire who scared the hell out of you. Nothing remotely good looking about him. And no romance involved, except for his only passion of self-preservation and the selfish want of turning the town of Salem’s Lot into a horde of blood-sucking freaks.
We were just minutes away from that much-awaited scene when there was a couple of knocks on the door!
No… not now.
We both set on the couch, still staring at the TV screen, hoping against all hopes that we had imagined those knocks. As if to dash our hopes, the knocks came again.
We looked at each other and since I was the closest one to the evil-looking door, I got up and walked towards the door, grumbling obscene comments under my breath. The knocks were more desperate-sounding now.
“Alright… I’m coming… I’m coming…” I yelled. I finally reached the door which had seemed like it was a mile away, even though it was only a few steps away from the couch in our crunched-up living room. I opened the door and there they were…
Two neatly-dressed teenagers holding bibles in their hands. All of a sudden, the smiles on their faces melted away as their eyes widened. Widened to the point that their eyeballs seemed to be popping out of their sockets! That sudden transition, actually startled me.
We stood there looking at one another for a few seconds and finally the boys broke the silence. “We…we… will be back… later… Sorry to have bothered you… Sorry…” said one of the,. Without missing a beat, both of them did an about-turn in unison and marched away hastily.
“What was that all about?!” my inner voice questioned me, as I closed the door. I turned around and it suddenly occurred to me. We had scared the boys away! The horror books displayed. The black candles that guarded them. The Vampire Barlow showing up with his grisly fangs on the TV Screen at the moment I opened the door, and lastly that cruel look on my face must have been too much for them.
They had high-tailed out of there, probably scared out of their wits. They had probably decided that we were lost boys – who will never have the chance of redeeming our souls. Upon realizing what had happened, my apartment mate and I started laughing until we were both holding our abdomens, rolling on the carpeted. The startled look on the boys faces flashed before us over and over again. What a precious vision!
Even, sinister-looking Barlow was forgotten for the moment.
We never did see them in our neighborhood after that incident. Hope we had not scared them away from their spiritual task forever.
I remember that unusual experience every time I see a couple of well-dressed young men with bibles in their hands. And I wonder if they will come across a house with a book shelf lined with horror books. With black candles. And a horror movie on TV…
For those not familiar with the classic version of made-for-TV movie…
And check out our website at the following link for horror-related merchandise.
Before there was TV and DVD and
such, there was Radio! People actually huddled around the gigantic radio (some
were the size of the “ancient” console TVs) listening to their favorite radio
show. Casting the visuals within their neurons. Hard to imagine huh? I
thought so too so long ago. Until I had an enlightening experience with the
interesting realm known as “Old Time Radio”…
I actually got into the OTR
phenomenon by accident. About twenty years ago, I was visiting a friend who was
living in a small town in Arkansas, a 45-minute drive from where I used to
live. We had such a good time fishing, barbecuing, jaw-flapping, and stuff that
I let the time and the Sun slip by. Before I knew it, it was past midnight when
I got into my Monte Carlo to head back home. The radio portion of my
radio-cassette stereo was not working and to make things worse, I did not bring
any cassette tapes (this is right before the CD era) to listen to on my lonely
ride home in the deserted, dark country roads.
My friend, hearing me griping
about the situation, tossed a cassette to me. It was a cassette on an Old Time
Radio show called “House On Cypress Canyon” from the Suspense series. My gripes
climbed a pitch higher and I told him that I did not want to listen to some show
from when my Dad was knee-high to a grasshopper. But he persuaded me to take it
along and since I did not have much of a choice anyway, I reluctantly cranked my
ignition and inserted the tape into my car stereo as I looked towards the dark
road ahead.
Now mind you… this is a
well-seasoned but still functional 1978 Monte Carlo I was driving… the size of a
little boat… and I had cranked up the volume to keep myself from falling asleep
at the wheel. To tell you the truth, I didn’t have to… I am still getting the
goosebumps as I write this note as I recall the feeling I had listening to
“House On Cypress Canyon”. Without revealing much of the story, let me just say
it is about werewolves… The story, the sound effects, the actors, the loud back
speakers of my Monte Carlo, the dark road in front of me made the whole
experience chilling. I recall feeling my heart thumps finally slowing down when
the tale finally ended.
Then I flipped to the other
side of the tape…
Bad move…
Little did I realize that I was
in for the thrill and chill ride all over again! This time it was a tale named
“Four fingers and a thumb” from the Witch’s Tale series. You guessed it… it is
a tale about a severed hand crawling around… It spooked me so much that I kept
looking into my rearview mirror to check if there was any movement from my
backseats!
I actually drove around the
town for about 15 minutes before I pulled into my driveway just so I could
finish that tale! I was hooked! I never, in my wildest imagination, thought
that old time radio shows can be that captivating.
Thus started my venture into
the wonderful world of OTR collection. First with horror, suspense, and sci-fi
shows and eventually into the other genres. I have collected tens of thousands
of shows from the various genres and series over the years.
If you are interested in great
“futuristic” old time radio shows – Buck Rogers, Dimension X, Time Travel tales,
Space Travel tales, Mars tales, H.G. Wells tales, Ray Bradbury tales, Isaac
Asimov tales, Robert Heinlein tales, Clifford Simak tales, and plenty more –
click on the link below.
A few weeks back, I had the chance to go watch “Clash Of The Titans” starring Sam Worthington (the AVATAR guy) as Perseus. Yeah, the hype was that it was in 3-D. And that the CGI special effects were awesome!
To tell you the truth, as the movie ended, I walked out of the theater feeling disappointed. Good thing that I watched it during a weekday before noon which caused me only $5.00 instead of the $9.00 (if I had watched it over the weekend). In fact, I was so disappointed that I had to desperately insert the 1980s version that evening to sooth my troubled mind.
It was the panacea. What a difference!
Sure the 80s version was stop-motion animation. Sure it was a little artificial looking sometimes. But it was gold! Because it was the work of Ray HarryHausen – the maestro of stop-motion animation special effects.
There have been several stop-motion animation wonders through the celluloid years. The 1925 version of Lost World introduced Willis O’Brien to the world and he perfected the art with the all-time classic King Kong in 1932.
But it was Ray HarryHausen who brought the skilled art to a higher level. His first celluloid success was in Mighty Joe Young (1949) interestingly with Willis O’Brien. Mighty Joe Young won Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
Other classics by the maestro followed. Here are a few of his accomplishments – Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, It Came From Beneath The Sea, Earth Vs The Flying Saucers, 20 Million Miles To Earth, Valley Of Gwangi, the Sinbad series (7th Voyage Of Sinbad, Golden Voyage Of Sinbad, Sinbad & The Eye Of Tiger), Jason & The Argonauts, Clash Of The Titans, One Million B.C.
Why does stop-motion animation still thrill me?
I don’t exactly know.
Maybe it’s the tremendous patience needed to get it working. Bend a part of the figurine a little. Snap a picture. Bend it a little more. Snap a picture. Repeat it about a gazillion times. I actually did this with a toy robot and I remember it being hard.
Maybe it’s the meticulous “storyboard” vision that is needed. How will the moving figurine fit with the live actors? And look realistic.
My brain hurts just thinking about all the work involved!
My hats off to the maestro for his patience and skill.
Maybe it’s the thrilling, warm feeling I still get remembering the times when a mouth-gaping mini-me watched the dinosaurs and monsters growling for the first time. Maybe that’s it…
Here’s a sample of the magic involved. This is the skeleton army battle scene from Jason and the Argonauts. Courtesy of Hausen. Amazing!
No. I’m not against CGI. I love it. I appreciate the hard work and vision needed for the task. I’m still shaking my head in wonder watching every frame of AVATAR.
But I will always have a soft spot for the good ‘ol stop-motion animation which I’m afraid is becoming a disappearing art.
Just as a parting gift, here’s another of Hausen’s wonderful rendition. Sinbad’s fight with
the multi-armed Kali…
Continuing on the theme of the TV Heroes from my childhood
days, here is another funny and memorable incident from the innocent times.
Even before the Six Million Dollar Man days, growing up, my
brother and I were hardy fans of the TV Batman & Robin (starring Adam West &
Burt Ward) series. Yes, it was a campy rendition of the dynamic duo but we were
kids and for some reason, don’t ask why, campy heroes work great for kids.
Anyway, after watching each “batty” episode, my brother and
I would imitate the adventures of our heroes using imaginary villains and our
own sound effects. As children, we were blessed with batman memorabilia of all
sorts. Trading cards, action figures (along with the sleek-looking batmobile).
But the pride possession for my brother and I were two huge inflatable toys of
the dynamic duo. They were life size. At least… they were our size.
I can’t remember exactly how but some pinholes appeared in
the inflatable toys, causing the air to leak out of the toys. Being geniuses
though, my brother and I found another use for the deflated toys. We cut holes
around the eye areas and made long slits along the back of the toy so that we
could slip into the plastic “costume”. Being almost the exact size as the toys,
we had a ready made costume!
My brother and I were in our dynamic duo mode one day, with
our costumes on. By the way, I was Batman and my younger brother was Robin. As
we were “beating up” our imaginary villains with the proverbial pow, kaboom, and
zonks, we could hear Mom coming down the corridor during her house cleaning
round.
My brother and I came up with an ingenious idea. We would
get into the corner of the room and stand like statues and pretend we were the
actual inflatable toys. We froze in the corner and, as expected. our Mom came
into the room. She has no idea that her two boys were actually inside the
modified toys. She went round cleaning the room, humming innocently to some
tune.
Soon, she was standing next to us, dusting off the end
table. Like striking ninjas, my brother and I reached out and touched her on
the arm. We were expecting her to be startled but what we got was a human
jumping bean and I kid you not, she must have jumped 3 foot up in the air!
All hell broke loose in that room that day. Needless to
say, the feather duster that she had been holding for her house-cleaning chores
magically became a makeshift switch with my brother and I as the intended
targets.
This much I can say… It was not easy trying to run away
from an enraged Mom when you were inside a plastic costume…
And it still hurt even if you are in a Superhero costume…
More specifically, Planet Of The Apes (1968) vs Planet Of
The Apes (2001). This was a tough one. Especially for someone who has always
been a Planet Of The Apes fan. Here’s the humble attempt in trying to pick one
over the other.
I was fascinated as a kid by the movie, and the concept and
theme behind it, when I first watched it. I’m talking about the 1968 version
here. Can anyone say anything bad about the makeup (by John Chambers)? Come
on… what a piece of miracle on the silverscreen. Remember this was back in
1968!
Charlton Heston as the humbled human, the jaw-dropping
make-up, the taglines in the movie, and the final climax that was originally
penned by Rod Serling (yeah the Twilight Zone Guy) will always be etched in film
history for years to come. It was such a big hit that it spawned several
sequels. And it deserved it.
Now comes the 2001 version. Yeah it was great. Yeah Rick
Baker did an amazing job of attempting prosthetic make-up in this age of CGI
(even guest-staring as a stoned Chimp in the early sequence of the movie). But
the storyline…
Unfortunately, it did not hammer my neurons much. Sad to
say. Unlike the 1968 version which had my brain juice kicking like it was in a
frantic soccer game. Let’s face it… Sci-Fi addicts like us, need some theme
that should weave all the fantastic ideas together. I never saw that in this
modern remake. And the ending… I’m still confused by it, let alone disappointed
that it did not cause me to gasp. Then again, it is hard to beat the original.
I guess that most of the moviegoers agreed with me. The
new remake was a boxoffice hit but did not reach the barometer level to spawn
sequels. Though a prequel is set for Summer 2011.
I guess any amount of fantastic and futuristic ideas
without any theme/moral to bind it together is not going to reach its full
potential.
I was watching a kid the other day, playing, mimicking his hero – Superman. He had the cute outfit on and was running against the wind, his
fluttering cape following him loyally. And a smile broke out on my face as it brought back memories from yesteryears – my childhood.
When I had my own hero…
My hero growing up was the Six Million Dollar Man. Also known as Steve Austin, the astronaut turned bionic man who was rebuilt after his near-fatal accident that caused him his left eye, right arm, and both is legs. He was rebuilt at the cost of… you guessed it… Six Million Dollars.
I remembered being glued to the TV screen watching the wonderful feats my hero did week after week. Steve (played by Lee Majors) was larger than usual. Faster and stronger than anyone I knew. He could run faster than a speeding sports car. He can jump over a 20-foot electrified fence with ease. No jail can hold him in. He can spot danger from a mile away.
In short, he was invincible.
I remember (and embarrassingly confess) arguing with my childhood friends that the Six Million Dollar Man was more heroic than Spiderman or Superman!
I remember watching it a few years back as a retro re-run on the SciFi Channel and I must confess, it looks a little corny now. But I guess you can never fully get rid of the childhood memories and warm fuzzy feelings that still linger when I remember watching it on TV as a kid with chocolate milk and a cookie on the coffee table.
Steve Austin made me feel invincible.
Made me feel like I can excel in that long jump and high jump competitions in school.
I guess every kid, just like that one kid who was racing against the wind, pretending to be the strongest man alive, every kid must have a hero s/he has to emulate. To boost the confidence and juice up the imagination machine. Let’s all have our own heroes. Heroes who will bring out the positive alter-ego in all of us
to do the right thing.
One night, I saw him standing by the doorway. Or should I say, I saw his silhouette framed across the open doorway. It was strange as the outline of the silhouette was blurred, almost hazy. I recognized that frame. Tall. Lanky and a little stooped at the shoulders. And then with his steely voice, he called out my name. I got up to welcome him and that was when I heard the yelp of my little pooch. See, my little dog has the habit of laying on my tummy when we go to bed and she had been startled with the sudden jerk of my body trying to get up.
I had been dreaming. Dreaming about my uncle waiting at the doorway. Dreaming about him calling me.
But it all seemed real. Very real. I had a sleepless session, for the rest of the night. The next morning, I had a phone call. It was a call from my Dad.
Somehow, I knew there would be.
Trying to sound brave and collected, he informed me that my uncle had passed away. My uncle had returned home from the fields around noon (his time) and had got into his rocking chair for a while to rest his eyes. Unfortunately, it was the dreaded eternal rest.
My Dad, in between muffled sobs, mentioned that my uncle had longed to see me one more time and had been badgering my Dad to make it happen every time he had called.
I guess my uncle got his chance. One last time.
Any guess on when his spirit left his shell of a body?
