WE ARE GOING TO EAT YOU… (Part 3)

Still on the “foreign” zombie kick…

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!

Still to be continued…

WE ARE GOING TO EAT YOU (PART 2)

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Continuing the Living Dead saga from yesterday…

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 3^rd 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…

Time to wrap it up again… More to come tomorrow…

WE ARE GOING TO EAT YOU! – Part 1

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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.

Movie Trailer for “Let Sleeping Corpses Lie”…

To Be Continued Tomorrow…