Movies From Mars

This one went under a whole slew of titles including Ghost Ship Of The Blind Dead, Ghost Galleon, Horror Of The Zombies and many more but to keep things simple I like to call it Blind Dead 3 which it also went under.

Personally I am a fan of The Blind Dead movies but this one is by far the worst of the bunch. This time around the skeletal, Templar-Zombies are aboard an old ghost-ship which is apparently "in a different dimension". Some bikini models are lured out of the fog and into the old-time galleon where the zombified Templars will feast on their flesh. Trust me, it sounds a lot better then it really is.

The main problem with this installment in the series is that there is way to much talky talk and not enough violence and gore. The whole thing tends to get a bit tiring with endless scenes of creeping around the old ship and constant chit chat.

 Jesus Franco veteran Jack Taylor shows up in this one as the mastermind behind a publicity stunt that is supposed to bring the models wealth and fame but he seems to come off more like a crime-lord. The truth is that his character doesn't bring much to this film either. It all comes off pretty weird and confused and in the end it makes for a pretty forgettable experience. The only things worth noting in the film is a couple of bikini clad bimbos and of course the awesome looking zombies themselves. There is a bit of gore in a decapitation scene where we watch the Templar's munch on the flesh of a pretty blond girl but other then that even the zombies seem pretty confused. Wait... If these guys are hungry for human flesh why did they just throw that girls body overboard? Maybe they have some pals down there on the ocean floor like in Lucio Fulci's Zombi.

Ghost Galleon is only worth owning for those who want to complete their Blind Dead collection. It is offered on many public domain DVD packs for about a dollar and that is probably all it is worth.

What a piece of shit this is! Doc Of The Dead is supposed to be an in depth documentary on zombie films and the zombie obsessed phenomena that has taken over America.

 The lame-brains behind this crap-fest attempts to go back in history and look at the origins of the zombie film. Well they do go back and look at stuff like White Zombie and even a bit of the 50's stuff like Invisible Invaders then of course it brings us to the George A. Romero flesh eating zombies of modern day. What it fails to do is mention any of the rare cult films in the genre. No mention of people like Lucio Fulci or the Tombs Of The Blind Dead or Let Sleeping Corpses Lie. Instead it sticks with the oh so familiar Hollywood zombie films that the teens at the local mall probably have saved on their cellphones and the retarded zombie-loving youth who go on zombie-walks and do zombie car washes. God help us! As if this wasn't all bad enough Doc Of The Dead is jam packed with the worst music I have ever heard in my life. We get a bunch of shitty songs and really awful comedy segments with typical zombie film cliches. How about you show some cool scenes from the few good zombie films there are out there?

Personally I think the zombie genre as a whole is complete shit. Of course there are some great movies in the genre, like Romero's films and some of the splattery 80's stuff like Re-Animator but no other genre has ever spawned so much crap. Any dick-head with a camera chooses to make a zombie flick as their first feature. All they need is a cellphone and few equally retarded friends. Even the slasher genre has not spawned as much embarrassing shit.

The thing I found most interesting about this thing was that all of the old timers like Romero and Tom Savini are on the same page as me. They don't understand this obsession with zombies and these are the few guys who did it right. What is a zombie fan anyway? Is it someone who likes horror movies? Of course not! They are dumb teeny-boppers who discovered The Walking Dead on television and delved into some of the modern crap like Shaun Of The Dead or worse yet these crappy cgi infested zombie movies that they shit out every other day into our equally crappy multiplexes.

Wash off your zombie makeup, take that dumb bumper sticker off of your car and throw away your zombie survival guide. For anyone who are into the classic zombie films from the good ole days, don't waste your time with Doc Of The Dead.

Return Of The Living Dead has become one of the largest cult films in the zombie film genre. The reason is probably because it appeals to multiple groups of people. Due to its punk rock soundtrack and bleak message which goes against structure, police and of course the military, Return Of The Living Dead has a large following of punk rockers but it also appeals to those who prefer silly 80's mayhem in their horror films and of course the zombie fanatics hold this one close to their hearts as well.

Being a young horror obsessed teenage punk rocker myself at one time I have seen this movie countless times on video but last night I saw it for the first time on the big screen with an audience. The seats were jam packed with punks and horror-freaks who knew just about every line to the movie. "What do you think this is a fucking costume? Its a way of life!" It played on a double bill with Re-Animator which came out the same year and is equally fun when it comes to 80's zombie cult flicks.

Dan O'Bannon's follow up to Night Of The Living Dead involves a bunch of young punk rockers who barricade themselves inside a mortuary while fighting off droves of brain-eating zombies. Yep, in this one the zombies are very picky eaters and are not content on eating human flesh. It is strictly a human brains diet and in one mind-numbing scene a naked female zombie who is missing the bottom half of her body explains why they eat brains. Return Of The Living Dead is more of a comedy then anything you can take seriously and they are not the slow staggering George A. Romero type of zombies. So if zombies that run fast and speak is against your zombie religion or something, you should probably stay away from this one all together. However if you want to see scream queen Linnea Quigley get naked and dance on a tombstone before having her brains munched on by a bunch of rotten zombies, then this one might be for you.

This fast paced zombie-fest sports a soundtrack with The Cramps, 45 Grave and many more. We have midget zombies, a pick axe to the brain, multiple decapitations, dismemberment, brain munching, split dogs, dead cops and some naked breasts. Its an all around good time. If you like your zombie films to be more serious then stay away from this one and stick with Romero's Dawn Of The Dead and Day Of The Dead.

I first saw Pet Sematary as a young kid. I started watching it with my father but it was past my bed time and was forced to go to sleep. The next day I was eager to see the end of the film but my father didn't want to watch it again. He gave me the tape and told me to take it to the basement and finish it by myself. I was never so scared in my life. I ran upstairs terrified and couldn't finish the movie on my own. Pet Sematary has been a favorite of mine ever since.

 The thing that amazes me so much about Pet Sematary is that it seems to have so much going against it but it still managed to be a great horror movie. Not to sound like a sexist pig but female directors usually do not offer up a great product when it comes to horror films but this one is jam packed with creepy images and is a very morbid vision from start to finish. Also we all know that it is rare when a Stephen King adaption is worth a shit. Yet again Pet Sematary goes against the odds and perhaps most importantly this thing comes from the bowels of 1989 which is a horrible time for horror movies in Hollywood. With all these odds stacked against it, I think it is safe to say that Pet Sematary is a phenomenon of its own.

There is a certain level of cheese in this one. You have the character of Pascow who walks around with a shattered skull and is trying to help the family from falling victim to the evil ways of an ancient Indian burial ground and some of the acting is way over the top but even the cheesy moments are not done horribly. The dark, morbid, depressing flow easily washes away most of the embarrassing moments. Fred (Herman Munster) Gwynne shows up in this one as a beer drinking old timer who knows the secrets of The Pet Sematary. He offers up so many great lines in this movie. His screen presence is larger then life and its pretty hard not to love his character. The film also offers up a disturbing scene where a little boy gets hit by a truck, a suicide by hanging, some scalpel-violence, zombie-fu and the incredibly creepy character of Zelda. This character is the reason that at eight years old I ran upstairs and couldn't finish the movie on my own. She still creeps me out to this day. Of course the film also comes complete with a Romones soundtrack and thats cool on its own. We also have what is possibly the worst line in cinematic history "Today is thanksgiving day for cats. But only if they came back from the dead" What does that even mean?

  If I ever get stuck with a kid of my own I am going to be sure to have the little shit watch this one in the basement alone and continue family tradition. Keeping the spirit of Pet Sematary alive.

I recently saw this in the theater on a double bill with the great cult film Night Warning. The audience seemed to love the movies as much as I did and it got its well deserved applause. Pet Sematary is a timeless classic and it gets better with every viewing.

Nightmare City also known as City Of The Walking Dead is Umberto Lenzi at his best. Over the top gore is nothing new for the infamous Italian director. After the great Cannibal Ferox this one comes in a close second in the splatter department.

Nightmare City stars Hugo Stiglitz (Cyclone) in almost what can be considered an action role. He is amongst the first to learn that the city has been invaded by the walking dead. Armed with a machine gun Stiglitz goes to war with the ghouls and heads for the hills in a battle of survival. Nightmare City proves to be one of the most entertaining and fast paced Italian zombie flicks ever made. The violence is so gratuitous and over the top. The zombies look more like burn victims then anything from a standard zombie film and they are also extremely agile. They climb, jump, run and use anything they can find as a weapon (including guns).

This one is a laugh-riot from start to finish. It always gets a laugh when the zombies wipe their mouths after munching into some human flesh. Or when the surgeon suddenly becomes an expert in throwing knives and sends a scalpel flying into a zombies neck. The main focus is certainly bloodletting. In one of the most memorable scenes a chick in a workout leotard has her tit cut off by a zombie armed with a knife. The films climax is also highly entertaining. Almost 30 years before Zombieland, Nightmare City takes us to a carnival where we watch Hugo Stiglitz and his girlfriend fight off hordes of blood thirsty zombies atop a roller coaster. Heads explode, eyeballs are punctured, throats are slit, axes are buried into achy-breaky skulls and realism comes last. My kind of movie.

  Over the weekend I was lucky enough to catch this one under the stars at a drive-in with a few good friends. While people stayed inside their cars for most of the other films that played over the weekend, Nightmare City seemed to have brought most of the gore hounds out from behind their windshields. It was great to hear the crowds reaction to this cult classic. The film got all the laughs and cheers at the appropriate times. This was the first time I have ever seen Nightmare City with an audience and I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. Long live Umberto Lenzi, long live Nightmare City and as Joe Bob Briggs would say "The drive-in never dies". This one is a must see for anyone who loves Italian cinema, trashy zombie movies and splatter flicks.

Bob Clark would give us one of the best slasher movies ever made, Black Christmas. He would also give us one of the best comedies ever made, Porkys. However before he would go on to do those ground breaking genre flicks he would do what is arguably one of the worst zombie films ever made. At the very least it is one of the strangest zombie movies of all time. Its called Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things and man is this one weird!

I first watched this thing back in the VHS days. I must have been about 15 years old. The gory VHS box screamed take me home. It depicted a fat hippie in striped pants being mauled by a decrepit zombie. Needless to say in my teenage years I was totally disappointed. Not even sure if I made it all the way thru the film. All these years later I had another chance to see this thing. Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things was playing a weekend long zombie-fest at a drive-in somewhere in bumble-fuck America. This time around I saw the movie thru slightly different eyes. Perhaps it was just the fact that I was living out a life long fantasy of mine and seeing this thing in a old time drive-in amongst other weirdos but this time I almost enjoyed it. Almost!

The story involves a group of hippie types who take a boat to a creepy cemetery on a foggy island with the plans of raising the dead by prayer to Satan. These losers ought to be lined up and shot for multiple reasons. First off they are not children. They are adults. Why the hell would a bunch of young adults believe in magic and devils and stuff like that. Number two, they are the worst dressed group of morons I have ever seen in my life. Last but not least these ass-hats deserve a bullet for their annoying and seemingly endless dialogue. The whole first half of the movie we have to listen to these dip-shits go at each other with ancient witty humor. To say the least, I absolutely hate these dicks and wish painful, violent death on each character. Luckily for me, that is exactly what I got.

 So these dorks pray to the prince of darkness and try to bring a rotten corpse back to life. The corpse goes by the name of Orville and turns out to probably be the best character in the movie. Perhaps it is because Orville doesn't speak. Anyway Orville can be seen in all his glory in the poster on the left of this script. Orville is dragged into a old cabin and thrown about as if he were a toy. Hence the title, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things. These hippie kids have no respect for the dead so why should the dead respect them. Eventually Orville springs to life as a flesh eating zombie but so does the rest of the cemetery. The walking dead rip into our classless shit-head hippies one by one and devour their flesh and blood. The films strongest point is how good these walking corpses look. They look as good as the undead in Lucio Fulci's Zombi. Its almost to bad these zombies didn't get a chance to be in a better movie. What hurts the film is the seemingly endless talk that goes on between the hippies. Another problem is that there really isn't enough gore in the movie. While the zombies look fantastic there is very little of the red stuff. A bit of blood & guts goes a long way. There is also no nudity and not really any profanity. Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things received a PG rating which does seem a bit strange but I can understand why.

When its all said and done CSPWDT is one of the most bizarre PG, zombie, comedies of all time and for that it does deserve a look. Plus it is a pleasure to watch these people die. Now that is something that everyone can sink their teeth into!

If Bruno Mattei is known for any one thing, it is probably for being the biggest thief in cinema other then Quentin Tarantino. Never is this so blatant then in Hell Of The Living Dead. Bruno Mattei out right steals scenes, music and dialogue from George A. Romero's Dawn Of The Dead but ya know what? We love it!

Originally titled Virus and then Hell Of The Living Dead and Night Of The Zombies, not to be mistaken for the Joel M. Reed movie of the same title. Right from the films opening this thing screams Dawn Of The Dead but it was obvious that Mattei had alternate scripts. Hell Of The Living Dead jumps around like fleas on a rat and speaking of rats we do have a zombie-rat scene in which a scientist is gnawed to death by the killer rodent. Of course only four years later Mattei would release his most famous movie Rats : Night Of Terror. Anyway this zombie flick really is all over the place. We go from inner city viral outbreak to the jungle and back to the city and into rural suburbs and back to the amazon. It just seems very confused but some how it all works out. The jungle scenes seem more like a Italian cannibal film and blatantly rips off moments from Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust.

Despite the fact that Hell Of The Living Dead is basically cinema plagiarism, it manages to stay so damn entertaining. Maybe Bruno Mattei really knew what he was doing. Just take all the best elements from movies that are big hits. When Hell Of The Living Dead comes up in conversation usually somebody always says "oh yeah, thats the movie with the music from Dawn Of The Dead". Mattei shamelessly directly lifts Goblin's musical score for Dawn and why did he do this? Because he liked the music of course! It really is that simple with Mattei and while some may hate him for that and call him a hack, I rather enjoy his films and know I'm in for a cluster-fuck of ripoff entertainment when I go into one.

 While there is not any one thing that makes this movie so good, I do believe that the over the top violence, bad dialogue and sometimes nonsensical weird scenes really give this movie plenty of replay value. In one of the strangest moments a cat claws its way out of a dead womans stomach. Now I don't try to over analyze silly zombie flicks or anything but exactly how does a large cat get inside a dead womans stomach? There is just no logical answer for that but Bruno Mattei has no problem leaving it in his movie. Hell Of The Living Dead also sports what might be the most gratuitous nudity ever. It is almost comical when our lead actress first bares her boobs for us. Oh then there is the oddly reminiscent scene from Lucio Fulci's zombie film of the same year Gates Of Hell. When a woman begins to bleed from her eyes. Throw in some head explosions and a child zombie who eats his own father and you end up with a pretty fun movie. Hell Of The Living Dead is in my top five of Bruno Mattei films, right next to S.S. Girls, Womens Camp 119 and of course the great Women's Prison Massacre.

 

Its funny how our taste in cinema changes over the years. It can almost be related to lowering ones standards sexually as you grow older. Zombie Lake is a perfect example of a change in taste for me. I first discovered this particular piece of Eurotrash in my mid teens. I remember watching it with a few friends and being bored stiff. I just despised it in every way. Of course I have seen it many times since due to the fact that Zombie Lake does have a rather large cult following and it isn't an overly rare title. I have to admit that the movie has grown on me pretty well and now has its own little spot in my depraved heart.

When I saw the trailer for this I didn't expect anything all that spectacular. First off its from 2011. Secondly its very low budget. The only thing that made me want to see this movie at all is that it was obviously made by fan-boys and it would most likely play like one big throw back to a time when horror films were still watchable. That and of course the fact that it looked pretty raunchy.

Well I pretty much hit the nail right on the head. This schlocky monster comedy is a total fan-boy movie. Chillerama is an anthology horror movie homage to movies like Creepshow and Tales From The Crypt. The first flick is done in total bad taste and goes by the demented title of Wad-Zilla. Yep you guessed it... Wad-Zilla is a giant sperm monster who takes over NYC and leaves a slimy mess of destruction and carnage in its wake. This one is pretty damn funny in a very sick way. It holds this child like humor similar to something like Monsturd. So if you like childish potty humor you might actually enjoy this movie. Where it goes wrong is the massive use of CGI. It seems that these ass-hats behind Chillerama could not make up their mind if they were going to use practical special effects or use computer graphics. They end up using both and it makes for a pretty uneven mess in the end.

The next short feature is a mockery of the 50's Juvenile Delinquent films called I Was A Teenage Werebear which I didn't like at all. This one was obviously thought up by a homosexual and plays as a silly metaphor for gay adolescents coming to terms with the sexuality. In this case our gay lead is bitten on the ass in a wrestling match by a werebear and becomes a carnivorous homosexual. The theory is that when a Werebear becomes aroused he kills members of the same sex rather then facing up to his own sexual needs. This one is basically a cross between Rebel Without A Cause and of course I Was A Teenage Werewolf but it also throws in elements of those 60's Beach Party flicks. I didn't enjoy this one for multiple reasons. Despite the fact that it was over bearingly gay and lacks female flesh it just wasn't funny. We get all these stupid Grease like song and dance numbers which really sucked any of the life out of it that it could have possibly had. Then we have this dip-shit with a Justin Beeber flip cut and fucking hell I hate those haircuts. I never liked A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 2 and all of its homo antics but imagine if they threw in silly songs. It could drive one to suicide. This one just sucks.

Next up we got The Diary Of Anne Frankenstein which I thought was a very funny and very witty title. This one also has its ups and downs. It plays like a cross between They Saved Hitlers Brain and Frankenstein but never has the balls to be a Nazisploitation movie, to ensure that nobody gets their p.c. little feelings hurt. Since this short film was created mainly by Jews they chose to go the complete and total comedy route which is very typical of boring fucking film makers in this wretched decade of shit. Its to bad to because I kind of liked this movie. The whole cast speaks in German with the exception of Hitler who does a rather convincing job of faking it until he throws a random and ridiculous line in. Hitler creates a monster to kill off all the Jews but it turns on him when he learns he was built with the bodies of other dead Jews. Its pretty funny but a bit to wimpy to be great.

Last we have Zom-B-Movie which links all of the short films together and shows modern day geeks hanging out in a drive-in theater while zombies go on a sex crazed killing spree. This segment is full of naked female flesh and offers up castration, eye violence, exploding heads, flesh eating, penis eating and a whole lot of 50's homage. The worst thing about this segment is a pussy-boy, horror-geek with a 311 T shirt on. It was a honor to watch somebody in a 311 shirt get killed. I just wish I could do it myself some day.

This one brings back that sick childish charm that Wad-Zilla offered up. I would say the best audience for this movie would be fans of Monsturd which I actually do like very much. Young horror-nerds who have not yet become overly jaded and judgemental would also probably like this movie but die-hard exploitation fans and lovers of 50's, 60's and 70's schlock are bound to get annoyed a bunch with the non stop use of computer graphics and embarrassingly modern shenanigans that unfold on the screen.

I am not about to throw this movie away or call it a complete waste of money and time but it could have been vastly improved with a little more love and dedication to the oldies. Worth a look for fan-boys who can take a joke.

As usual when it comes to big budget Hollywood horror flicks that everyone loves it takes me forever to get around to see it and most of the time I want my hour and a half back once I finally do get around to it. Zombieland is one of those rare exceptions where I actually did enjoy the movie and now regret not seeing it four years earlier upon it theatrical release.

When Suan Of The Dead came out in 2004 it was a big hit amongst the new generation of horror-hounds. Many fans of the classics liked it a lot too. I thought it was a mediocre horror/comedy and didn't really understand the hype around it. Personally I feel Zombieland is a much more entertaining movie. Its more funny, more gory and overall just the better movie. Of course the massive and pointless use of computer graphics was its biggest down fault but this is something that is just unavoidable in the confused state of so called film making in the computerized 2000's.

The thing that makes Zombieland work so well is the fact that it is narrated. Our dorky main character has survived the zombie apocalypse which is amazing because he is afraid of everything from girls to public toilets and especially clowns. It is this super-nerds fears that have kept him alive all this time and right from the beginning he shares his technique with us through narration which is all done pretty comically.

Woody Harelson shows up as a zombie killing, Twinkie loving, Bill Murray fanatic. Woody makes killing zombies look like art. He uses a different weapon for just about every kill and he enjoys every minute of it. Emma Stone plays the leading lady and she is pretty nice to look at. Unfortunately Zombieland doesn't offer up any bare breasted action but we can only hope they will improve upon this in the sequel. Come on Emma Stone! Woody does get the chance to meet his hero and we are treated to the life and death of a zombified Bill Murray which was just fucking genius. Bill Murray takes Zombieland to a different level of ridiculousness and his performance is humorous to say the least. "I saw David Lee Roth the other day... Hes a zombie now".

Zombieland blends comedy and gore quite well. It offers up survival pointers such as "The double tap" which is an important rule to survive the zombie invasion. Don't ever assume your zombie is dead. Shoot em in the head again. We have plenty of these pointers throughout the movie and we also have the recurring talk about "Zombie kill of the week". The first time this subject comes up it takes place in a flashback where we see a senior citizen, grey haired, church woman kill a zombie with a falling piano booby trap.

Never during this movie do we ever feel like a main character might die. For this reason Zombieland is not a horror movie. It is clearly a comedy and for all those young zombie fanatics out there who like the Dawn Of The Dead remake and those stupid Resident Evil movies maybe Zombieland scares them but thats not surprising. I am just glad that somebody finally made a zombie comedy that isn't a total piece of shit. Of course Zombieland doesn't compete with a real zombie comedy like Return Of The Living Dead or even ultra low budgets from the past like Redneck Zombies but for a movie made in the modern age of shit cinema, you could do a lot worse.

I think I will catch the theatrical release of Zombielands follow up. "Fuck this clown"

If you crossed The Invisible Man with Night Of The Living Dead and had Ed Wood doing the narration you would end up with something like this. Of course Invisible Invaders came a good ten years before George A. Romero's classic gut munching zombie flick but one can't help but be reminded while watching this 50's monster-rama flick.

Invisible Invaders comes from exploitation madman Edward L. Cahn the man who directed It! The Terror From Beyond Space, Shake Rattle & Roll, Zombies Of Mora Tau, Dragstrip Girl and over a hundred other crazy titles. It stars John Agar and John Carradine and did I mention there are zombies?

Invisible Aliens come from the moon... Yes thats right, the moon to give the people of Earth a warning. The Earthlings have 24 hours to surrender or they will be annihilated by an invisible enemy. How do you fight an enemy that you can not see? Well the people of Earth being the stubborn morons that they are do not listen to the warning from outer space and within one day all of the nations are on fire and crumbling at the feet of the Invisible Invaders.

I suppose Invisible Invaders would have been a pretty boring movie if we could not see the aliens at all. Lucky for us these creatures from the moon enter dead bodies and roam the Earth. John Carradine shows up as a walking corpse and for this reason alone the movie gains some points on the cool-meter. You know you want to see a zombie version of John Carradine. Early on a zombie Carradine threatens that the people of Earth will be killed by dead men. "The dead will get up and kill" Sound a little familiar? Aside from Mr. Carradine John Agar shows up in a silly little space suit and rides around on the top of a white work van and shoots at the living dead.

Invisible Invaders also comes complete with some of the dumbest weapons I have seen in a movie since The Blob. We also have gratuitous use of Geiger Counters which always adds to every 50's monster movie. In one scene John Agar shoots a man in the head with a pistol and yes I did say he shoots a man not a zombie but for me this stuff all comes secondary to the stock footage of warfare, burning buildings and natural disaster. This is what really makes Invisible Invaders worth watching. The stock footage is extremely affective and almost helps us look past the overly cheesy Beast Of Yucca Flats type narration.

On a down note the film does tend to slow down a bit towards the end and we are cursed with very obnoxious sounds. The ear piercing sound effects are likely to kill the viewer and or wake the dead but this is a small price to pay for the over all insanity that is Invisible Invaders. A weird little time waster from the 50's.