Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Director: Edgar Wright

Writers: Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright

Composers: Dan Mudford, Pete Woodhead

Starring: Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield, Nick Frost, Lucy Davis, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton, Dylan Moran, Martin Freeman, Matt Lucas, Julia Davis, Mark Gatiss, David Walliams, Edgar Wright

More info: IMDb

Tagline: It's just one of those days when you're feeling a little...dead.

Plot: Life isn't too good for Shaun (Pegg). He lives with his best friend Ed (Frost), neglects his girlfriend Liz (Ashfield) and despises his step-dad (Nighy). When Liz dumps Shaun, he vows to get his life back on track. Unfortunatly, this is the day that the dead has decided to come back to life. With a cricket bat and Ed by his side, Shaun sets out to rescue those he loves and those he doesn't love, and heads to the safest place he knows...the Winchester.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Yes.

While this doesn't work so much as a horror film (it's not trying to be all that scary), it works wonderfully well as a comedy with a horror backdrop.  It's also funny in its own right regardless of the setting.  The cast, writing, direction, et al are equally fun.  It's not so much as a spoof, although they do have fun with zombie tropes, it's just a well-crafted comedy that's going for more than just a funny flick, it's a good movie period.

The Dead (2010)

Directors: Howard J. Ford, Jonathan Ford

Writers: Howard J. Ford, Jonathan Ford

Composer: Imran Ahmad

Starring: Rob Freeman, Prince David Oseia, David Dontoh, Ben Crowe, Glenn Salvage, Dan Morgon

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  The feeding begins.

Plot: An American mercenary, the sole survivor of a plane crash, has to run the gauntlet across Africa, battling with the living dead.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Maybe.

This British production filmed in Burkina Faso and Ghana (both in West Africa) is a breath of fresh air in the midst of a gazillion zombie movies.  It's great.  I loved it.  The music goes a long way in this picture.  It's more atmospheric than melodic and it works very, very well.  The cast is wonderful.  It's mostly just Freeman and Oseia (who work well together) but it's the small roles that shine in their performance and in their authenticity.  The locations are beautiful and unusual for the genre.  The zombie effects are well done, too, and from what I've read they're mostly practical effects.  It shows.  And one thing I enjoyed immensely is how quiet the zombies are.  They're shamblers and they don't make a sound.  No loud-ass gargling or vocal noises.  It's so nice to NOT HEAR them.  I find that more menacing and realistic (as long as we're suspending our disbelief that this is even possible).  Oh, and the story?  It boils down to two characters trying to survive long enough to reach their destination.  Nice ending, too.  Highly recommended.

Zombie A-Hole (2012)

Director: Dustin Mills

Writer: Dustin Mills

Composer: Jared Kaelber

Starring: Elizabeth Aweiker, Melissa Blair, Jessica Daniels, Josh Eal, Fuckin' Betty Fhite, Eugene Flynn, Elysia S. Gipson, Melissa Miels, Dustin Mills, Brandon Salkil, Harper St. Clare, Lindsey Vesperry

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Unstoppable... Unrelenting... Undead

Plot: This is the story of a religious cowboy, a lost soul, and a beautiful one-eyed grease monkey fixing to exact bloody vengeance on the same undead S.O.B. He's a low-down, dirty, disgusting, depraved, sadistic, psychotic, hell-bent, grade F, Zombie A-Hole who preys on naked twin girls. He ain't gonna know what hit him!

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again? Nah.

Right out of the box we've got a naked broad being chased by a maniac in the woods.  Great start.  But then you check the time and the movie's nearly two hours long.  That's a sign of trouble for a low budget horror movie.  Low budget brings with it acting that's all over the place but that's expected.  The puppetry is neat and so is the small snippet of animation.  I wish the guy who played the lead, Josh Eal as Frank, had more charisma.  For what this is, he's got moments where he's got some good line delivery but he's often monotone and that's not good.  More on the plus side, there's some gratuitous nudity (yay!) and the picture doesn't feel like it's almost two hours long.  Something must've gone right.  The ending didn't make up for much.  The filmmakers clearly want you to think of this as a grindhouse picture by the total use of dirty-ing up the film (which probably helps in places).  The title is great and the poster is fantastic but they add to the grindhouse nature of not delivering what they promise (I guess you could say the zombie is an asshole but aren't all of them?)  It probably sounds like I'm lambasting the flick but it's got some neat things in it and it's better than a lot of low budget horror flicks.  And I've seen some real stinkers.  Considering this is only the second film from writer/director Mills, his first being the very fun THE PUPPET MONSTER MASSACRE (2010), I'll continue to check out his work and see if things get better.

Land of the Dead (2005)

Director: George A. Romero

Writer: George A. Romero

Composers: Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek

Starring: Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento, Robert Joy, Eugene Clark, Joanne Boland, Tony Nappo, Pedro Miguel Arce, Sasha Roiz, Krista Bridges

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The dead shall inherit the Earth.

Plot: The living dead have taken over the world, and the last humans live in a walled city to protect themselves as they come to grips with the situation.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again?  Maybe.

Nice!  I watched this right after DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004) (the DVD set is paired with them) and I had a night of unexpected fun. I really didn't know what I was in for as I had low expectations for both.  DAWN (remake) was a serious horror film while LAND played up the cheese in the acting and dialogue but Romero knew what he was going for.  It's really fun.  Baker makes for a good lead and it's nice seeing Leguizamo in good form.  There's a sense of fun throughout the picture that I really appreciated and it helps the pacing, too.  Look for Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Tom Savini in zombie cameos.  Charlie (Joy) was a great character to get behind.  I liked his confidence.  The only thing that only a little got on my nerves was the incredible amount of times the vehicle Dead Reckoning was mentioned by name.  Say it once or twice and be done with it. Geez. I about lost it when someone did the Wilhelm scream but recreated it themselves instead of playing the 60 something old recording.  This isn't a film to be taken all that seriously and it's obviously meant to enjoy without looking at it too critically yet at the same time Romero is adding little bits of new mythology to his modern zombie.

Zombeavers (2014)

Director:  Jordan Rubin

Writers: Al Kaplan, Jordan Rubin, Jon Kaplan

Composers: Al Kaplan, Jon Kaplan

Starring: Rachel Melvin, Cortney Palm, Lexi Atkins, Hutch Dano, Jake Weary, Peter Gilroy, Rex Linn, Brent Briscoe, Phyllis Katz, Robert R. Shafer, Bill Burr, John Mayer, Jordan Rubin, Sonny Tanning, Fred Tatasciore, Chad Anderson

More info: IMDb

Tagline: You'll all be damned!

Plot: A fun weekend turns into madness and horror for a bunch of groupies looking for fun in a beaver infested swamp.

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

Hilarious.  From the first five minutes you know exactly what you're in for.  I kept thinking that there's no way they can continue this level of fun for the rest of the picture but they do.  The acting is quite good (I really liked Zoe (Palm) and her Juliette Lewis-ness (plus she's the only one of the bunch to take her top off but, really, it was her performance that won me...OK, the tits come in at a close second).  She's fun.  At first the three girls are annoying as fuck but they grow on you as the danger increases.  Of all of the 'kids' I couldn't stand Sam (Dano).  He's an asshole to the end.  Oddly enough, all of the non-kid characters are really fun even if they're idiots or assholes.  Fortunately, a lot of people die.  The beavers are great.  It's obvious that they're puppets but that just adds to the fun.  They're creatively handled and they work very well with the tone of the film.  The effects are fantastic.  One character loses a foot and you know they had to green screen the missing but it doesn't look cheap one bit.  The ending is great fun and I really hope they follow this up with what they set up at the end...zombees.  I want to see more from this team.  I went into this thing thinking it was going to be a lame, one-joke movie with some sub par acting, bad effects and slow pacing but it's not.  The film makers do an awful lot with such a small cast and minimal locations.  It's got an 80s vibe but it one-ups those pictures with the fast pacing.  I loved it. 

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Director: Zack Snyder

Writers: George A. Romero, James Gunn

Composer: Tyler Bates

Starring: Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, Mekhi Phifer, Ty Burrell, Michael Kelly, Kevin Zegers, Michael Barry, Lindy Booth, Jayne Eastwood, Bruce Bohne, Tom Savini, Ken Foree

More info: IMDb

Tagline: When the undead rise, civilization will fall.

Plot: A nurse, a policeman, a young married couple, a salesman, and other survivors of a worldwide plague that is producing aggressive, flesh-eating zombies, take refuge in a mega Midwestern shopping mall.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Maybe but I'll re-visit the original a few times first.

While it's not an easy task to remake a film as good as DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978), the people behind this one did a great job and made something worthy and still maintains a sense of fun and horror.  The cast is great.  Ving Rhames needs to be in everything.  Ty Burrell plays a deliciously selfish asshole and you know from his entrance that he needs to die. That adds to the fun of when and how.  I liked having Andy across the street and everything that happened between him and the group at the mall.  All of that stuff was really nicely played.  What surprised me most was how they avoided the massive amount of jump scares and dumb shit you find in 97% of modern horror movies, the kind of shit that'll ruin a film (at least for me).  It's Zack Snyder's first movie.  I didn't know that.  That guy's career skyrocketed pretty damn fast after this.  Then there's James Gunn's screenplay.  Good flick.

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead (2014)

Original title: Wyrmwood

Director: Kiah Roache-Turner

Writers: Kiah Roache-Turner, Tristan Roache-Turner

Composer: Michael Lira

Starring: Jay Gallagher, Bianca Bradey, Leon Burchill, Luke McKenzie, Yure Covich, Keith Agius, Catherine Terracini, Berynn Schwerdt, Meganne West, Cain Thompson

More info: IMDb

Plot: Barry is a talented mechanic and family man whose life is torn apart on the eve of a zombie apocalypse. His sister, Brooke, is kidnapped by a sinister team of gas-mask wearing soldiers & experimented on by a psychotic doctor. While Brooke plans her escape Barry goes out on the road to find her & teams up with Benny, a fellow survivor - together they must arm themselves and prepare to battle their way through hordes of flesh-eating monsters in a harsh Australian bushland.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Nope.

OK, this film requires A LOT of suspension of disbelief to the point the movie is ruined if you start to nitpick it.  And there's no explanation on how things happen (like the psychic thing or the flammable blood, etc). That doesn't mean it's a deal killer but I can easily see how a lot of folks will be bothered by this, myself included.  However, it is rather fun. There are some good laughs, neat kills, lots of blood and so on.  I have to give the film makers some credit, they did a great job with what they had to work with.  It's a great looking picture and I really liked the locations.  One thing that bugged me (other than what I listed above) is that the film was constantly shifting in and out of focus on the foreground and background.  Maybe it was done to add a little something style-wise to the flick but it would have been much more effective if it was used sparingly instead of all over the place.  It's not that bad of a picture and it's truly worth watching just for Leon Burchill who plays Benny.  I loved that character.  It's on Netflix streaming right now so if you've got it and you're a horror fan, at least check out the Australian zombie picture for the good things it does and try to get through the not so good.

Raving Maniacs (2005)

Director: Richard Griffin

Writers: Richard Griffin, Trent Haaga, Christine Peltier, Scott Phillips, Billy Garberina, Randy Marquis

Composer: Daniel Hildreth

Starring: Patrick Cohen, Emily Morettini, Andrew Vellenoweth, Christine, Peltier, Ryan Patrick Kenny, Jennifer Zigler, V. Orion Delwaterman, Edwin Cottle, Patrick Pitu, William DeCoff, Salvatore Marchese, Caleb Emerson

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Their agony is your ecstasy

Plot: There s a rave going on. It s gonna be great. Tuesday and her boyfriend J.T., and their friend Katie, and Katie s brother, are going out partying to the biggest rave in Providence, Rhode Island. Of course, the reckless kids become part of an alien plot to distribute some strange drugs among the ravers at the party.

My rating: 4/10

Will I watch it again? No.

If you've seen any prior posts of Richard Griffin's movies you'll know that I'm out to watch everything he's made simply because his NUN OF THAT (2009) is so fucking awesome.  A lot of these movies are pretty bad but I keep hoping to find another one that comes close to the greatness of NoT.  I'll keep looking. This is another low budget, indie horror that's got a thin plot, a little nudity and gore, some bad action, broad (mostly unfunny) humor and a synth score that doesn't work.  Like all of these, I watched it with friends and we tried to enjoy it on a base level but some scenes are hard to get through because they ran too long or the actors take too much time to deliver their lines.  It's like they only had enough time to get one take on some scenes because there's more than a few scenes where the actors take forever to get through their lines.  Cutting out one or two seconds by cutting to another actor or something would have done wonders to tighten this thing up.  As it is, it does have a few laughs and some skin to help you get through it but the drag is enough to get you reaching for the remote.  The Brain Damage DVD has a fullscreen print of the film.  The few extras include a photo reel, which is nothing more than still images taken from the film, a commentary with the writer/director Griffin and lead actor Cohen, and 14 trailers for Brain Dead indie horror releases.  Would it have killed them to have a 'play all' feature for these?  Geez.  I'm going to hold onto the DVD because I would like to hear the commentary and get some tips on making a movie, you know, the one that I keep saying I'm going to make but never get around to? 

World War Z (2013)

Director: Marc Forster

Writers: Max Brooks, Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard, Damon Lindelof, J. Michael Straczynski

Composer: Marco Beltrami

Starring: Brad Pitt, Mireillie Enos, Daniella Kertesz, James Badge Dale, Ludi Boeken, Matthew Fox, David Morse, Peter Capaldi,Abigail Hargrove, Fana Morkoena, Fabrizio Zacharee Guido

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Remember Philly!

Plot: United Nations employee Gerry Lane traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments, and threatening to destroy humanity itself.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? No.

I understand that this is nothing like the book it's based on so I don't have that holding me back.  As a movie it's not all that bad. The picture starts with a bang and doesn't let up for quite a while.  I dug that part of the ride.  Once the plane crashes and Gerry (Pitt) ends up at the laboratory, that's when things slow down to a crawl, we get to breathe a little and the film starts losing me.  The ending with how Pitt saves the world is mostly horseshit.  You don't just quickly find the solution like this and then take forever to justify it.  That long sequence almost makes the rest of the picture nothing more than a string of visually striking and exciting set pieces that are nothing more than really cool looking filler.  I liked those scenes but the ending felt like it was letting the air out of those tires by cheapening it. 

Necroville (2007)

Directors: Billy Garberina, Richard Griffin

Writers: Billy Garberina, Adam Jarmon Brown

Composer: ???

Starring: Billy Garberina, Adam Jarmon Brown, Mark Chavez, Brandy Bluejacket, Gene Grant, Scott Phillips, Kurly Tlapoyawa, Jeremy Owen, Thomas Severinghaus, Aaron Work, Kevin Santry

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves and one horrible girlfriend

Plot: In Necroville, a city overrun by zombies, vampires, werewolves, and other monsters, Jack and his best friend Alex find work at Zom-B-Gone, a monster extermination company. Battling the legions of the undead at work and desperately trying to please Penny -- his horrible, selfish girlfriend -- at home, Jack's two world's collide when Penny's ex-boyfriend returns to town, as the unholy master of a coven of bloodthirsty vampires.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? No.

In an effort to find a Richard Griffin picture as highly entertaining as NUN OF THAT (2009), I'm watching everything the man made.  He's a busy guy, directing 2-3 pictures a year.  So far it hasn't fared well. What I've seen beyond NUN was low budget, grade Z material.  But this film is showing some promise.  It's well-made (you know, for what it is) with a mixed bag of acting, it's a pretty good story and it's fun.  That's the most important part.  Like nearly all low budget films of this sort it has some pacing issues where it drags from time to time but it's largely a good time.  There are a few laughs that'll get you and some pretty good gore effects.  The sound effects (like gun shots and punches) could have been beefed up.  As they were, they were pretty weak.  I hate to nitpick on films like this but it felt like if this film got a little more attention in tweaking it here and there, it would have been even better.  As it is, I recommend it.  It's one of 4 Griffin horror pictures in a DVD set called, FEEDING THE MASSES HORROR COLLECTION.  I've got two more films to watch including SPLATTER DISCO (2007).  You can pick it up for under ten bucks on Amazon.  Is it worth it?  It is if you're into this kind of film making.

The Beyond (1981)

Original title: ...E tu Vivrai nel Terrore! L'aldila

AKA: Seven Doors of Death

Director: Lucio Fulci

Writers: Dardano Sacchetti, Giorgio Mariuzzo, Lucio Fulci

Composer: Fabio Frizzi, Walter E. Sear (U.S. version)

Starring: Catriona MacColl, David Warbeck, Cinzia Monreale, Antoine Saint-John, Veronica Lazar, Anthony Flees, Giovanni De Nava, Al Cliver, Michele Mirabella, Gianpaolo Saccarola, Maria Pia Marsala, Laura De Marchi

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Behind this doorway lie the terrifying and unspeakable secrets of hell. No one who sees it lives to describe it. And you shall live in darkness for all eternity.

Plot: A young woman inherits an old hotel in Louisiana where after a series of supernatural 'accidents', she learns that the building was built over one of the entrances to Hell.

My rating:6.5/10

Will I watch it again? Nah.

I haven't seen this in many years and it held up a little better this time.  Before I remember being disappointed in the special effects but I've grown to let stuff like that slide depending on the rest of the picture. Yeah, the makeup effects are lacking but there are a lot of them and that shows that they were trying to squeeze every dollar they could out of the budget to make this a bigger production.  It's got good atmosphere but it drags in a couple of spots and it's because of scenes going way too long.  The tarantula scene is a good example.  It's creepy as shit but it loses its effectiveness by going on and on and on.  Sad, too, because it's one of the better scenes in the picture.  There are some other nice moments but it's the pacing and drab vibe that holds it back from greatness. The ending when they get into Hell is pretty cool but it ends right there leaving you wanting more.  Now that I've seen it twice I think I can put it to rest for good.  There are far too many movies to watch for the first time that I'm OK not seeing it again. 

Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead (2014)

Original title: Dod Sno 2

Director: Tommy Wirkola

Writers: Vegar Hoel, Tommy Wirkola, Stig Frode Henriksen

Composer: Christian Wibe

Starring: Amrita Acharia, Carl-Magnus Adner, Jocelyn DeBoer, Laufrey Eliasdottir, Kristian Figenschow, Charlotte Frogner, Orjan Gamst, Ingar Helge Gimle, Tage Guddingsmo, Tomas Porhallur Guomudsson, Ingrid Haas, Daniel Berge Halvorsen, Stig Frode Henriksen, Vegar Hoel, Hallvard Holmen, Kristoffer Joner, Derek Mears, Christian Rubeck, David Skafjord, Martin Starr, Jesper Sundnes, Bjarte Tjostheim

More info: IMDb

Tagine: If the worst day of your life consisted of accidentally killing your girlfriend with an axe, chain-sawing your own arm off, and watching in horror as your closest friends were devoured by a zombified Nazi battalion, you'd have to assume that things couldn't get much worse. In Martin's case, that was only the beginning.

Plot:  The Nazis are back and their out to settle a 70 year old score to kill everyone living in a small Norwegian town and there's only a small band of folks that can stop them...with the help of 50 dead Soviet WWII soldiers brought back to life for the cause.

My rating: 8.5/10

Will I watch it again? JA!!!

Sundance Film Festival 2014

NAZI ZOMBIE SPOILERS AHEAD!  YARRRRRRR!!!

I caught the last showing of this at the Sundance Film Festival last night at midnight.  I was tired for sure but there was no way I came all this way not to see this, my most anticipated film at the festival.  I LOVED the first film, DEAD SNOW (2009).  It didn't do anything new but it was incredibly entertaining. What writer/director Wirkola did do with this sequel is create something cool and unusual, something you haven't seen before.  The first film was funny, very gory and had some great kills.  This time, though, everything had been amped up to 11.  It's hilarious from start to finish, gory as fuck all and it's got dozens upon dozens of fantastic kills.

Picking up where we left off at the end of the first picture with Martin, in a car trying to get away, with Nazi zombies surrounding him.  Well, he gets away but rips off Herzog's (Gamst), the Nazi zombie leader, arm off.  He narrowly escapes only to crash miles down the road.  He wakes up in a hospital room handcuffed to the bed.  Long story short, the coppers peg him as the murderer of all his friends and he's going to jail...oh, and while he was out the doctors attached his arm (you might remember his arm was bitten in the first film and he cut it off with a chainsaw) but it's the arm of Herzog.  This gives him super strength in that arm and special powers that enable him to bring the dead back to life as zombies.  That's just the first fifteen minutes and it's bugnuts fun.  I'll cut to the chase...he makes his way to a WWII museum where he finds out about Herzog's final task before his troops were killed was to kill everyone in this village as revenge for the recent sabotage of a German ship.  Now he's got to stop them...but how?  It also turns out that Herzog's men killed 50 Russian POW soldiers so now Martin must find the burial ground and bring them back to life to face off Herzog and his men who now have a tank and a growing army.

Did you get all of that?  This thing is epic.  Kids are killed (YES!!!), women, the handicapped, TONS of people die.  What a body count!!!  One of the most enjoyable parts of the picture was the large display of people snuffing it.  And the humor doesn't let up.  The jokes and gags flow like the Mississippi river.  If you haven't seen the first film, you owe it to yourself to check it out.  That and this sequel are fantastic movies to watch with a group of friends.  Oh, and one more thing, the film ends with probably the best use of Bonnie Tyler's song, Total Eclipse of the Heart.  The scene builds and builds to a laughter roaring climax.  I cannot wait to own this and show it to everyone I know...just like I did with DEAD SNOW four years ago.

City of the Living Dead (1980)

Original title:Paura Nella Citta dei Morti Viventi

AKA: The Gates of Hell

Director: Lucio Fulci

Writers: Lucio Fulci, dardano Sacchetti, H.P. Lovecraft

Composer: Fabio Frizzi

Starring: Christopher George, Catriona MacColl, Carlo De Mejo, Antonella Interlenghi, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Daniela Doria, Fabrizio Jovine, Luca Venantini, Michele Soavi

More info IMDb

Tagline: The Dead Shall Rise And Walk The Earth

Plot: In the small New England town of Dunwich, a priest commits suicide by hanging himself in the church cemetery which somehow opens the gates of hell allowing the dead to rise. Peter, a New York City reporter, teams up with a young psychic, named Mary, to travel to the town where they team up with another couple, psychiatrist Jerry and patient Sandra, to find a way to close the gates before All Saints Day or the dead all over the world will rise up and kill the living.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? No.

So-so Italian zombie movie with some good but sparse gore effects, a sometimes cool Fabio Frizzi score (the ending was the best), an adequate English dub but with a lot of little spots that dragged.  By the end I was hoping the gates of Hell would open up sooner and eat the living.  There was one thing I really dug...

MAGGOT STORM '80!!!

It's not a bad picture but the slow bits will put a lot of folks to sleep.  Here's a film that could have used some nudity and more blood & guts.  The Italians excelled at that.  Can anyone explain the final shot with the kid running toward the camera?  It seemed to me like it was supposed to be a 'gotcha' but I couldn't figure it out.  Did I fall asleep and not know it?

Dance of the Dead (2008)

Director: Gregg Bishop

Writer: Joe Ballarini

Composer: Kristopher Carter

Starring: Jared Kusnitz, Greyson Chadwick, Chandler Darby, Carissa capobianco, Randy McDowell, Michael Mammoliti, Mark Lynch, Justin Welborn, Mark Oliver, Blair Redfor, Lucas Till

More info: IMDb

Tagline: It's their night to come alive.

Plot: On the night of the big High-School Prom, the dead rise to eat the living, and the only people who can stop them are the losers who couldn't get dates to the dance.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? Yes, with a group.

It's not as great and funny as I was led to believe but it's got some funny as shit moments, great zombie gore effects and it flies by at just under an hour and a half.   The characters are stock stereotypes but there's some fun to be had with nearly all of them.  I liked what they did with the bully.  A despicable character like that has got to meet a nice end.  Try this one out with friends and liquor and have fun.  It's one of those movies that works best with a crowd.

Dead Meat (2004)

Director: Conor McMahon

Writer: Conor McMahon

Composer: John Gillooley

Starring: Marian Araujo, David Muyllaert, Eoin Whelan, David ryan, Amy Redmond, Kathryn Toolan, Ned Dennehy, John O'Connor

More info: IMDb

Tagline: It's not what you eat, it's who you eat!

Plot: Helena (Araújo) and her mate Martin (Ryan) are traveling by car through the County of Leitrim, Ireland, when Martin hits a man. He brings the body to his car, and the corpse returns to live and bites him. Helena looks for help in a cottage and is attacked inclusive by Martin. Sooner she realizes that the place is infested of zombies. She meets the gravedigger Desmond (Muyllaert) and they cross the countryside trying to find a safe place. They meet another couple and they become aware that the mad cow disease has infected humans transforming them in living dead.

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

This low budget zombie flick has a different take on the zombie origin, starting it with an outbreak of mad cow disease in Ireland.  The Irish location shooting is a big plus for the picture as there are some lovely countrysides and old, dilapidated buildings that have been there for hundreds of years.  There are a few nice moments of John Gillooley's score and there are moments when this picture looks and feels like a big budget production, but those are only brief spots and we're soon reminded of the budget limitations.  It's not a bad film but it does drag from time to time in an effort to reach its 80 minute length.  There is lots of gore which culminates in a huge zombie attack at the end.  The final 2 or 3 minutes was nice when the cleanup crew showed up and forced the survivors into a truck.  There was some good tension there.  It's worth a look if you dig zombie movies and would like to see one that's not made by a major studio.

Outpost: Black Sun (2012)

Director: Steve Barker

Starring: Richard Coyle, Clive Russell, Catherine Steadman, Michael Byrne, Julian Wadham, Nick Nevern, Daniel Caltagirone, David Gant, Paul Birchard

More info: IMDb

Tagline: War in Hell.

Plot: The year is 1945, the closing stages of WW2, and a German scientist by the name of Klausener is working on a frightening new technology that has the power to create an immortal Nazi army. Flash forward to present day, and a NATO task force is hurriedly deployed to Eastern Europe, where a sinister enemy appears to be mercilessly killing everything in its path. But this is no ordinary foe. Only Helena, a gutsy investigator on the trail of the notorious war-criminal Klausener, accepts the reality of that they are facing a battalion of Nazi Storm-Troopers, a veritable zombie army on the march. With the help of Wallace, a man who's been chasing Nazi secrets for years, the two of them team up with a Special Forces Unit to venture deep behind enemy lines. Their mission to fight their way back to the source of this evil army and prevent the seemingly inevitable rise of the 4th Reich.

My rating: 5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

What starts out promising (except that I felt Lena (Steadman) the Nazi hunter should have been at least a decade or two older) ends up in the retarded camp.  The military guys aren't memorable although they are likable.  But we're not meant to pay much attention to them as they're the vehicle the two main characters, Lena and Wallace, need to carry their stories through (which paves the way for the obvious sequel).  These two characters are fine but it's what happens to them in the end that's inexcusible.  In reality, they couldn't have survived and this picture has them left in such a way that I call bullshit.  No fucking way.  One thing I did like (besides these Nazi zombies are very fast) is the firefight between the Nazi zombies and the military guys at the farm house.  Steve Barker, the creator and director of the first OUTPOST (2008) which I really enjoyed, returned for this one but isn't back for the third film, OUTPOST: RISE OF THE SPETSNAZ (2013), due later this year.  I'll watch it.  I'm intrigued when the horror genre includes history or the Old West, shit like that.  I'll give it a shot but after seeing BLACK SUN, my expectations have been lowered considerably.

Demons 2 (1986)

Director: Lamberto Bava

Starring: David Edwin Knight, Nancy Brilli, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, Bobby Rhodes, Asia Argento, Virginia Bryant, Anita Bartolucci, Antonio Cantafora, Luisa Passega, Davide Marlotta

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The Nightmare Returns

Plot: A documentary is shown on TV of group of teens who investigate the legendary forbidden zone, in which a Demon infestation once took place (see DEMONS (1985)). When finding a lifeless corpse of a demon, one of the teens causes the resurrection of it, and the demon makes it's way into the nearby world by TV-broadcast... An unlucky girl, having her birthday-party at that time, gets possessed by the demon while watching the documentary and soon the entire building in which she lives turns into a living nightmare.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

Stand this movie on its own, without DEMONS (1985), and it's not too shabby.  But after having just watched the first film, this one doesn't hold up as well but it's still a lot of fun.

While this flick doesn't bring as much great gore as the first one, you do get demon kids and demon dogs.  I'll watch anything with demon kids in it.  I don't have any kids so I can take it.

I'm sure a lot of folks with kids think they're demons anyway so it'd be like watching home movies.  One cool effect was when the demon that gets the ball rolling comes out of the TV.

The effect is a lot cooler when you see it in motion.  I recommend this flick wholeheartedly.  DEMONS and DEMONS 2 make a great gorefest double feature. It's cheese but it's fun, bloody cheese.

Demons (1985)

Director: Lamberto Bava

Starring: Urbano Barberini, Natasha Hovey, Karl Zinny Fiore Argento, Paola Cozzo, Fabiola Toledo, Nicoletta Elmi

More info: IMDb

Tagline: They will make cemeteries their cathedrals and the cities will be your tombs.

Plot: A group of people are trapped in a large movie theater in West Berlin that is infected by ravenous demons who proceed to kill and posses the humans one-by-one, thereby multiplying their numbers.

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

#115 on Drive-In Delirium Volume 2 (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

Let's face it, a lot of Italian horror movies of the 80s look cheap and cheesy.  You're rarely going to find an amazing story, clever dialogue or quality acting.  But they are likely to deliver the gore goods more often and not and this one brings it in spades!

I can do that.

The first half hour has a clever setup going between the patrons of the theater arriving, seating and watching the movie with the movie itself.  At first I thought maybe the on screen movie was padding, as if it were extra footage from another movie cheaply used to fill time in this one.  But after a half hour that's no longer the case and the in-movie film makes a lot more sense.  The shit hits the fan in a big way and the demons/zombies are released into the theater in which everyone is trapped.

One thing that's worth pointing out is how great the effect is of when a person becomes a demon, their teeth are pushed out by the incoming fangs.  They pull this off a few times and it's impressive each time.

From this point on it's ON and every dollar spent is on the screen with the gore effects.  There's a shitload of blood, guts and everything in between and it barely lets up until the end.  This is one of those pictures you'll want to throw on with your friends.  The last 2/3 of the movie is fast paced, bloody as hell and fun.  I'm looking forward to seeing this one with a crowd.  The sequel's not too shabby, either.

Rise of the Zombies (2012)

Director: Nick Lyon

Starring: Mariel Hemingway, Ethan Suplee, LeVar Burton, Danny Trejo, Heather Hemmens, French Stewart, Chad Lindberg, Madonna Magee, Andy Clemence, Peter Ngo, Lilan Bowden

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Their Time Has Come!

Plot: During a zombie apocalypse ,a group of survivors hide on Alcatraz Island to escape from rising zombie hordes. When their refuge is overrun, and upon hearing that a scientist may have discovered a cure, they leave the island to seek him out.

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

For as low budget and poorly acted, I wasn't bored for a minute.  Yes, the dialogue is often hideous to the point that actors that have done much better before had trouble trying not to bring themselves down, but there's a ton of zombie action.  The effects are sometimes pretty bad but there's a shitload of zombie killing.  If that's not enough, Danny Trejo's in it.  This isn't going to take home any awards but it's an easy watch with friends.  Not tits, though.  Sad times.

Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse (2004)

Director: Alexander Witt

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Oded Fehr, Thomas Kretschmann, Sophie Vavasseur, Razaaq Adoti, Jared Harris, Mike Epps, Sandrine Holt

More info: IMDb

Tagline: You're all going to die

Plot: Alice awakes in Raccoon City, only to find it has become infested with zombies and monsters. With the help of Jill Valentine and Carlos Olivera, Alice must find a way out of the city before it is destroyed by a nuclear missile.

My rating:  5.5/10

Will I watch it again? No. In fact, I might be done with the franchise.

OK, I was reasonably satisfied with the first film but this one has got me wondering if I need to bother continuing with the series.  It's over the top but it's that stylish over the top with the industrial score and darkly lit settings that either works for you or it doesn't and fore me...it doesn't.  It's mostly one long chase with one fight after another with a few spots for a breather. The Jovovitch badass character is starting to run thin.  I guess I just want her to be less one dimensional.  Sienna Guillory didn't work for me.  Miscast?  I think so. I did feel pretty great about the scene where she's trying to be all badassy in slow motion and throws the matches to ignite the gas behind her and the matches blew out by the time they made their target at which point Alice tosses the cigarette to finish the job. The best part of the movie?

Not that, but since I'm already here...Milla? Please eat.  No, the best part of the movie was the final scene where you find out something that sets up the sequel and you're thinking, "Oh fucking hell yeah!", but after seeing this one I'm not so sure I want to continue.  I've got countless shitty movies to watch as it is.