Entries Tagged 'Zombies' ↓

Return of the Living Dead Part II (1988) is a sequel in the same vein as Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II, meaning it's kind of a sequel but it's also kind of a remake. Director Ken Wiederhorn goes so far as to bring back RotLD actors James Karen and Thom Mathews. The character names and occupations are different (here they're grave robbers, not morgue attendants), but their personalities are essentially the same this go-round. When they begin spouting lines from the original film, you may begin to wonder why you're not just watching the original instead.

A drum containing a corpse and a batch of 245-Trioxin falls off an Army truck and ends up in a sewage pipe. A few curious kids poke at the barrel until it cracks; a toxic green cloud rises into the sky, there's a convenient insta-rainstorm, and before you can say "This seems familiar...", the dead are rising from their graves.

A few survivors band together, James Karen and Thom Mathews turn into zombies...why, the only thing missing here is a naked Linnea Quigley. Of course, I say that about most movies- but you know what I mean. Return of the Living Dead II swaps kids for punk rockers, but otherwise...yeah, we've seen this.

And that's kind of okay. If RotLD is 70% horror and 30% humor, RotLD II is the opposite. Everything here is played for laughs, from the zombies to the non-zombies. The zombies look straight outta Thriller, bad wigs and all- an MJ lookalike even busts out some moves at the end. Karen and Mathews are given little to do but scream, whine, and mug, but it's funny. Mind you, I adore James Karen so your mileage may vary.

All in all, it's a pleasant enough diversion, an above-average horror comedy...or rather, comedy horror. Still, I'm not sure why you wouldn't simply watch the original- it's this film minus kids plus Linnea Quigley: math makes Return of the Living Dead the right choice. What are you, a weirdo?

If you love zombies and legos, you’re going to crap a brick when you see this. So every year there’s this lego convention called BrickCon. Apparently last year, at the 2008 BrickCon, some zombiephiles got together and made themselves a little lego zombie apocalypse. Actually it’s a very large lego zombie apocalypse. Check out the pics: You can see the full [...]

The Zombie Maestro turns 70 today. I made these as birthday wish fulfillment...so what if they're my wish fulfillment. It's the thought that counts!

All my jibber jabber and playing of Left 4 Dead 2 this week (seriously y'all, bitches be strategizin' on my Facebook page and it's awesomely nerdtastic)- not to mention yesterday's inaugural edition of Wednesday Comix- has got me jonesin' for some cinematic zombie action. This sort of sensation happens to me all the time. Like, if I snort a lot of meth in a short period of time, I find myself picking at my face and filled with a burning desire to watch Cookers. Or if my life doesn't feel quite miserable enough on a particular day, I punch myself in the face and pop Black Xmas in the VCR. Okay, I can't even joke about that because I hate that movie so much. The point is, however, that life frequently influences my movie-watching choices and, just as the media would have you believe, vice versa. Demon of Paradise had a huge effect on my actions; after watching it, I stood around doing absolutely nothing for 90 fucking minutes.

So, I wanted some zombies. I perused my shelves and quickly eliminated a few cinema d'undead categories (that's totally what the French call it, BTdubbs)- I wasn't feeling the Romero tip because I've seen them all a zillion times- or at least, I've seen Night, Dawn, and Day a zillion times.

Okay, time out: "feeling the Romero tip" is probably the grossest thing I've ever written here, ever ever EVARR.

Italian zombies...meh, not the vibe I was looking for. Low-budget backyard stuff...meh, I didn't have the patience. Basically, I wanted the movie equivalent of Left 4 Dead- lite, bloody, not completely sucky. I spotted Flight of the Living Dead on the shelf and thought, "Oh yeah, I remember that. I talked to that broad who was in it, and the director, and there are zombies on a plane, and it was...it was...merrrrrrrrrrr......" and I realized: yes, I interviewed several people involved with it, and I gave away several copies of the DVD, but I never watched the fucking movie. I swear, I could not be any lamer if my fucking legs shriveled up and blew away.

Mayhaps it would be exactly what I was looking for, the perfect fetid flick to fill my zombalicious needs. Only 90 minutes of my life would tell!


Flight of the Living Dead has exactly the set up you'd expect: rogue scientists have developed a serum that can bring the dead back to life. They've got a contaminated body on ice in the cargo area of a plane that's Paris-bound, turbulence knocks the thingamajig in which the body is stored loose, the body wakes up, it's a zombie, bite bite bite, plucky band of survivors, bite bite bite, the end- no more, no less. The biggest shock here is that scientist Dale Midkiff clearly learned nothing from his attempts at bringing loved ones back from the dead in Pet Sematary.


In other words, it is what it is- but even as such, Flight is pretty fun. The characters are the type populating airplane flicks since the heyday of Arthur Hailey: the cope, the criminal, the nice stewardess, the sexy stewardess, the nun, the TSA agent who I pretended was Curtis Sliwa...all the usuals. In the end, I didn't know anyone's name, but it didn't really matter. There was no character development, no deep metaphors in the plot, nothing worth taxing my brain over- which was exactly what I was looking for.


While the blood does fly, I have to say the zombie action was extremely repetitive: zombie goes "Hiss! Rarr!", then bites someone's neck. It's bloody and fun, but if the undead had varied their M.O. a bit it would have been much more fun. Surprisingly, the obligatory "feast scene" is absent.

There's a shit ton of CGI going on, and at times it's a little distracting. However, it's relegated to shots of the plane and out the window stuff- the FX seem largely practical.

The first 45 minutes are almost zombie-less, which isn't surprising- when you've got monsters confined in a small space, you can't blow your load too early or you won't have anywhere to go. The entire affair- even the long stretches without undead action- breeze by like nothing. The less I say about the ending, however, the better.

So, I've finally seen it. It's got some serious head-scratchers that you've just gotta go with (can you really decapitate someone with one swing of a golf club?), but that's no different than any other horror movie, really. All in all, watching Flight of the Living Dead is a bit like eating a whole bag of chips: it's not good for you and there's no nutritional value, but it satisfies a craving. You may hate yourself in the morning, but you'll enjoy it while it's happening- even though you know you shouldn't.

A copy of the movie was given to me by the distributor for reviewing purposes.

And so begins a new weekly feature here at FG: talking about horror comics. Why Wednesday? Because duh, that's new comic day. Why "comix"? Because duh, the "x" makes it cool. Anyway, I'll be reviewing books both new and old, posting up some art I like, interviewing people, or even posting my own comics-related junk on Wednesdays. Hooray for comics!

DC Comics hits the zeitgeist of hip current trends with Victorian Undead, as the series pits Sherlock Holmes against zombies. After the zombies became a huge hit on the indie circuit (led in large part by Robert Kirkman's ongoing zombie saga The Walking Dead), major publishers began incorporating the undead in their titles- most notably Marvel Zombies. Here we've got the world's greatest detective (sorry, Batman) pitted against the living-impaired. Is this mash-up possible without it simply being...well, a ridiculous cash-in?

Surprisingly, yes. In the hands of writer Ian Edginton, (no stranger to Holmes and other classic lit comic book adaptations), Victorian Undead is a bit closer to Doyle's vision than the forthcoming Guy Ritchie film looks to be.

A meteor plummets into the heart of London in 1854 causing widespread panic and death...and undeath.

Somehow, the zombie plague subsides until corpses are unearthed 40-odd years later as the London Underground is constructed. Dead bodies soon spring back to life looking to get their bite on, and authorities are baffled. There's clearly a mystery afoot, so naturally Scotland Yard calls on Sherlock Holmes and his ol' pal Watson.

If you can't get enough zombie action, you'll definitely dig this book as there's plenty of rotting action with the promise of more to come. The premise is familiar to anyone who's ever seen...well, anything to do with the undead, although who knows? There may be plenty of twists and turns down the road. As it stands, the Victorian setting is a welcome change from the modern band of misfits vs zombies formula.

Issue #1 (on sale now) boasts a delightfully fly-infested cover by the King of Zombie Comic Book Art, Tony Moore (he of The Walking Dead 1-6). The interiors, by Davide Fabbri, are a fantastic take on cartoonish realism...but dammit, it needs an inker.

All in all, it's a fun, pretty zombie comic with blood, mystery, and names like Jacques de Vaucanson dropped so you'll end up learning something new (he was totally inventing automatons in the 18th century). Thumbs up!

A copy of the comic was given to me by the publisher for reviewing purposes.

A little while back when I was ruminating on recent horror-flavored video games, I mentioned Left 4 Dead and how I dig it. Well, thanks to the repulsive, disgusting consumerfest known as Black Friday I scored a copy of the recently-released sequel (cleverly titled Left 4 Dead 2) for but a pittance. Hooray, more zombie-blasting action!

In Left 4 Dead 2, players assume the persona of a survivor making their way through zombie-infested hordes in search of rescue, stopping in safe rooms across the way. While this is essentially the same idea as the original L4D, the gameplay has been tweaked and ratcheted up to new levels of insanity.

First and foremost comes the addition of melee weapons. In addition to blasting away the undead with shotguns and pistols, you can now hack 'em up with axes and machetes, or whack 'em with a frying pan (which results in a rather satisfying "gonnnggg" sound), or mow 'em down with a chainsaw. It's visceral and immediate and really, really gross- holy moly, the grue flies in this game. The screen is splattered with blood, zombie entrails leave trails on the ground, and body parts are everywhere; the gore, in fact, is so prevalent that the game has been banned in Australia.

These are new era zombies, the kind that run straight for your face faster than the wind and/or Flo Jo...and there are just so many of them, they never seem to stop coming at you. Several times I've cautiously stepped out of a safe room only to be set upon by a mass of the undead gunning for me. The difficulty level, it seems, has been ramped up a bit in L4D2, and I'm not complaining- it's total madness.

Both the sequel and the original game feature intermittent "crescendo events", wherein players are forced to make enough noise to attract the horde. For example, you've got to open an alarmed door to proceed, and the blaring sound will infuriate the hundreds of zombies in the surrounding area. In the original game, the sound would eventually stop on its own; now, however, you've got to figure out a way to stop the noise yourself. You know, open a door and fight your way through a store (and masses of the undead) to reach the alarm's off button. It's a welcome addition that adds incredible tension- and frequently has me running out of ammo.

In addition to your run of the mill rotters, L4D2 features "special infected"- sort of uber-zombies who have abilities above and beyond running fast and biting hard. All the special infected from the first game return- the Boomer is back to puke more undead-attracting bile on you- but there's a whole new batch of them to avoid as well.


Story has never been a hallmark of Left 4 Dead- it's all action, and the plot is boiled down to the simplest "the world is fucked, let's get out of here!" terms. That's much the same here, although the 5 scenarios ("campaigns") are loosely intertwined and somewhat sequential; at the end of one, for example, players drive off in a car...at the start of the next campaign, they're forced to abandon the car when the highway becomes impassable. The setting (Louisiana, from the bayous to New Orleans) is on a larger scale than that in the first game, and you truly feel as if you're making your way across the land in search of help. Along the way are abandoned evac sites and refugee stations, and it quickly becomes obvious that the government agency dealing with the zombie outbreak ("CEDA") has, for one reason or another, failed the local population. Hints of Hurricane Katrina can't be ignored, and it's easy to surmise that yeah, this is probably the way shit would go down if this ever happened....which, who knows? Walls covered with graffiti claiming that "THIS IS NOT A FLU!" have turned my horror-loving brain to thoughts of the media's incessant, alarmist swine flu coverage.

I hope it is just a flu, of course, because if my Left 4 Dead 2 skills are any indication, I'll be royally screwed if there's a zombie outbreak. I'm always getting puked on by the Boomer, or pummeled by the Charger...I'm always accidentally shooting my teammates and running out of ammo. Of course, if there was a zombie outbreak, I wouldn't know about it for days because I'd be inside playing video games.

Speaking of which, my fellow nerds, I'm finally on Xbox Live- see my badge over yonder to the right and add me or whatever it is you kids do there. I don't know why my rep is anything less than stellar- I've yet to actually interact with anybody, and quite frankly I'd give myself 5 stars, whether I accidentally shoot my teammates or not.

I've talked alot about jerks here at Final Girl. Usually I'm referring to people who disagree with my opinions or don't like the things I like or something- you know, Paul Reiser fans and the such. After all, this is The Internet, and therefore anyone who doesn't think exactly as I do is a jerk.

Today, however, I want to focus on horror movie jerks. I've talked about those in the past as well, but never have I written...


Yes, my friends, there are many varieties. I'd like to get a few guidelines out of the way first: first and foremost, I'm talking about the jerks who are essentially a part of the protagonist's posse. It goes without saying that the bad guys are jerks- I mean, they kill people; and sometimes the villains have lackeys who definitely cross from expected bad guy jerkiness into wicked bad guy jerkiness- Mr. Straker, I'm looking at you. In the interests of this guide, however, the discussion is relegated to secondary characters who are purportedly on the side of "good". There, glad that's settled.



I love Annie from John Carpenter's Halloween. Perhaps it was a steady diet of "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions" when I was young, I don't know...but whatever the reason, I generally love a smart and/or sassy mouth, especially when the person wielding said mouth is cranky (see also: Barbeau, Adrienne - Ed.). Mayhaps it's all rebellion against my 5th grade Social Studies teacher, Mrs. Nickerson, who told me that "Nobody likes sarcasm!" as I was getting in trouble for...well, for having a smart mouth borne of a steady diet of "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions". I beg to differ, Mrs. Nickerson! I love sarcasm and I love Annie Brackett, even though she's kind of a jerk to her friends and the children she babysits...although I Lindsay kind of deserved it. Wait, what was I talking about again? Ah yes, the jerk you're smiling at despite the jerkiness, and you're kind of bummed when they die.


Friends, this variety of jerk is perhaps the most rare. Moments within their walking onscreen, you can generally tell into which category a horror movie character will fall: The Joker, The Slut, The Final Girl, etc (this is doubly true for slasher flicks). Unless there's a total a-hole making an appearance, The Joker is usually The Jerk. You'd think this was the case with Ted in Friday the 13th, Part 2...but then somehow, the goofy guy ends up not as goofy as you thought he'd be, you realize he's not a jerk at all, and guess what? He lives until the end of the movie. Coincidence? You decide! (the answer is no. - Ed.)


Oh lawd, how I loathe that Harry Cooper! He and Ben bicker throughout Night of the Living Dead- each trying to be Alpha Dog, each has wildly diverging ideas on how the group of survivors should deal with the oncoming zombies. Thing is, Ben is all cool and level-headed while Harry is all sweaty and yell-y and mean to his wife....in other words, he's a jerk. However, his plan- that they barricade themselves in the basement and wait for help- wasn't so bad. In fact, the group's numbers whittle down until it's just Ben left alive, at which time he implements Harry's plan and survives the night (and then the posse of jerks kills him anyway, so who are the monsters? - Ed.). Maybe if Mr. Cooper had been a bit nicer about expressing his ideas, none of them would have become zombie chow. That wouldn't have solved The Problem With Karen, but still.



Like the white trash gross family in Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning, this variety of jerk is incessantly annoying. They're loud, or they look like they smell, or they're stupid (or they're some combination of all three), and from the moment they appear you simply cannot wait for them to die so they will just shut the eff up and you will no longer have to look at them. (I like how the teeth of the F13-5 family are only rotten at the gumline. - Ed.)


I think it would probably be misery to hang around with Shelly from Friday the 13th Part 3. Come on- those "practical jokes" would be old before they even start. He's dull and kind of whiny and he's awkward, but I feel bad labeling him a jerk (even though truly, he is one) because he doesn't fit in and he just wants some friends and who's never felt that way at some point in his or her life? (not me, certainly...how dare you insinuate, madame! - Ed.) However, as I start to feel sorry for Shelly, he goes and calls Vera a bitch because she doesn't want to sleep with him, but she was really nice about it and didn't deserve it. Jerk!


Oh my, yes. These are the jerks with the guns, or the key to the truck, or something else that gives them the tiniest edge in the fight against whatever horror movie villain everyone's facing. (see also: the security guard in the Dawn of the Dead remake - Ed.) He uses his advantage as a last grasp at power in the face of the coming chaos, torturing and threatening everyone else along the way...sometimes even calling them names! Obsessed with maintaining control, this jerk will often put himself and everyone else in jeopardy with foolhardy actions just because they all said he shouldn't and HE'S THE BOSS. Captain Rhodes of Day of the Dead is such a power-mad jerk that he even tries bossing the zombies around, commanding them to choke on his legs as they eat him.


This douchebag jerk will do anything for a promotion or money. When push comes to shove, they'll push and/or shove you out of the way to get to the lifeboat. Resorting to inhumane behavior to save their own skin, they use allies as human shields (see also: Dr. Crews in Friday the 13th Part VII - Ed.), shut doors in people's faces, refuse to open doors no matter how much the person on the other side screams...they'll do anything to survive. They're the slimy snakes of the world of the horror movie jerk, and I CAN'T BELIEVE I PUT A PICTURE OF PAUL REISER ON FINAL GIRL but Burke is a shining example of Jerk #7, so there you go. (I can't believe you put a picture of Paul Reiser on Final Girl. - Ed.) I hate him with the white-hot intensity of a thousand sunburns like the one I got when I went to volleyball camp in 10th grade. (You went to volleyball camp? - Ed.)


Franklin, Franklin, Franklin. The king of all horror movie jerks- he certainly qualifies as several varieties, no? He's extremely irritating, yet for a few moments here and there you feel bad for hating him: the dude is in a wheelchair, clearly envious of the bipedariffic frolicking of his sister and her friends. ("bipedariffic" is a scientific term. - Ed.) He has a miserable life, but then he chooses to make the lives of everyone else around him- including the audience- miserable as well. Plus, he's sweaty and he clearly smells like sausage.

There you go, a little primer on Horror Movie Jerks. What did we learn today, friendos?

• If you have need of a good horror movie jerk, watch any George Romero or Friday the 13th movie. Jerks abound!
• Jerks always get what's coming to them. So much time is spent making the viewer side against this person that they're practically filled with bloodlust by the time the jerk gets killed. Seriously, when people are rooting for the mass murderer instead of you, you may want to rethink how you interact with your fellow human beings.
• Don't be a jerk!
  

Check out the first five minutes of the small budget ($70) zombie flick that made big waves at Cannes. Looks okay, but I was expecting a stronger opening...

So, Round 1 of the Home Run Inn horror movie contest ends tomorrow, and a Top 10 spot doesn't seem to be in the cards, which means no Round 2 for ol' Final Girl and Company. That's fine, because that means I don't have to talk about it every day. Thanks SO MUCH to everyone who voted for my silly little movie. It was fun to make, although the pizza was not necessarily fun to eat: words I never thought I'd say.

I just wanted to raise the point that many people have gotten in touch with me about: the website's wonkiness, and the difficulty in voting 15 times per day, or sometimes voting at all. Check out these comments left on the HRI site, my Facebook page, etc:

• "The site doesn't work very well at all. It's hard to share and I'm very uncertain that my vote counted."
• "It doesn't allow me to vote for you more than once!"
• "Only let me vote 8 times."
• "I went there and it immediately told me 'Thanks, vote again tomorrow.'"
• "Today, after only voting ONE time, I got the 'thank you for voting, please come back tomorrow.'"
• "Today the link isn't going anywhere..."
• "I've tried registering with three different emails. Two never even got the confirmation message you have to get before you can proceed (not in spam either). The third did, but when I tried to then set up a password (the next mandatory step), the site crashed. And now it won't let me complete that account set-up either."

Umm...I think the site is buggy. I have no problem losing this contest or any other for whatever reason, but the site needs to work so people can vote so I have a fair shot. I entered a couple of weeks after it began, so I know I had a lot of ground to make up and thanks to you, I did. Still, as someone pointed out elsewhere, I wonder how I can be so far ahead in terms of votes- I'm ranked number one with about 27,000 views while the entry ranked number two- the leader in terms of votes- has less than half that. I'm a girl so I don't really get math, but I have to say, that doesn't really compute with me. Their site sucks.

I called the tech support number a few times to try to say as much- it's the only way to get in touch with them- and it just rang. Even their tech support sucks! For the record, this isn't sour grapes, believe me. Just noting the site's wonkiness, and that I tried to tell them.

Well, at least I made a 2-minute zombie movie about pizza with my friends, because creativity is never a waste. And at least many of you awesome peeps clicked away as often as you could. For all of you who are commenting about Mr. Zombie and how adorable and fantastic he is...you're right, he is! His name is Pete Loughran and he's a killer musician working on a new CD; I've gotten a sneak listen and it's gonna rock your face off. Give him some love!

Okay, so for today's dose of SHOCKTOBER madness, I'm cheating a little bit. Rather than simply watching & reviewing a movie, I decided to talk about a subject near and dear to me old ticker: horror-based video games. It's been a while since my last big installment- three and a half years, holy crap- so I figured it was time to run down a few of the titles that have sucked me in and consumed hours of my life in the last few months.


BioShock is one of the most fascinating, best-looking games I've seen in my long, long life. The alt-history underwater city of Rapture is an art deco paradise lying in ruin; the utopia based on the philosophy of Objectivism crumbled as gene-splicing became a way of life, transforming the city's inhabitants into hideous mutants. In this first-person shooter you're Jack, a man with no memory who made his way to Rapture after an oceanic plane crash...and now must find a way out in the face of Big Daddies, Little Sisters, and all other manner of psychos. Ayn Rand, stem cell research, body modification, morality...fun for the whole family!


Yeah, I know I actually reviewed this game once upon a time, but you know what? I'm still playing it, and it's still all kinds of awesome. Zombies, zombies, zombies...so many zombies in the mall. There's also creepy-mask-wearing, knife-wielding cult members and psychotic clowns with chainsaws and and and...Dead Rising is like a love letter to my crusty old horror movie-loving heart.


I have one major complaint about Dead Space: it's too damn short! I want more more more! This game is like Resident Evil meets Event Horizon, and it's absolutely one of the scariest games in the history of the history of ever- yes, it's that scary. You've got to repair your disabled ship while fighting off mutated crewmembers- of course there's an alien flu bug goin' 'round. Standard stuff, eh? Well, Dead Space utilizes sound and light like no other game since Silent Hill, and it's downright terrifying, to the point where I hit 'pause' on more than one occasion just so I wouldn't have to continue on into a pitch-black hallway where something was moaning. The score sounds straight outta Kubrick's The Shining, and it helps sink you into a never-ending state of heebie jeebies. Oh, if only there was more of it...ooh, there's a new Wii-bound prequel, a 6-issue comic mini-series, and an animated feature film prelude, as well. Sigh, I suppose those will have to do.


While it wasn't a major hit, this oldie but goodie Gamecube release is a favorite amongst nerds in the know. Explore the mansion that belonged to your recently-deceased grandfather as you try to unravel the mystery of his death. Find chapters from the "Tome of Eternal Darkness" and engage in a little time-travel...and then Eternal Darkness really starts fucking with you via the "sanity meter". The more scary stuff Alexandra encounters, the nuttier she gets...and the nuttier you'll get. You'll be in the middle of a boss battle when suddenly your controller no longer works...or the game cuts to the title screen...or Alexandra ends up on the ceiling- the game really messes with your head as a player. There's nothing else like it. Hey, now you're a nerd in the know!


I'm tempted just to write "Fallout 3 is effing AMAZING, go play it!" and leave it at that. Here's the wiki synopsis to further tempt those of you who haven't become completely absorbed by the game:

Fallout 3 takes place in the year 2277, 200 years after the nuclear war between the United States and China that devastated the game's world in an alternate post-World War II timeline. The game places the player in the role of an inhabitant of Vault 101, a survival shelter designed to protect a small number of humans from the nuclear fallout. When the player character's father disappears under mysterious circumstances, he or she is forced to escape from the Vault and journey into the ruins of Washington D.C. to track him down. Along the way the player is assisted by a number of human survivors and must battle myriad enemies that now inhabit the area now known as the "Capital Wasteland".

Your morality is up to you as you travel the wasteland and encounter religious wackadoos, raiders, mutants, ghouls...I can't even begin to adequately describe how massive- and how massively awesome- this game is. Fallout 3 is effing AMAZING, go play it!



Here's another game that got little attention, but horror fans should definitely bust out their PS2s and give it a whirl. At the start of Haunting Ground, you wake up in a cage (!!!) on the grounds of Castle Belli, and you've got to figure out what the eff is going on and how you can escape. Eventually you team up with a white German Shepherd named Hewie to solve puzzles and defend yourself as you search for a way out. What sets Haunting Ground apart from other survival horror games is that your character wields no weapons...just about all you can do when confronted by an enemy is run and try to find a good hiding spot. Sometimes these hiding spots work, and sometimes they don't...but you can never use the same place twice. It's incredibly tense to be crouched behind a curtain while someone is in the room, actively looking in all the corners for you. While there's definitely too much backtracking (and man oh man does the story get a bit perverse), Haunting Ground boasts one of the greatest, scariest video game villains ever in Daniella, the creepy-ass maid (pictured above). I'd say they should stick her in a movie, but we all know how movies based on games tend to go...


Surviving the zombie apocalypse has never been more fun. What Dead Rising is to George Romero, Left 4 Dead is to Zach Snyder. These walking dead aren't walking at all- they're running really fast because they want to eat your face. There are hundreds and hundreds of them, along with "special" zombies, upgraded with all sorts of new ways to kill you. My favorite is the Witch, the goth-looking chick who sits around in her underwear, crying...until you get too close, and then she's up and clawing your eyes out in a flash. Reminds me of college!


I've told you time and time again, I loves me some Rezzies. I'm gonna admit, though, Resident Evil 5 was a bit of a disappointment. On the one hand, it was a delight for an RE nerd like myself (Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, and Albert Wesker are all present and accounted for) and the co-op gameplay was cool. The graphics were amazing and the action was non-stop...but that was, perhaps, the problem. Since the incredible Resident Evil 4, the series has been moving away from the solve the puzzle and read the diary in the dusty, zombie-filled house angle that I love and geek out on so much. The developers should bring the series back to its roots because I want them to. Who's with me?


It pains me in my heart place, but I'm starting to think that the Silent Hill series may be on its last legs. I enjoyed Homecoming, but it felt like more of the same, you know? Somehow it's missing the magic of the earliest games in the series- it feels like an imitation. The franchise was handed off from Japan to America, but that can't be the only reason why it's stale. Maybe it's just stale altogether...ugh, it hurts to type that. And who am I kidding? Silent Hill: Shattered Memories hits next month, and I'm sure I'll pick it up...and it'll be okay, but I'll have the sads 'cause it's just not like the Silent Hills of my yoot. Then I'll cry, then I'll play something else, repeat until I'm dead.


Did you know that there's a video game set right after the events of John Carpenter's The Thing? There is, and it's pretty good! You can imagine how it goes: after contact is lost with MacReady and company, the military sends teams to investigate...alien parasite hijinks ensue. While you've got to battle the creepy-crawlies, you've also got to battle the rising worries of your teammates as they become increasingly paranoid: no one trusts anyone. Dudes get scared and they kill themselves, or they try to kill you. You may have an infected teammate in your party. It's a lot like the game, except no one wears weird, giant sideways cowboy hats- and that's a pity.

You know what I like? Truth in advertising. Therefore, I like that The House of Seven Corpses (1974) actually has seven corpses. As best as I can remember (and really, I'm trying not to remember), the House of 1000 Corpses was missing several hundred. This is all neither here nor there...I am just saying.

The titular house once belonged to the Beal family, the members of which all met grisly ends by unexplainable, often illogical suicides (how does one shoot oneself in the back, exactly?). A crew is now holed up in the venerable house, shooting a Hammer-style film that's loosely based on the Beals.

The movie-within-a-movie boasts a few lite black masses, which feature the requisite stabbings, black candles, and reading from an eeeevil ancient tome. When one of the actors comes across the Tibetan Book of the Dead lying around Chez Beal, director Eric Hartman (John Ireland) figures "It may be garbage, but it's better than the garbage the writer gave us". The book is read aloud during the course of the shoot, and as you can imagine, this is a big mistake.

The dead rise in the film, all bandaged toothache-style...and they also rise from the Beal family crypt out back, all crusty-faced and frizzy-haired.


And that's pretty much it. All of the action takes place within the last half hour of the film...although "action" isn't quite the right word, as all of the murders occur at a snail's pace. I've given an overview that may give the impression that The House of Seven Corpses is logical, but it's not. Very little of it makes sense if you try to take a closer look, so it's best to throw your brain out the window and simply enjoy the movie.

I did enjoy it quite a bit, although I'm hesitant to recommend the thing. Let's put it this way: if I were to rewrite my recent column discussing guilty pleasures, this film would surely make the list. It's not good, but I liked it. It's got that slow mid-70s vibe...it's chock full of character actors (John Carradine getting offed by a zombie? Come on!)...there are liberal doses of humor and it never seems to take itself completely seriously...and for some reason that must be deep-rooted in my psyche, crusty old oatmeal-faced zombies always work for me.

And then there's the sequence wherein the lead actress's cat gets into a staring contest with a painted devil kitty...




Wait...what am I saying? Kitty cat Mexican standoffs? Oatmeal-faced zombies? This is the best movie ever!

No, really...it's not. But I liked it. Watch at your own risk.

As if to prove there really is some sort of Internet Kismet or some such, Mr. Arbogast dissected The House of Seven Corpses for his 31 Screams series just yesterday! It's a small world, after all.

Today I'm talking about Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974) because you, The People, demanded it via cyber-poll! If you're all "Whaaat? I've never heard of this 'Let Sleep Corpses Lie'!", then perhaps you know it by one of these other names:

• Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti
• Le massacre des morts-vivants
• A Revanche dos Mortos-Vivos II
• Breakfast at the Manchester Morgue
• Das Leichenhaus der lebenden Toten
• Do Not Speak Ill of the Dead
• Don't Open the Window
• Fin de semana para los muertos
• Invasion der Zombies
• No profanar el sueño de los muertos
• No se debe profanar el sueño de los muertos
• The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue
• Zombi 3 (Da dove vieni?)
• Zombi: Epidromi apo to nekrotafeio

Phew. While Breakfast at Manchester Morgue is appealing, I think Invasion der Zombies takes the prize for sheer simplicity. In related news, what's up with all the Zombis out there? I always called Fulci's Zombie...well, Zombie, obviously. Then I grow up and discover it's actually Zombi 2. There are at least three different movies called Zombi 4. What's what? Which movies are actually sequels for other movies? Which ones are worth watching at all? What's a simple-minded horror fan like moi to do? Life is so hard sometimes I could just puke.


But! Onto today's movie...y'all done chose good, friends! The setup is rather simple. Scientists have been demonstrating a new machine that uses ultrasonic waves to kill off crop-eating bugs; farmers are pleased as the contraption actually works. However, the radiation emitted causes beings with low-level brain function to go mad with rage and cannibalize each other...and dead people fall under the umbrella of "low-level brain function". Damn that experimental agriculture! If it's not creating giant ants and a kingdom of spiders, then it's creating zombies.

A couple meets by happenstance, and they're soon embroiled in an undead nightmare as they try to convince the police (led by an awesomely cranky and mean Arthur Kennedy) that they're not responsible for the mounting body count- it's the zombies!

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie owes a great deal to George Romero's Night of the Living Dead...but then what zombie movie doesn't? Still, this could have been a sub-par ripoff (as so many later flicks are), but director Jorge Grau has crafted a movie that's more about atmosphere than gut-munching. The biggest nod to Romero comes when we're introduced to the first walking corpse, who's just a-shamblin' along in broad daylight until he spots The Walking Lunch:



Incidentally, zombie movies are still cannibalizing each other. I wonder if Danny Boyle ever watched this "rage infected" zombie movie that came 30 years before his own 28 Days Later.


While Let Sleeping Corpses Lie falls completely within the zombie movie paradigm, it's also a fresh enough take that it subverts the formula. The first hour or so is all build-up, developing the characters just enough that we become invested in them (even when they're not completely pleasant) and pumping up the atmosphere to high levels of tension. Grau really knows how to frame a shot and move the camera; he makes you wonder what's lurking in the corners, and the pans are so slow that your anxiety to see what's happening just off-screen becomes unbearable at times. It's all so damn competent and accomplished- what a treat.

Sound is used to maximum effect here; the score gets under your skin before you realize it, and the raspy, wheezy moaning of the walking dead is positively haunting. There's just something about these zombies that makes them so much creepier than any other zombies I've seen. They're empty-eyed, but determined- seemingly aimless, but actually deliberate. They're vicious without resorting to snarling and grunting...there's a slowness to them that suddenly gives way to an attack- and they can climb ladders and use tools. These are some seriously uncanny living corpses- you think they're thinking, but you know they're not. When they feast (of course there are some feast scenes), they don't dig in quickly and wolf their food- they chew 21 times before swallowing, and while the film is less explicitly graphic than others of its ilk, it's just as nauseating.

This isn't some fast-paced actioner like you kids of today are becoming used to- it's a good old-fashioned zombie flick...the kind of film that's deceptively difficult to create. I thought I'd seen enough of this genre to be essentially desensitized to it, but wow- this is one helluva creepy movie. Thanks, voters! You're the best!