#2,895. Surf II (1984) - Eddie Deezen Triple Feature

 

Some movies confound me.

Take, for example, writer / director Randall M. Badat’s 1983 comedy Surf II. For starters, there is no Surf I… this is a stand-alone movie. Then there’s the strange blending of genres, merging a surf flick with a teen monster movie (zombies, to be precise). And despite its rather impressive cast, including a young Eric Stoltz (making only his second big-screen appearance, after 1982’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High), the film is a jumbled mess, with only the framework of a story and no genuine attempt to string scenes together in any logical way.

Surprisingly, none of this prevents Surf II from being an entertaining film. I was scratching my head as I watched it, but smiling for hours after it ended.

Chuck (Stoltz) and Bob (Jeffrey Rogers) are gearing up for the big surf contest. But when two bodies wash ashore, police chief Boyardee (Lyle Waggoner) threatens to close the beach and cancel the competition.

To make matters worse, Jocko O’Finley (Tom Villard), a friend of Chuck’s and Bob’s and the brother of their girlfriends Cindy Lou (Corrine Bohrer) and Lindy Sue (Lucinda Dooling), has been acting strange, dressing like a punk rocker and drinking everything from motor oil to the very disgusting Buzz soda.

What nobody knows is that Menlo Schwartzer (Eddie Deezen), who is seeking revenge against all surfers, has changed the formula for Buzz. Now, whoever drinks it will become a mindless zombie! With the help of Chuck’s dad (Morgan Paull) and Bob’s dad (Biff Maynard), as well as his reluctant girlfriend Sparkle (Linda Kerridge), Menlo intends to make Buzz soda the official soft drink of the surf contest, and enter his zombie hordes as contestants! If Chuck and Bob do not stop him, Menlo may even take over the entire town.

Surf II was not Eric Stoltz’s finest hour. He’s passable as Chuck and nothing more. And despite being a comedy, the film doesn’t have all that many laugh-out-loud moments. In fact, I’m struggling to remember a single one. What it does have, though, is Eddie Deezen as a mad scientist. His scenes are the film’s most entertaining.

In addition, there are a handful of WTF moments scattered throughout Surf II that are so outlandish they’re almost intriguing. The best has Tom Villard’s Jocko, in full zombie mode, hanging out on the beach with his fellow punks. Chuck’s and Bob’s good friend, the always mute Johnny Big Head (Joshua Cadman), sits down across from Jocko, as if challenging him to an eating contest. With that, they start consuming seaweed, discarded debris, and pretty much everything they can get their hands on, each trying to out-do the other.

I also got a kick out of Cleavon Little, who plays high school principal Daddy-O, a clear (and pretty witty) reference to Glenn Ford’s schoolteacher in the ‘50s classic Blackboard Jungle. Also turning up in supporting roles are Ruth Buzzi (as Chuck’s mom) and Welcome Back, Kotter’s Horshack, Ron Palillo, who plays Chief Boyardee’s deputy. Another strength of Surf II is the music, which features hit tunes like The Beach Boys’ “Surfin’ U.S.A”, Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science”, and “Talk Talk” by the band of the same name.

When reflecting on Surf II in the 2010 book Destroy All Monsters, writer / director Badat said “We set out to make the most brain-dead movie of all time. In that regard, I believe we succeeded”. Sure, Surf II isn’t a great movie, or a smart one. In fact, it’s bad and kinda dumb. But in a fun way.
Rating: 6 out of 10

#2,828. Return of the Living Dead, Part II (1988)

 

Not so much a sequel to 1985’s Return of the Living Dead as it is a film set in the same universe, Return of the Living Dead Part II once again stars James Karen and Thom Mathews, only this time around they’re playing two completely different characters: Ed (Karen) and Joey (Mathews), a pair of grave-robbers who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Earlier in the day, pre-teen Jesse (Michael Kenworthy) was trying to give neighborhood bullies Billy (Thor Van LIngen) and Johnny (Jason Hogan) the slip when he stumbled upon an unopened barrel of Trioxin, a chemical that brings the dead back to life. Fearing the worst, Jesse runs home and attempts to contact the military. He even warns his sister Lucy (Marsha Dietlein) and the cable repair man Tom (Dana Ashbrook) that danger is afoot.

Billy and Johnny, however, are curious, and open the barrel, releasing the Trioxin into the air. The fumes drift into a nearby cemetery, where Ed, Joey, and Joey’s girlfriend Brenda (Suzanne Snyder), are busy collecting body parts. All at once, the dead are alive again, looking for fresh brains to snack on, and it’s up to Jesse, Lucy, Tom, and their neighbor Dr. Mandel (Phil Bruns) to find a way to stop the zombie onslaught.

Writer / director Ken Wiederhorn favors comedy over scares throughout Return of the Living Dead Part II, with both James Karen (as the incredibly nervous Ed) and Phil Bruns (as the often clueless Doc Mandel) generating most of the laughs. Not to be outdone, the zombies also get in on the fun; the Tar Man from the original Return of the Living Dead (once again played by Allan Trautman) makes a brief appearance here as well, though it’s the severed head with the southern drawl (“Get that damn screwdriver out of my head!”) and the Michael Jackson zombie (who shows up right at the end) that steal the show.

In addition, Return of the Living Dead Part II boasts a handful of exciting sequences, culminating with a finale set at the local power plant that, despite a few sub-par special effects, ends the movie on a high note.

Those who enjoyed Return of the Living Dead will find plenty to like about this sequel, and while it may not deliver as many scares as the original, it’s a worthy follow-up all the same.
Rating: 8 out of 10

#2,528. The Dead Don't Die (2019)

The 2019 zom-com The Dead Don’t Die strikes the perfect balance between a genre outing and a Jim Jarmusch film, and I had a great time watching it!

The normally quiet town of Centerville is thrown into chaos when the dead start rising from their graves. Police Chief Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray) and his deputies Ronnie (Adam Driver) and Mindy (Chloe Sevigny) do what they can to protect their town, but it’s Zelda Winston (Tilda Swinton), Centerville’s very strange funeral director, who might ultimately prove most useful in defeating the zombie horde.

The Dead Don’t Die gives us the macabre and the quirky in equal measure. The characters, played by such Jarmusch regulars as Murray, Driver, Tom Waits (as Hermit Bob, a vagrant who patrols the nearby woods), and a few others are always interesting, and that little trait that the director gives his zombies - each one uttering a single word that encapsulates what we assume was most important to them while they were alive - was a nice touch (the first two zombies, played by Iggy Pop and Sara Driver, can only say “coffee”, which might explain why they attacked the local diner). All of the citizens of Centerville are a little bizarre, but none more so than Tilda Swinton’s Scottish undertaker, and I loved where they ultimately went with her character.

Headshots and all, The Dead Don’t Die is still very much a Jim Jarmusch film; the morning after the attack at the diner, Chief Robertson is called to the scene, where he makes the gruesome discovery. Before long, both of his deputies also turn up and walk into the diner - one by one - to see the carnage for themselves. In most other films, we’d only see the mutilated corpses when Chief Robertson arrived, then the faces of Donnie and Wendy after the fact, when they walked back out. But Jarmusch spends time with his characters, and follows each one inside to give us their initial reactions to the bloody mess in front of them (by doing so, we, the audience, see the gory outcome of the undead attack three separate times).

But The Dead Don’t Die is a zombie flick as well, with all the high drama and dread that goes hand-in-hand with the subgenre (in one very intense scene, Chief Robertson is finishing off as many of the walking dead as he can when he happens upon a zombie who used to be a good friend).

I really enjoyed The Dead Don’t Die, so much so that I’d now rank it right up there with Mystery Train and Dead Man as one of my favorite Jim Jarmusch films.
Rating: 9 out of 10 (see it immediately!)

#2,460. Sugar Hill (1974)

Directed By: Paul Maslansky

Starring: Marki Bey, Robert Quarry, Don Pedro Colley



Tag line: "She's sweet as sugar... with a voodoo army of the undead!"

Trivia: The "Voodoo Museum and Research History" building is in fact, the Heights Branch of the Houston Public Library








‘70s Blaxploitation with a supernatural bent, director Paul Maslansky’s Sugar Hill merges the story of a lover’s quest for revenge with voodoo and zombies, resulting in a surprisingly satisfying crime / horror flick. 

Club owner Langston (Larry Don Johnson) refuses to sell his nightclub to mob boss Morgan (Robert Quarry). So, Morgan decides to eliminate Langston once and for all, sending his goons, including Tank Watson (Rick Hagood), O’Brien (Ed Geldart), and Fabulous (Charles Robinson), to kill him (they carry out the execution in the parking lot of Langston's club). 

Saddened and angered by the death of her lover, Langston’s fiancée Diana “Sugar” Hill (Marki Bey) vows to take revenge on his killers, and asks Mama Maitresse (Zara Cully), an elderly voodoo priestess, for help. Though reluctant at first to assist a ‘non-believer’, Mama Maitresse eventually agrees, and summons the voodoo God Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley), who in turn allows Sugar Hill to command his army of the undead. 

With dozens of immortal zombies at her disposal, Sugar Hill starts picking off Morgan’s men, one-by-one, all the while dodging questions from police detective (and her former boyfriend) Valentine (Richard Lawson), who with each new murder becomes increasingly convinced that an unnatural force is at work, and that Sugar Hill is somehow at the center of it all. 

Like Coffy and Foxy Brown, Sugar Hill sets up the revenge portion of its story in the early going, showing us Langston’s run-in with Morgan’s gang, followed almost immediately by his murder (the scene ends with Sugar Hill cradling Langston’s dead body and sobbing uncontrollably). 

But the moment that Zara Cully’s Mama Maitresse conjures up Baron Samedi, Sugar Hill takes a turn towards the bizarre, and the stranger the movie gets, the more interesting it becomes; the film's best scene comes when Baron Samedi orders his zombie followers to rise from their graves. Also pretty cool are the ingenious ways that Sugar Hill and the zombies finish off Morgan’s men, each one facing a particularly gruesome end (one is fed to some very hungry pigs, and another is forced, via a voodoo ritual, to commit suicide with a dagger). 

While the supporting performances are mostly hit and miss, both Marki Bey (as Sugar Hill) and Don Pedro Colley (as the always-exuberant Baron Samedi) are excellent in their respective roles; and the look of the zombies themselves is darn creepy (especially their silver eyes). Toss in a not-too-convincing-but-still-kinda-hot catfight between Sugar Hill and Morgan’s busty girlfriend Celeste (Betty Anne Rees) and a final showdown in the swamps that will make your skin crawl, and you have a Blaxploitation / Horror mash-up that’s sure to entertain.

#2,393. Hellblock 13 (1999)

Directed By: Paul Talbot

Starring: Gunnar Hansen, Debbie Rochon, Jon Miller



Tagline: "Once Inside You'll Pray For the Chair!"

Trivia: The original title, "Hellblock 666", was changed to Hellblock 13 because of the heavily Christian area the movie was being shot in







In most anthologies, the wraparound is there simply to ease the transition from one segment to the next. But in Troma’s 1999 horror compilation Hellblock 13, the wraparound is the best part of the whole damn film!

Serial Killer Tara (Debbie Rochon) is on death row, waiting for the Executioner (played by Gunner Hanson) to take her to the electric chair. To pass the time before the switch is thrown, Tara reads the Executioner a few of the short stories she wrote during her incarceration, tales of the macabre that she believes will one day make her as immortal as Poe and Lovecraft.

In the first (titled “Watery Grave”), a mother (Amy R. Swain), hoping to hold on to the new man in her life (Kirk Bair), drowns her two children, then tells the police they’ve been kidnapped. But the little tykes refuse to stay dead, and every night their bloated corpses rise from the lake, determined to take their revenge.

Next up is “White Trash Love Story”, about a battered wife (Jennifer Peluso) who’s tired of being her husband’s (David G. Holland) punching bag. To end her misery, she visits the elderly witch (Michael R. Smith) who lives across the street. Sure enough, the witch provides a spell that’ll cut the woman’s husband down to size. But if the wife isn’t careful, this spell might just backfire on her.

Finally, we have the tale of “Big Rhonda”, a biker chick who died years earlier and has since become a religious icon, worshipped by her former gang members. To initiate their newest recruit (Bill Kealey), the bikers make their way to the cemetery where Big Rhonda is buried and perform a ritual that is supposed to bring them good luck (for their upcoming drug run into Mexico). At first, the recruit doesn’t buy into all this hocus-pocus, but he has a change of heart when the spirit of Big Rhonda (J.J. North) pays him a visit during the night... 

Unmoved by her trio of horror fables, the Executioner informs Tara that, the minute she’s dead, he’s going to burn her notebook, thus ensuring nobody will ever read her work. But Tara has already taken steps to guarantee that both she and her stories will live forever.

Despite my rather bold statement concerning the wraparound, the three segments that make up the bulk of Hellblock 13 have their strengths as well. Though clearly inspired (at least in part) by the “Something to Tide You Over” sequence in 1982’s Creepshow, “Watery Grave” is genuinely scary, and “White Trash Love Story” features a respectable (at times even comedic) performance by Jennifer Peluso as the wife who’s been pushed too far. The most uneven of the three is “Big Rhonda”; I did like the nighttime ritual that the bikers performed in the graveyard (which began with them exhuming Big Rhonda’s rotting corpse), but the segment runs a tad long, and I saw the twist at the end coming from a mile away.

As for the wraparound, it works on just about every level; Debbie Rochon is excellent as the batshit crazy serial killer who is convinced her spooky yarns will make her a literary legend, and Gunner Hanson’s Executioner is the perfect foil for her delusions of grandeur. Also, the location chosen for this segment is as eerie as it is fitting (it was shot in an abandoned prison in South Carolina), and there are some decent special effects, not to mention a surprise or two that takes the story in a direction I wasn’t expecting.

On the whole, Hellblock 13 is an entertaining horror movie, and is worth a watch. But thanks to Rochon, Hanson, and company, it’s the wraparound that will linger in your mind well after the film is over.

#2,380. Zombiethon (1986)

Directed By: Ken Dixon

Starring: Karrene Janyl Caudle, Tracy Burton, Paula Singleton


Tag line: "Shambling shapes! Crawling creeps! Fleshless fiends! The liveliest Festival of the Dead is about to begin!"

Trivia: Features clips from such zombie-themed films as Lucio Fulci's Zombie and Jess Franco's Oasis of the Zombies






A pretty young woman (K. Janyl Caudle), wearing a schoolgirls uniform, is walking through a forest when she spots a zombie in the distance. In a panic, she runs, eventually crossing Wilshire Blvd and ending up outside Los Angeles’s El Rey movie theater. Afraid that she’s been followed, the girl darts inside and takes a seat in one of the crowded auditoriums. She becomes so entranced by what’s playing on the screen, which happens to be clips from Lucio Fulci’s 1979 horror film Zombie, that she doesn’t realize the entire theater is filled with the walking dead, and they are closing in on her… 

Thus begins producer Charles Band’s Zombiethon, an anthology of sorts featuring select scenes from a variety of zombie films, all tied together by a framing story (make that “stories”) centering on the El Rey movie theater. Along with Fulci’s Zombie, there are clips from Jean Rollin’s Zombie Lake, Jess Franco’s Oasis of the Zombies, and Ted V. Mikel’s Astro Zombies, just to name a few. Most of the scenes lifted from these movies contain lots of nudity and gore; the sequences from Zombie include the naked scuba diver that is attacked by an underwater ghoul (which, soon after, gets into a fracas with a man-eating shark).

Yet what I found particularly perplexing about Zombiethon wasn’t so much its penchant for the extreme as it was the selection of films it presented. Most do, indeed, feature the living dead, but also included are excerpts from Fear (aka Murder Syndrome), which, by the looks of it, is a psychological horror film; and in spite of its title, The Invisible Dead appears to be about an invisible ape-man that likes to rape women, with nary a zombie in sight.

Even stranger than the movies were the various segments that make up Zombiethon’s framing story. Aside from the schoolgirl mentioned above, there’s an extended sequence in which a beautiful woman walks along a beach as a narrator (we assume it’s the girl herself speaking) spouts some new-age mumbo-jumbo. Before long, she’s grabbed by a zombie that sneaked up from behind. As the zombie is carrying the woman off, she turns to him and suggests that they take in a movie, at which point they immediately head to the El Rey. Towards the end of Zombiethon, we’re even treated to a series of comedic moments involving the living dead themselves, which have invaded the theater (in one, a zombie projectionist has trouble handling some film canisters, causing the undead audience below to impatiently clamor for him to start up the movie).

Running a scant 73 minutes, Zombiethon is an easy enough watch, and if you’re a zombie aficionado it’s a must-see.

As for me, I thought Zombiethon was fun while it lasted, but I can’t shake the feeling my time would have been better spent re-watching Fulci’s Zombie instead.

#2,358. Zombie Holocaust (1980)

Directed By: Marino Girolami

Starring: Ian McCulloch, Alexandra Delli Colli, Sherry Buchanan



Tag line: "Not for the faint-hearted..."

Trivia: Was re-edited for U.S. release as Doctor Butcher, M.D.








Whoever came up with the title Zombie Holocaust for this 1980 film was selling it short; yes, there are zombies, but they don’t appear until well after the movie’s halfway point. Before that, it’s a straight-up cannibal flick, with a group of New Yorkers traveling to an exotic locale to track down the remnants of an ancient tribe of man-eaters. There are even elements of a mad scientist story thrown in for good measure (in the U.S., the movie was re-cut and released as Doctor Butcher, M.D.). Once you get a look at the living dead, though, you realize that Zombie Holocaust was heavily influenced by Lucio Fulci’s Zombie (which was released a year earlier), and clearly the filmmakers were trying to cash in on that movie’s success.

Yet despite its jam-packed storyline and a few intriguing scenes, Zombie Holocaust isn’t quite the film that Fulci’s masterpiece is.

Someone has been stealing body parts from the cadavers at a New York City hospital, and Dr. Lori Ridgeway (Alessandra Delli Colli), a physician and amateur anthropologist, wants to know who is responsible. As it turns out, the guilty party is an orderly named Toran (Turam Quibo), who was born and raised in the Maluka Island region of Southeast Asia. After comparing notes with Dr. Peter Chandler (Ian McCulloch), an official with the city’s Health Department, Lori discovers that dozens of corpse mutilations have been reported all over the city in recent weeks, and, in each case, those committing these crimes (Toran included) bear the markings of a cannibal tribe that originated in the Maluka Peninsula.

To get to the bottom of this bizarre turn of events, Lori and Peter head to Southeast Asia, where along with Peter’s assistant George Harper (Peter O’Neal) and reporter Susan Kelly (Sherry Buchanan), who tagged along on the trip, they consult with Dr. Obrero (Donald O’Brien), a scientist and longtime resident of the region. With Dr. Obrero’s trusty sidekick Molotto (Dakar) as their guide, Lori, Peter, and the others set sail for the Maluka Islands, unaware of the dangers that await them once they arrive.

As mentioned above, Zombie Holocaust is, for most of its runtime, a cannibal film; when Lori and her associate Dr. Drydock (Walter Patriarca) catch Toran in the act, he is in the process of eating a heart he’d just removed form a corpse’s chest, and later on, when Lori and the others are making their way across an island, they’re attacked by a primitive tribe that slices open one of the group’s Asian assistants and makes a snack out of his intestines. As for the zombies, they resemble the living dead in Fulci’s Zombie, but unlike their counterparts in that 1979 film, they don’t feast on human flesh (in fact, these zombies don’t do much of anything).

As for the special effects in Zombie Holocaust, they’re a mixed bag. The zombies themselves look good enough (at least in the face; their bodies have no make-up whatsoever), and the gore / splatter effects are above average. Less impressive, though, is the scene in which Toran, after being cornered by Lori and Dr. Drydock, commits suicide by leaping out a window and plunging several stories to his death (the mannequin that stands in for Toran loses an arm when it hits the ground). In addition to the lackluster effects, I also had some issues with the film’s final act (the “mad scientist” portion of its tale), which left me with more questions than answers.

Yet what really annoyed me were the zombies themselves, which were far too docile (they have more in common with the zombies in the ‘30s classic White Zombie than they do the walking dead of the post-Romero period). In a movie titled Zombie Holocaust, you’d think that the zombies would have been a bit more integral to the story. Instead, they’re its weakest element.

Overall, I’d still say that Zombie Holocaust was a good movie, but with a few tweaks here and there, it probably would have been a better one.

#2,301. Zombie Strippers (2008)

Directed By: Jay Lee

Starring: Jenna Jameson, Robert Englund, Roxy Saint



Tag line: "They'll dance for a fee, but devour you for free"

Trivia: The actresses choreographed their own striptease routines







Calling your movie Zombie Strippers is itself enough to set your audience’s minds to spinning, and to writer / director Jay Lee’s credit, he delivers what his title promises!

Zombie Strippers is set in a world where George W. Bush has just been elected to his 4th term as U.S. President, and one of the first laws he and vice-president Arnold Schwarzenegger enact (congress has been disbanded) is a ban on all public nudity, in essence putting every peep show and strip club out of business. 

In addition, the country is embroiled in a number of costly wars (in areas like Syria, France, and even Alaska), and as such is in dire need of additional troops. Fortunately, the government-funded W Industries has developed a new virus that turns dead soldiers into ravenous zombies, capable of keeping up the fight under the heaviest of fire.


Of course, like most viruses, this “zombie serum” has been difficult to control, and as a result many of the company’s test subjects, and even a few scientists, have joined the ranks of the undead. To neutralize the threat, “Z” squad, a highly-trained marine unit, is brought in. Unfortunately, during the ensuing fight, one of “Z” Squad’s own, a soldier named Byrdflough (Zak Kilberg), is bitten on the arm. Realizing he’d be immediately executed if his superiors found out, Byrdflough flees the building and ducks into an unmarked staircase, which, to his surprise, leads to an illegal strip club owned and operated by Ian Essko (Robert Englund).

With his bevvy of beauties, such as Jeannie (Shamron Moore), Lilith (Roxy Saint), and newcomer Jessy (Jennifer Holland), Ian pulls in a small fortune each and every day. His livelihood is threatened, however, when his star dancer Kat (Jenna Jameson) is killed by a now-zombified Byrdflough. As Ian and his associates, including Madame Blavatski (Carmit Levité), Cole (Calvin Green), and Paco the Janitor (Joey Medina), are trying to figure a way out of this mess, Kat shocks them all by getting up and demanding to take the stage!

Strangely enough, the virus that turns guys into mindless zombies works much differently on women, transforming Kat into a sexy ghoul who, after working up an appetite on-stage, takes a random patron into the back room and devours him. Soon, the other girls, jealous of Kat’s newfound popularity (it seems the clients love zombie strippers), line up to be bitten themselves, and before Ian knows what’s hit him, he’s bringing in more money than he ever imagined possible. But how long will it be before his undead employees turn the tables on him?

Robert Englund delivers a bravura performance as Ian, the greedy sociopath whose undead strippers are more profitable than the live ones ever were, and it’s clear the former Nightmare on Elm Street star was having a great time. But as good as Englund and the rest of the cast are, it’s the more exploitative elements that make Zombie Strippers as much fun as it is.

Though primarily a comedy, the film doesn’t chince on either the make-up or effects, and there’s lots of gore as well (one poor guy gets his head ripped apart at the jaw). While it does have its share of piss-poor CGI (especially later on, when the blood and guts become more plentiful), horror fans are sure to like what they see in Zombie Strippers.

And even if the look of the zombies doesn’t impress you, the strippers definitely will. Led by the gorgeous Jenna Jameson, the women of Zombie Strippers do more than take their clothes off (which they do plenty of times throughout the movie). In many ways, these ladies are the most well-rounded characters in the film (Kat and Jeannie have a running feud that has apparently been going on for years; while Jessy, who never stripped before, is trying to raise money to pay for her grandmother’s operation), and when one by one they decide to “take the plunge” and become a zombie, we understand what it is that’s motivating their decision, and actually root for them to succeed.

Whether it’s the zombies or the strippers that you’ve come to see, Zombie Strippers will give you exactly what you’re looking for!

#2,267. What We Become (2015)

Directed By: Bo Mikkelsen

Starring: Mille Dinesen, Marie Hammer Boda, Troels Lyby



Tag line: "Stay home. Lock up. Don't breathe"

Trivia: This was the first post-apocalyptic zombie movie made in Denmark








The Johansson family, father Dino (Troels Lyby), mother Pernille (Mille Dinesen), teenage son Gustav (Benjamin Engell) and young daughter Maj (Ella Solgaard), live in the beautiful suburb of Sorgenfri, where they lead a perfectly normal life (Maj spends most of the day caring for her pet rabbit, and Gustav is trying to hook up with Sonja, the pretty brunette across the street played by Marie Hammer Boda). But something strange has been happening to the citizens of this quaint community: they’ve been getting sick, and in large numbers. The news media issues the occasional update, telling residents that a new virus is spreading rapidly, and that they should call a special hotline if they or any members of their family becomes sick. And the authorities are quick to tell them that under no circumstances should anyone venture outside their home.

Most people follow this advice. In fact, it isn’t until the military starts patrolling the streets, using automatic rifles to ensure nobody tries to leave town, that the locals begin to worry. Things reach a boiling point when soldiers cover the windows and doors of every house with black tarps, through which the Johanssons can see nothing, but occasionally hear gunfire, or the sound of troops rounding up their neighbors. Angry and exasperated, Gustav sneaks out one night and follows a government truck to a nearby school, where he realizes the full extent of what’s going on. He also does something that, though seemingly innocent at the time, puts him, his family, and everyone they know in the greatest of danger… 

For most of its runtime, 2015’s What We Become, a Danish horror film written and directed by Bo Mikkelsen, tries to conceal what’s actually happening in Sorgenfri, so I have no intention of delving too deeply into it myself. That said, even those viewers who know very little about the genre will more than likely be able to figure out what the “virus” is, and the effect it has on the locals. The clues we’re given early on speak for themselves: according to a news report, eight residents at a neighborhood nursing home have suddenly become critically ill (for no apparent reason); and later on, while attending a community picnic, Gustav spots a small child, who moments earlier was playing with his friends, doubled over and throwing up. The next day, a car crash occurs near the Johansson’s house, and when Dino investigates he’s horrified to find the driver’s dead body lying in the middle of the road. A police car and ambulance race towards the scene… and pass it by. Clearly they had something more pressing to attend to. We’ve seen all this before, and if What We Become has one weakness, it’s that it brings nothing new to the table.

Yet thanks to the fine performances delivered by the entire cast (especially those who make up the Johannsson family), as well as the way director Mikkelsen manages to generate tension throughout (even in those scenes where we know what’s going to happen before it does), What We Become is a film I would happily recommend to horror fans. Sure, it’s a routine entry if every way imaginable, but it’s also a good movie, and in the end, that’s enough to make it worth your while.

#2,229. Night of the Living Deb (2015)

Directed By: Kyle Rankin

Starring: Syd Wilder, Maria Thayer, Ray Wise




Line from the film: "Joe, why are you eating a foot?"

Trivia: Had its U.S. premiere at the Spooky Movie Film Festival in Oct., 2015








I was a big fan of director Kyle Rankin’s Infestation, a horror / comedy / apocalyptic film from 2009 in which mankind’s existence was threatened by an invasion of giant bugs. So when I saw that Mr. Rankin was also responsible for 2015’s Night of the Living Deb, my hopes were high. But while Infestation drew me in almost immediately with its humor and special effects, it took a while for me to warm up to the director’s latest offering, and its title character was the reason why.

Take, for instance, the opening few scenes. While relaxing in a bar with her good friend Ruby (Julie Brister), Deb Clarington (Maria Thayer), who works for a local news station in Portland, Maine, spots a cute guy across the room and, cheered on by Ruby, gathers up the courage to talk to him. The guy is Ryan Waverly (Michael Cassidy), who’s in the midst of having a fight with his fiancée Stacy (Syd Wilder).

Jump ahead to the next morning, when a confused Deb wakes up, all alone, in Ryan’s bed! Ryan is actually in the next room, chatting with his brother on the phone and trying to figure out a way to get Deb to leave as quickly as possible. Deb overhears this, but pretends she’s been asleep until Ryan finally walks in. With a big smile on her face, Deb talks of spending the day (which is July 4th, a holiday) with Ryan and his family, acting as if they’re already a couple. At first I thought she was having some fun at Ryan's expense, but the problem is she doesn’t let up, and a few minutes later what might have been funny is… well, kinda creepy. At this point, I had no idea what to make of this film’s quirky lead character.

I wasn’t crazy about Deb at the outset, but I have to admit I warmed up to her as the movie progressed, and by the time the final credits rolled, I absolutely loved her.

Shortly after parting ways, Deb and Ryan have a few frightening encounters on the streets of Portland, and before long realize that, at some point during the night, a quick-moving disease transformed most of the town’s citizens into bloodthirsty zombies. Luckily, the two are able to make their way back to Ryan’s apartment, where they formulate a plan to collect their loved ones and head for safety. Hopping into Deb’s car, they first stop to check in on Ruby (who has already “turned”), then rush over to pick up Ryan’s gun-loving brother Chaz (Chris Marquette) as well as his father (Ray Wise), a self-made millionaire who controls the entire town’s water supply. Ryan is also relieved to learn that Stacy spent the night with his family, and wants to make up with him.

As it turns out, Ryan’s dad is the one responsible for the zombie outbreak (an experimental chemical was accidentally released into the town’s drinking water). Still, despite his role in this disaster, Ryan’s dad has enough pull with the Governor to order a helicopter that will lift them all to safety. But, unbeknownst to Ryan, dear old dad has no intention of bringing Deb along. Will Ryan risk his neck for a girl he barely knows, or will he save himself instead?

One of the strengths of Night of the Living Deb is its cast. Marquette and Wise (both of whom also had major roles in Infestation) play Ryan’s corrupt dad and gun-crazy brother, and have their share of entertaining scenes (Marquette is especially hilarious as the imbecile you can’t help but like). In addition, Syd Wilder is both sultry and aggravating as Ryan’s overbearing fiance Stacy, taking what is basically a one-note character and breathing as much life into her as possible.

But Night of the Living Deb is all about Deb and Ryan, and how a zombie outbreak brought them closer together. Both Thayer and Cassidy do a fine job as the mismatched couple (she is spontaneous and unpredictable but lacks self-confidence; he is an ecology nut who turned his back on his family’s fortune, yet doesn’t have the strength to stand up to his father or brother when the chips are down). Yes: there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of movies in which a man and a woman, from different sides of the tracks, fall desperately in love. But how many were set during a zombie apocalypse?

Ultimately, Night of the Living Deb doesn’t quite work as a horror movie; aside from a few close calls with the undead early on, there’s not much here to get your pulse pounding. As for the comedy, it’s slightly more effective, due mostly to the film’s witty dialogue (while looking through Ryan’s fridge for some snacks to take on their journey, Deb instead finds nothing but health food. “Coconut milk?” she says sarcastically, “Are we in Portland or on Gilligan’s Island?”). I also liked how the film played fast and loose with the accepted rules of a zombie apocalypse (from what started the outbreak to the manner in which its spread), which is sure to give zombie aficionados a few chuckles. 

But this is not the kind of movie that will consistently crack you up. What sets Night of the Living Deb apart from all the others is the love affair that develops between its two leads, and while that’s not exactly what genre fans want to hear, I think the film’s charms may just win them over in the end.

At least that’s how it was with me.

#2,221. The Horde (2009)

Directed By: Yannick Dahan, Benjamin Rocher

Starring: Claude Perron, Jean-Pierre Martins, Eriq Ebouaney



Awards: Won for Best Screenplay & Best Cinematography at the 2010 Fantasporto Awards

Trivia: Shown as the closing film at Leeds International Film Festival's "Day Of The Dead" horror film marathon on 7th November, 2009






Early on in George Romero’s 1978 film Dawn of the Dead, there’s a scene in which a Philadelphia SWAT team raids an apartment complex, and are immediately fired upon by some of its residents. It isn’t long, though, before the dead come back to life, forcing both the police and the criminals to turn their attention (and their fire power) towards this new, but incredibly lethal, threat.

This is but one of many engaging sequences in this classic film, and runs for approximately 5-10 minutes. In the 2009 French horror movie The Horde, directors Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher stretch this same scenario into a feature length motion picture, and with its wall-to-wall action and bloodshed it proves to be a heck of a wild ride.

Looking to avenge the murder of one of their own, a group of vigilante cops, including Aurore (Claude Perron), Quessem (Jean-Pierre Martins) and Jimenez (Aurélien Recoing), raid the Paris tenement building that houses the notorious Markudi brothers, Adewale (Eriq Ebouaney) and Bola (Doudou Masta), and their posse of drug dealers. A shootout ensues, and when the smoke clears, the Markudis have killed several policemen and taken the rest prisoner.

But their victory is short-lived, because moments after the melee ends, the gang is attacked by a handful of ravenous zombies! From the looks of it, the entire building has been overrun by the living dead, and both the Markudi brothers and the remaining cops realize that, to survive this terrifying ordeal, they’re going to have to team up.

For every single one of its 90 minutes, The Horde is in an all-out adrenaline rush. The opening firefight between the cops and the bad guys is plenty intense, but pales in comparison to the insanity that follows soon after. Borrowing a page from the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, the undead masses in The Horde move pretty fast, which makes trying to stay ahead of them that much more difficult. And, of course, when the zombies do grab a hold of someone, the blood flies in every direction.

As if all this wasn’t crazy enough, there’s the added layer of tension that exists between the police and the Markudi gang, whose uneasy alliance is always hanging by a thread. Throw in a heavily-armed middle aged-maniac named René (Yves Pignot), who joins the fun at about the movie’s midway point, and you have an action-packed zombie film that rarely stops to take a breath.

#2,157. The Dead (2010)

Directed By: Howard J. Ford, Jonathan Ford

Starring: Rob Freeman, Prince David Oseia, David Dontoh



Premiere: This movie premiered at the 2010 UK Frightfest Film Festival

Trivia: The opening scene in the desert was filmed on one of the last days of shooting








The opening scene of 2010’s The Dead, where a lone figure walks across the Sahara Desert, looks as if it might have been lifted from a BBC nature documentary. It is beautiful. The serenity is eventually interrupted, however, by a man, his leg badly mangled (two bones protrude from the side), walking towards our lonely traveler. This injured man is a zombie. The walking dead. He is immediately followed by another… and another… and another. 

Despite its often-stunning vistas (the movie was shot on-location in Ghana, Burkina Faso, and other areas of Africa), The Dead is a no-nonsense, comedy-free horror film about a zombie outbreak and the difficulties that two characters face as they try to make their way to safety.

The dead have returned to life in West Africa, and are feeding on the living. Lt. Brian Murphy (Rob Freeman), an American engineer, is stranded when a plane carrying himself and a handful of others crashes soon after take-off. The only one to survive the wreck, Murphy desperately searches for another airport so he can return home to his wife (Katy Richardson) and daughter (Fae Ford-Brister). 

Along the way, Murphy meets Sgt. Daniel Dembele (Price David Oseia), an African solider trying to locate his son (Gaal Hama). Working together, the two men commandeer a vehicle and head deep into the desert, with the dead hot on their trail.

Directed by brothers Howard and Jon Ford, The Dead has quite a bit in common with George Romero’s Living Dead series. Along with moving very slowly (as they did in 1968's Night of the Living Dead and its sequels), the zombies in this film are literally everywhere. Because of this, Murphy and Daniel must remain constantly on the move. Whenever they stop driving for one reason or another, the dead lumber towards them. Sure, they're easy to outrun, and easier still to eliminate. In fact, to save ammunition, neither Murphy nor Daniel will shoot an oncoming zombie until it’s right on top of them. But the living dead are relentless in their pursuit. Even at night, the two leads can't relax. This is what generates tension throughout the film, and that tension grows stronger with each passing scene.

The gore effects are also excellent, with realistic bite wounds, violent head shots (one zombie gets his face caved in by a shotgun blast), and body parts strewn about (not all those who are bitten get back up; sometimes, there’s nothing left of them but a puddle of blood and guts). All this, plus the vast quantities of living dead that populate the movie, make The Dead a highly effective, not to mention very serious, horror flick.

I’m a fan of Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, and the like, but it was good to see a movie that reminds us just how frightening zombies can truly be.

#2,143. Zombie 5: Killing Birds (1987)

Directed By: Claudio Lattanzi

Starring: Lara Wendel, Robert Vaughn, Timothy W. Watts



AKA: This film was also known as Dark Eyes of the Zombie

Trivia: The house featured in the beginning of the film is the same used in Lucio Fulci's The Beyond







Directed by Claudio Lattanzi, Killing Birds was released in some areas of the world with the additional title Zombie 5, making it yet another entry in an unofficial series that began with Lucio Fulci’s 1979 gorefest, Zombie. It’s a strange designation when you think about it, seeing as this 1987 horror film doesn’t actually feature any zombies until the very end. But to be honest, this is just one of many aspects of Zombie 5: Killing Birds that will have you scratching your head.

A soldier (whose face we never see) has just finished his tour of duty in Vietnam, and is heading home to surprise his wife (Brigitte Paillet) and meet, for the first time, his infant son. Unfortunately, it’s the soldier himself who gets the shock of a lifetime when he opens the bedroom door and finds his beloved asleep in the arms of another man! In a fit of rage, the solider kills both the lover and his wife (slashing their throats), then turns his anger towards his in-laws (Ellis and Nona Paillet), who had been babysitting. Arrested for the crime, the soldier is eventually taken to a mental hospital, where he says goodbye to his young son before being led inside…

Flash forward 20 years: college student Steve Porter (Timothy W. Watts) is thrilled to learn his senior project has been green-lit by the school’s administrators. Joined by his friends Paul (James Villemaire), Mary (Leslie Cumming), Rob (James Sutterfield) and Jennifer (Lin Gathright), he heads deep into the Louisiana wilderness to track down a woodpecker that’s been put on the endangered list. Along with former flame / school reporter Anne (Lara Wendel) and local official Brian (Sal Maggiore Jr.), the group first pays a visit to Mr. Fred Brown (Robert Vaughn), a blind researcher and the only one who knows where the woodpecker hangs out. From there, Steve and his pals set up shop in an abandoned house (as fate would have it, the very same house from the opening scene). But during that first night, several of the college chums disappear without a trace, and it isn’t until much later in the evening that the others realize they’re not entirely alone.

With the exception of the always-interesting Robert Vaughn (hidden behind dark glasses and some gnarly-looking make-up), the acting in Zombie 5: Killing Birds is pretty awful, with the worst performance of them all delivered by the lead, Timothy Watts (it’s no surprise this was his only film credit). In addition, the whole “college researchers” section of the movie takes a while to get rolling, with several scenes inserted to pad out the running time (including a laughable music-fueled montage of the group relaxing by the side of a lake). Yet what annoyed me most about Zombie 5: Killing Birds were the lapses in its story. Throughout the second part of the film, hints are dropped that Steve is somehow connected to the house’s past (there’s even a decent “flashback-style” sequence, where Steve finds himself walking through the house as it was 20 years earlier). It’s no mystery what the filmmakers were getting at, but before it ties itself up, this subplot is abandoned entirely in favor of a truly bizarre finale.

Those moments when we do see some zombies aren’t terrible, and during the opening, there’s even a violent bird attack (it pulls a character’s eye out of its socket). Oh, and there’s a scene involving fire that’s fairly grisly (one of the only times the movie sent a chill up my spine). In the end, though, we’re talking 3-4 minutes of worthwhile material, and in a picture that’s an hour and a half long, that’s just plain dismal.

My recommendation: go back and watch Fulci’s Zombie, and leave Zombie 5 to the birds.

#2,102. Fangoria's Blood Drive (2004)

Directed By: Various

Starring: Lee Perkins, Patrick Tierney




Tag line: "America's Best Short Horror Films"

Trivia: Features the winning seven films from Fangoria Magazines Blood Drive contest








Blood Drive is a straight-to-video release featuring the seven shorts (chosen form hundreds of entries) that won Fangoria Magazine’s Blood Drive contest in 2004. From slashers to ghosts, zombies to serial killers, Blood Drive is a mixed bag of horror goodies, and regardless of whether you’re a gore hound or a fan of the psychological, there will be something in this collection for you to enjoy.

Blood Drive kicks things off in… well, bloody fashion with Drew Rist’s The Hitch, the story of a serial killer terrorizing the backroads of Texas. With plenty of blood spurts scattered throughout, The Hitch tells a slasher-esque tale topped off with a dash of the supernatural (there are a few twists in this one, all effective). A Man and his Finger is a comedic short in which a man accidentally cuts off his finger while slicing lettuce, only to find the severed digit has a life of its own (it’s a fun premise, but the joke wears thin after a while). Christopher Garatano’s Inside is a well-made film that ventures into psychological territory. There’s a lot going on in this stylish short, and it’ll probably take more than one viewing to drink it all in. Shadow of the Dead by Joel Robertson is a spooky zombie tale that, for the most part, is dialogue-free (aside from a radio broadcast, consisting of audio lifted from Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, not a single word is uttered in this short). Undeniably intense (especially the finale), Shadow of the Dead is one of the collection’s creepiest entries. 

Also quite creepy is Mister Eryans, about a woman whose house is haunted, and a man sent by the church to investigate it. As much a psychological thriller as it is a ghost film, Mister Eryans features some strong performances (especially the female lead) and a surprise that pretty much turns the entire tale upside-down. Rounding out Blood Drive are the ghost-heavy Disturbances (not the most original of the group, but effective nonetheless) and the comedy-musical Song of the Dead, in which a man belts out a song while transforming into a zombie.

All seven films were shot on video, with budgets that were obviously next to nothing, and as it is with all collections, some movies are better than others (if I had to choose three, I’d recommend the middle segments: Inside, Shadow of the Dead, and Mister Eryans). But, honestly, I think you should check out all of Blood Drive; there’s not a stinker in the bunch!

#2,083. The Living Dead Girl (1982)

Directed By: Jean Rollin

Starring: Marina Pierro, Françoise Blanchard, Mike Marshall



Alternate Title: In Japan this film was released as Zombie Queen

Trivia: Actress Françoise Blanchard found the shooting of this film to be physically exhausting, and one day she even collapsed on the set






Director Jean Rollin was no stranger to violence; movies like Fascination and The Demoniacs certainly had their share of bloodshed. But with 1982’s The Living Dead Girl, he achieved a whole new level of brutality, and in the process made what I consider to be one of the most effective horror flicks in his filmography.

Looking for an out-of-the-way locale to dump a few barrels of toxic waste, three men (played by Alain Petit, Jean Cherlian, and Jean-Pierre Bouyxou) eventually agree that the best place to store it is the burial chamber situated under the Valmont family estate. Once there, the trio decides to do a little grave robbing as well, and break open a casket housing the remains of Catherine Valmont (Françoise Blanchard), a gorgeous young woman who passed away several years earlier. Just as they do so, an earthquake strikes, spilling some of the toxic sludge onto the ground. And as the men will soon learn, this was no ordinary waste; seconds after it’s exposed to the air, Catherine Valmont suddenly springs to life and dispatches the three intruders in grisly fashion. 

Alive yet still unaware of her surroundings, Catherine makes her way back to the Valmont family estate, where, a short time later, she meets up with her life-long friend Hélène (Marina Pierro). Thrilled to have Catherine back, Hélène does what she can to make her comfortable, but soon realizes the only thing the recently-reanimated Catherine needs to survive is human blood. With Hélène’s help, Catherine feeds on a steady stream of unsuspecting victims. The question is: how long will the two be able to get away with murder?

Like many of his previous films, Rollin shot The Living Dead Girl on-location (for the duration of the shoot, the entire cast and crew lived in the mansion that served as the Valmont estate), and even managed to put his own unique spin on the zombie subgenre (over time, Christine learns to talk again, and becomes more self-aware with each passing scene). But it’s the film’s high level of gore that sets it apart. Created by Benoît Lestang, who at age 17 was working on his first movie, some of the film’s gore effects look surprisingly good (unlike most walking dead, who use their teeth to tear open a victim’s throat, Catherine relies on her sharp fingernails to get the job done), culminating in a climactic scene that’s sure to disturb you (arguably the most violent finale Rollin ever turned out).

As beautiful as it is bloody (the picturesque country setting is utilized to great effect), The Living Dead Girl is a truly intense motion picture experience.

#1,962. Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead (2014)

Directed By: Tommy Wirkola

Starring: Vegar Hoel, Ørjan Gamst, Martin Starr





Tag line: "Heads up. They're back"

Trivia: Shot in both Norwegian and English








After a brief recap of what went down in Dead Snow, director Tommy Wirkola’s 2014 follow-up, Dead Snow 2: Red Vs. Dead, picks up exactly where that movie left off, with Martin (Vegar Hoel), who cut a portion of his own arm off after being bitten by a zombie, trapped in his car while undead Nazi commander Herzog (Ørjan Gamst) and a handful of his troops attack him on all sides. What follows is an action-packed, sometimes hysterical sequence in which Herzog’s arm is also severed (it ends up falling into the passenger’s seat of Martin’s car). It’s a crazy opening scene, to be sure, but trust me when I tell you it isn’t half as insane as what’s to come!

Shortly after escaping the Nazis, Martin crashes his vehicle and is knocked unconscious. When he comes to, he finds himself handcuffed to a hospital bed. It seems the cops don’t believe his story about marauding dead Nazis, and are convinced Martin is the one who slaughtered his friends. To make matters worse, the doctor tells Martin that he was able to re-attach his arm, not knowing that the limb he sewed on actually belonged to a zombie! Unable to control his new appendage, Martin inadvertently kills a few more people before finally stealing a car and speeding away.

Thus begins an adventure that sees Martin team up with three Americans: Daniel (Martin Starr); Monica (Jocelyn DeBoer); and Blake (Ingrid Haas), who call themselves the Zombie Squad. With the help of a museum employee named Glenn (Stig Frode Henriksen), Martin and his newfound friends attempt to stop Herzog’s army, which is about to unleash holy hell on a small Norwegian town. Realizing they’re outnumbered, Martin uses his powerful new arm to even the odds a bit, leading to a showdown of epic proportions.

People die by the dozen in Dead Snow 2, usually in grisly fashion, and no group (not even children or the handicapped) is safe from the onslaught. Even a mother out walking her baby is fair game, and the level of violence that Herzog’s army inflicts on their victims is off the charts (one poor guy is beaten to death with a bathroom sink, while the intestines of another are used to siphon gas from a tour bus into a WWII-era tank). Rest assured, however, that Martin and his zombie arm make a hell of a team, and he even manages to raise a few undead soldiers of his own to battle Herzog (I dare not reveal more).

As for the Zombie Squad, they’re basically nerds (Monica quotes Star Wars every chance she gets), but those who remember the Outhouse scene in Dead Snow know that director Wirkola has a certain affection for genre fans / social misfits such as these, so don’t expect this trio to be the comic relief. That role is instead filled by local police chief Gunga (Hallvard Holmen), who utters a few hilarious comments after realizing he and his men are caught in the middle of an all-out zombie war.

If I had to sum up Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead in a couple of words, they would be “glorious insanity”. It’s bloody, messy, gross, over-the-top, ridiculous, and just plain awesome. There’s no denying that 2009’s Dead Snow is an excellent zombie flick, but I have to tell you, once I watch Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead a few more times, there’s a damn good chance I’ll be ranking this sequel slightly ahead of the original

#1,899. Garden of the Dead (1972)

Directed By: John Hayes

Starring: Philip Kenneally, Duncan McLeod, John Dullaghan




Tag line: "Death was the only living thing..."

Trivia: Originally distributed as the second feature on a double bill with Grave of the Vampire







Garden of the Dead is the kind of micro-budget horror film they used to run on UHF stations, playing as part of their late-night “Creature Feature” movie show. I have fond memories of staying up late just to see these films, and while I’m positive I never saw Garden of the Dead before, the fact that it’s as shitty as some of the flicks they used to run gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

This 1972 horror movie is set in a prison work camp that specializes in manufacturing formaldehyde. The warden (Phil Kenneally) is a hard-ass, and rules the camp with an iron fist, but that doesn’t prevent some of the prisoners from occasionally sneaking out back to get high on the fumes. Led by the volatile Braddock (Virgil Frye), these addicted inmates attempt to escape late one night, only to be gunned down before they could slip away. Per the Warden’s orders, the dead prisoners are buried in a shallow, unmarked grave just beyond the fence. But thanks to their steady diet of formaldehyde, they won’t stay buried for long. Rising out of the ground as zombies, they descend upon the camp, intent on killing everyone inside so that they can have the precious green fluid all to themselves. But with the guards and the rest of the prisoners joining forces to stop them, these undead addicts may be in for a fight they can’t possibly win.

With its low production values and poor performances, Garden of the Dead may, at first glance, seem like your average, run-of-the-mill ‘70s horror cheapie. Hell, it probably looks like that at second and third glances as well, because that’s exactly what it is! As a living dead flick, though, it does distinguish itself in a few key areas. For one, the zombies can talk; soon after clawing his way out of the ground, the now-undead Braddock shouts “We must have the liquid in back of the camp. We will destroy the living!” Which leads me to yet another of Garden of the Dead's unique aspects: instead of brains and human flesh, these zombies need formaldehyde to survive. Oh, and they can also run, which gives Braddock and his crew a constant advantage over the camp’s inept guards.

As for their weaknesses, these marauding zombie prisoners have three: bright light (which causes them to disintegrate), shotguns (which blow them away), and…

…wait for it…

Women in night gowns! That’s right, these once-dead criminals freeze in their tracks whenever a pretty girl strolls into view, and are especially taken with Carol (Susan Charney), wife of “good” prisoner Paul Johnson (Marland Proctor).  In one of the film's better scenes, Braddock and his zombified posse surround Carol's RV, gawking at her until she drives away in a panic.  

Considering it's a zero-budget movie, the make-up in Garden of the Dead is fairly good, even if it is a bit overdone (these prisoners were only dead a day or so, yet look as if they’ve been underground for years), and a scene in which one zombie is exposed to light and starts to melt looks pretty damn cool. Of course, none of this is enough to save the movie, and I can only recommend it to die-hard genre fans in search of something new. Odds are, with the recent glut of low-budget living dead films they’ve been subjected to over the last 10-15 years, Garden of the Dead won’t be the worst they’ve ever seen!

#1,824. Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead (2014) - Spotlight on Australia

Directed By: Kiah Roache-Turner

Starring: Jay Gallagher, Bianca Bradey, Leon Burchill




Line from the film: "We need to find a zombie... fast!"

Trivia: Because it was shot only on weekends, it took four years to complete this film








Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead, directed by first-timer Kiah Roache-Turner (who co-wrote the screenplay with this brother Tristan), may not be the first zombie road movie ever made (Zombieland and George Romero’s Diary of the Dead leap immediately to mind), but it’s one crazy-ass film all the same!

A bizarre illness, triggered by a meteor shower, is transforming ordinary people into bloodthirsty zombies. Barry (Jay Gallagher), a mechanic from Melbourne who was forced to kill his wife Annie (Catherine Terracini) and daughter Meganne (Meganne West) when they “turned”, is one of the few not affected by the virus.

Teaming up with several other survivors, including an Aborigine named Benny (Leon Burchill) and fellow mechanic Frank (Keith Agius), Barry attempts to reach his sister Brooke (the awesome Bianca Bradey), who he thinks may be holed up in the small town of Bulla Bulla.

Unbeknownst to Barry, Brooke has been kidnapped by a military outfit, and is currently the prisoner of a sadistic doctor (Berynn Schwerdt) who is conducting a series of experiments to determine what it is that makes some people immune to the illness.

Armed to the teeth and driving a truck that runs on “zombie power” (for reasons unknown, the virus has neutralized all flammable liquids such as gasoline, while turning the infected themselves, who exhale a form of methane gas, into a fuel supply), Barry and the others attempt to track down Brooke. But will she be the same person he once knew, or have the experiments already changed her into something else entirely?

It does eventually develop a sense of humor (thanks to Benny, who adapts to this new world order with the greatest of ease), but the opening scenes of Wyrmwood are deathly serious, not to mention nerve-racking. Following an action-packed sequence in which Barry, Benny, and a few others do battle with a horde of angry infected, we’re treated to a series of flashbacks, detailing how each of the characters learned about the outbreak. Barry's memories are particularly unsettling. While asleep in their bed, he and his wife were awakened by daughter Meganne, who told them somebody was in the kitchen. Barry checked it out, and came face-to-face with a particularly hungry zombie. These scenes get Wyrmwood off to an exciting, and at times quite dramatic, start while also serving as a precursor for the insanity yet to come.

And Wyrmwood does get damn crazy after a while, due mostly to what happens to Brooke as a result of the experiments (much like Romero’s classic Day of the Dead, many of the so-called human characters in Wyrmwood are more frightening than the infected). Yet as peculiar as its later sequences are, they’re but one aspect of a film that, from start to finish, is a thrill ride drenched in blood (despite its low budget, the movie offers up some pretty impressive gore). An exciting, occasionally original horror flick, Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead is a nifty addition to the zombie subgenre.