Abominable - 2006

 My little marathon kept going this morning with 2006's Abominable, one of many movies with that name.

Where to start...maybe with the first scene.  The scene in which some people go outside because of a noise and find some dead animal on the ground ripped apart and discover Bigfoot tracks in the snow.  The snow that was not there the entire time until now, suddenly is about 3 inches thick on the ground and I repeat WAS NOT in any previous shots.

This is an early indication of what's to come.  Matt McCoy stars as a handicapped guy going with his drunk abusive caregiver to a remote cabin for some R&R.  Once there, a group of women come to the cabin next door for party weekend and the abusive caregiver goes to the town to get drunk.  Alone in the cabin, McCoy start to see and hear bizarre things in the woods.  Could it be the CGI Sasquatch creature we catch a glimpse of?  

This is prime SyFy original movie territory back when that was the place for this sorta trash.  Younger me would'a cracked a Pabst and watched this in a back to back marathon with a few others on a Friday night.  Modern me is amazed that this is only 30 years after those 70s ones I just watched, and wondering where some movie trends started and why and how.  Like the credits in this movie specifically were very much "of the moment" in 2006, but where did that start?  And is it still done, just in places I don't see?

Abominable is paper thin, clearly they did not have enough script of plot for a full movie and a lot of the time you're just watching the main character look at the girls with binoculars because there isn't anything else to fuckin' film, so I guess that's what's happening. The monster looks like total shit and there is not enough nudity or blood and guts to have it be that much fun.  So its just a straight 2.

Curse of Bigfoot - 1975

 Also known in the 90s as Teenagers Battle the Thing.

Who knows, dude.  Its the mood I'm in. That's why this sudden spring of Bigfoot movies.  This one I had at least seen something from or about, because this insane mask I had seen before.

When this is the level of special effect for your Bigfoot creature, the rest of the movie ain't going to be outshining it to a significant degree.  And boy, does this movie feel in a whole different ballpark of budget and capability than previously watched Bigfoot movies.  Sure, 1970s Bigfoot was dark and poorly acted, but this is like comparing that to vacation footage.

It could be this was a Rifftrax and I may have watched that at one point, but the plot of this was not familiar.  Plot wise, a teacher brings in an expert to talk to some students about ancient creatures, lore, and such.  The students embark upon an expedition and find a sealed tomb type area with a seemingly dead ancient creature in it.  The breaking of the seal brings it back to life, and it begins running amok and causing chaos.

This movie is certainly a lot more of the type of thing you would see on Rifftrax.  Its really two bit in nature, with extremely unchoreographed and unpracticed scenes that play out with makeup like what's seen above.  This is a fun trashy movie, its just SO bad dude, and I mean I love it, its just like WOW.

Apparently this was a movie made in 1963 which was expanded into this full length thing, which was released in 1975, and somehow also gets stamped with the years 1976 and 1978.  Its like no year wants to claim it.  But put it on late at night and enjoy the sleeze.  3 stars.

Sasquatch - 1976

 Also known as Sasquatch, the Legend of Bigfoot.

Why not do a double feature, I ask.  I started writing this because the narration says as if its nothing "After 3 months in the forests..." and I'm like.  Fuck.  You lucky fucks.

This movie is both a psuedo-documentary about Bigfoot as well as a love letter to the area in which Bigfoot supposedly lives, the Pacific Northwest.  Filmed outside of Bend Oregon standing in for British Columbia Canada, this talks at length about the beauty and unspoiled nature of the scenery, and you can tell that its earnest in its adoration for the area.

I'm reading a history book about the Pacific Northwest by Carlos Schwantes, which I would recommend to everyone.  The book more of a historical look than this fiction movie obviously- but legend, lore, and the culture that manifested in the area decades later is still interesting in its relevance to that.  This is yet another chapter in the bizarre history of the area, to be filed under a fascinating section of perhaps a different book, one about human psyche and human incongruity with nature.

We follow a rough and tumble group of backwoods explorers on a many months long journey on horseback through the PNW, and their various adventures therein.  Some minor Bigfoot threats aside, its about the nature, the animals, the pioneer feeling of exploring a forest unspoilt by humanity.  Its also set in my favorite part of Canada, the northern British Columbia, where vast miles of forest feel like they have never been set foot in by man, and are perhaps one of the last remaining places like that.

I'm bringing a lot of this to the movie from my own life, but there is a love and honesty present in this film no matter what, and its a more professionally shot, lit and acted than the previous entry Bigfoot.  Which I think elevates this to 4 stars.

Bigfoot - 1970

 Its odd how I specifically remember searching out Bigfoot movies at several points in my life to watch them, yet somehow this one escaped me?  I finally got it though.

Bigfoot had quite a cast, which Ebert even remarked about in his review.  John Carradine as a typical redneck yokel, film legend John Mitchum, Touch of Evil's Joi Lansing, and John Mitchum's son Christopher.  I dunno, must've meant more to Ebert than it does to me.  

Bigfoot is a pretty low budget, pretty damn insane 70s low brow redneck movie.  Bigfoot captures some women for breeding, and they blankly stare as they discuss the fact they're going to be raped by Bigfoot!  They seem to not care at all, unless Bigfoot comes up to them, in which case its screaming screaming screaming, which will have you reaching for the mute button.

Super grainy and awful quality, there is just something about this which is super fucking fun.  Its hackney, its dumb, it has a shiteating grin on its face.  But its something that if you get on its level and watch with extra buttered popcorn and maybe a cocktail or some friends, you'll have a damn blast.  Its not a great movie but it certainly is great to me.

All Through the Night - 1942

 Something in New Zealand made me think about Humphrey Bogart and I mentioned him to my family and it turns out they’re all fans also! We traded favorites and least favorites and it put me in the mood to watch some of his films again.

All Though the Night is described on the back as a proto film noir, and also as a loose satire of the type of films that it itself is. Those would be detective adjacent, mob adjacent films, noir adjacent character stories involving edgy characters, and situations that build to a climactic finish.

Bogart plays a man named Gloves who is a regular at a restaurant where he gets cheesecake every day. One day, the man that makes his cheesecakes is killed, and that brings Bogart into a bizarre situation of exploitation and Nazi presence in his little town. Gloves will have to use his cunning and his connections to solve the case.

The back of the movie box over sold the satire a little bit as well as the meta aspect a little bit. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up, but they truly made it sound like a romp and it wasn’t really. At an hour and 45 minutes it’s perhaps 30 minutes a little long, This movie made me miss some of the quick A to B old films that I normally like. 

This isn’t that bad and it certainly is unique among the types of things that was coming out. Maybe they should just rewrite the back of the box. I’ll give it four stars although I do think it’s a little bit too long no matter what.

Tombs of the Blind Dead - 1972

 Also known as. The Night of the Blind Terror and.. Revenge from Planet Ape???  This was apparently trying to cash in on the Planet of the Apes success and it sent me down a research hole trying to find if other movies did that and I couldn't find it and gave up.

The first of this foursome I've always wanted to see prompted a thought in my head.  Could be that one of the reasons these movies remain is that they established a new "type" when it came to zombies.  These are specifically undead templars, who ride horses and wear their cloaks and use swords.  They are specifically blind too, and this puts them in a strange realm between mummy and the skeleton warriors from some of the Ray Harryhausen Sinbad type movies.

Now, I loved Harryhausen as a kid and I love it now, even if these movies are not claymation, the movement and the style is probably directly in homage to those skeletons, and its like someone saw those movies and saw those skeletons and said "lets make a movie just based on these guys."  Lets!

A long preamble has a budding lesbian relationship end when one of the women jumps off a train, escapes to a church way out in the middle of nowhere, and gets killed by the templars who raise from the grave.  The group of friends she had go searching for her and get stalked by the templars themselves.

Again, the atmosphere of this thing is incredible.  This has long scenes of slowly moving skeletal creatures with chanting songs and strange slowed down eeriness and its used often, but does not get old because FUCK does it work!  It kicks ass, every moment you're watching that you're just in and there's no where else you'd rather be, nothing else you'd rather be watching.

Its a good intro to a series which I know gets better, so I'll give this one a 4.

Island of the Fishmen - 1979

 Also known as Island of Mutations, Something Waits in the Dark, and Screamers.

What is this, a Zombie movie?  With these alternative names?  Apparently this movie was slightly edited and shipped around to several different countries, with alternate names, and none of the versions were very successful.  Maybe the apt name should've been something like Lipstick on a Pig.

Fishmen stars Barbara Bach from James Bond, and in one of the versions it had a clunky sounding scene with Cameron Mitchell and Miguel Ferrer edited into the beginning.  I don't remember if my version had that, honestly.  I can't be bothered to check, either.  Okay I did check and yes I watched the US version that had these two in the beginning.

From the director of Torso comes this almost Lovecraft feeling story of a lost isle that has fish human hybrids on it, ala Dagon.  Barbara Bach and some others land there and its shadowy, inept chaos from there on in.

Shot with a negative lighting budget, the real question you'll be asking yourself is what is going on.  Now, this is not the worst thing I've seen by far but yeah its just another example of a truly amateur low budget schlockfest.  No nudity and no real violence either, its another one of these as well where I ask, could this be rated like PG?

Its fun low brow trash, I give it 2.5 stars.

The Demon - 1979

 This movie has more years on its title than almost any I've seen.  1979, 1980 1981, and 1985 are all seemingly valid.  Also known as Midnight Caller.

A evil shadowy figure haunts peoples dreams with claws on his hand...what is this?  A Nightmare on Elm Street?  No, its the other dream-haunting claw hand guy, The Demon.  Cameron Mitchell is this movie's John Saxon, the elder statesman brought in to fight the demonic entity.  He'll protect the leagues of topless women that The Demon is after in this strange flick from South Africa.

Shadow Killer or Shadow Demon could easily have been the title cause holy crap is this movie dark in color.  Shadows fill frames and the killer or main character or anyone are all bathing in darkness in this movie.  The Demon especially, who by the way goes completely unexplained, is only seen somewhat in the light at the end, also wearing a mask.  Not complaining, keep the horror movies dark is my middle name, just sayin'.

A bit slower than its 1984 cousin, this movie is certainly a bit more interminable and plodding.  We don't really have lore or explanation here, which also makes it feel that way.  So I can't really land on good or bad, it was certainly fun though, so I give it 3 stars.

Wake in Fright - 1971

 As soon as I started watching Australian movies, I knew that I would need to rewatch this one, a movie I’ve meant to rewatch for years now and that I finally now got around too.

It’s not just that it stars Donald Pleasense and it’s also not just that it’s a defragmenting story and study of masculinity, it’s also a very interesting dark film that has a lot more themes on a second viewing. There’s a lot I forgot about this and there’s a lot that I love about this movie, a movie that I saw referred to online as the best film ever made in Australia.

Straightlaced school teacher John Grant gets into gambling in a drunken night and loses all his money. His only friendships are a bunch of backwoods kangaroo hunters in this beer soaked sweat soaked underbelly of society study about masculinity in general. 

The strange hazing rituals, the homoerotic parts of masculinity, the ways in which we measure ourselves and each other, the embracing of the old and the new, the mixture of intellectual versus redneck, and certainly the need and want to fit in all are illustrated perfectly in a relatively light on dialogue film. 

Perhaps the only movie to have Donald Pleasense as a sex symbol, he has a bizarre, charismatic appeal, despite never really knowing what he’s talking about.  Thel other characters all sort of float around in a mysterious haze of potential threat or best friend. It is an odd feeling for this movie and one that makes you not really understand what’s happening with the main character or with anyone else, but not in a way which bothers you. Rather in a way that makes you have a certain amount of acceptance - Not necessarily resignation just acceptance. 

Films in general can allow for us as the audience to put ourselves in the shoes of a character, and I think that this is something that is only helped by ambiguity and minimalistic dialogue. I think in a certain way it’s the quietness of older films that helps us attach ourselves to them, it is their mysticism and their innate ambiguity that makes us pair ourselves to the happenings of the film. In that way, this movie feels extremely identifiable without having any amount of things in it that anyone can actually relate to. But feeling like an outsider, feeling social pressure, feeling mixed sexual desires, and feeling lost as major themes, anyone can attach themselves to in this. 

The feeling of this film is the feeling of a moment, those weird ones that you can’t really explain that stick with you despite the fact that nothing happened in them. Things do happen in this film and there are things that would stick with anyone but the same time their meaning and their interpretation is completely up for grabs. In that way it’s a masterpiece of strange evocative motion while being a little thin on explanation and plot, it’s certainly a great vibe film. 5 vibe stars. 

Harlequin - 1980

 Also known as Dark Forces. 

 Dude, never say you’ve seen it all. This is not some strange horror movie about a wizard like the poster shows, but rather a story based on Rasputin? I might have to read more about Rasputin. 

There is a dying child who has a clown come to his birthday party, where they form a connection. The clown turns out to be Gregory Wolfe, a mysterious self proclaimed harlequin, master of illusion and hypnosis. He cures the child and instantly comes under the scrutiny of the family, which includes rich powerful Senator Rast. Not believing in magic, they try to figure out Wolfe’s deal as he grows closer to the child and the family. 

This movie was one of the stranger ones I’ve seen. I’ve seen a bit. It’s just very unlike anything else, and it’s all done very well. The actors are all selling it and the effects are great. The thing also moves at a great pace and while there are times for the dramatic family stuff to be explored it doesn’t feel like we overstay our welcome with a lot of that kinda stuff. 

It all builds to a place where 30, 20 minutes from the end I still don’t know what’s real and what to expect and if you can do that, well you have done a lot is all I’m saying. 

Directed by Simon Wincer who also did Snapshot, these are two excellent and well made, well paced films. I give this a 4.5

Snapshot - 1979

 Another Aus new wave, which I’m going to stay in for a little while now after finishing Zombie. 

I’m going through the filmography of Hugh Keays Byrne, I won’t watch them all but I’ll watch the weird ones or horror or basically what I can find for free online. Such as this strange exploration flick. 

This movie feels either way earlier 70s or possibly even late 60s. 79 seems a little late to be doing a “seedy world being uncovered by a naive young girl” type thing. I’m not slamming this, just yeah. 1979? There’s also a disco like club scene in here. Again, 1979?

Angela is an innocent 20 year old working at a salon dreaming of bigger and brighter when an older, attitude-throwing woman comes in and offers her a job. $1000 for half a day of what ends up being topless modeling. She does the job and soon it sends her entire world is turned upside down and someone is after her. 

Whether it be the lesbian seductress, the weird off kilter ex boyfriend, or the powerful mysterious producers she’s now involved with, it’s a light mystery romp with not too much fat or meat on it’s bones. It’s quick and easy and nothing is really delved into all that much. It’s just simple A to B sorta a thing that won’t leave a sour taste in your mouth or leave you with much at all, for better or worse. 

Good music and tight direction helps, topless scenes hello but there could’ve been more. I dunno man, it’s an example of slightly better than “it’s fine”. It’s a “it’s good” but without a ton of supporting citations. I give it a 3.5

Lorca and the Outlaws - 1984

 I’ve reviewed a few Italian ripoffs of Star Wars. They’re moderately well known, as far as these things go. Turkish Star Wars is even in there, cemented as a strange cash in. So what about Australia?

Also known as Starship. 

This is an incredibly strange blender of the things from Star Wars again put through a nonsense filter and taking certain lessons “right” and others “wrong”. It occurred to me while I watched it, how many people grew up with this and liked it?  Star Wars is also nonsense. The plot is linear and it’s a simple heroes journey which is why it works but it doesn’t explain jack shit either as far as anything else goes. 

So Lorca and the Outlaws is a the same thing slightly as things like these. This time it’s an executive order asking all androids to take over the work being done on the ship or whatever and to eliminate all humans. Main character Lorca teams up with a kid robot to fight the baddies and to lead a revolution. 

There’s also a random Peter Gabriel musical portion?! San Jacinto plays with a dude lip synching to it…why?! What is this?!

I watched this because I’m in New Zealand and wanted to watch things relevant, related, nearby or whatever. This was a fairly unknown sci fi movie that I watched online seemingly taped off TV. I think for this type of thing this is pretty cool, except my god is it hard to follow. Just like the Italian ones it’s more you’re watching “stuff happen” versus a real plot or a movie. It gets kinda tiring and dense, borderline impenetrable at times. Luckily this one is a bit easier to watch but still a challenge. 

It’s a strange and uneven movie, but it looks great and it can certainly be engaging.  3 stars

Pulgasari - 1985

 Also known as (supposedly in Pakistan) Zombi 34: Communist Bull Monster.

We’ve seen poster and even tagline is better than the movie stories, how about lore is better than the movie? This movie isn’t bad, it’s gonna get like a 3.5 or so, but how can one beat this lore??!

Apparently North Korea wanted a few movies and didn’t have a strong cinematic culture. So why not steal from the South? They kidnapped a South Korean director and had him make them a few movies including this one. He later escaped during a film festival somewhere, but what?! Crazy!

Pulgasari is a Korean legend, and this reminds me a lot of the Daimajin films. Specifically these are all films that take place feudal times and revolve more around the monster as a blessing and a curse. 

The soul of a blacksmith gets roused to protect his daughter from a warlord in this North Korean epic. When she is in pain, Pulgasari gets raised first as an inch tall creature and will eat iron to grow larger and larger until it is Godzilla size and the warlord is trying to stop it. First with fire, then with a stone trap and then with cannons, nothing seems to work to stop the monster.

Featuring a great costume and fun effects, this is a kaiju film that also embraces some of the silliness of the Godzilla series around this time. There are segments that remind me of Son of Godzilla and there are segments that harken back to classic Godzilla films. I’m a little bit surprised that this is such a hit because it is very similar to most of the fare around this time, but I suppose that it was popular enough that there was room for one more.

I don’t believe honestly that this was ever truly released with the Zombie title. Maybe it was they just didn’t know what to call this… But whatever it doesn’t matter. I hadn’t seen this since high school, and it was fun to revisit so I’ll give it a 3.5.

Revenge in the House of Usher - 1983

 Also know as Neurosis, The Fall of the House of Usher, and Zombie 5. 

I’m going to watch Pulgasari again and then I’m done. Usher was a story by Edgar Allen Poe which I haven’t read, and this is maybe that or maybe inspired by that or maybe nothing at all. 

What it is, you have an old man recounting his abductions and killings of young women to a blood hungry creature. He has a glass eyed Igor like assistant and that looks fun, modern era in color and flashbacks in black and white. 

I’ll say there’s some atmosphere to this and some of the flashbacks and such are interesting? But holy fuuuck does this feel long. It just sits there and it absolutely doesn’t pull you in. Once it stops being a flashback to I’d be hard pressed to tell you what happened in the rest of the movie, because it’s not clear. 

No nudity or gore, was this thing rated G? It’s also unintentional but these are getting less “Zombie” with each one I watch and spoiler alert the next one is the least Zombie of them all. Weird. This is a 1.5 zone snooze fest. 

The Cars That Ate Paris - 1974

 Reportedly a large inspiration for Mad Max, and I can see it, this is another strange down under apocalypse(?) movie. 

The similarities are many. Both films are about strange societies and the laws and rules they have, and are NOT POST apocalypse!! It’s more like society is in a place of moral and economic decay, strange things happen that are out of the control of the main character, and shit goes sideways from there. 

Arthur is a bad driver. He is vacationing with a towed trailer and goes off the road for some inexplicable reason and crashes. He ends up in Paris Australia where he discloses he also hit and killed(?) a old man driving once. The mayor or whatever, some guy, basically adopts him. Meanwhile, creepy cars are getting closer and closer to the city, crashing and acting all dangerous in what is likely more a metaphor for mental disease than a real threat. 

The movie should be looked at that way because, I’m not trying to slam it here, but if you look at it as a real narrative it doesn’t make sense. Characters and circumstances and events are never explained.  They seem to want the cars to be alive yet they do admit and confront the people driving the cars. The what is happening of it all doesn’t have explanation,  the old dude that adopts a grown man is never explained.

However if you look at it as a man with repeated trauma enters a period of rehab or a sort of  experimental therapy, confront his fear and overcomes it, the film makes sense.  Again I do enjoy this I just think it’s interesting that this and Mad Max get looked at as films where that certainly was not the original thing. Max was a police officer, society was fractured but intact.  You’re telling me police exist in a world with a bullet farm and Immortan Joe?

Cars here is a really strange and slightly inexplicable film that is slightly long and tedious with a few absolutely thrilling sequences.  I give it a 2.5

Oh and I’m traveling in New Zealand for a month  entries will be minimal.

Alls Well, Ends Well - 1991

 Stephen Chow could have arguably one of the front runners of Asian comedy at one point. I’m going to see if any of his recent stuff has even been released in the US. No not really. He pretty much disappeared after Kung Fu Hustle. 

Alls Well was back before his real western breakthrough, at a time when likely this wasn’t distributed much in the US beyond Asian stores. It also exemplifies the style of some Hong Kong comedies of the 80s and 90s in its high energy and completely off the wall delivery and style. 

The story is a somewhat ethereal love woe thing involving Chow and his two brothers, a seemingly gay or maybe just effeminate guy (So), and a third older married man (Moon), whose relationship is dry after 14 years. They all face tumultuous difficulties in their relationships. In Chow’s case falling out of a window and hurting his brain in a way that makes him act bizarre. Moon has a mistress that’s discovered, So needs to tap into masculine energy. 

These are the stories but they’re all loose to put it mildly. It’s a ridiculous romp of shenanigans, physical humor, deception and differing values. People make mistakes, they make bizarre judgement calls, all sorts of shit goes on. And that’s just how it is. 

The subtitles were certainly all over the place and made me think about the rules of the English language. We say “I have to” and not “I’ve to”. Why? I’ve is I have. Why don’t we say that? Anyways that sorta shit abounds in these quite entertaining subtitles. 

I’d say the lack of a story is a slight misstep and the comedy is all one tone as the detractors in this movie. It doesn’t hurt it too much but it just keeps it in a certain realm. I recommend Wheels on Meals for grade A, this is like grade C+.  So you know; 3 stars. 

A Virgin Among the Living Dead - 1973

 I'm more than a little surprised given what all was going on that none of these had been straight out basic porn as of yet.  That ends here.

"This movie is legitimate, right?"

Also known as Christina princesse de l'érotisme, and Zombie 4. This movie exists in a multitude of ways, some with additional footage from different movies spliced in to either add blood or nudity depending on where you were watching it. I wonder which version I watched.

This plot is basically another of these tried and true versions, much like Anthropophagus.  This is "someone inherits a place and creepy things are happening there."  This time its rampant nudity, hints at lesbianism, and undead shenanigans that are happening.

That’s all happening for the first almost hour until at around minute 50 it abruptly changes and you get a borderline experimental dream segment of insane creepiness, eerie music, and the undead raising from the grave. I was actually shocked at how good the sequence was and how effective it is and how long it goes on… and feels like something completely out of a different film. I don’t mean to over hype but this alone wants to make it a 5 star film. 

A complete mixed bag, but the sex stuff works and the dream sequence works. I give this a 4, the good moments are really good. 

Dawn of the Mummy - 1980

 Also known as Zombie 6.  Also, again, a Video Nasty.

I might be done.  I have been unable to find Revenge in the House of Usher...(moments later) okay I just found it online however I'm going to proceed because I may or may not actually get around to watching it on my laptop cuz FUCK that.  We'll see.

Dawn of the Mummy is stepping into one of my favorite subcategories, Egypt lore.  Some people in a pyramid are killed with poison gas, cut to the future and a crew of explorers the tomb and unknowingly raise the dead mummies to now begin coming after folks.  It's interesting to me that the line between mummy and zombie is quite thin, yet again I prefer something else over zombie.  Maybe its the rags, in this case its certainly the setting, I dunno dude I've just never been the biggest zombie dude.

I'm slightly surprised this would be labeled a Video Nasty because nothing that crazy happens in it.  I could be watching the censored version that has about 2 minutes less of footage, not sure what was on Tubi.  Probably.  There's a cool head chopping sequence and some decent gore effects and that's all fun and good.

So a lot of these were a relative breeze, I believe I watched 11 new movies in order to complete the "series".  Links?  Oh man.  I dunno about that.  Lets see here.  How about this, you can have these and you can do the rest yourself, because they're all more recent.   Oasis of the Zombies, Vengeance of the Zombies, Nightmare City, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, Burial Ground.

Fuck. I skipped A Virgin Among the Living Dead.  Okay, well, that's next.

Anthropophagus - 1980

 Also known as The Grim Reaper, Zombie 7,  and The Savage Island.

Gorefests like this also fall into my long ago project of watching Video Nasties, which could very well be my next series...hmmm...I do remember wanting to watch all of them.

Anthropophagus is a made up word essentially combining words for human and eating, meaning human eater.  Rarely does a made up word sound so legitimate and good, and its a good level place to start from for this movie, a low budget and insane gorefests which somehow consistently overachieves.

Its perhaps because of minimal scope, in a setup that is often seen but I still like.  Couple of people come to a small remote community, everyone is either standoffish or completely absent and the mystery builds.  Its slasher-esque in having some continual deaths while we build mystery and finally the killer is full on after our main characters and he's a bloody freakish weirdo played by George Eastman.

In the strictest sense this is the least "Zombie" movie as he is never stated to be undead and is instead a freaky cannibal man who is truly monstrous sure, but no zombie.  He does some insane shit, and this movie is known for the scene where he rips a baby out of a woman's vagina and eats the fetus.  Gooood stuff.

So minimal in scope and lots of gore keep this thing movie, and it elevates as a decent entry into the franchise and really more of a slasher than I expected.  4 stars.

Hell of the Living Dead - 1980

 I wonder if, with zero research being done at this moment, the Zombie series has an entry directed by every known Italian horror schlockmeister?  Its a bit of a long list, but also it can be short depending how you define it.  Jess Franco, Bruno Mattei, Lucio Fulci are three big ones, most lists would include them.  Michele Soavi, Lamberto Bava, Claudio Fragasso, these guys would appear on some lists but not all...  anyways, interesting to think about.

Also known as Virus, Night of the Zombies, Zombie Creeping Flesh, Zombie Inferno, and lots of others including Zombie 4.

I'm lucky I chose Zombie as a series, because really I am almost done with this as a series number one, but number two the films listed as connecting to Night of the Living Dead is way bigger than the Zombie series.  Nope, not starting that.  In fact I don't know what's next for me, but it will certainly be something different.

Hell of the Living Dead is pretty low on the totem pole as far as these things go.  They could not afford Goblin to make a new soundtrack so they simply lifted songs from other movies.  They spliced in footage from a documentary about Indonesia to make it seem more real...  It was basically not really trying.

That said, its not highly differentiated from several of these other Zombie movies.  It has decent effects, it has female nudity, it has cannibals and zombies both, in a plot extremely similar to Zombie Holocaust.  Eh, I mean, you could do worse...could certainly do better but could do worse.

Zombie 90: Extreme Pestilence - 1991

 You know, I would not have put it past this movie to title it Zombie 90 not because it was made in the 90s but because it was sorta saying 89 other Zombie movies had been made.  And not because they were claiming a legacy, more that they did zero research and figured there had been 89 of them.

Also known as Zombie 7 and Zombie 2001: Battle Royale.

This is the type of thing where the director had previously made a series of movies called Violent Shit 1-3, and made a rip off sequel to Anthropophagus.  They're trying to get viewers and keep them by being purposefully bad to a degree here, I have to think, and by being meta and or intentional with exactly what this is...  This is made to be low class stupid low budget schlock, so it should be judged that way.

Zombie 90 is also the type of movie where it now has a permanent joke of an English dub on it.  Apparently the story goes that the composer did all the voices himself and made them incredibly stupid, and the director was like "yeah perfect" and left it all in.  They also changed the dialogue to a large extent, having characters talk about taking shits and other stupid bullshit like that.

The plot is really third or fourth down the list of things this movie is concerned with, it is basically that two doctors unleash a new disease that makes zombies, and yeah whatever now there's zombies all over coming after people.  There's nonstop zombie violence from minute one, and though its amateur as all get out and the large majority of the "comedy" doesn't work, there are a few moments like the baby kill scene that might illicit a mild chuckle or smile from ya.

This falls into a weird category for me with rating.  It sets out with a specific intent and does achieve it, its just not ever been "my thing" and at less than 90 minutes still feels long.  It's one tone (or less) and if you are into it you're into it, but for me...uh... 3 stars.

Panic - 1982

 Also known as Bakterion, Monster of Blood, and Zombie 4.

I was composing this whole thing in my head for a lead in to this review about what makes movies good, or at least better, than others.  I don't feel like I need to exactly spell it out for you though.  Memorable characters, smart dialogue, cinematography, like if you don't know this stuff than watch more movies.

But the reason I was thinking this was because a lot of the zombie movies I've been watching have had nothing really worth mentioning, and that another way of saying that none of those things I mentioned or the other commonly held aspects of what make a movie stand out were present.  Thus, those without the standout parts have to be evaluated more upon things like effects, or pace, or even just something like "well, how bored were you?  Really bored?  Or only kinda bored?"

I'm trying in a roundabout way to determine why I liked Panic more than some of these others.  What can I say, it had some standout sequences, a cool ending, good effects, some topless (and bottomless) female nudity...  I mean maybe this is part of criticism, which is to say overall I'm sure its hard to make a movie, but also we're not asking for that much.  It just has to grab us in some way and more often than not that can be relatively up to you the filmmaker to give us whatever, as long as its something.

So in that way Panic stands out and overachieves in just a small way, not as big as some, but it is good.  In the scope of lookalike zombie movies, see this one.  4 stars.

Night of the Seagulls - 1975

Another case where the movie in question came out before Zombie and all the others and was retitled in various ways to capitalize on the popular event.

The Blind Dead has been on my list for a long time, and realistically I do believe I saw at least one of these movies at some point but I guess I did not leave a review.  This one is also known as Don't Go Out and Night, Night of the Death Cult, Zombie 7 and Zombie 7: Last Rites.

The reason this one stands out, lets start there.  I have to admit that in these reviews for the Zombie series so far I'm running into a lot of pretty whatever average zombie movies that seems to have very little one can say about them, very little to call out.  They've been running in the 2.5 star range which is to say "yeah sure" but ultimately to also say "I dunno".  

Number one, atmosphere.  The dark shadows, the strange eerie minimal music, the cool location of the island they're on.  There’s wet creepy crabs everywhere and bizarre music.   But more than that the effects.  My god the effects.  I will watch all of the Blind Dead series even if this is the only one to carry a "Zombie" moniker just because of these effects.  A mix of puppets and costumes, you have these awesome fucking dusty, cobwebby zombies in cloaks with swords and armor and FUCK does it look incredible!  They're also present in the entirety of the short movie.  Don't have endless dialogue about the presence of the zombie.  Show the zombie, and keep the movie short.  This is barely 90 minutes and that should be your target always.

Its also the little stuff.  Any movie with quick editing helps, the super echo-ey sound effects help a ton, and I love the way the zombies are somewhat intelligent but not too much.  They know when to look under a bed for example, they know to avoid fire, but they also cannot see everything and they don't understand a danger before its known to them.  

Watch it in the context of the Zombie phenomenon or not, but do watch it.  You know in its relative circle, it can have a full 5 stars.

The Hanging Woman - 1972

 La orgía de los muertos (translated as Orgy of the Dead) a.k.a. The Hanging Woman (US theatrical release),.   Beyond the Living Dead, Return of the Zombies and Bracula: Terror of the Living Dead.  Regionally titled as Death Chorus of the Skeletons, and re-released in Germany on March 1, 1977 as Die Bestie aus dem Totenreich / The Beast from the Death Realm. It was shown in the U.K. as Zombies - Terror of the Living Dead, in France as Les Orgies Macabres, and in Australia as Bracula, Terror of the Living Dead, The Naked Goddess of the Zombies.

This one's going for the belt.  Nothing on Wikipedia as to what Zombie number this was and where it was titled that.   I wonder if I could've skipped this one?

There it is!  It's also a Zombie 3.  This and many others were made before the original Zombie, and they were retitled for either redistribution or I guess for video release?  I'm not really sure and nothing specifies.  How could this be Zombie 3 years before Dawn of the Dead and before Zombi?

This film The Hanging Woman is a lot more in the vein of the Hammer Horror films, with stuffy Brits talking a lot and slow plot movement in a old cold looking castle like building.  Something about a man who saw a hanging woman that people either seem to deny entirely or minimally dismiss.  It likely has something to do with the devil worshipping cult and the creepy gravedigger that are both present in the town, just my guess.

I give it a pretty solid 2.5 its very run of the mill for "this type of thing" but even in that lens, its on the mildly not as good side of things as far as Hammer Horror is concerned.

Absurd - 1981

 Also known as: Anthropophagus 2, Zombie 6: Monster Hunter, Horrible, and The Grim Reaper 2.

Perhaps more relevant than Zombie 6: Monster Hunter is the alternate title Anthropophagus 2. That would be because the first Anthropophagus has the same guy in it, George Eastman. Aka Luigi Montefiori. This dude is a veteran of Italian horror, usually in small roles, and I’ve seen him around plenty. 

This is also something that could have the alternate title of snagging basically any contemporary slasher and throwing a 2 in back of it. The zombie connection I guess comes from the plot so let’s go. 

George Eastman is infected with some disease and goes to the hospital. During his operation he gains consciousness and is drugged up. Then this keeps happening and soon enough it’s clear he’s unkillable and he raises from the dead with a vengeance and starts killings people. 

It works like a methodical slasher from that point on, and really it’s like the later Halloween or the later Friday the 13th series where these guys were basically unkillable and/or zombies. It really made me wonder, when they brought Jason and others back as truly unstoppable, was the horror trope they were ripping off truly zombie/undead horror movies there? Interesting. I had always just thought of it as them being creative and jumping the shark, not specific to copying something else  

Strange movie, definitely a bit of a one off from everything I’ve seen.  Anthropophagus is also given the name of a Zombie movie here and there in the world of horror so maybe this is similar to that.  I’ll have to watch it again to judge.  Some good kills here, some good gore, I’ll give it a 3.5

Doctor Butcher M.D. - 1980

“In addition to the title Zombie Holocaust, the film has since been released under various other English titles, including Island of the Last Zombies, Queen of the Cannibals and Zombie 3.” - Wikipedia

Okay so when it makes sense I'll call these their Zombie names, I said, but then I realized I'll have many entries titled Zombie 3 or whatever, some even with the same year....  so that can't work.  So I guess I'll waffle back and forth on what I call them?  I'm not sure yet.  Anyhow I like that the title of this movie is sorta Doctor Butcher Medical Doctor.  I mean, MD is doctor, so...

Same release year as Cannibal Holocaust, so I'm not really able to tell what happened here as Zombie Holocaust has no release date.  But I'm guessing this was released after and retitled when Cannibal was a hit.  This is the classic buncha people get to an island and nefarious stuff is going down plot.  There's a mad doctor on the island conducting human experiments that bring people back from the dead, but also there's a local tribe of people that are cannibals, and that's really the focus of this movie.

The other focus is topless female nudity, and man is it good.  Here is all I could find though, sadly:

The reasons are both plot and non-plot related for her to be partially or fully nude a LOT.  Again, it was good.

Pretty okay effects with plenty of gross out gore and autopsy scenes, this one checks some boxes but does not overachieve.  This is your very definition of like "average Italian 80s cannibal movie".  Oddly enough it is only now that I realize that though I am into zombies, not into cannibals, but also how closely related those two are and yet I have differing opinions.  

I'll give this a 3 out of 5.

Zombie 5: Killing Birds - 1988

 Funny how this listed year of Zombie 5 is before the listed year of Zombie 4 huh?  Almost like they're not really true sequels...

Also known as Zombie Flesheaters 4, naturally.

This Zombie entry is almost universally titled Zombie 5: Killing Birds, and I have seen and heard the title before, though not seen the actual movie until now.  The legacy of this one is a little bit mixed as it was attributed to different directors and was shifted around a little bit more than some of these.

You can't really tell though, cause I'll tell you straight out this is better than Zombie 4.  This has better music, is more quickly paced, has better effects, and even has a couple very cool sequences such as the scene where the guys are all trying to escape in a van and a zombie is holding onto a girl by her head.  This movie also has Robert Vaughn playing a blind guy, who is intermixed into the plot and plays a role in the zombies existence in this movie.

There's a somewhat loose connection to birds as well, but honestly you can just tune a lot of this stuff out and watch the zombie violence, which is fun and nonstop. This movie is definitely a step up and a fun one to watch regardless of it's Zombie connection.

From here it's going to get complicated.  Oasis of the Zombies, Vengeance of the Zombies, Nightmare City, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie and Burial Ground are sometimes labeled with the Zombie name.  So luckily I don't have to watch those.  Looks like I'm jumping to the Blind Dead series, as sometimes those carry a Zombie name, and that's kinda nice cuz I have wanted to see that series.  But last few times I looked for those, they weren't online.  So we'll see.

Zombie 4: After Death - 1989

 Also known as After Death and as Zombie Flesh Eaters 3.  Just FYI I am going to call all these unofficial Zombie sequels by their Zombie name.  Just for the sake of making things easier.

Claudio Fragasso is kind of in the same ballpark and same vein as Lucio Fulci, which is to say B and C tier Italian schlockmeisters that directed tons of horror movies in the 70s, 80s and 90s.  Fragasso is best known for directing Troll 2, and has been on this blog before with Women's Prison Massacre, the other type of movie he made: exploitation.

Just in a few minutes of IMDb scrolling I see Fragasso made unofficial Italian entries into Texas Chainsaw, the House series, obviously Zombie, need we mention Troll.  

After Death has a group of people landing on a mystery island and uncovering a sinister plot of voodoo and witchcraft that bring people back as zombies.  I like zombie and or monster movies where those monsters are known in the world, the movie is not filled with people exclaiming "Oh my god they're like dead but not dead?" instead it's just straight up "they're zombies!"

It's kind of strange because there's zombies from the beginning and yet midway through the movie the group also reads from the book of the Dead and unleashes a spell that brings more back from the dead - I thought they were already coming back from the dead?  I dunno.

After Death is also known for starring a male porn star, apparently unbeknownst to director Fragasso.  Fragasso also stated that this was “the last gasp of Italian horror" and it's kinda true and very sad.  I know there's Asylum and other similar D grade ripoffs that are still made now, but stuff that was made cheap in foreign countries with many degrees of mistranslation and blatant copyright infringement and all that just doesn't seem to be around anymore.  I'd love to see a modern Italian sequel/ripoff of Us released starring a gay porn star and tons of topless women with kickass electronic music again...

As far as this actual movie goes, however, it's not going to blow your mind or anything.  Its a tad too long and too plodding without anything really happening for most of it besides just mild zombie horror.  The effects seem to be cheap minimal face and neck scabby, blotchy skin.  Nothing really good.  Its alright, pretty tame and perhaps not the best or most interesting.  2.5 stars.

V/H/S - 2012

 It is interesting to look back at something like this and The ABCs of Death and other stitched together shorts because say what you will about their box office success, these gave birth to almost every interesting horror figure of the last 10 years.  Its more of a question of which one of these sets they're on than if they are on one.

I was over the found footage thing when this came out, this was quite a bit after Cloverfield et all had re-explored the genre like 6 years earlier, and I did see this when it was new but I never really cared to keep up with the series as it kept going and certainly did not know that it evolved into a straight to streaming or DVD thing with like half a dozen sequels.

VHS shows as 6 segments on Wikipedia, and I wonder exactly which was which because there's also a lot of interstitial things that I wonder what they consider.  Here is the synopsis:

Wrap around "Tape 56" a bunch of guys are filming their crimes and are sent to get a tape out of a creepy house with a seemingly dead guy, as we cut back to them they're picked off one by one.

"Amateur Night" some guys go partying and pick up a couple girls, one of them acting purposely creepy.  She seems almost too into it as they get back to their hotel room.

"Second Honeymoon" I couldn't really tell ya, something about guys on a trip and at night someone sorta begins fucking with them and I don't really understand the ending.

"Tuesday the 17th" some people on a hiking trip encounter a bizarre supernatural invisible killer(?)

"The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger" Another sorta shrug one of a few video calls where it seems a girl is seeing dead people in her house.  Her boyfriend may have set it up.

"10/31/98" some people go into a house and discover some sort of Satan worshiping thing or something going on upstairs, and when they stop it it seems they unleash the beast.

The best for me is probably either the wrap around segment or 10/31/98, but I'm really reaching there to try to figure out what I liked.  An odd amount of these are supernatural in nature, which is sorta unnecessary if you ask me, isn't the format and the concept a lot more suited for regular horror?

I haven't decided if I'm going to watch ALL of the VHS horror movies or not, but this is a fairly okay beginning.  I think I wanted it to be a little better tbh.  I'll give it a solid 2.

Children of the Corn - 2009

 Thus we come to the end of another long running series, with this 25 year anniversary remake of the 1984 film.

Rewatch the 1984 film and you'll see a slow burn feeling character drama with eerie kids and a mounting tension as Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton struggle to understand what's going on, and as the kids slowly unveil their intentions.  Watch the 2009 SyFy original remake and you'll get thrust into 50 minutes of bad dialogue between a feeding couple before you even see the kids of Gatlin.  Yikes.

It's a slow and awful plot as these two unlikable people have an ongoing fight about her being a prom queen and him being ex military, and you'll remember it because they say it about 5000 times.  Once they show up in Gatlin it somehow slows down still, or maybe remains slow because once the kids kill the main girl, you're just following one guy as he avoids the kids and He Who Walks.

As an ex-SyFy viewer I find this to be bad, even from that low bar to set.  Those movies were fun because they were so bad they were good with half-bit actors and awful CGI colliding into a ridiculous mess you could knock back a few beers and have a good enough time with.  This movie is too slow, too monotone, and really there' just nothing to grasp here except I guess about 30 seconds of topless women.  

I give this about a .5

I Live In Fear - 1955

 I believe Criterion put this on their Postwar Kurosawa set, as the themes around that set were all his non-Samurai flicks but also his more dramatic films set around the aftermath of WWII.

I didn't remember the film, but I do remember the poster from my days at the video store way back when:

The oddly colorized poster with the bizarre font always stuck out to me, and though I don't believe I ever rented this or watched it, clearly somehow it got lodged in my head anyways.

Toshiro Mifune stars as Nakajima, an oldschool elderly father figure who owns and runs a successful foundry but is willing to sell it and everything else he owns to take his family to Brazil for fear of the Hydrogen bomb.  He has memories of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and has lived in anxiety since then, and now his time has come to flee while he still can.  The family is against this and wrestles to take control of his estate so that he cannot force them to go.

The film is very much poignant with its look at the entirety of the issue at hand, with Takashi Shimura as a court appointed case worker assigned to decide the fate of the estate.  Also to be considered into this is Nakajima's illegitimate children, his intense degree of logic surrounding everything else in his life, and yet his unwavering opinion of immanent destruction.

As a character study it's very affecting and relevant.  For me it made me think, obviously in a Venn Diagram along with a lot of other things, how much does a global collective anxiety about our destructive capabilities in this modern day contribute to something like lower birth rates, failing job market, high housing cost, etc?  Given that Japan was one of the canaries in the coal mine re: economic distress, plunging birth rates, and technology destroying the culture, and Japan was the country that had been bombed, can these two things be related?

A prescient and interesting and overlooked Kurosawa film, I still doubt this is one that I'll revisit as much as some others.  Its a solid 3.5 with great acting by Mifune as always.

Valentine - 2001

 I vaguely remembered this existed as my girlfriend and I drove around on Valentines Day.  I thought it was called Valentines Day, and I thought maybe more like 2003ish, but I was wrong.

This movie is a real capitalizing on success flick, going for some of that post Scream revival.  It dates itself extremely early and many times with actors that are really of the moment.  Denise Richards, David Boreanaz, Katherine Heigl, Marley Shelton.  Then it ups the ante later by tossing in some Deftones and Marilyn Manson songs while a party scene happens.  Ah, 2001.

A formula and a killer is pretty quickly established as we have an original scene ala Terror Train but maybe dialed down a notch.  Then we cut to modern day high school or I guess college teens being methodically hunted down by a black clad guy in a Cupid mask who bleeds from his nose whenever he kills someone.

The deaths range from sorta average to just ok, they were not yet in vogue enough to be the focus and horror was still in a post-Columbine place of being censored by the MPAA.  Also in vogue somewhat at the time is remnants of the late 80s and 90s way of making you dislike the characters, a trope which I'm glad has gone away at least a little bit.  Rooting for the villain kind of remains, but hating the other characters is a little out of vogue I'd say.

I called the killer in the end and its pretty traditional horror movie fare.  I give it a solid 2.5

Zombie 3 - 1988

 A true challenge here and part of my closing off of loops thing that I’ve been on for a while is to track down this massive series. 

Some people are willing to put in more time doing homework than I am (I’m supposed to get a book for my work and I don’t even have it so there’s that). So check out this article. The summary of this would be that there are a sort of unknown quantity of Zombie films and the point really is that there’s a ton so I’m gonna track down as many as I can that are free on streaming and I’ll watch them.

 Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, I forget which one was renamed Zombi in Europe and got direct sequels that were called Zombie, and are sort of the sequels to Dawn of the Dead, but sort of not. Many of these exist and Zombie 3 is a sequel to the Lucio Fulci movie Zombi. 

This one is also directed by Fulci and is a full on romp. Zombi was a pretty fun and well made thing, more horror, and at this point this was more of a departure towards cheaper and cheesier but also maybe more fun depending on your taste. 

Also I did not realize there was more stuff like Return of the Living Dead? The idea that zombies cannot truly be killed and ashes of zombies bring people back, and even talking semi intelligent zombies are all here. The sequels to Return were bad so I look at this as the real spiritual sequel. 

Not so much a plot analysis because this doesn’t need one. This is fun fast paced Italian trash with an awesome soundtrack. Watch it!

Crystal Force - 1992

 When I watched Chillers recently, my friend Matt bemoaned the lack of nudity in the Troma movie.  Its true, not a ton of these are nude romps.  But this one is.

Crystal Force is less than 90 minutes, and it feels like it is even shorter than it is, which is always a good sign.  Its a cocaine-feeling weird descent into madness as a mystical shop gives things to people that cause weird happenings ala Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders.  This time, a woman is given a big crystal and when she brings it home weird crap begins.

Mostly the weird crap has to do with women somehow getting their tops ripped off.  Which I loved.  There's a lot of excellent tits in this movie and I was glued to the screen when they were showing.  The only other things going on are complete nonsense and lack of knowing what's going on, but what can you really expect from a director who's only other credit looks like it's softcore porn?

The average shot of this looks like something from a home VHS recorder, and for all I know it was.  I scrolled down the IMDB though and I see Crystal Force 2: Dark Angel exists.  Guess what I'm looking for tomorrow?  I give this one a solid B movie 3 stars.