TERROR CREATURES FROM THE GRAVE (aka 5 TOMBE PER UN MEDIUM) is an Italian production from 1965. Directed by Massimo Pupillo (who, unhappy with the final product, deferred credit to producer Ralph Zucker), it was no doubt instigated by AIP's success with their Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, as the Bard of Baltimore gets an "inspired by" title card. Not exactly sure what story actually "inspired" the film, but hey, Poe's dead so who's he to say anything?
Set in an unspecified period milieu, indicated by references to new-fangled inventions like cars and telephones, the threadbare story concerns an attorney (Walter Brandi, whose dialogue is dubbed with the same booming authority as Powdered Toast Man) settling the estate of a recently-deceased medium. At the dead man's castle he meets the medium's wife (Barbara Steele), who informs Brandi of her husband's ability to summon and communicate with the souls of ancient plague victims, and whose spirit still roams the castle.
Atmospheric in the soft, dream-like way that only cheap black-and-white films can be, TERROR CREATURES possesses a few creepy moments but for much of its length it remains talky and more than a little dull. Patient viewers will be rewarded, though, towards the end, as the film presents quite a few unexpectedly gruesome bits, such as the self-impalement of a wheelchair-bound man or the pustule-covered face of a returning plague victim. Zombie fans might be a little disappointed, since the returning medium prefers to wreak havoc in spirit form; the closest we get to the undead is a hand reaching out from a grave, and a scene in which a row of severed hands and jars full of human organs come to life.
Not a bad picture by any means, I'd recommend this mainly for fans of Steele (who has a tantalizingly discreet bathtub scene) and the aforementioned Corman/Poe films.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
DAY 92--THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING
Terence Fisher, who directed many classic films for Hammer Studios, such as CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF and THE HORROR OF DRACULA, helmed this 1965 science fiction-oriented production, which often times feels like I AM LEGEND by way of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.
A space pilot (Willard Parker) returns home to find that mysterious forces have wreaked havoc on Earth. Investigating a deserted English hamlet he finds a few survivors, as well as an army of extraterrestrial robots bent on invading the planet. These robots use electromagnetic waves to resurrect the recently dead to use as slaves in their diabolical scheme. Parker and the other survivors--including Dennis Price, who'd go on to star in several Jess Franco pictures--take shelter as they fend off the invading robots, trying to determine a proper course of action.
Fisher gives the proceedings a pervasive feeling of doom, particularly in the film's opening scenes as Parker explores the abandoned village; you almost expect to see Rod Serling popping out from behind a tree, such is the effectiveness of its stark, isolated prologue. However, like a lot of British sci-fi from the sixties, the action quickly gets bogged down in scene after scene of conversation, as characters alternate between establishing backstory and bickering about what to do. Fisher also keeps the "zombies" offscreen until just past the halfway mark, though when they do make their appearance they're quite creepy with their blank gray eyes (they're a lot scarier than the robots, who supposedly pose the greater threat but resemble a bunch of sentient refrigerators).
Fans of vintage horror/sci-fi might get a kick out of THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING, though its sensational title promises a lot more thrills than it delivers. It's also interesting to see parallels between this and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, which bears a resemblance. The film's available easily enough on DVD, though you can also find it broken into fragments on YouTube; below is the first (and best) one to get you started.
A space pilot (Willard Parker) returns home to find that mysterious forces have wreaked havoc on Earth. Investigating a deserted English hamlet he finds a few survivors, as well as an army of extraterrestrial robots bent on invading the planet. These robots use electromagnetic waves to resurrect the recently dead to use as slaves in their diabolical scheme. Parker and the other survivors--including Dennis Price, who'd go on to star in several Jess Franco pictures--take shelter as they fend off the invading robots, trying to determine a proper course of action.
Fisher gives the proceedings a pervasive feeling of doom, particularly in the film's opening scenes as Parker explores the abandoned village; you almost expect to see Rod Serling popping out from behind a tree, such is the effectiveness of its stark, isolated prologue. However, like a lot of British sci-fi from the sixties, the action quickly gets bogged down in scene after scene of conversation, as characters alternate between establishing backstory and bickering about what to do. Fisher also keeps the "zombies" offscreen until just past the halfway mark, though when they do make their appearance they're quite creepy with their blank gray eyes (they're a lot scarier than the robots, who supposedly pose the greater threat but resemble a bunch of sentient refrigerators).
Fans of vintage horror/sci-fi might get a kick out of THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING, though its sensational title promises a lot more thrills than it delivers. It's also interesting to see parallels between this and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, which bears a resemblance. The film's available easily enough on DVD, though you can also find it broken into fragments on YouTube; below is the first (and best) one to get you started.
DAY 91--CREATURES FROM THE PINK LAGOON
CREATURES FROM THE PINK LAGOON, a 2006 spoof from director Chris Diani, comes as the world's first gay-oriented zombie film, and while it quickly becomes apparent that it's more concerned with eliciting mild chuckles from a homosexual audience than delivering the chills, it's still a fun little romp that never takes itself seriously.
Shot in black-and-white for a "vintage" look (though on video it simply comes across as looking cheap), the movie uses a gay soap opera backdrop as a group of friends gather for a birthday party (and like all good zombie flicks, they arm themselves with an African-American leader). What normally would play as mere melodrama--will birthday-boy Phillip realize his new boyfriend's nothing but a philandering jerk? Can sensitive Joseph overcome his shyness and reveal his true feelings for Phillip?--gets turned on its ear as the living dead descend upon the boys' beach house. (Diani and co-writer Basil Harris set themselves up with a needlessly complicated explanation for the zombies, a virus spread by contaminated mosquitoes which were mutated by the nearby Chemical Plant; it doesn't play much of a role in the story, but still feels awkward in getting the ball rolling.)
Don't expect too many homages to Fulci or Romero, zombie fans, since the film prefers to poke fun at the tropes of gay subculture--rest stops, show tunes, Judy Garland--though Diani throws in a smattering of gore near the film's end. The humor, while far from laugh-out-loud hilarious, is at least funnier than a WILL AND GRACE rerun, but it would've been nice to see the script go for more than the easy jokes.
Acting-wise the cast is likably average, with Phillip D. Clark standing out as a bitchy queen. Diani's direction is largely flat through most of the film, such as the zombies' dance number that never really generates much energy, though budgetary restrictions may have played a part; Diani does sneak in a couple of novel touches, like revealing what was in PULP FICTION's glowing briefcase, and (my favorite) the zombies' pink-tinted POV shots.
CREATURES FROM THE PINK LAGOON is breezily entertaining (oh, by the way, fellas, there's some fairly heavy man-on-man affection going on here, though if you're that uptight that you can't stand to see two bare-chested dudes making out you probably won't come within a mile of this) with an abbreviated running time so it doesn't wear out its welcome. It's a nice change of pace when you need a break from the usual throat-ripping and brain-munching--though do any of us really need a break from that?
Shot in black-and-white for a "vintage" look (though on video it simply comes across as looking cheap), the movie uses a gay soap opera backdrop as a group of friends gather for a birthday party (and like all good zombie flicks, they arm themselves with an African-American leader). What normally would play as mere melodrama--will birthday-boy Phillip realize his new boyfriend's nothing but a philandering jerk? Can sensitive Joseph overcome his shyness and reveal his true feelings for Phillip?--gets turned on its ear as the living dead descend upon the boys' beach house. (Diani and co-writer Basil Harris set themselves up with a needlessly complicated explanation for the zombies, a virus spread by contaminated mosquitoes which were mutated by the nearby Chemical Plant; it doesn't play much of a role in the story, but still feels awkward in getting the ball rolling.)
Don't expect too many homages to Fulci or Romero, zombie fans, since the film prefers to poke fun at the tropes of gay subculture--rest stops, show tunes, Judy Garland--though Diani throws in a smattering of gore near the film's end. The humor, while far from laugh-out-loud hilarious, is at least funnier than a WILL AND GRACE rerun, but it would've been nice to see the script go for more than the easy jokes.
Acting-wise the cast is likably average, with Phillip D. Clark standing out as a bitchy queen. Diani's direction is largely flat through most of the film, such as the zombies' dance number that never really generates much energy, though budgetary restrictions may have played a part; Diani does sneak in a couple of novel touches, like revealing what was in PULP FICTION's glowing briefcase, and (my favorite) the zombies' pink-tinted POV shots.
CREATURES FROM THE PINK LAGOON is breezily entertaining (oh, by the way, fellas, there's some fairly heavy man-on-man affection going on here, though if you're that uptight that you can't stand to see two bare-chested dudes making out you probably won't come within a mile of this) with an abbreviated running time so it doesn't wear out its welcome. It's a nice change of pace when you need a break from the usual throat-ripping and brain-munching--though do any of us really need a break from that?
Sunday, February 3, 2008
DAY 90--HARD ROCK ZOMBIES
Where has this movie been all my life?
Watching HARD ROCK ZOMBIES--a 1985 effort from Krishna Shah, or "Kirshna Shah" as he's called in the closing credits; you gotta love a flick that misspells the director's name--transported me to bad-movie nirvana. A skull-fucking melange of horrific music, cut-rate special effects, and plot twists so asinine it borders on the surreal, this flick has me at its opening scene, in which a sexy blonde hitchhiker seduces a pair of male motorists before slaughtering them as her husband and "children" (a pair of little actors that may or may not be portraying kids, one of them the great Phil Fondacaro) look on, capped off with some cheesy gore and a groan-inducing pun. Love it!
The movie concerns a really, really bad hair metal band (whose get-ups are so lame they make Manowar look like GQ material) who visit the sleepy hick town of Grand Guignol, despite the warnings of a mysterious groupie. With a name like that, you'd think the band wouldn't need a warning, but this is a group that has to be forced to mingle with adoring female fans and think they have any kind of future with their brain-softening "music," so logic isn't their strong suit. Once there, they partake in cringe-inducing music montages--seriously, even The Monkees were above this kind of stupidity on their show--and dabble in songs that'll raise the dead before picking up the same sexy hitchhiker from the beginning and taking her home. The band accepts her invitation to stay the night, even though a bald guy is decapitating chickens for no apparent reason in the front yard, but hey, we've established these guys aren't rocket scientists so at least there's some thematic consistency. But things get even worse when they discover the old couple living in the house are actually Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun (the latter also a knife-wielding werewolf!), and kill the band members in various ways during the night.
That's enough insanity for two movies, but HARD ROCK's just getting started, since the portentious groupie (who the lead singer composes a song for, declaring his eternal love, five minutes after they meet) plays the tune that resurrects the band. Now shuffling zombies--was there a THRILLER parody in there somewhere, or just additional bad acting?--the band returns to not only seek revenge on the Hitler clan, but the town of rock-hating rednecks as well (I wonder if this was in response to the then-new PMRC) before playing their big gig in front of a sleazy record promoter.
I LOVED THIS MOVIE! Rarely do films achieve this level of ineptitude while being so unrelentingly entertaining. Chock full of intended comedy that falls flat on its face, it more than makes up for it with unintended humor at the expense of its cast, plot, you name it. The gore isn't exactly excessive, but there are a couple of gruesome bits, including a running joke in which one of the "children" (this one a mutated freak) eats himself with a knife and fork in the film's closing reel. And let's not forget the gratuitous nudity, which completes its crap-80's film requirements.
Really, mere words won't do the film justice. You need to watch it for yourself, and as soon as possible. HARD ROCK ZOMBIES provides the same bad-movie bliss as MANOS, THE HANDS OF FATE or TROLL 2, but be forewarned: those songs will haunt your dreams for days.
(I've included the trailer as usual, but I wanted to also add a clip that would illustrate just how stupid this movie is, so as an extra bonus we have a scene in which the band entertains a crowd outside the local Bank of America branch.)
Watching HARD ROCK ZOMBIES--a 1985 effort from Krishna Shah, or "Kirshna Shah" as he's called in the closing credits; you gotta love a flick that misspells the director's name--transported me to bad-movie nirvana. A skull-fucking melange of horrific music, cut-rate special effects, and plot twists so asinine it borders on the surreal, this flick has me at its opening scene, in which a sexy blonde hitchhiker seduces a pair of male motorists before slaughtering them as her husband and "children" (a pair of little actors that may or may not be portraying kids, one of them the great Phil Fondacaro) look on, capped off with some cheesy gore and a groan-inducing pun. Love it!
The movie concerns a really, really bad hair metal band (whose get-ups are so lame they make Manowar look like GQ material) who visit the sleepy hick town of Grand Guignol, despite the warnings of a mysterious groupie. With a name like that, you'd think the band wouldn't need a warning, but this is a group that has to be forced to mingle with adoring female fans and think they have any kind of future with their brain-softening "music," so logic isn't their strong suit. Once there, they partake in cringe-inducing music montages--seriously, even The Monkees were above this kind of stupidity on their show--and dabble in songs that'll raise the dead before picking up the same sexy hitchhiker from the beginning and taking her home. The band accepts her invitation to stay the night, even though a bald guy is decapitating chickens for no apparent reason in the front yard, but hey, we've established these guys aren't rocket scientists so at least there's some thematic consistency. But things get even worse when they discover the old couple living in the house are actually Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun (the latter also a knife-wielding werewolf!), and kill the band members in various ways during the night.
That's enough insanity for two movies, but HARD ROCK's just getting started, since the portentious groupie (who the lead singer composes a song for, declaring his eternal love, five minutes after they meet) plays the tune that resurrects the band. Now shuffling zombies--was there a THRILLER parody in there somewhere, or just additional bad acting?--the band returns to not only seek revenge on the Hitler clan, but the town of rock-hating rednecks as well (I wonder if this was in response to the then-new PMRC) before playing their big gig in front of a sleazy record promoter.
I LOVED THIS MOVIE! Rarely do films achieve this level of ineptitude while being so unrelentingly entertaining. Chock full of intended comedy that falls flat on its face, it more than makes up for it with unintended humor at the expense of its cast, plot, you name it. The gore isn't exactly excessive, but there are a couple of gruesome bits, including a running joke in which one of the "children" (this one a mutated freak) eats himself with a knife and fork in the film's closing reel. And let's not forget the gratuitous nudity, which completes its crap-80's film requirements.
Really, mere words won't do the film justice. You need to watch it for yourself, and as soon as possible. HARD ROCK ZOMBIES provides the same bad-movie bliss as MANOS, THE HANDS OF FATE or TROLL 2, but be forewarned: those songs will haunt your dreams for days.
(I've included the trailer as usual, but I wanted to also add a clip that would illustrate just how stupid this movie is, so as an extra bonus we have a scene in which the band entertains a crowd outside the local Bank of America branch.)
Saturday, February 2, 2008
DAY 89--SURVIVOR (A ZOMBIE SHORT)
Doing something a little different this time around, since this "film" is really just a young girl messing around on her computer. Since it's intended more as a YouTube clip than a legitimate cinematic effort, I'm going to cut the creator (a young girl who simply calls herself Lex Zombie) some slack. I'm including here because as slight as it is, I still kinda liked it.
This three-and-a-half-minute clip consists of a series of still photos, tied together by a voice-over narration describing an apocalypse-survival scenario. Despite the homemade "production," there's a stark, minimalist atmosphere to the opening that I actually found quite intriguing.* I wouldn't have minded a much longer story in this style, but Lex opts instead to string together pictures of various zombie films to a pop-punk song. Disappointing, sure, but like I said, I think she was just killing a slow evening.
*(It wasn't until a couple of days after I watched this that I realized why I enjoyed those opening "scenes." When I was a kid Golden Books released a series of videos that employed a similarly low-tech approach: essentially panning a camera over the illustrations of previously published books, along with hollow narration. Even as a child I knew what a cheap technique this was, yet in spite of that--maybe because of it--I was still captivated by the stories. I think Lex's video brought back a subconscious recollection of those days. Or not. I'm rambling now.)
Hey Lex, how 'bout a whole movie next time?
This three-and-a-half-minute clip consists of a series of still photos, tied together by a voice-over narration describing an apocalypse-survival scenario. Despite the homemade "production," there's a stark, minimalist atmosphere to the opening that I actually found quite intriguing.* I wouldn't have minded a much longer story in this style, but Lex opts instead to string together pictures of various zombie films to a pop-punk song. Disappointing, sure, but like I said, I think she was just killing a slow evening.
*(It wasn't until a couple of days after I watched this that I realized why I enjoyed those opening "scenes." When I was a kid Golden Books released a series of videos that employed a similarly low-tech approach: essentially panning a camera over the illustrations of previously published books, along with hollow narration. Even as a child I knew what a cheap technique this was, yet in spite of that--maybe because of it--I was still captivated by the stories. I think Lex's video brought back a subconscious recollection of those days. Or not. I'm rambling now.)
Hey Lex, how 'bout a whole movie next time?
DAY 88--LACONIC ZERO
An interesting offering for today's entry, a 2006 amateur-made film set to the music of the indie band Laconic Zero. And while their brand of hypnotic, electronic metal wasn't my cup of tea, writer/editor/director Dag Solvberg shows a decent visual flair, even if the end result isn't completely enthralling.
The premise of this short is simple: a picnicking couple breaks out their Laconic Zero record and kick-starts a mini-outbreak of the undead. Utilizing black-and-white photography to largely successful effect, Solvberg creates a permeating aura of dread that doesn't quite mesh with the overbearing soundtrack (the short would've worked much better with a subtler musical selection, or possibly no music at all); he also accentuates his monochromatic color scheme by adding splashes of red during the zombie attacks, a technique that's grown a bit tired of late (not to mention it's used inconsistently here).
There's also some interesting frame-within-a-frame work going on near the end, which would've come off better without the cheap digital effects added in. A little more of this, or maybe some split-screen action, would've made the drawn-out climax a little less boring.
As fan-oriented projects go, this wasn't half-bad. Perhaps when Solvberg creates his next tribute his filmmaking chops will have improved.
The premise of this short is simple: a picnicking couple breaks out their Laconic Zero record and kick-starts a mini-outbreak of the undead. Utilizing black-and-white photography to largely successful effect, Solvberg creates a permeating aura of dread that doesn't quite mesh with the overbearing soundtrack (the short would've worked much better with a subtler musical selection, or possibly no music at all); he also accentuates his monochromatic color scheme by adding splashes of red during the zombie attacks, a technique that's grown a bit tired of late (not to mention it's used inconsistently here).
There's also some interesting frame-within-a-frame work going on near the end, which would've come off better without the cheap digital effects added in. A little more of this, or maybe some split-screen action, would've made the drawn-out climax a little less boring.
As fan-oriented projects go, this wasn't half-bad. Perhaps when Solvberg creates his next tribute his filmmaking chops will have improved.
DAY 87--ZOMBIE
This is it, the granddaddy of Italian zombie cinema. Easily in my personal Top 10 zombie movies--and if I bothered to, I could probably find room for it in my all-time Top 10--Lucio Fulci's 1979 classic serves as a reminder of a time when exploitation pictures cared about being just as good as "serious" films.
Everyone knows by now the film initially went under the ZOMBI 2 moniker because DAWN OF THE DEAD was released in Europe as ZOMBI, but Fulci's version was in the works before Romero's film came out; intended to be an action-oriented horror flick, the only portion of ZOMBIE that was directly inspired by DAWN are the New York-based segments that bookend the film (how much influence Tom Savini's FX had on ZOMBIE's gore quotient I don't know, but I bet it played at least a minimal role). Again, I won't reiterate plot details for this one, but on the surface ZOMBIE has all the earmarks of your standard crap movie: the characterization could charitably be labeled shallow, adding to that a dub-job that gives the performances just the right shade of indifference. The story is a straightforward Point A to Point B affair, culminating in a batten-down-the-hatches finale straight out of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, and the overall production value lacks not only the slickness of an average-budgeted movie, but also the rough craftsmanship of DAWN.
And yet . . . yet . . .
ZOMBIE also has plenty of its own goodies to offer, such as the zombie-vs-shark sequence that walks that's either awesome or ludicrous, depending on who you ask (personally I think the scene drops into both repeatedly, that's what makes it so unique), the discovery of the Fat Zombie early in the film, and of course the infamous splinter scene, one of the most notorious shock moments of the last thirty years. (Even as just as simple gore flick, ZOMBIE goes above and beyond.) Running throughout all of this is a spirit of fun, that although the film delves into some fairly grim territory it's still entertainment, and the point is to have a good time.
ZOMBIE kicked off what is informally known as Fulci's "gore period," where he followed up with the equally-revered THE GATES OF HELL, THE BEYOND--considered by most to be Fulci's masterwork, but I never cared for it as much as I do ZOMBIE--and THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY. (THE NEW YORK RIPPER came along not long after, but it never garnered the same praise as the others--blame the quacking killer.) Everyone's got their favorite, but for me ZOMBIE stands as Fulci's best; it doesn't have the dream-like quality of THE BEYOND or the imaginative setpieces of THE GATES OF HELL, but it does have a stronger narrative thrust and sense of cohesiveness.
We could debate forever on which is best--and we should, it's fun--but when it comes to Pastaland zombies, there is no equal.
Everyone knows by now the film initially went under the ZOMBI 2 moniker because DAWN OF THE DEAD was released in Europe as ZOMBI, but Fulci's version was in the works before Romero's film came out; intended to be an action-oriented horror flick, the only portion of ZOMBIE that was directly inspired by DAWN are the New York-based segments that bookend the film (how much influence Tom Savini's FX had on ZOMBIE's gore quotient I don't know, but I bet it played at least a minimal role). Again, I won't reiterate plot details for this one, but on the surface ZOMBIE has all the earmarks of your standard crap movie: the characterization could charitably be labeled shallow, adding to that a dub-job that gives the performances just the right shade of indifference. The story is a straightforward Point A to Point B affair, culminating in a batten-down-the-hatches finale straight out of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, and the overall production value lacks not only the slickness of an average-budgeted movie, but also the rough craftsmanship of DAWN.
And yet . . . yet . . .
ZOMBIE also has plenty of its own goodies to offer, such as the zombie-vs-shark sequence that walks that's either awesome or ludicrous, depending on who you ask (personally I think the scene drops into both repeatedly, that's what makes it so unique), the discovery of the Fat Zombie early in the film, and of course the infamous splinter scene, one of the most notorious shock moments of the last thirty years. (Even as just as simple gore flick, ZOMBIE goes above and beyond.) Running throughout all of this is a spirit of fun, that although the film delves into some fairly grim territory it's still entertainment, and the point is to have a good time.
ZOMBIE kicked off what is informally known as Fulci's "gore period," where he followed up with the equally-revered THE GATES OF HELL, THE BEYOND--considered by most to be Fulci's masterwork, but I never cared for it as much as I do ZOMBIE--and THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY. (THE NEW YORK RIPPER came along not long after, but it never garnered the same praise as the others--blame the quacking killer.) Everyone's got their favorite, but for me ZOMBIE stands as Fulci's best; it doesn't have the dream-like quality of THE BEYOND or the imaginative setpieces of THE GATES OF HELL, but it does have a stronger narrative thrust and sense of cohesiveness.
We could debate forever on which is best--and we should, it's fun--but when it comes to Pastaland zombies, there is no equal.
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