It's official- Zombies are OVER

Here's my take on vintage and recent zombie action. Vintage is anything Day of the Dead and prior.

I don't care for Fulci's films, nor Cannibal Holocaust (which is a zombie movie even if they aren't zombies). I just don't think they're very good. It could just be the Fucking Terrible(tm) overdubbing that defines Italian cinema. Same goes for Night of the Living Dead--amazing concept, but ineptly directed.

Excellent vintage zombie films:
Dawn of the Dead (duh)
Evil Dead (first "smart" protagonist--girlfriend's head comes off, tries to eat you? Jump cut to Ash driving away at 80 mph in the middle of the woods.)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (kinda slow, but nice payoff)

Excellent modern zombie films:
28 Days Later (fast zombies are awesome, apocalyptic London--amazing)
Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (Basically, just Evil Dead with better FX)
Dead Alive (this was called something else Down Under... ah, Braindead).

What makes 28 Days Later stand out is that it made zombies scary again--the humor element became such a part of the genre that folks forgot getting killed and eaten by zombies was a bad thing.

I read the Marvel Zombies trade just this last weekend and was completely disappointed. All the tropes of bad zombie movies were there in spades: stupid non-Zombies, out-of-nowhere neckbites, overlong grossout moments.

I agree, zombies are pretty played out.

Whether or not you like Fulci or not depends on how much you're willing to tolerate his very bizarre, very idiosyncratic style of filmmaking. It's not necessarily good, but it's so much his own that if you like it you'll love it and if you don't...they're going to look like the worst movies you've ever seen.

I used to not really care much for him (I'm firmly in the pro-Argento camp)but watching THE BEYOND again I really kind of learned to appreciate his stuff. His films have this anti-everything, almost nihilistic quality that I dig. But they're definitely not "great" movies at all.

The terrible overdubbing in Italian horror is mostly a function of the practice of shooting without sound to save time and money...the thing is, most of the films were shot in English, just with no sound. All the sound is post. Everything. Which is where that weird disconnect between sound and image comes from in those pictures. I like it...

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is almost a Great Film. There's really nothing else like it, and as far as uncompromising visions of horror go, it's pretty much unparalleled and likely never will be. And it has actual themes and story. BUT...the inexcusable animal abuse in it sinks it almost by default.

jeb wrote:

Excellent modern zombie films:
28 Days Later (fast zombies are awesome, apocalyptic London--amazing)
Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (Basically, just Evil Dead with better FX)
Dead Alive (this was called something else Down Under... ah, Braindead).

What makes 28 Days Later stand out is that it made zombies scary again

28 Days Later does not have a single zombie in it. Zombies are dead people who come back, not sick people who haven't died yet.

Evil Dead 2 was too much slapstick comedy for me. The original was far better.

Mad Dog wrote:

28 Days Later does not have a single zombie in it. Zombies are dead people who come back, not sick people who haven't died yet.

Evil Dead 2 was too much slapstick comedy for me. The original was far better.

Waaaay to literalist. Of course those are zombies. They are unthinking hyperagressive automatons with humanity detectors. They may not be canonical Romero zombies, but they're zombies. What about The Serpent and the Rainbow? A zombie movie about ACTUAL HAITIAN VOODOO ZOMBIES. They aren't dead either--do they not qualify for you?

...and I loved the slapstick in Evil Dead 2. Raimi turned a tired-by-that-time genre on its head into a superhero parody. Instead of being YAZM, it became it's own genre--soon replicated by Dead Alive, Shaun of the Dead, etc. That POV Wood Spirit scene is awesome. Chasing Ash around the woods, then the cabin, getting lost--it's hilarious.

jeb wrote:
What about The Serpent and the Rainbow? A zombie movie about ACTUAL HAITIAN VOODOO ZOMBIES. They aren't dead either--do they not qualify for you?
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The excellent book was about actual Haitian voodoo zombies. I'm still not entirely sure what the movie was about. Great visuals though.

Zombie Survival Guide is pretty good but it does get repetitive. It did get me thinking about getting together emergency supplies in case the unthinkable happens.

World War Z is good despite what Barnes and his warmongering says.

The Walking Dead is REALLY good and it doesn't go downhill. They do encounter all kinds of sick and crazy people. As in any good zombie story, human beings are the ultimate villains, not the zombies.

I agree zombies are becoming as popular as pirates and ninjas, but they're still more awesome and won't achieve the same kind of acceptance because they're just way too gory. Still, I think a never-ending zombie TV show like Walking Dead but starting off with a Night of the Living Dead scenario instead of a 28 Days Later scenario would be pretty awesome.

jeb wrote:

Evil Dead (first "smart" protagonist--girlfriend's head comes off, tries to eat you? Jump cut to Ash driving away at 80 mph in the middle of the woods.)

I think the earliest smart protangonist film I have seen is in The Texas Cainsaw Massacre. I can remember only one character doing something stupid in the whole movie. I found it to be one of the scariest films I have seen just because of that.

I just watched Cannibal Holocaust. It had a great story and the horror sequences were excellent. However, the animal killings done for the horror effect were distasteful as was the use of stock footage of executions. The sex (especially sexual violence) and nudity went way overboard. It was a real peice of exploitation cinema. I guess it comes from a different era. I'm not sure that can let it be excused though. That said I'm glad I've seen it. When I was watching I was thinking - how could The Blair Witch Project get away with all those claims that it was new and fresh and original? They are not zombies.

Some great zombie films have been mentioned but I want to express my love for Braindead. It's a great zombie comedy movie. Also the book I Am Legend, which I know is supposed to be about vampires. I didn't see the film. The trailer didn't look true to the book.

I'm surprised no one mentioned Return of the Living Dead. That was one of the best films to combineo humour, horror, special effects and story pre-SOTD.

It starts out as a horror/ comedy and gets progressively darker and nastier. There is also no better arguement of why "live" special effects are stronger and more viseral versus c.g.i than the scene with old female zombie.

Having just had her recently severed torso strapped to an autopsy table, she struggles i vain to break free and feast on our hapless survivors. What made the seen especially gruesome for me (besides seeing her dried out and withered dugs)was watching her spinal column slowly writhing, squirming and tapping the metal table like a pinned worm and oozing with sticky spinal fluid. ACK!

You can't do that shit with CG.

This is one film that truly deserves to be part of the great zombie film canon.

Although I gotta agree that Zeds are dead, The Walking Dead is fucking brilliant!

I have an especially soft spot for zombies, and always will. My favourite zombie movie is Resident Evil 2. The video game. I enjoy playing it or watching it played more than any zombie movie I've ever seen. A true Resident Evil movie, based on the S.D. Perry novels would, I think, bring this genre back to life, so to speak.

Kirkman's comics are definitely good. I did not dislike Diary of the Dead, truth be told. I liked it more than 28 Weeks later. I am basically stating, by the above about RE, that I am disappointed by the lack of good zombie stuff too, but I am a deeply sentimental guy, so I am unlikely every to abandon zombies (or pirates for that matter).

MB's interpretation of "World War Z" as zombies being an excuse for the world to hold hands and sing kumbaya is as hilarious as it is accurate. Sadly. Zombie Survival Guide kicked WWZ's ass.

Ah, zombies. Is there anything they can't do?

I agree they have jumped the shark, but I think its overall for the better. Zombies have now entered a permanent place in our society...from cult to culture. While most of the glut of movies about them in recent years has been disappointing...enough have been made that some gems are able to make it out to the public. Zombie movies, for better or for worse, can command a higher budget than ever before. 28 Weeks Later had some great "mass zombie horde" vs. "fully equipped army" scenes that would have been impossible to produce under any other circumstances. I'll cut any argument about its labeling as a zombie movie short right now: I dont think anyone will be able to agree on a definition of zombie anyway. Now that zombies are permanently fixed into our culture, their free to be reinvented and expanded upon as vampires and other ghoulish creatures have.

Fulci is a master. For those of you who have seen his films and dismissed them as utter crap, its understandable. They have horrible acting, nonexistant plots...but I swear the more you watch them the better they become and the more dread you feel in the pit of your stomach. I hated him at first...but I beg you to give him another chance.

"I agree zombies are becoming as popular as pirates and ninjas" said Metalface

Pirates are back. Zombies are back. I'm still waiting for a ninja resurgence that I agree is inevitable. I also think the next under-utilized genre that is ripe with possibilities is sci-fi.

So who wants to help me write a "Space Ninja" screenplay?

Kriz wrote:

So who wants to help me write a "Space Ninja" screenplay?

Yeah, Joss Whedon beat you to that, viz. Jubal Early .

jeb wrote:

Kriz wrote:

So who wants to help me write a "Space Ninja" screenplay?

Yeah, Joss Whedon beat you to that, viz. Jubal Early .

When you put it that way, Whedon went wild with Firefly. Cowboys, rebels, psychics, a space ninja, lesbians, a psycho-killer, zombies, punks, hookers, nazis, bad cops and pirates. And he made it all work. I really miss Firefly.

I'm trying to get Cannibal Holocaust into my netflix queue...

Is it by this Fulci guy?

What year is it?

I can't figure out if I should be checking out Zombie Holocaust or Cannibal Holocaust or what?

Any help?



thanks!

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is a Ruggero Deodato picture...he's got a cameo in HOSTEL II, strangely enough. He also did a sort of interesting and fairly nasty movie called HOUSE AT THE EDGE OF THE PARK that's kind of like a LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT clone (even has David Hess, the main terrible person in LHOTL) but I actually like it a little better. The interesting thing about Deodato is that he "kind of" seems like a legitimate filmmaker sometimes although he's total exploitation.

If you want Fulci, start with THE BEYOND. It's definitely his best film and probably his most accessible overall. It actually has a pretty strong old-fashioned gothic atmosphere in addition to the notorious gore. If you dig it, then you'll probably want to step up to ZOMBI 2 (aka ZOMBIE), most folks get into Fulci that way but it's not as good as THE BEYOND. It's pure trash, but it's fun trash and the zombies in it are amazing. You will never settle for those shitty CGI zombies again. The film also features the famous shark versus zombie scene. After that, CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD and HOUSE BY THE CEMETARY are the ones to see.

ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST...oh man...it's TERRIBLE. But fun terrible at least if you scan it to the good parts.

To see how zombies really jumped the shark, you just need to watch FIDO, a zombie love story. It's DAY OF THE DEAD meets PLEASANTVILLE with a little red scare thrown in. A good movie but even when the zombies are eating everyone, it's still done for laughs.