Theatre of the Dead #7 - Night of the Creeps (1986)

Director: Fred Dekker Stars: Jason Lively, Steve Marshall, Jill Whitlow

Review:

In the late 80s and 90s there was not a whole lot of significant zombie movies. I checked with the Wikipedia list, and though a lot of zombie movies exist at that time, but none of them having IMDB score higher than 5. IMDB score does not represent an absolute rating, but if a movie have IMDB score less than 5, it's probably trash and I am yet to find a counter-example. However I found this little forgotten piece, Night of the Creeps.

The first half of the movie is a cliche teenage love story: young shy boy, dream girl, bullying boy friend, you know the deal. It is so typical and predictable that it bored out my tears. Besides the love plot, there is also a lot of nudity scene too, like they know this is boring and have to rely on some sexual appeal.

Love sub-plot. Bad omen. Very bad omen.

I generally do not appreciate horror comedies, besides I like pure horror genre better, I believe comedy is a very regional thing, and the jokes do not transcent well to foreign audiences. In a scene a hero and his crippled friend was questioned by the police since they were seen running out from a lab that has a dead body missing, "screaming like a banshee". In the next 10 minutes "screaming like a banshee" becomes a running gag.  All the characters add this phase as a supplement, but I dont get it. It is supposed to be funny? What is so funny about "screaming like a banshee"? If you saw a real cadaver in a dark laboratory that gripped your neck, you would scream like a banshee too.

That joke about loved one turned into zombies but too distracted to notice, again. Havnt laughed I'm sorry.

It is not until some people actually show up as zombies that this movie turns better. So some aliens that looked like naked midgets and have a face like Krang from TMNT, had an experimental creature escaped from their spaceship to earth. They look like slugs and jump into people's mouth. Once they were inside, they laid eggs in your brain and burst your head to come out. The plot is very similar to Slither (2006), and judging from the release date, Slither ripped this off. Though the director of Slither claimed to be influenced by Cronenburg's Shivers (1975) and The Brood (1979), I found that story seems to come from Night of the Creeps, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and The Fly (1986). I am not going to talk about Slither in the future, since except for the gross but well-made special effects, it does not have something really original.

Back to Night of the Creeps. The zombies in this movie does not really attack people, but just walk around till their head burst and spread the slug-like creatures. Our hero's crippled friend was trapped in the toilet while taking a dump, and a zombie just dead right outside. At first I could not understand why he did not pick up his cane and get out, maybe scream like a banshee if he wanted to. He was desperately try to reach a match that was lying on the floor. Oh so now I know he wanted to light the match box, activate the smoking alarm and wait for rescue. Clever move, but no. He lighted the match box, put it on the floor, a slug-like creature bumped into it and got killed. Ok so now I know he have read the script, or else why would one think a brief contact with fire, since the creature is moving in high speed, could instantly kill them?

Your head bursts to give birth to all those slug-like creatures.

Despite all the love subplot, un-necessary nudity, bad writing and unexplainable character reaction, there is some scenes that I do like. I do feel sad when the crippled friend died, and left his dead words as recording to his best friend. Their friendship is also interesting to me, and it was well established and effective when we see him die. And the scene when our hero stands off the zombies with his dreamgirl holding a flamethrower in her is also memorable. But I do not get why the shrieff have to kill himself in order to destroy all those creatures with an explosion. Couldnt he use some ways more clever? Grenades or fuses maybe?

Duck tapes to prevent the slugs getting into the mouth. Good thinking. But he took it off in the next scenes. Ah...why?

Night of the Creeps is a homage movie, that it pays homage all the time. The first encounter with the creature from outer space throws back to the 50s sci-fi movies, especially reminiscient of The Blob (1958). People watch Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) on TV and the character's first name are tributes to horror movie directors: Romero, Cronenburg, Carpenter, Hooper. But as Roger Ebert said in U-Turn (1996), I feel quizzed and distracted to found all these homages. So do I like this movie? Well it may not be a significant zombie movie, but still worth a watch just for good scenes in the second half.

Tie Me up! Tie Me down! (1990)

Director: Pedro Almodovar Stars: Antonio Bandera, Victoria Abril

Review:

Not to be possessed by horror movies like in Evil Ed (1995), I took a change and watch Tie me Up! Tie me Down! (1990) tonight. The director Pedro Almodovar is one of my favourate director of all time. I am impressed of many of his works such as Todo sobre mi Madre (All about my mother, 1999) and Hable con Elle (Talk to her, 2002), but this is the first time I have seen this earlier work of his. 

Put off the wig Banderas. You will get your awesome long hair in Desperado.

Antonio Banderas plays a lunatic called Ricky, which is obsessed with a woman, Marina in a one-night stand. The first thing he do when he is released from the mental institution, is to visit Marina and tell her how he love him. However Marina is a porn star, and do not appreciate the obsession of Ricky. Ricky had no choice but to restrain her, just to get along with her.

Full of sharp colors, in which I interpret as a theme of passion and lust.

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! carries the same artistic style and direction of his other works, but with a more comedic tone. The use of different sharp colors in hints of theme of lust, and strange theme of "female things" such as showing women urinating. Throughout the movie we witness Marina refused, to confused, and to love. At first she acts as anyone would do when kidnapped, screams. Ricky must put a gag to her mouth, and tie her up. He takes care of her basic needs, including buying her smacks but Marina just wants to escape. Until one time that she show Ricky got beaten up to bring her smack, she falls in love with him. Later we see Ricky feels insecure and suspect she still want to escape, but to show the trust, Marina said "Tie me up."

"Atame. (Tie me up.)"

The rope can be seen as a metaphor of mistrust. A need for tying her up shows the mistrust of Marine towards Ricky, and the willingness of being tied displays the other way around. It maybe applied to relationships, in which it hurts to tie her up and down, just because of mistrusts. 

In spite of the fact that this is a good movie, but it felt flat compared to his later works. It shows signs, but he had not perfected his style yet. Often in Almodovar's movies there are scenes that grabs you so tight that you were speechlessly overwhemed by emotions, almost on the verge of crying. There is one scene in this movie that sort of going to that point, which is the scene Marina said "Tie me up", but it still no where near it.

A woman urinates. I guess it gives you the complex feeling of woman nature....?

Antonio Banderas, known for his role in Desperado (1995) and The Mask of Zorro (1998), re-joined Almodovar this year in The Skin I Live In (2011). In Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! he was a boy that could not properly represent his love, and built his image of passionate latin lover as Zorro, then now he is an older man. The movie does not get any rewards as far as I remember, but I am still looking forward to watching it.

Theatre of the Dead #6 - H.P. Lovecraft's Re-Animator (1985)

Director: Stuard Gordon Stars: Jeffery Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Campaign

Review:

For the definition of zombie we have been using so far, this one does not fully justify to be a zombie movie, but I just love this movie so much I could not leave it alone. It was included in the Wikipedia List of Zombie Movies, so it is justified in some sense.

Re-Animator is based on a novel written by H.P. Lovecraft, who is the most influencial writer on the horror genre up to this day. Ask Stephen King and he will tell you the same thing. He is always compared to Edgar Allan Poe, but I think Poe's stories are so dated but Lovecrafts' can happen even in modern days. Re-Animator was written upon request of the publisher to rip off Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, when it was in its peak popularity. Lovecraft hated Frankenstein since he did not like the idea that human can play God. He was always the believer that human is small and limited, and that is why his work was not popular in the Enlightment period which he lived in. But for the money he instead did a parody, and this is also what this movie is, a parody.

Herbert West is a genius medical student, that is recently admitted to the Miskatonic University. (Mistkatonic University is a fictional university which many supernatual incidence took place in Lovecraft's novels.) He invented a re-agent that can turn the dead back to life, but the re-animated corpse seems to be crazies. West asked another student, that is doing internship in the hospital apparently, to get him into the morgue for human experiment for his re-agent. However the professor knew and try to steal the discovery and claim as his own.

Re-animating a dead cat.

Therefore the zombie here is the re-animated corpses by Herbert West. They can be killed easily, in the way of killing normal people. The spotlight here is not the zombies, but Herbert West. I dare not to say this is a likable character, but I like him so much. I see a lot myself in him, or at least someone that I always wanted to be. He is intelligent, courteous but at the same time rude for he despises others for his pride of expertise. He shows no respect to anything other than his work, and kills feeling no regret or remorse. Have I fancy myself as a scientist, Herbert West is the role model, just a little mad. It is interesting for me to watch him get into argument when he heard someone is contradicting him in his study, and in any serious situations all he cares about is his work.

Counting how many seconds does it takes to re-animate the one he killed.

Another villain, considering West is not so righteous by himself, is a professor called Halls who wanted to claim the discovery as his own. He is not as classy as West, as we see he is stubborn, perverted, and wanted the girl for his own sexual aptitude. Halls is an old scholar, believes what he perceived and refuses new ideas. It is also interesting to watch he and West get into arguments since I have always wanted to say the dialogue, but I didnt just because I was afraid to fail my course.

The infamous scene of a head giving fellatio.

The opening credit is one of the best I have ever seen, with the tone which is a re-mix of the theme music from Psycho (1960), and shows diagrams in human anatomy from maybe the 19th century. It is fun, scientific and a bit scary from the crude science, and sets the tone for the movie. After the opening credits you understand what you expect, and loved it or hated it.

I know I have despised horror comedies, and this contradicts all what I have been said. But I despised it because it generally is silly and dumb, and Re-Animator makes jokes not from slapstick, but from the characterization of academic maniacs, and that is tastful. Take a look on West face and know that he despises you not because you dont have an iPhone or not wearing Guccis, but your ignorance and incompetent. That is the true upper-class.

Theatre of the Dead #5 - Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Director: Don O'Bannon Stars: Clu Gulager, James Karen

Review:

In the 80s horror movies took a change in pure horror to more of horror comedies. Generally I do not appreciate horror comedies for scary and funny are opposite emotions. Return of the Living Dead (1985) would be the first zombie comedy considering our more harsh definition of zombies, and to my surprise this is one of my favourate zombie film of all time.

Most scary looking zombie I have seen.

A newcomer employee Freddy of a medical supply warehouse was shown a tour. His supervisor Frank knows he likes the scary stuff, dead bodies and those thing told him a secret of the company. He said the movie Night of the Living Dead was actually based on true events, and the dead were contained by this company from the order of the military. The movie changed the facts for avoiding lawsuits and actually it was a chemical that is bringing back the life. They went to the basement to watch the zombies contained in cans, but the gas in the can leaks, and all hell breaks loose.

Zombie in a can. One tap of the can and the gas leaks. It's must be made in china.

The zombie formular have changed again and this variation of Romero zombies is the most power zombie species in zombie history. They can run, have some intelligence that are able to ambursh people, and eat only brains. The real major problem is that they can not be killed. Destroying their brains wont work and their brains were eatten by other zombies anyways. If you severed their limbs, their limbs will movie on their own to come after you. Burning them is an absolutely no-no. The smokes raise to the sky and come down as rain, which would resurrect more zombies. How do you kill it you may ask? You dont. You contain them in a can. But how do you contain hundreds of them out there with several teamate you got here? Well that is the trouble.

Girl dancing naked for she's feeling horning of fantasizing of being killed horribly.

This movie is parody of the whole death metal culture. Death metalist or fans always think death is cool, till they be eating alive by the dead. Freddy have a group of friend that is into death metal or something like that. They hang around the cemetary to wait for Freddy. One slut always wanted to being killed horribly, and get horny fantasizing "a bunch of old man...eating her alive". She got so high, that she started dancing naked. I said un-necessary nuditiy is a omen for bad horror movies, but here it is necessary for it opens up all funny moments that comes ahead, when the rain with zombie chemical falls and burns her skin, and not able to run with no shoes. Well what do you know? She had her dreams come true. Take that bitch. I hope that bitch in Nekromantik (1987) get the same treatment too.

Still horny now slut?

Another highlight would be they captured and interrogated one of the zombies. They asked the zombie why do they eat brains. The zombie answered that it is painful to be dead, feeling yourself rotting away, and eating brains relieves the pain. We get also from the people that is turning into zombie, as the formular stated, that it is painful for the rigor mortis. It medically makes sense. Pressure your legs for 30 minutes to block the bloodflow and see what happens. Imagine your whole body is like that. Now you know that pain.

The writer of this movie, John Russo, is the co-writer of Night of the Living Dead, together with George A. Romero. It is a shame that usually only Romero got remembered. He and Don O'Bannon gives interesting new ideas to the zombie genre and they need to be given credits. Return of the Living Dead spawned two sequels, but none of them were any good. After whole lot of conventional zombies, get some un-conventional ones. 

Dead & Buried (1981)

	Director: Gary Sherman Stars: James Farentino, Nancy Locke, Lisa Blount, Robert Englund

Review:

While I am doing a little research on zombie movies to check if I have missed out anything during the early 80s, I found this movie that I do not know before. I try to find it and watch it, and I do not consider this in our sense a zombie movie. So this is why it is hard to define what a zombie is. The list of zombie films in Wikipedia apparently employ the definition that zombies are simply dead people coming back to life. But when you think to yourself "I want to watch a zombie movie", those would not be coming to mind. Is Evil Dead a zombie movie? No since they are clearly possessed, and not sure if they were dead or not. If Evil Dead is a zombie movie, why not Paranormal Activity?

Dead & Buried is one of those kind. A group of people that lives in a small town kills foreign visitors. The visitors come back to life, and join the group of murderers. They were brought back and controlled by a dark power, and the local shriff want to find out who is controlling them.

This movie is no masterpiece but I found it entertaining in telling an interesting story. The basic setting of the story made me think of The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft, in which both involves a small fishing village with un-welcoming townsfolks that are controlled by a dark power. The story is unpredictable that you would not know what is going on at the beginning of the movie, and have a twist ending that were made popular and praised eighteen years after this movie.

Don O'Bannon, who also did Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), and Total Recall (1990), contributed in this movie. I do not know the amount of contribution, but it would be almost as good as his other works. Casting with mostly unknown stars, the acting maybe a bit stiff, but it is still an interesting movie for you to watch at night.

Theatre of the Dead #4 - Day of the Dead (1985)

Director: George A. Romero Stars: Lori Cardille, Joseph Pilato

Review:

In continuity of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead comes Day of the Dead, the third film in the series. In Night of the Living Dead we saw how the apocalyze begins, and in Dawn of the Dead we saw how people setting up resistance and try to survives. Now in Day of the Dead, the resistance failed. Everywhere is deserted and overrun with zombies.

We know this fact right from the beginning scene. A group of people flew over in a helicopter, and wanted to search for victims in the city down below. Nobody is on the street, newpaper which headlined the zombie incidence flying everywhere, a dried corpse eaten by inserts, money scattered around without any notice, and at last we see the zombies come out from the cry of the search for living human. This single scene bridges from Dawn of the Dead to Day of the Dead, in which zombies now rule the world and apparently the resistance have failed. This is a great scene in telling a story and also the best in the movie. It goes downhill from here.

The first zombie seen in the movie. Makeup is way improved from Dawn of the Dead.

A small group of scientists and military hid in a underground bunker in order to do research on zombie, in hope of solving the zombie apocalyze. Apparently the government ordered this research, and the military were given order to protect the science team. However the government went down in the incidence, and the main leader were killed. The military start to question what is the point of risking their life to protect the scientists that gives no result.

In the previous zombie films, the origin or cause of zombies are in mystics. We presume some magic or higher power that we could not comprehen caused the dead to walk once again. Day of the Dead maybe the first movie to bring science and military into the equation. The mad scientist, who is obsessed of why a decaying flesh would walk, found out zombies are motivated by only the brain. If we can seperate some parts of the brain, we could control their behaviour, and he thought that would be the solution to the zombie apocalyze. "I'll show them these creature can be domesticated even without the surgery."

Shot the brain and it's dead. What if just a brain, or even part of it? That is science.

In layman's term that means teaching them to play toys, like teaching a dog not biting its owner. I have the same reaction as the "villain" in the movie. What the fuck? We were all counting on you to make a device so that we could push a button and all zombies would just fell down, and you are telling me you can found out they can be taught to play toys? I personally would shot him on the spot, who's with me? 

"It's extraordinary isnt it!? Say hello to auntie Alicia" *Bang* *Bang* if I were there.

That is main problem with the movie. I agree with the supposedly bad guy, the military leader Captain Rhodes. The scientist provide nothing useful and the military man were risking their life to protect them? Later on we even discover that the mad scientist used the dead military guy on experiments, and their flesh as "rewards" to the zombies that behave. Who, if from the military, would not want to shot him. Hell I would even feed him to the zombies.

A zombie gets punished in the dark room. Wait. Zombies are afraid of the dark?

Another problem would be the mere concept that zombies can learn. Zombie are scary because 1) they are dead, 2) they want to eat you and last but majorly 3) they feel no fear. By letting them have emotions you are killing off the major scary factor. So then you can do things that they fear to keep them off and that is not hard. In this way they looks more like idiots then zombies.

An iconic scene from the movie.

The one that took the bite, as one would stated in the formular, did not actually died but open the lift to the surface and led of the zombies in, to sebotage the tyranny rule of Rhodes. It seems the lift is the own way to the surface since when he destroyed the button in LG, they did not find another way to reach the surface. Problem: how does the zombie infest the base so quickly? Once the lift lowered down, the military people ran all over the place and all they met were zombies. This leads to a natural conclusion the they all were killed by the zombies. Supposedly the scene in Dawn of the Dead the a human were ripped apart by the zombie were so popular that they make that scene several times in this movie.

It does not stand down in gore value.

I havent yet talk about the main characters because there are nothing worthy to talk about. Rhodes and the mad scientist steal the show for me. We see the men arguing, the collapsion of their mental states, but we have  already seen that in Night of the Living Dead didnt we?

Dont get me wrong this is still an entertaining movie and adding new elements shows Romero's effort to try to extend the whole idea instead of repeating it. After this one Romero took a long rest from zombie movies, and this movie completes the original trilogy of the Living Dead. Next time we would switch from Romero zombies, and watch how zombie movies advance in other people's hand. 

Hannibal (2001)

Director: Ridle Scott
Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore, Ray Liotta


Review:


Taking a break from zombie movies, I decide to watch Hannibal (2001). Hannibal is a sequel to the horror movie classic Silence of the Lamb (1991) made 10 years later. First of all, I do not like this movie. The first time I watch this movie, I fell asleep half the way. Watching it again didnt change my impression, but just gives more insight on why this film doesnt work.

The main plot of this movie is watching two parties compete to search for Dr. Lector. Clarice Stering, now a FBI agent, suffers much blame from the media on an operation went awry, and wants to capture Dr. Lector to savage her career. A former victim of Lector, Mason Verger, who is a rich guy, also wants to have his revenge on him, and announces a handsome reward on the one who gives information that leads to Lector's discovery.

Clarice sitting there, listening to tapes. Interesting?

This maybe an interesting plot if done right, but in this case it is not. What Clarice do to find Lector's whereabout is just listening to old tapes of the dialogues in Silence of the Lamb. What is the point? One would say, maybe this gives Clarice revelation on Lector's personality or character that would help her catch him? Nope. She does not discover anything new. She knows Lector is in Florence later because he writes a letter to her. So all the scenes contribute nothing at all. Hey I am a big fan of Silence of the Lamb and I can recite all the dialogues from Lector in the first movie, and if I want to hear Anthony Hopkins say it again, I would watch the first movie again.

"That seemed like a good idea at the time."

Another character that was in search for Lector, Mason Verger, is a complete idiot. So this is how Lector "tortured" him. Lector gaves him a drug, politely asked him to cut off his face and fed to the dogs. He did not theatened him or use any force, and yes, Verger did exactly that and is now disfigured. He just took one tiny little pill and were high enough to cut off his own face. There is no reason for you to have revenge Verger. You own stupidity did that to yourself.


And how could I forget to talk about Hannibal Lector himself. He is classy, knowledgable, and yet so menacing and perverted. He can smell which brand of hand cream Clarice is using and no doubt is able to smell our fear or nervous. He draws scenes that he had not been visited for at least 9 years, but the picture is as detailed as if he was sitting there drawing it. With the slighest hint he can reveal the truth of our lies, and it is enjoyable watching him solve the case to gain his freedom at the same time play with Clarice Stering. All these establishment was through the dialogue, and every line of dialogue is interesting and a new discovery, in Silence of the Lamb I mean. In here, the establishment was made by making him shopping in a fragance store, giving a lecture on art history and attending to a Opera. The movie tries to extend the character, but it was so trivial, boring and ineffective. I was already nearly aslept half of the way.

Ok this is creepy as it is impressive.

Besides, the love subplot with Clarice just ruined the whole character for me. I always thought that Clarice Stering is just a plaything, and him helping Clarice is just a game. He remained manner because he is a fine gentleman and he may found Clarice interesting as a junior in criminal psychology. "People will say we're in love." in a joke or tease, and in any way I cant see that he seriously love Clarice, not even talk about sacrifice a hand for her. Now his impression being a cold-hearted, human-eating killer is gone. Thanks.

Ridley Scott had made some awesome films but he has a nasty habit of turning a movie into a history lesson, such as American Gangstar and Robin Hood. Even more complains can be discussed and I barely scratched the surface. The characters are all stupid, the direction evokes no emotion, and it is just too long. Hannibal, though not the most boring one of Scott's work, is definitely not his finest moment.

Theatre of the Dead #3 - Zombi 2 (1979)

Director: Lucio Fulci
Stars: Tisa Farrow, Ian McCulloch


Review:


The first natural reaction off seeing the title would be: where is Zombi 1? Upon release in Italy, the title of Dawn of the Dead was changed into Zombi, and in order to capture the success of Dawn of the Dead they decided to call this movie Zombi 2. In the States there is no Zombi 1 so the poster uses the title Zombie. Despite the confusing title, this movie have nothing to do with Dawn of the Dead.

I find this looks amazing visually. With fires it looks like gate of hell.

Zombi 2 takes a more traditional horror movie approach to the zombie scenario. In Night of the Living Dead zombie just appears right at the beginning of the movie with no explaination. In Dawn of the Dead, the zombie already taken over right at the start. Zombi 2 gives the backstory on how the zombie raises.

The movie starts with a discovery of an abandoned ship in New York. Two policeman go abroad to investigate, but one of them got killed. The police force believes that it has something to do with the shipowner, but the shipowner's daugter and a reporter does not share the same thought with the police. They find a death letter from the shipowner on the ship, that he was held on an island. They decided to went on that island, and find out the dead is coming alive.

She would turn around but I dont want to make this an adult site.

We seem to have heard the story many times before (the basic plot is a bit similar to Tombs of the Blind Dead 1971, in which in both movie the characters went to some far places and the dead come to kill them), and it contains all bad horror movie omens, such as a love subplot and un-necessary nudity. In the first half of the movie it does get a bit boring while the characters try to create suspense when we all have already know the answer. But later when the zombie attack is in full motion,the shock value even exceeds Dawn of the Dead. The zombie makeup looks way better and designed that they decays, and their flesh can easily be scratched off since they are dead. They rises from the grave with all the worms and insects, and looked way more nasty.

Compare these with the Dawn of the Dead zombies and you know what I mean.

Another thing this movie brings to the zombie formular is it gives more attention to the cause. In Night of the Living Dead we were told briefly that the zombie coming back to life is because of an outer space radiation bought by a spaceship back from venus. Nowadays we know that radiation does not work that way, but back in 1968 people was fed by tonnes of sci-fi movie of the 50s about ridiculous consequences of exposure to radiation. People in 1950s were afraid so much of radiation since they witnessed the nuclear bomb explosion first hand.

A zombie fighting a shark. The shark is real by the way.

Coming back to this movie, it goes back to the root of zombie legend, that the cause of zombie is voodoo, like in the movie White Zombie (1932), though we were not definitely told. The native on the island said it is voodoo, but the doctor that is researching the zombie phenonmenon on the island, speaking representing our logic, does not believe. However he tried pathology, virology, radiology, etc and nothing gives an explaination. So at the end we were not sure if it is really the cause, but it thrills you more with the mystery than just telling you it is a virus.

Ever played Resident Evil 4/5?

Zombi 2 is worth watching for its shock value, and it defines what a zombie looks like today. It spawns its own line of sequels, though seemingly not related to each other, and none of the sequels is worth mentioning. The director Lucio Fulci went on to make some other zombie movies that is unrelated to Zombi 2, like City of the Living Dead (1980). Nowadays George A. Romero is commonly hailed as the person who created zombies, but I consider Lucio Fulci's name in the Hall of Fame of the zombie genre with Romero and another director that I have yet to introduce.

Theatre of the Dead #2 - Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Director: George A. Romero
Stars: David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger


Review:

In reality, zombie apocalypse, among other apocalyptic scenarios, is the easiest to deal with. Just do not send infantry troops in, but tanks or armoured vehicles. The event of Night of the Living Dead last for a night, but people love the concept so much, it never ends.

Dawn of the Dead seems to pick up right after Night of the Living Dead, but it stands alone. Zombies are now at large, and people want to survive. A group of people flew off in a helicopter, and landed on a shopping mall for some supplements. Soon they realize it may be not such a bad idea to stay in the mall and live on all of the supplements in it.

Shopping mall with zombie shoppers. Is there really a big difference?

George A. Romero extends the idea of zombie apocalypse, than not just to survive for the instant, but how to survive in a matter of a long time, at least weeks. The answer is capture a mall, in which you have almost infinite supplies. It's fun to even think about that a whole mall is upon your disposal, and how to survive with the existence of flesh-eating zombies. We watch them having fun with all the things in the mall, and even playing with the zombies, using them as target practice or teasing them. At some times we even wished we were in it with them. They made the mall suitable for themselves, and safe from all the zombies, and that is almost a tutorial on how to survival a zombie apocalypse.

Step 1: Find a safe spot that is free from zombies.

Step 2: Go in and out of your hiding spot through secret tunnel  that zombies would not know.

Step 3: Block the entrance with trucks. I never fully understand this.
If they cant get in, they cant. I guess in a movie you have to do something stupid.

Underlying the entertainment, there is a social satire implied in the movie. We see the zombies walking around in the mall, and heard the characters asked "Why they come here?". Yes, why do we go to malls? Is that really because we have something to buy? Or even having any definitive aim? How many times have we go to malls just because we have to do something or to spend some money. In a sense the zombie virus represents consumerism, turning us into zombie that have no thinking. In 1978 it maybe malls. Now it probably be iPhones. Maybe its for the better. When zombie apocalypse come we just distract them with an iPhone.

The zombie makeup is a little dated. Hey but that's 1978.

In a whole the movie is very much like a walk of live. We know that life is a shithole, zombies roaming freely, but we want to find fun out of it. Later we looked back and realize that life is still shit, and the zombies are still haunting us, and we have the face the inevitable fate, which is death. Maybe I'm going too far and this is not that kind of movie. But without the recognition of the satire or implication, as I have said, it is interesting to even watch how much fun to survive in a zombie apocalypse.

Theatre of the Dead #1 - Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Director: George A. Romero


Review:

In this little series "Theatre of the Dead" we shall go through some important movies in the zombie sub-genre to give myself a direction on what movie to watch. There maybe zombie movies that I will not mention maybe because I didnt know about them, or couldnt get my hands on, or I do not consider those to be zombie movies. By zombie I refer to the common understanding of the term, without rigourously give a definition here. I generally do not consider mind-controlled people zombies, so White Zombie (1932), which tells a story that a witch doctor hypnoize people to work for him, is not in my sense a zombie movie. Therefore in that sense, we will start with George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968), which is regarded as the first zombie movie in many sources.

The story tells Barbara who went to a cemetry with his brother Johnny to visit their father's grave. A zombie just came attack them. Johnny hit a rock and died, and Barbara fleed to an apparently abandoned house. Later another guy Ben came to seek shelter, help Barbara to calm down and barricade the house against the zombies who started gathering outside. Its turns out a couple Tom and Judy, and a family Harry, Helen and their sick daughter was hiding in the house cellar. The two groups of people had an argument of whether they should stay in the barricaded house, or locked down in the cellar, while the zombies soon massed a large number.

First group of "modern" zombie in movie history

Barbara is basically a useless character that was too fragile, and in the whole movie she have done nothing but stands around like a lobotomized mental patient. The only usage she's in the movie is to scream. Ben argues that the people should stay on the ground floor, since they can still get out if things get out of hand. We agree with him since he seems to be a nice guy, and we watch him helped Barbara calmed himself and gives order in barricading the house. We dismiss Harry, who suggests to lock themselves in the cellar and defend that one only door, because we know he was still hiding in the cellar even if he heard screaming and cares only to save himself. The irony is all the casulties in this movie we could blame on Ben's decision. If you agree with Ben all along, you may consider youself fail in surviving a zombie apocalyse.

People couldnt help but get into argument on who's the boss.

Zombies are not from some ancient folklore, and almost all perceptions we have with zombies come from this movie. The rules are followed, imitated, modified but never trully broken. So zombies are dead people coming back to life. They have low intelligence, and know nothing other than eating, and they hungry for human flesh. They would not stop regardless the wounds on their body and can only be killed when the brain is destroyed. And one important point is that a human will become a zombie if bitten by them.

This film is also a landmark on movie gore. Shot in B&W may not just for the low budget.

The rule of "Chekhov's Gun" tells us if in a play, there is a loaded gun hanging on the wall, it will be fired later in the play. If zombies can infect others through bites, they will. Therefore there will always be at least one member of the cast be infected, and his companions struggling to kill him. In this movie it is that sick daughter, who was actually bitten and became a zombie. Their parent could not kill their own daughter, and could only watch the daugter killed and ate themselves. For countless zombie movies that follow this rule, it was this first time the rule was done that is most disturbing for me.

A little zombie coming to cut you open and eat your guts.

The Night of the Living Dead was remaked in 1990, in which the remake is almost the same movie, down right to the dialogues, which I must say it is a waste of film. The remake makes more use of the character Barbara, and changes to a happier ending but nothing really differs too much. But this original masterpiece was shot in Black-and-White, which may turn some people down. The remake maybe a substitute for them to know about the plot.