DEAD ALIVE (1992)

I had the extreme fortune last night to see this in the theater and right before the film started I overheard a person sitting directly behind me mention that she had seen the trailer for this film and it looked "pretty gross". At that moment it occurred to me that there's people out there who've never seen DEAD ALIVE! Up until then I had just assumed that everybody who likes horror movies had already seen this movie a dozen times or more. Next you're going to tell me there's people out there who can't quote all of Buford T. Justice's lines from SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT...ha! Whatever. There's no way, no way!!!

For those two or three people out there who've never seen DEAD ALIVE here's the story: Lionel lives at home with his over domineering mother. He goes on a date to a local zoo with his girl Paquita. While spying on her son, the mother is bitten by a rat monkey from Skull Island (yes, that Skull Island) and the next day turns into a flesh eating zombie! Lionel can't stand the thought of killing his zombie mother so he keeps her under sedation in the basement. Keeping a live zombie in the basement is hard work, so before long everything has spiraled out of control until there's an entire horde of zombies running around the large household...and all of them want to kill Lionel.

The story is brilliant, but what pushes DEAD ALIVE into the one of the greatest zombie movies of all time territory is the absolute genius of director Peter Jackson. I remember when this movie came out (I was in high school) my girlfriend and I sat on her mom's sofa in absolute horror movie Heaven. I was so glued to the screen I completely forgot about the sweet fuckmaking I was about to throw down. Outside of EVIL DEAD 2 I'd never seen anything like it. Right from the beginning the film blasts off in a frantic pace and it never lets up. It's just one hilarious gore-drenched scene after another all wrapped up in a clever script that somehow makes it all believable and even has a little romance thrown in for good measure.

After watching it last night on the big screen I started thinking about how there really hasn't been any over the top splatter films of this quality made since this movie. It's kinda sad. The other, ever sadder, thing is Peter Jackson has completely forgotten about the horror genre. Yea, he made THE FRIGHTENERS in 1996 and I love that movie, but ever since he's made nothing but CGI heavy fantasy films that I really didn't care too much about. It'd be nice if he went back to his roots and made another non-CGI, low budget gross out film. I can only watch BAD TASTE and DEAD ALIVE so many hundreds of times...I wasn't a big fan of MEET THE FEEBLES.

Zombie butthole. LOL.

Peter Jackson (with sandwich) cameo.

Forest J. Ackerman cameo.

MISTER ROBERTS (1955)

During the final months of the Second World War, the cargo ship U.S.S. RELUCTANT is stationed at a remote Pacific Ocean island. The ship's captain (Cagney) doesn't care about his men, only his spotless record. The opposite of this tyrant is the ship's executive officer, Lt. Douglas Roberts, who cares deeply for the men, but also feels a great longing to get in on the action of the War and actually be a visible part of the War effort not just loading ships all day. Each week he writes a letter asking for a transfer to the front and each week the captain rejects his request because he knows that Roberts' work is what's going to get him (the captain) promoted.

That's the main meat of the story, but there's so much more. I won't ruin it for you, but trust me this is a great movie and I love to revisit it often. That said I do have some frustration with the film: there's a large number of mistakes, mainly unsynchronized audio. It takes you right out of a movie when you hear a person talking, but their mouth isn't moving. A lot of that I chalk up to John Ford getting sick (?) and leaving production before the filming was finished. Despite the mistakes I still love this movie dearly and recommend it highly.

Henry Fonda was born to play the role of Douglas Roberts, his performance is one of the most impressive that you will ever see, but in standard Academy fashion he didn't even get nominated for an Oscar. Douchers. He's a true master of the Silver Screen, so that's why it's so surreal to see him take so many bizarre roles in the 1970's that were honestly beneath him. Besides Fonda you have a full cast of legendary actors: William Powell (in his last performance ever), James Cagney, Jack Lemmon, Ward Bond, Ken Curtis, Harry Carey Jr., Patrick Wayne and even a brief appearance by Jason Voorhees' mother Betsey Palmer! What more can you ask for? Check it out! I give it my highest recommendation.

That's probably the most film talent I've ever seen in one photograph.

BURIAL GROUND: THE NIGHTS OF TERROR (1981)

Zombies attack a group of people vacationing at a secluded country estate. The End.

I'm not sure why, but I kinda like this movie and have actually seen it a number of times. One of the most entertaining things about it is all of the humans when they see a zombie literally stop moving and just stand there screaming until the zombies sloooooowly shuffle over and kill them. It's like the zombies have some kind of telepathic freeze ray or something. Any normal, halfway athletic guy with a aluminum baseball bat could kill every zombie in this movie with barely breaking a sweat, because they are the superslow kind that literally take two minutes to walk across a room.

Another weird thing about BURIAL GROUND is there's a character in the film that's suppose to be a young boy, but for whatever bizarre reason he's played by a 26-year-old midget creature and to make things even worse is he has the hots for his own mother! WTF? He spies on her having sex, tries to rub her pussy and even at one point starts licking her exposed nipple!!!!! It's beyond creepy.

In the grand scheme of things it's not really a good movie, but I like it and it would make a great double feature with 1974's LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE. Respectable amount of middle-aged female nudity, plenty of slow moving zombies, really stupid humans, son/mother incest, leg caught in trap while fleeing zombies, zombies using tools, nice amount of blood and gore, no CGI. If you like the older Italian zombie movies then I say check it out. A shitty, but fun movie.

TRICK OR TREAT (1986)

Eddie Weinbauer is a rocker goddamn it! Fuck all those fucking jocks and preppies at his high school, they just don't fucking understand man! His favorite rock star is Sammi Curr. So when Sammi dies in a hotel fire Eddie is crushed. He sits in his room and pouts while rocking out. Then...then he gets an ultrarare demo of the album Sammi was working on when he died and it changes his whole life, cause it's possessed! Oh fuck!!!

Weird shit happens and next thing you know a demon is slithering out of a pair of Walkman earphone and molesting and melting a sweaty naked chick...and that's just the beginning cause Sammi himfuckingself is returns in the flesh to kill people. Eddie ends up being not a true rocker after all cause he's against all the killing. Now it's up to him to stop a demonspirit of Sammi from killing everybody on the planet...or at least his high school.

TRICK OR TREAT is a great 80's metal horror movie. The music ain't worth a shit, but that's what makes it so great. Also you got fucking "Skippy" from "Family Ties" completely miscast as the main character and he's surprisingly good! I recently saw it at at the theater and it had a lot of little moments that the crowd loved. Nearly as good as BLACK ROSES and better than ROCK 'N' ROLL NIGHTMARE. If you like cheesy 80's horror then it's worth checking out.

Boom mic hanging way down.

Crew member reflection in TV.