EMPIRE OF THE ANTS (1977)

Sleazy real estate salesperson Joan Collins is trying to sell worthless swampland to gullible suckers in Florida. She sails them down on a chartered boat then over cheap liquor talks them into buying land in her future resort that's never going to see the light of day. Some time before her latest group arrives, a barrel of radioactive waste washed ashore.  Ants get into it and the radiation causes them to get huge! You can probably guess what happens next...that's right the ants herd the humans to their queen so she can fart on them and make the humans their slaves, slaves that get sugar for the ants to waller around in like Scrooge McDuck in his money vault.

The story moves forward at a reasonable pace.  It's like a soap opera on the beach with giant ants. Cheesy special effects were awful in a good way and best of all: Pamela Shoop's tight shirt!!! P.S. she got topless in HALLOWEEN II.

If you enjoy giant animal movies then check it out. It's fun and horrible and would make a great double-feature with the same years ANTS! starring Myrna Loy.

DEAD ALIVE (1992)

"I kick ass for the Lord!"

1957: adult Lionel still lives with his over domineering mother in a large house on the hill. He goes on a date with a local girl, Paquita, to the zoo. While spying on her son, the mother is bitten by a rat monkey 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 house...and all of them want to kill Lionel.

That's a brilliant story, 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. 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.

There really hasn't been many over the top splatter films of this quality made since this movie. It's kinda sad. It's also sad that Peter Jackson has completely forgotten about the horror genre.  Maybe one day he'll return to it.