LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE (1974)

"You're all the same, the lot of you, with your long hair and faggot clothes. Drugs, sex…every sort of filth. And ya hate the police, don't ya?"

"You make it easy."

A young man is on his way out to the English countryside when a young woman hits his parked motorcycle at a gas station.  He catches a ride with her.  They get lost and end up in the middle of a zombie outbreak!  That might not sound like a lot of story, but it gets the job done. 

Although it's probably too slow for modern audiences, LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE is a great zombie film filled with creepy atmosphere, beautiful scenery, satisfying special effects, cool old buildings (the church/graveyard and the hospital were especially awesome), a tight script and a totally badass soundtrack.  I also enjoyed the political undertones: the hippie streaker, the experimental farming machinery causing the dead to come back to life, the fascist cop (played brilliantly by Hollywood legend Arthur Kennedy) versus the hippie protagonist, the various jabs at Christianity ("Look, it's not my fault Sergeant if Christ and the saints are out of fashion.", the one zombie who appears to be praying whenever he feeds, multiple references to Satanism, etc.) and so on.

LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE has been a cult movie for decades, so I would figure that all of the horror fans have seen it by now, but if you haven't then do yourself a favor and check it out.  That first attack at the stepping stones is legendary! Would make a fun double-feature with BURIAL GROUND.

THE ISLAND (1980)

Journalist Michael Caine travels to Miami to investigate the 600+ boats and 2,000+ people(!!!) that have gone missing in the last three years in the Bermuda Triangle.  For whatever reason (it had something to do with his ex-wife), he brings along his annoying 12-year-old son.  Ugh!  I hate this kid.  Anyway, the story drags along at a snails pace until finally at the 33-minute mark they run into some...wait for it...pirates!  What the hell?  That's right.  This group of like 50 or so pirates have been living undisturbed on a uncharted island for the last 300 years.  Well, "undisturbed" except for the thousands of people they've somehow managed to kill over the years.

Anyway, whatever, so there's bloodthirsty pirates on the island.  Caine and his annoying son are captured.  The annoying kid is brainwashed into thinking he's a annoying pirate and Caine is used as a sex slave of one of the women.  That idea is definitely promising, but unfortunately outside of two awesome scenes the rest of the film is pretty boring.  The first highlight scene is when the pirates attack a drug smuggling boat and they fight a martial arts dude.  The other highlight scene is when they attack a Coast Guard cutter.  (Fun fact: the Coast Guard cutter used in the film is the USCGC Dauntless which six years later was the first ship on site of the space shuttle Challenger disaster.)

Mild violence, mildly interesting (and ludicrous) story that wasn't executed properly, average acting, annoying pirate language, annoying kid who I hated, lackluster topless scene and a covered bottomless scene, open-ended story, a fake as hell looking head getting hit with a ax, nice scenery and a interesting cast of lesser-known actors who've been in a ton of movies.

Worth a watch for action-adventure fans, but it's nothing to get too excited over  A remake could be interesting.

SSSSSSS (1973)