BETTER OFF DEAD (1985)

"Two dollars."

High schooler Lane Myer (John Cusack) is hung up on his girlfriend...bad.  So when she dumps him for the captain of the high school ski team, Lane at first tries to kill himself, but then after multiple failed attempts decides the best way to win her back is by skiing down the deadly K-12 faster than the ski captain douchebag.  While he's training for the big ski showdown, he has all kinds of misadventures.  Everything from eating his mom's bizarre cooking to giving a duck a ride to school to getting a job at a seedy hamburger joint to finally sexing up his sexy foreign exchange student neighbor.

Dancing cheeseburgers, an insane paperboy, mom's food coming alive and crawling off the table, a working laser gun, a drag racing Japanese guy who announces the race in a Howard Cosell voice through loudspeakers attached to the top of his car, skiing down a mountain on a bicycle, solving a life crisis with a skiing contest...this movie's got some crazy shit going on, but instead of come off as completely over the top like in an AIRPLANE!-style, BETTER OFF DEAD seems more like the imagination of a teenager come to life.  I was in middle school when BETTER OFF DEAD came out and it totally clicked with me.  I probably wore my VHS tape straight the fuck out.

Watching it now, it's a little dated, but got a lot of clever stuff going on.  Recommended for the young at heart.

DAY OF THE DEAD (1985)

ZZZZZZZzzzzzz....hurrrghhh...zzzzz...huh?  Oh sorry, I didn't see you waiting there.  I've been trying to review DAY OF THE DEAD for the last few hours, but I keep falling asleep.  The film opens excitedly enough with a helicopter flying over a deserted town (as long as you ignore that moving car off to the left).  The occupants of the helicopter are some military folks looking for survivors after a zombie outbreak.  They don't see anybody from the sky, so they land and start yelling into their bullhorn.  After a few moments, zombies sloooowy start shuffling their way towards the helicopter.  The military people fly off.  See...I told you it was exciting!  Next, they return to their underground base where they bitch and argue with each other until at the 58-minute mark, when somebody finally gets killed by a zombie.

Over the years, I've revisited DAY OF THE DEAD a number times in hopes that I'll enjoy it, but I never do.  The first half is very slow and then, when the violence finally, happens...it's so by-the-numbers that it's still boring.  Bad acting, no likable characters, low budget, slow pace, tons of boring dialogue, Bub the world's most annoying zombie, unsatisfying beginning, middle and ending.  DAY OF THE DEAD had a lot of potential, but in the end it's just a boring snoozefest.  Skip it.

If you need me I'll be in my room checking my blood pressure while watching DAWN OF THE DEAD.

Part 1 - Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Part 2 - Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Part 4 - Land of the Dead (2005)
Part 5 - Diary of the Dead (2007)
Part 6 - Survival of the Dead (2009)
Remake - Dawn of the Dead (2004)