Juan of the Dead Trailer

From Slashfilm:

I would rip off someone’s jaw to see Juan of the Dead right now. That’s how cool this first trailer is for what Latino Review calls “Cuba’s 1st Horror Film” is. Written and directed by Alejandro Bruges, Juan of the Dead takes place 50 years after the Cuban Revolution, where the island is overrun by zombies the government swears were sent by the United States. Social commentary aside, it’s then up to one man to attempt to solve the problem. Part Shaun of the Dead (obviously) but with a grittier look more akin to something culty and cool like Six-String Samurai, you’ve gotta see this bad-ass trailer for Juan of the Dead.

Fuck yea!

Watch Buffy, Freddy and Machete Fight George Romero in Call of the Dead Video Game Trailer

Holy shitballs! I want this.

(via Nerdcore)

Zombie Lake (1981)

Riding high on the Italian zombie craze following the release of Dawn Of The Dead back in the late 70s/early 80s, Zombie Lake can easily be lumped in with all of the other imitators trying to cash in on Romero’s masterpiece. But while Zombie Lake doesn’t excel at it’s attempts at great filmmaking, it doesn’t stand entirely with all of the other run of the mill zombie flicks that came out at that time. It makes at least an attempt at creative filmmaking and story telling beyond gut munching and boobies. Which I’m both okay with, by the way. Once I got past the fact that people were swimming in a lake which had lily pads in it and a mud bottom (both gross me out…who knows what kind of aquatic predator is lurking in those lily pads or under the mud?) I found myself enjoying this movie. Sure, it had shortcomings. Quite a few, in fact. But what movie doesn’t? It was fun and cornily sincere, like a love letter written by a twelve year old, or those feverish promises of eternal love whispered while getting to third base. Enjoy the "Zombie Lake In A Minute" clip I added, by the way.

The plot is something like this: there’s this lake in rural France where young woman are turning up dead in/around and/or going missing in the area. The locals are of course staying quiet, until a newspaper reporter from The Big City (Paris, I’m guessing) finds out a grisly secret: a lake just outside of the village is said to be haunted by the ghosts of Nazis who were killed by the French Resistance and dumped there, and whenever they’re disturbed (usually by the frolicking of young nakey women) they of course brutally murder whoever disturbs them. A classic ghost story if do say. Nothing cutting edge, nothing greatly original, but fundamentally simple and elegant.

Points are given to Zombie Lake for at least attempting to be creative and somewhat different from typical zombie flicks of the time. Elements of Gothic horror crept in; for example, a one of the zombies had, in life shortly before being killed, fallen in love with a girl from the village and spent the night with her, and thus finds out after coming back from the dead he is a father. The shots of him being reunited with his daughter are unfortunately almost laughable in their absurdity, but credit must be given for at least deviating from the norm by adding such an element to the story. I also found the not quite a twist of the lake having been avoided for centuries due to pagan sacrifices around it to be entertaining; instead of just being Nazis coming back for revenge, which is kind of cool on it’s own, we are instead informed that it is a sort of Pet Semetary scenario in which the lake is already haunted and evil or whatever, and the Nazis coming back to life are merely the most recent continuation of that. The scene where the reporter asks a local tavern full of patrons about the lake was pregnant with possible clichés of the record skipping, and villagers suddenly becoming silent and stoic about their towns haunted past ala The Slaughtered Lamb scene in An American Werewolf In London, but instead gets sloppily hit on by some drunk dude. (Note: I am in no way badmouthing An American Werewolf…Hands down my second favorite movie of all time.) And the quasi shootout at the end when the villagers decide they’ve have enough of their beautiful women getting drowned by zombies and take a stand against undead horniness by engaging in a sort of OK Corral gun battle against the advancing horde of zombies is corny but effective.

The main attention getter of this film, however, was the cinematography. For something so low budget, the cinematographer made excellent use of the woods around the lake to capture a feeling of eerie claustrophobia, and while the point of view of the zombies stalking their victim shots have almost been beaten into the ground, here they were utilized brilliantly. The underwater shots, while obviously being shot in a tank and not actually in the lake, were thus lent a dark and brooding feel reminiscent of an Argento film. And the scene of the zombies shambling through the winding back alleys of the village was downright creepy. The use of rapid zooming to heighten suspense and emphasis a shocking moment worked flawlessly, a technique from that era of films that I absolutely love. The cameraman took his time following the characters, lingering upon things worthy of lingering on, and just made the film look beautiful. There were times when some of the editing was a bit amateurish, which I’ll get to, but largely the cinematography was amazing. The beginning of the film has a sequence of a young woman going for a swim who (shockingly) decides bathing in the nakey is a better idea and strips down and suns for a moment before taking a dip. There was something strangely pornographic about that scene, and not just because there was a naked woman. The lighting, the production value, the music, and the way the camera lingers over her boobs…I half expected a heavily mustachioed gentleman to stumble upon her and teach her to love again. Alas, no gentleman, mustached or otherwise, showed up, and instead we are treated to her being pulled underwater and drowned (maybe eaten?) by a zombie Nazi. As I said before the underwater scenes in this movie look absolutely amazing, almost dreamlike.

Now what DIDN’T I like about this movie? For one, it seemed a bit rushed. Some of the scenes were obviously sloppily cut, and the previously mentioned awesome cinematography would occasionally slip into a bit of bad cameramanship (?) that should’ve been caught in whatever passed for post-production. The scene where the Nazis invade France was confusing at best, as I wasn’t entirely clear as to what was going on. Why did the one soldier run over to stand in front of a wall and then simply fall down dead? For that matter, why did several soldiers simply fall out of a truck and lie there? I blame the director, and blame him hard. The scene where the one zombie finds his daughter was original, yes, but also really, really badly done. And the make up…wow. The greenish pancake makeup obviously stopped at the hairline and at times rubbed of on stuff the zombies were touching. I don’t expect much in the way of professionalism, but at times the effects were trying. The use of the same clip of zombies shambling down an alleyway five times in a row, interspaced with shots of villagers looking terrified, was criminally bad. And while yes, I do like naked girls frolicking in water and splashing each other, it seemed almost like a shot a nakey girl was used as a wipe scene. Oh well.

See this movie. I got it for ten bucks and it was totally worth. I was going to ask my girlfriend to watch it with me and decided it against it, which in retrospect was probably a good idea, so it’s not really a date movie but more a “it’s raining and I’ve got two hours to kill” type movie. Don’t really expect to be blown away, but allow yourself to have fun. In terms of Italian zombies movies, I’d say it was better than Hell Of The Living Dead but not quite City Of The Living Dead. So yeah. Zombie Lake. Enjoy.

Alien Dead (1980)

There are few times in life when I think, “Man, I could really go for a drink. Or six.” Watching this film was one of them. It was literally one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Sitting through this movie and not giving up on it was an act of Herculian effort, and I’m pretty sure I should be given a medal for making it all the way through. I couldn't find a real trailer for it, and I initially was going to just say the hell with it and not post any clips from it, but I couldn't not show the sheer awfulness of this movie, so I've included a few videos of select scenes from it just to back up what I'm saying.

I picked this up on a whim for ten bucks after having seen it at various video stores, figuring, “What’s the worst that can happen?” Simple: this movie. I grabbed the 25h anniversary edition, which is somewhat of a misnomer as this is the only time this movie has ever been released on DVD. The description on the back read about how this movie was eagerly awaited since debuting back in the ‘80s, and how lucky we are that a mint copy was found amongst a film collectors archives. I don’t feel lucky. At all. When I think of movies from the ‘80s that I’m glad were finally released on DVD, I think Monster Squad. That was a film I was ecstatic to hear of being released on DVD, not a sad attempt at a horror film by a director not fit to direct a high school play trying to cash in on the early ‘80s zombie craze. Goofy Italian movies about zombies (think Hell Of The Living Dead or Nightmare City) can at least be chalked up to the quirkiness of European directors, but this movie has no excuses.

The plot is something like this: a meteorite falls out of the sky and people start eating each other. That’s…pretty much it. There’s a sad attempt at ominous foreshadowing when local yokels heehaw about the local gator population dropping down for some reason in the swamp where the movie takes place. That reason, of course, being that zombies like eating alligators. But, where other ‘80s attempts at zombie-ish movies exceed, Alien Dead falls pathetically short. Think Night Of The Creeps but unwatchable. The acting is…abominable. Not that talent is a huge requirement in such films, but come on. This was downright awful. It’s like Fred Olen Ray just hired his friends to act in this movie and kept all of their first takes in the final cut. The production, despite promising a “Hollywood sheen” on the back description as part of it’s appeal, was reminiscent of the films from the 70s we used to watch in science class. And not in a good way. The sound was awful, the colors were washed out and faded even for a movie 25 plus years old, and the gore and make up was nigh laughable in its amateurness. Did I just make up a word to describe this? I did. Deal with it. One shot in particular where a character is about to be killed highlights this perfectly: his death occurs in a lake after he dives in to investigate a boat explosion, and we see, for at least three second before he dives in, the blood make up already on him. In another scene, in something like a sad attempt a Fulci-esque slow linger on gore, we are treated to a character who has just been goofily mauled by zombies as he lies on the ground, gone from the waist down. And you can see him breathing. Not once in a “did that just happen?” moment, but several times over the course of ten or so seconds. It’s insane. Insanely bad.

Now, you’re probably thinking I should see the charm in how bad this is, that I should embrace the schlock of Alien Dead and just relax. Here’s why I’m not doing that.

A) A. This wasn’t one of those it’s so bad it’s good movies. It was just bad. Poor plot, poor writing, poor production, poor everything. Just awful. Most shitty movies will have at least some redeeming value, be it creepy imagery, a good soundtrack, a touch of comedy, good cinematography...just something. Nothing of that here. The cinematography was uninspired, the soundtrack was something like the offspring of a Carpenter film and a Romero film but lacking the awesomeness of either one, and the only humor in the movie was a brand of “aw shucks gee wiz” good ol boy bullshit that I suspect was the filmmakers sad attempt at embracing the colloquialism of where the movie was supposed to take place. Florida, I think.

B) B. Most movies with small budgets, especially horror movies, can, in good hands, at least make something worthy of the budget. This movie definitely doesn’t. The back description claims it was made for 12,000, which grant it isn’t much at all, but you could’ve told me it was made by community college film students for half that and I’d have a hard time believing you. The indoor scenes, be they a bar, a boat, or a police station, all looked exactly the same and probably were shot in the exact soundstage/studio/whatever.

C) C. It lacks the excessive charm of ‘80s flicks. If you’re going to do a gory zombie movie, please, do an all out gory zombie movie. I’m not a huge fan of gore but I’m even less of a fan of half-assing things. There was precious little blood and guts in this movie, and I suspect that was the type of film they were going for. Same with pointless sex. I’m not really into movies that just appeal to peoples base natures with tits and violence, but at the same time if you’re making a movie that should have tits and violence then please give me shovelfuls of both. Alien Dead had some boobage, yes…but not enough. Not nearly enough. Not enough to really push it into that charming family of memorable campy films.

There you have it. A totally boring and uninspired movie, lacking even one thing that would make it salvageable. Unlike other splatterfests from that time period, say, Fulci’s ‘Gates Of Hell’ films, this movie was completely devoid of any artistic value. Sure, Fulci films are packed with excessively violent death scenes and the plots take a back seat to surreal horror, but Fulci was at least a skilled filmmaker who knew how to get his vision of what the movie was supposed to be about across to the viewer, even if the movie was supposed to just be about someone dying horribly. Watching a Fulci flick is sort of like watching a visual poem about something terrible happening over and over and over again. Watching Alien Dead was akin to watching ‘Two Girls One Cup” over and over and over again.

Don’t watch this movie. Don’t buy it, don’t even think about it. It was a completely irredeemable train wreck from start to finish and only made me sad that I’d wasted 72 minutes of my life. According to Wikipedia, the sole “star” of the movie, famed serial star Buster Crabbe, who was known for such roles as Buck Rogers and Tarzan, died shortly after completion of the movie by tripping over a garbage can and suffering a heart attack (on the day I was born, might I add). Maybe in Buster’s part of the country “tripping over a garbage can and suffering a heart attack” is code for “dying of embarrassment, regret, and shame”, because I can’t think of a worse possible movie to end a career on. I can sympathize, as I too felt all three of those emotions in spades after watching this movie. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go scrub my balls with steel wool and douse them in vinegar to bring my mood back to an acceptable level after seeing this movie.