More Zombies

ZOMBIE NIGHT-2013-Zombies rise out of graves and terrorize various residents of a town in this NOTLD rip-off from The Asylum (apt name). A guy named Patrick (Anthony Michael Hall) and his daughter (Rachel G. Fox) try to survive while trapped in a cemetery. Meanwhile a woman named Birdy (Daryl Hannah) and her blind mother (over acting Shirley Jones) hide in their house. Alan Ruck plays a guy who hides his family in a secret room. After the characters are established it's mostly them escaping several attacks and a lot of zombie head shots and head crushing. It has very gory effects (naturally) and some parts are well done (and sort of reminded me of an Italian gore film form the '80's) but there are some dumb parts with characters doing things that don't make sense.

The director John Gulager (son of actor Clu) made the equally bloody FEAST series of movies.

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Deliever Us From Bad Zombie Movies

ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE-2011-More nonsense of the living dead! First the infected VM2 virus appears in France. Then few days later 83% of Europe is affected. A plane crashes into Big Ben and then Japan is wiped out. Then somehow the virus appears in Iowa! Soon the virus spreads across the whole of the USA! Our government does its best to wipe it out but SIX MONTHS LATER (when our tale takes place) towns and cities are full of zombies. Ving Rhames (who was also in DAWN OF THE DEAD 2 aka DAY OF THE DEAD which this thing resembles) leads a group of survivors headed for Catalina. They also meet another group that uses bows and arrows. Between smashing and decapitating (and running) the group talks a lot about themselves. Later an undead tiger shows up. Director Nick Lyon also made GRENDEL and SPECIES: THE AWAKENING. An Asylum production.

Thanks again to Tony for getting me this!

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Doggone Zombies

DOGHOUSE-2009-A bunch of English gobs take their friend to a remote village so he'll forget about his divorce. Unfortunately for them (and us) the town is occupied by man hating, flesh eating women due to some kind of virus (Project: Cathouse).

This SHAWN OF THE DEAD/DEAD ALIVE inspired gore comedy features a variety of female zombies (a hairdresser, old lady, bride, butcher, dominatrix, etc.) but much of the heavy accented English dialogue was lost on me. At one point three of them (they meet an army sgt. at the village) dress in drag to evade the zombies. Things get more serious and deadly when the flesh eaters mutate. The weirdest death involves a fat dead housewife squashing her victim.

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I Saw Insidious

INSIDIOUS-2010-This is just a POLTERGEIST/THE EXORCIST/AMITYVILLE HORROR rip-off that critics made a big about because the director of SAW, James Wan made it.

A family seems to be terrorized in their house by some unknown force after their young son goes into a coma He's really possessed by a demon in a place called "the further" and the further I go with this review the further I can think of bad things to say about this derivative nonsense. I've read comments calling it the scariest horror movie ever but it's just talky shit with some loud noises thrown in. Parts of it, especially when 3 psychic researchers appear seem unintentionally funny.

I will give director Wan credit though. He tries using suspense and shock rather than the usual blood and gore associated with most modern horror films. Maybe I'm just a jaded old foggie but for me it didn’t live up to it’s hype!

Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne are the parents and Barbara Hershey (apparently with a new face) is his mother. Lin Shaye is the main psychic and screenwriter Leigh Whannell has a role.

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Shark Shit

BLUE DEMON-2004-A husband and wife (Randall Batinkoff and Dedee Pfieffer) team of marine biologists are doing experiments with great white sharks. They are also going through a divorce in this stupid sci-fi horror movie that is either a very bad comedy spoof or a very unintentionally funny drama.

They get involved in a government operation called "blue demon" using genetically enhanced intelligent sharks. Jeff Fahey is a cardboard caricature of an army general and Danny Woodburn is their boss who provides the only entertaining highlight in this annoying junk from director Daniel Grodnik (making his film debut) which "borrows" heavily from JAWS, PIRANHA and any number of other shark related direct to video nonsense shown on the SYFY channel every month.

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Back After A Hiatus

SLITHER-2006-In this stupid comedy gore movie Michael Rooker is a bald red neck who turns into a slimy ALIEN/THE THING like creature with tentacles. He terrorizes a hick town and he turns one woman into a giant egg and she gives birth to a million slimy DEADLY SPAWN like slugs. They jump down residents throats and up their asses like in NIGHT OF THE CREEPS and then some of the dead come back to life as zombies.

It has some good SFX but it seems to rip off something from nearly every 80’s horror film especially Brian Yuzna’s SOCIETY. Gregg Henry is the foul mouthed asshole mayor. Nathan Fillion (from the short lived FIREFLY TV show) and Elizabeth Banks (Betty Brant in SPIDER-MAN) are the stars.

Writer/director James Gunn wrote both SCOOBY-DOO movies and did work for Troma which explains Lloyd Kaufman’s cameo as a drunk. Made in Canada.



THE BLACKBIRD-1926-In the Limehouse district of London, a daring thief The Blackbird (the great Lon Chaney) pulls a series of robberies.

When not plotting crimes he disguises himself as The Bishop, the misshapen proprietor of a rescue mission. Another thief West End Bertie (Owen Moore) becomes his rival not only for some stolen diamonds but also for the affections of dance hall singer Fifi Lorraine (Renee Adoree) in this MGM production directed by Tod Browning.

Chaney livens up the somewhat mundane story with his two characterizations but on the whole it’s the weakest (and least successful) of the Chaney/Browning collaborations (at least that I’ve seen. LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT is a lost film!).

The same year Chaney made another film for director Browning THE ROAD TO MANDALAY as well as the highly successful TELL IT TO THE MARINES.

Co-star Moore was a popular leading man (and singer) in his day who’s career dropped off when talkies emerged. He died of a heart attack in 1939 at 52. Lead actress Adoree came from the French stage. She’d become a star the year before in THE BIG PARADE opposite John Gilbert. She co-starred with Chaney in a later film MR.WU. Sadly like many other silent stars she died young (age 37) of tuberculosis.

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