The Hanging Woman (The Orgy of the Dead / La Orgía de los Muertos) - review

1973 (Spain / Italy)

2009 Troma Entertainiment DVD R(All)

Contains spoilers.

I'd be lying if I said this quintessentially low budget European horror was good. I'd be equally disingenuous if I was to be overly harsh. Director José Luis Merino's La Orgía de los Muertos (translated as The Orgy of the Dead), otherwise known as Beyond the Living Dead (US),  Zombies - Terror of the Living Dead (UK), and finally and most popularly in the US, The Hanging Woman, in truth, is a distinctly mediocre gothic mad-scientist whodunnit dotted with enough distinctly brilliant and memorable moments that it almost fools you into thinking it's better than it is. The story, characters and acting is as equally laboured as It is convoluted and discordant, and despite Paul Naschy being Paul Nashy in his prime, he can't, this time, save the film entirely on his own mainly because his involvement was actually quite limited, due to parallel film commitment.

Serge Chekov (Stelvio Rosi as Stan Cooper) returning to his late uncle's estate for the reading of the will stumbles upon the grizzly scene of, whom he soon discovers to be, his niece's fresh corpse hanging from a tree. Then finding himself the, for all intents and purposes, sole benefactor he's quickly embroiled in a web of scheming and distrust, black magic and murder, in a claustrophobic and isolated backwater mansion with a cast of disparate and quite disturbed figures.

There's Igor (Paul Naschy), the crazy-eyed, dishevelled cemetery caretaker who we learn is also quite the necrophiliac and all round pervert; there's the newly widowed Countess Nadia Mihaly (Maria Pia Conte) who wants Serge to sell and is happy to persuade with sex, satanic ritual and voodoo; there's Professor Leon Driola (Gérard Tichy), the permanent guest of the late Count who specialist research is electricity and the nebulous curtain of death, and there's his daughter, the Countesses maid Doris Droila (Dyanik Zurakowska) who wants Serge to actually keep the estate for her father's sake.

At some point each and every one supplies motive and means to explain the, for at least an hour, rather sketchy, zombie murder mystery, and each and every one provides a discordant sub-narrative with Serge at the centre. And Serge loves it. Making the lead character and hero such an entitled obnoxious cad is either brave film making or suicide, as whether he's taking advantage of young vulnerable daughters or engaged in yet another innocuously provoked fist fight he's incredibly difficult to either empathise with or rally behind. Even as the credits rolled and he'd solved the case, and rescued and won the girl I couldn't help hope there would be some late twist and he'd still get the zombie maul he undisputedly deserved.

The zombies are one of the true highlights of the film and it was a pity it took such a long time to get to see them in all their splendour. Fetid, crusty and decaying, they're the epitome of the seventies walking dead infamously popularised by Fulci later in the decade. Unlike the esoteric mystical nature of Fulci's creation though, these guys have a mad Victor Frankenstein scientist and rational excuse for their reanimation. Spoiler… it was Professor Leon you see, and not any of the black magic or voodoo thrown in to put us of course. As well as learning the secrets of electrical resurrection he's also a whizz with micro-technology, designing and manufacturing a 'capsule' that slots in the corpses brain to both control its actions as well as pick up his thoughts. They're mindless drones incapable of independent thought driven solely to obey their master and the murders were all perpetrated at the behest of the prof who first wanted to kill his partner the count, to stop him using the discovery to amass 'an army of the dead'. The rest of the victims, beginning with the hanging woman, were unlucky dominoes that fell as the ever desperate Leon tried to cover his tracks. An interesting zombie twist to note at the end of the film and starting with the now resurrected Naschy, of a disobedience and demonstration of independent murderess intent, with the professor no longer able to exert control. It lead to a lively and satisfying climax, but as stated all came rather too late.

Naschy, the zombies, the sombre gothic atmosphere brilliantly captured, and the brooding organ music; there are many reasons to get excited over this early seventies continental horror. Indeed, as much as the story was long winded, trite, and discordant, and the characters generally unbearable and difficult to share any sympathy with, the constantly interspersed distractions were enjoyable despite themselves and perhaps for all the wrong reasons. Also one can't help but be charmed with echoes of a more innocent, or naive time when woman always fainted at bad news, it was ok to beat and shoot at the feet of disagreeable servants, and it was right and proper to invade and search a man's property because 'he's a strange sort and could be dangerous'. As charmed as I was though, and as much as I did enjoy the final fifteen or so minutes of zombie mayhem, I have to argue there are much better gothic horrors from this era, and this is far from Naschy's best effort. Yet, it does have a certain something that could warrant a viewing on a stormy night with curtains drawn, lights down low, and goblet of port in hand - 5/10.

Steven@WTD.

Zeder (Revenge of the Dead) - review

1983 (Italy)

2012 CMV Laservision DVD R(2)

Contains spoilers.

There's (zombie) films to drink beer and shout along with, there's films for screaming, cowering and recoiling from; there's comedies, parodies and musicals, and there's even the odd delight that, at a push, could make it to Netflix and chill. Zeder aka Revenge of the Dead as it was re-titled a few years later for a US home video audience that needed a more noticeable title isn't really any of the above. It's an odd little number; a thinking man's zombie film anomaly, with nuance, sophistication, ambiguity and a dialogue and narrative heavy story. It's also not really like anything else save maybe Dellamorte Dellamore with its surreal dream-like approach to the veil of death; or maybe Pet Sematary with the same penchant for macabre spirituality, subtle, minimalist yet disturbing presentation, and story full of dubious and detached morality.

The story rather plays out like a good H. P. Lovecraft investigative short, with a nefarious well funded organisation / cult and forces and powers they couldn't possibly hope to either understand or control. There's also the innocent and unsuspecting bystanders that become embroiled, ignoring the myriad of warnings to fall truly down the rabbit hole. Here it's writer Stefano (Gabriele Lavia), our films hero, and his discovery of a disturbing but curious letter on an old typewriter ribbon gifted to him by girlfriend Allesandra (Anne Canovas) that sets the wheels in motion, as well as affirming the main narrative thread.

Zeder refers to the late Paolo Zeder; an occultist and hierophant who posited that the world was dotted with ancient places of antiquity and power called k-zones. Forged through great acts of spirituality and death, these hubs act as permanent zero-state zones where binary boundaries like life and death become blurred and insubstantial and thus of great interest to those with the money, curiosity and moral duplicity to exploit. The film begins in one such k-zone, a flashback to 1953 and the unearthing of Zeder by cult member Dr. Meyer (Cesare Barbetti) who uses the psychic prowess of his protégé; the young naïve, innocent and quite unwilling Gabriella (Veronica Moriconi) to track down the physical corpse of perpetrator of recent grisly murders. Thirty years on it's an old abandoned children's home, now abandoned unfinished hotel near the necropolis of Spina and the burial of Zeder's own neophyte and spiritual successor Don Luigo Costa (Aldo Sassi) that has both the death cult, and increasingly obsessive Stefano's focus.

Italian director Pupi Avati's story telling is slow, rich and refreshingly fluid and respectful. There's never any hand-holding or forced exposition; the viewer is treated with intelligence and expected to piece together the mystery alongside Stefano, experiencing the same esoteric incoherence and confusion. The result is a film that while could easily be accused of meandering along with a dull, over-complicated story, does offer tension, suspense and constant intrigue as long as one is prepared to invest the time and energy to keep up. If one is willing to make this investment though, Avati's story provides a mystery with ramifications that are truly terrifying and a final ten minutes or so that are perhaps some of the most deeply, brooding and disturbing I've watched. 

Inside a k-zone death as a concept is unbound from any expected linear or normative paradigm. So while the zombies, when they do eventually make an appearance, can and do walk about as much a murderess flesh eater as the next, they're also simultaneously buried and very much deceased. Also detached from the confines of both their actual corporeal home, and any absolute conditions like space, they're able to appear appear and disappear seemingly at will. There's also an almost playful manner in which they view those constrained with living; an exuding confidence and power akin to a cat with a mouse. By now our brains have almost come to accept the traditional zombie; by constraining it with semantics and understanding; with viruses, possession or aliens we're not quite as scared as it fits, albeit still with absurdity, into our linear paradigm. Zeder's zombies successfully reopen Pandora's box, challenging our very foundations and provoking our primal fears with true uncertainty and discomfort; nothing is answered because nothing can be answered; like the boundary of death itself, any answer is beyond reason and understanding.

I can see why many new horror and especially new zombie fans would baulk at this narrative rich Italian eighties obscure and eccentric horror. The Cthulhu investigative story that constitutes the bulk of the film despite being well intentioned, coherent and engaging is perhaps overly elaborate, laboured to the point of legitimate complaint. It can also at times be a film that's difficult to follow; being deliberately and unapologetically incongruous and irreconcilable. Also whilst there is a fair amount of screaming, chasing and dying, many of which are quite gory in nature the actual pop-shots so to speak are predominantly off camera, resulting in a film that's extremely gore-tame not just by modern standards, but the whole Italian Giallo and zombie scene one may have expected it to also occupy. Yet it's for these very reasons I enjoyed Luigo's story telling so much. It's serious, it's brooding, it's baffling and disturbing and unlike a lot of popcorn flicks I did have a lot to think about and you know what, I coped - 8/10.

Steven@WTD.

Erotic (Sexy) Nights of the Living Dead - review

1980 (Italy)

2004 Shriek Show DVD R(1)

Contains spoilers.

Let's address the obvious. Notorious Italian Director Joe D'Amato's Erotic Nights of the Living Dead is a hard-core pornographic feature, with full penetration, oral, girl on girl and pop-shots, and we're not just talking about the original and now infamous scene with a bottle of champagne, and this factor alone is going to dictate to most whether this is a film for them. Well it is and perhaps it shouldn't. You see there are two versions. There's the 'uncut' one with all the aforementioned explicit squelching and twelve minutes of extra rudity, and there's a 'general' release without, and now having, ahem, educated myself with what one would be missing I can make the case that one would actually not only be not missing that much, but they'd perhaps actually be watching something that benefited directly because of it. Getting right to it, which is coincidentally, exactly what eighties Italians seem to do; unless you just have to watch pretty tame, lethargic and drawn out amateur vintage euro porn then the film benefits immensely with faster pacing, stronger cohesion and identity and a more consistent narrative for not being interrupted with it every five minutes. Don't get me wrong it's still wall to wall tits and arse but it's not quite so distracting.

It's a film about a zombie island and the trip to it, and we'll start with this. Larry (George Eastman) owns a boat. John (Mark Shannon), who made me think of Ron Burgandy, wants to hire the boat so he can scope Cat Island for a potential holiday resort, and Fiona (Dirce Funari) wants to take her clothes off. Larry, Mark and Fiona also like sex; a lot, and let's say they're all quite unreserved with who they have it with. It's your usual Zombie Flesh Eaters (Zombi 2) inspired, Italian styled drawn out zombie nonsense with dire legends and warnings, except here with a lot, and I mean a lot more nudity. There is a small zombie cameo, which acts as a small amuse-bouche for the action that will arrive a lot later; but it's a bit leveraged and never taken anywhere.  What we really have is a good hour of badly acted, terribly dubbed, nothingness, that's somehow entirely watchable and absorbing, perhaps both for its awfulness and a terrible voyeuristic perversion just to see what, and you just know it'll be next to little, reason Fiona will find to strip down to the altogether.

Arriving at the island they're met with more warnings, this time in person from mystic and teller of sooths Luna (Laura Gemser - Black Emanuelle) who by remarkable coincidence is also more than happy to get down and jiggly with it, and her grandfather, but instead of listening to tales of an evil zombie master cat, and certain death, choose instead to sunbathe, smoke, drink and frolic in the sun. And honestly, when the zombies start emerging and the weird monkey totems have been summarily cast aside, I had no sympathy for all the screaming, chasing and dying that occurred.

The best way of describing the zombies is 'mixed bag'. There's an attempt at the full fetid, maggot crusted Fulci undead; and they get close on occasion with elaborate make-up and prosthetics, but all too often it's just some fella with some rags and a vacant expression (all the zombies are male). For every confident, dark and uncomfortable, and some of them truly were, zombie sequence with raggedy soulless denizens crawling out from their shallow grave or the ocean forcing our now slightly less sex-obsessed survivors back like an endless surge; there was some guy with a night-shirt jumping out with his arms outstretched like a pathetic slightly uncertain panther. Overall though, and taking into account again that this film was one part zombie to two parts tits-out, the thirty or so minutes when the zombies do matter were surprisingly entertaining and bafflingly strong. Again though, for all the wrong reasons; as if the script and narrative were to be dissected in any way it would be found severely wanting in coherence, competence and substance.

Joe D'Amato's Erotic Nights of the Living Dead is truly wanting, even when put up against other early eighties European horror, and that in itself is quite telling. And yet as a film and feature it's not as bad as it could have been; somehow providing enough intrigue to see things through. For as much as I can, and will, criticise it from top to bottom, from premise to production, I can honestly say I was never truly bored; enjoying the ride like a spellbound slightly uncomfortable voyeur watching a horrific multi-car pile-up, except where everyone was naked. I also found myself strangely forgiving of the obvious sexploitation as the women were not only always in control, but more often the ones with the perceived power, dictating the terms and timing of each sexual encounter, as if the men were just randy little teens always on standby to perform to command. And yes, it's a zombie movie; a real one, and not some half-hearted pornographic satirical swipe at the genre, with an earnest and revered attempt at getting things right. I'm neither going to recommend or reject this odd little Italian sleaze; more suggest it's not totally and summarily dismissed out of hand for, as I stated, the obvious reason - 4/10.

Steven@WTD.

Apocalypse of the (Living) Dead (Zone of the Dead) - review

2009 (Serbia / Italy / Spain)

2010 MIG Blu-ray R(B/2)

Contains mild spoilers.

Apocalypse of the Living Dead aka Apocalypse of the Dead aka Zone of the Dead must have caught me on a good day as though there's much to criticise, overall I really quite enjoyed director Milan Konjevic and Milan Todorovic's visceral and dramatic little Eastern European zombie horror. Made on a shoestring (a purported $1m) what we have is an earnest attempt at a frightening apocalyptic story in the Romero vein with absolutely no rom or com, with deference for the genre and a healthy respect to work to the budget. You could say Apocalypse of the Living Dead is an old school antithesis to all the Shaun of the Dead wannabe's, to all who've try to paint the picture that z-day wouldn't actually be deeply unpleasant, and to everything The Asylum has managed to put out. This is Serbia, it's the zombie end of the world, and it's no laughing matter.

Really, what Apocalypse of the Living Dead needs is a good edit. Someone to go over all the dialogue, give it good old polish and take out all the unnecessary exposition and play with pacing. It does improve significantly as the film progresses but struggles to get all the characters to where they need to be when the action takes off, in any kind of coherent or cohesive manner. This doesn't just apply to the dialogue either as the getting to the point where the zombie-genie is firmly out the bottle requires quite the number of dominos to fall in the most forced and avoidable way. Don't get me wrong, once Mortimer Reyes (Ken Foree - Dawn of the Dead 2004), Dragan Belic (Miodrag Krstovic) and Mina Milius (Kristina Klebe) are battling the undead forces of darkness everything clicks in to place; it's just getting there is all a bit amateur and if we're honest, not really very well thought or planned out.

You're the president of Serbia and you've got some crazy dangerous reanimating compound you're thinking of using to bolster your armed forces to make you an influential player on the world stage. I'm betting one of the first things you wouldn't do, is transport it on the railway with minimal protection, especially when we're lead to believe the Serbian public transport system allows random armed soldiers to not only wander on the tracks but get into light skirmishes with transport policemen inadvertently firing their guns at anything that happens to be passing through.

There's no ambiguity with the Living Dead of this Apocalypse. One whiff of the green gas and it's death and zombie as fast as you can say snarly little gut muncher. With ground zero established and a ravenous zombie first wave out and ready to make wave 2 the mayhem soon spills into the adjoining city of Pančevo and bumps into Mina and co. who have been tasked with moving a prisoner to the airport for transport to London. Not content to tell the straightforward disparate group of survivors against an increasingly belligerent zombie threat story, Konjevic and Todorovic include not one, but two mysterious kick-ass pseudo Riddick characters. Both know how to use a gun, both keep their cards close to their chests and while both could have come across as comical or farcical each actually fits with the narrative in a way that feels natural. Think Michonne from The Walking Dead; she's larger than life but still fits in the world and story.

As said, with a good hard edit and a bit of polish I feel we'd have a great pilot episode of a gritty new zombie series. Reyes, Belic and Milius along with Riddick 1 and 2 make for intriguing characters and some great zombie killing action, and the undead menace itself while following the traditional modern Romero template, shows enough original ambiguity and thus the possibility of complex content with two hundred year old ancient curses, the Chernobyl disaster and even that hell might be full, all getting a mention. A surprising gem, I really thought this was going to be more zero budget zombie fodder to throw on to the cynical fire but I couldn't have been more wrong. A solid, dark apocalyptic no thrills zombie explosion with blood, gore and truck loads of menace. With a bigger budget and some solid production and editing I feel these guys could really deliver something very special; scary indeed, 6/10.

The Blu-ray I watched was the German MIG release. It comes with both the original English audio track as well as a German dub. There are no English subtitles and it's region locked to Europe.

Steven@WTD.

Nightmare City (City of the Walking Dead) - review

1980 (Italy / Mexico / Spain)

2008 Blue Underground DVD R(All)

Contains mild spoilers.

One thing Umberto Lenzi's silly little sordid orgy of gore is not, is dull. Now I've watched all manner of continental eighties zombie madness but nothing had quite prepared me the no nonsense, frenzy of violence that spilled so quickly out of the unannounced Hercules military aircraft, and marked the start of a good hour or so of audaciously unapologetic in your face bloody fun. Where was the good hour of faintly trite and badly acted build up? The slow belief / disbelief back and forth and small scale micro control of the situation so that it only effected a small band in an isolated setting?  They land a plane in broad daylight at the main airport, they spill out with camera's rolling and a full military presence and not a single fuck is given. It's as full on as it sounds, it's Nightmare City; and one has to applaud Lenzi for it.

Don't get me wrong. It's still a low budget bastard horror of the eighties with a mixed bag of acting, effects and dialogue. For every brilliantly staged and shot axe to the head or naked boob sliced off (yes really) there's all manner of quite frankly half hearted amateur knife attacks or neck sucks. Also for every semi-coherent, semi-well-delivered reaction to the unfolding carnage there's an excruciating over worked line about radiation and hyper tissue regeneration.

Television news anchor Dean Miller (Hugo Stiglitz) just happens to be at the airport when it all kicks off. He's there to meet a professor who can shed light on a recent nuclear accident (hence the radiation) and when the airport alarms go off he can't help but stick his reporter's nose. There really isn't much more to the narrative. He has a wife Dr. Anna Miller (Laura Trotter) who works at the hospital that soon joins in the tsunami of destruction, and there's a military presence which whilst keen to contain the situation are just as interested in avoiding a more national panic, and that's it. The narrative, such as it is, is the vehicle to allow the irradiated sick and depraved zombie like blood suckers to reek havoc on all and sundry, and for Lenzi to fashion a competent video nasty for a market that couldn't get enough.

I should mention the faint esoteric pseudo implied clairvoyance ramblings from Sheila Holmes (Maria Rosaria Omaggio), the wife of one of the Majors, and the equally daft and confusing existential ending but I didn't take any of this too seriously and suggest it was added more as an after thought than as a central idea. Dellamorte Dellamore or The Beyond this is not.

It's also worth mentioning despite all the unsavoury blood shed and dark themes it never really comes across a horror film but more of a disaster one, and the zombies reflect this. Their first appearance is sudden and all consuming. They stream from the plane like deranged mad-men throat slitting, stabbing, shrugging off shots to the body and clearing the soldiers and airport staff like a tidal wave of death. What's also clear is we're not in Romero's world. There's no slow gait, no shuffling and groaning and no 'walking dead' approach. They're fast, they're seemingly intelligent, if now entirely lacking a moral or sympathetic compass and they also appear to react to physical pain. It was during this initial attack, watching one of the attackers pull away from biting his victim only to wipe the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand I realised all was not straight forward.

Fortunately for us, all is actually revealed during a scene of such unashamed, unnecessary and over complicated explanation to become laughably brilliant. High levels of radiation have caused hyper-tissue regeneration to render the victim's indestructible and "abnormal strengthening of the cells vital qualities has increased their direct genetic capacity" granting increased physical capabilities, with a caveat that this is all at the expense of the efficiency of their red blood. It's a load of old tosh but it's good earnest tosh. Basically, they're alive, indestructible apart from the old noggin, they're strong, fast, they retain the memories to shoot guns, cut phone lines and they're singularly driven to replace the red blood cells they're rapidly losing. Lenzi himself didn't necessarily see them as traditional zombies, but with the loss of conscious will, the lack of 'self awareness' and they're unquenchable hunger they're zombie and a dangerous one to boot in my book. Add their faster turn of pace, their influence on the genre shouldn't be dismissed either, and it's hard not to see their impact in zombie's that came much later, with Boyles' infected top of the list.

In your face carnage and bloodshed from the get go, unwavering pace, gratuitous gore and unnecessary nudity; it has everything one would want or expect from an eighties video nasty. Lenzi's zombie opus is unapologetically rough and obnoxious but it's a delight to get swept away in. Big scale with limited resources undoubtedly brings with it problems, but if one is able to ignore all the background faux pas, the occasional excruciating exposition (the anti-nuclear monologue near the end is especially bad) and wooden acting there's a corking good b-movie here to whoop along to. A surprising gem, 7/10.

Steven@WTD.

The Mask of Satan (Black Sunday) - review

1960 (Italy)

2013 Arrow Video Blu-ray R(B/2)

Contains mild spoilers.

The Mask of Satan (aka Black Sunday, redubbed, rescored and tamed a little for the US) is a sumptuous visual treat and widely regarded as one of the finest cinematic gothic horror fairy-tales with directors Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Tim Burton all citing its influence. Despite being banned for eight years in the UK by an over-sensitive conservative reactionary committee for several dark and shocking scenes it's really the tangible and constant atmosphere of dread that flits seamlessly though and along all facets of the film that defines Mario Bava's full directorial debut. The Mask of Satan is a film at one with itself; flowing with grace and ease from one scene to the next, full of symbolism and subtlety yet telling a very real story with a firm unambiguous back story and climax.

The opening five minutes is evocative and provocative cinema at its finest; a bewitching and haunting sequence that demonstrates directorial confidence and skill. It's a dark brooding night and Asa Vajda (Barbara Steele) and her lover Javutich (Arturo Dominici) are dragged up onto wooden posts to face the most severe of punishments by the inquisition for devil worshipping and witchcraft. Before the mask of Satan, a cruel iron-maiden-esque metal depiction of the devil punctuated with internal nails is hammered on to her face and she is burned alive she manages to scream out a curse on her brother, the head of the inquisition, and their family line declaring she will have her revenge though the bloodline. The thump of the hammer as the mask is driven into her head is sadistic, gratuitous and shocking. It's also one of the main reasons the film was banned, yet without it's inclusion the scene would lose the impact and focus it had and deprive of us of one of cinema's most iconic scenes. 

200 years later and Dr. Thomas Kruvajan (Andrea Checchi) and his assistant Dr. Andre Gorobec (John Richardson), travelling through Moldavia come across her burial tomb and you know how things are, one thing leads to another, the crucifix standing guard at the end of her resting place gets broken, her mask is removed and Dr. Kruvajan manages to snag his hand, dripping blood onto her surprisingly fresh looking face. I really don't want to spoil the plot, but I don't think I'll be giving too much away by saying that it looks like she might be getting that chance of revenge after all, especially with the nearby castle now being occupied with her brothers direct descendants, Prince Vajda (Garrani), his son Constantine (Enrico Oliveiri) and his daughter Katia (Steele again) who just happens to be the spitting image and exactly the same age as Asa, when she was killed.

An aversion to the cross, blood for rejuvenating, hypnotic suggestion of the weak, puncture marks on the neck, only coming out at night and resting in a sarcophagus during the day all point to vampires and this is certainly right. A. Boylan at Taliesin Meets the Vampires argues that Asa is a witch vampire in keeping with Romanian mythology, and the strigoï vii (a living witch type vampire) and strigoï mort (the undead variety, which the vii becomes after death). This witch/vampire cross over certainly fits with her psychic ability to drain Katia and the recommended method of dispatch which isn't by wooden stake through the heart, but by piercing the left (evil) eye.

So what does this have to do with zombies? Other than Asa, the undead whether summoned like Javutich to climb from his two hundred year old slumber in unconsecrated ground, or those more recently turned, act as mere puppets to her will. Though able to talk with occasional glimpses of the person they once were, they are stripped of their self and soul and unable to refuse her commands however unsavoury or malevolent. I'm not going to pretend The Mask of Satan is any way a traditional zombie film but those woken / reanimated / turned to protect and serve her are of definite genre interest and show many of signs of the genre-fusion we've seen before in an Eastern European mythology and folklore full of vampires, revenants and the draugr. One must also remember the year is 1960 and it would be many years before Romero would usher in the new wave. Zombies were still transitioning from the new world and magic to the west and scientific dogmatism; they were still synonymous with slave/servent and it wasn't yet established whether they even had to be physically dead. The undead vampire-esque slaves of Asa depicted here, are valid enough in this transitional period and we should always be mindful not to under estimate the vampire's part in the zombie story. 

The Mask of Satan has little to fault. Steele shines amidst equally solemn and assured casting and acting performances, and the cohesive and satisfying narrative is accompanied by equally exquisite photographic direction and pacing that makes each scene a delight to flow along with. Bava has a real knack for allowing sequences to evolve with single long sumptuous sweeping shots that start on small details only to pan out without breaks or changing camera and the results are beautiful, stylish and utterly absorbing. The moody black and white palette compliments the gothic ambience and Roberto Nicolosi's musical score is an accomplished and understated accompaniment (there was a new more generic horror score by  Les Baxter for the US release which I've not heard.) The Mask of Satan is a cinematic triumph full of flare and vision with plenty of zombie genre crossover to warrant it's inclusion. Magical, powerful, it's recommended, 9/10.

Steven@WTD.

The Zombie Dead (Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror) - review

1981 (Italy)

2010 Cornerstone Media / Beyond Terror DVD R(2)

Contains spoilers.

The Zombie Dead aka Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror is truly awful video nasty film making at it's repugnant best and of all the 80s European grindhouse horror I've now watched director Andrea Bianchi's daft and obscene genuflection to what Fulci, Romero and Amando de Ossorio had released the years previous probably best epitomises this particular zombie niche. There's no real narrative, no character depth or development, the actors were obviously chosen because they came cheap or they had long legs, big breasts and a pretty smile but none of that matters. What's important is the carnage, the shocks and watching a seemingly endless stream of Gino De Rossi's Fulci-esque maggot and worm encrusted risen dead kill and feast on fresh arms, brains and intestines as if they were at an all you can eat cannibal buffet.

A crusty old professor (Raimondo Barbieri) unleashes an army of the undead from an excavation site, who then proceed to siege the nearby mansion picking off it's owner, his family, guests and servants in increasingly elaborate and sadistic ways. And that's your lot really. I'll say one thing about Andrea Bianchi; he certainly doesn't let a good story get in the way of an over abundance of exploitative flesh ripping and gore munching. 

There's something about ancient Etruscan secrets of immortality which the professor proclaims he alone now understands, but what he exactly did to wake the dead from the tombs is never really explained, though I don't think we're supposed to think too hard about it. We're also not to question too much the whys or wherefores of the professor's benefactor George (Roberto Caporali), his new wife Evelyn (Mariangela Giordano), her bizarre little man child Michael (a 12 year old played by 26 year old Peter Bark), and the three privileged whiny couples tagging along for a weekend of hanky-panky away from the hoi-polloi. Suffice it to say the couples have all arrived at the isolated rural retreat, the girls have pretty much on mass stripped to their underwear, we've been explicitly told that the cars have been moved and there's no telephone and we know the zombies are on their way. Fifteen odd minutes in, there's only one direction this can go and boy does it.

I genuinely lost track of how many stomachs I saw ripped open and how many sets of intestines I saw feasted upon. Normally in a Fulci, Romero rip off I'd expect one gratuitous over extended cannibal-esque help yourselves group feast, but Bianchi obviously doesn't hold with less is more. It's not just intestines either with anything that could be ripped at and eaten done so including the now quite infamous nipple scene. I've mentioned the characters and actors are mostly shallow and forgettable; this is of course ignoring Michael. Some would call it audacious and brave others would be baffled with the sheer insanity of it all; I'm kind of both. But for some reason in all that The Zombie Dead is derivative, simple and trite, Bianchi decided to include a bizarre odious high-belted man child with a disturbing Oedipus complex indulged by his over protective mother and chose an obviously adult midget to play him. It's odd, it's jarring, all a bit forced and uncomfortable and has a bit of an extra sinister Twin Peak vibe, but it certainly adds to the twisted rambling incoherent charm.

The zombies arrival is very Tombs of the Blind Dead; sarcophagus lids slide and ancient wispy chinned old cadavers stumble out like tipsy old men. Once on their way to pay the nearby villa and its grounds a visit the style is turns very much Fulci with maggots, rotten putrid flesh and a mishmash of stages of decomposition from clearly old, old to maybe taken as a quick snack on the way. They're Romero, perhaps even Amando de Ossorio slow and even one of the guests comments on how on their own they're not necessarily a threat, which is a shame for them really, as there always seems to be a near endless supply. I think we're supposed to deduce that the professor actually caused all the dead to rise (at least in this vicinity but who's to say not across the whole world) leading to an abundance of old bodies pulling themselves Fulci-esque from the ground as if one was watching Zombie Flesh Eaters again, as a way to explain how each freshly dispatched batch is so easily replaced by another. 

Talking of dispatching. It's headshots, fire (though it looked like paint) and brain smashing which there's a lot of, that stops them for good. The story is the derivative kill a few zombies, they kill a survivor, kill a few more, rinse and repeat with each death or series of deaths increasingly extreme and elaborately staged. Bianchi's zombies don't really follow prescribed convention; they may start shambling, brainless and happy to kill by sinking their teeth in but they soon start exhibiting some rather more advanced and adaptable behaviour as they seek additional fresh meat. They climb, retreat, start using weapons to bash down doors and even fashion and use in uni-some a battering ram. Then perhaps demonstrating just how little he gives a toss about zombie canon or narrative coherence as long as it enables him to move the action forward to another highly staged and scripted piece of cinema debauchery, they even contrive an elaborate murder of the house maid involving pinning her hand to the outside latched window with a pinpoint-accurate eight or so inch nail thrown from across the grounds to enable two others to work in tandem to severe her head with an elongated scythe. It's stupid, it doesn't make any sense yet it's somehow, like everything else, uncomfortably pleasing to watch.

The Zombie Dead is a riot. It's pure style over substance, except the style is putrid, gory, amateurish and ludicrous. It's a bad, bad film that epitomises everything wrong about all the Italian exploitative zombie low budget films that were made in the early eighties yet it's hard not to admire for exactly the same reason. There's nothing original on show with scenes directly ripped from Fulci and Romero but they're well filmed and well executed and one has to admire the audacity to make a film that takes all the gore, turns the dial up to ten and omits everything else. Sure if we cut into it, it's hard to work out how so little actual content was dragged out for ninety minutes and really the whole thing is quite a shallow, vacuous affair but it's not about story or depth it's about murdering and eating people; just because. A squalid and debauched ninety minutes of thirty year old Italian zombie madness, which if you think sounds fun, can be, 7/10.

The uncut DVD release I reviewed from apparent new label Beyond Terror is really just a re-badged vipco disc and transfer with a sleeve that looked worse than I could have printed. It wasn't the best picture and sound quality, but it was cheap and watch-able.

Steven@WTD.

Hell of the Living Dead (Zombie Creeping Flesh / Virus / Night of the Zombies) - review

1980 (Italy / Spain)

2002 Starz / Anchor Bay DVD R(1)

Contains mild spoilers.

I've sat in front of the computer for ten minutes now trying to work out not only how to start the review, but actually how I actually feel about what I've just watched. I mean, I can't hide from the obvious; it's a woefully low budget 80s euro-trash zomploitation video nasty with b-movie acting, a poor English dub (there was no original soundtrack with subtitles option on my DVD), a meandering derivative story devoid of any real content or meaning, and an obsession with the ridiculous misuse of externally sourced stock footage. Yet, I somehow enjoyed my hour and forty minutes with Lia (Margit Evelyn Newton) quite the enthusiastic front line reporter and Lt. Mike London (José Gras) and his blue boiler-suit wearing commando goon squad.

There's a rather superfluous and unexplained back story about a global conspiracy to euthanize the third world and it all going wrong with some giant clouds of degenerative toxins leaking out into the atmosphere. There's also a radioactive zombie rat. All that's really important to know is Lt. London is in New Guinea with his crack force of three totally unconvincing exaggerated 80s bad boy throwbacks, he can't get hold of his superiors, his crew have stumbled into Lia, her camera man Vincent (Selan Karay) and decided to let them tag along, and the normally quiet jungle landscape is teeming with blue skinned undead flesh-eaters.

There's not much else to the story. The gang of six travel to the nearest village, Mia takes her top off to communicate with natives who she was alleged to have stayed with for a year, the village is overrun, then they travel to an abandoned plantation, it gets overrun, then they travel to Hope #1, a sprawling industrial complex and the source of the zombie death cloud, and it gets overrun. Each location starts with the same promise of respite, only for some shadowy figure sitting in a chair with their backs to them to reveal themselves as a macabre flesh eating zombie and the place to come under siege.

I've seen director Bruno Mattei described as a total hack unable to fashion anything original, but I've also seen him described as the man to turn to, to get the job done with as little fuss and money as possible, and both are undoubtedly true. Hell of the Living Dead is a veritable pastiche of everything Zombie Flesh Eaters and Romero. It's formulaic, it's derivative, scenes are stolen, music is literally stolen (Goblin's Dawn of the Dead soundtrack) but if the remit was for a by-the-numbers repeat of the two success stories above, to be filmed in four weeks with no money, credit however begrudgingly, has to be given. What story there is never really comes together and it does drag out, but it doesn't actually fall apart, the characters are cheesy and obnoxious, and played poorly, but at least they're all entertaining each in their own special way, and each action sequence is contrived and poorly choreographed but the way the so called professional soldiers throw themselves about is always amusing to watch. There's also the fact there's an abundant and near constant flow of gratuitous and shocking gore on offer, almost as if Mattei knew this alone would sell a few copies regardless of all films other short-falls.

The zombies are, funny enough, a Dawn of the Dead / Zombie Flesh Eaters fusion. They're blue, they shuffle and groan, they arrive on mass and they like eating people. I've that usual complaint, that for quite the desolate unpopulated area there's an awful lot of zombies and even with a Jeep and boat the gang can't find five minutes respite. Also the zombies do seem to know when to hold off that fatal bite, even with people literally in their grasp, yet on other occasions, for instance when the village is over-run, a native must merely flash a bit of ankle for the teeth to get sunk in. It's almost like the zombies knew when each main character was to be bit and all the action was contrived to ensure it happened as planned. Other than this, it's head shots, with the guys going through the early rigmarole of shooting the body repeatedly first before having the hallelujah head-shot moment, fire being the zombie-no-no and lots of staggering around slowly with arms outstretched. There's nothing new on show but at least Mattei has taken what works and not embellished it unnecessarily, other than allowing their innate cannibalism to get a fair bit more screen time than Romero would have.

I'm not going to pretend that this is a good film; it's one of those that somehow transcends all that it does wrong to become worth watching for the sheer exaggerated stupidity on display. Mia's tribal undress entwined with all the obvious third party tribal stock footage is worth watching if only for the audacity Mattei had in thinking he could get away with it. Wise cracking Zantoro (Franco Garofalo) is worth following if only to witness a truly great maniacal goofy performance, and there's a good game of guess the next jungle animal in stock footage forced in to allegedly make the film as long as Dawn of the Dead. Dawn of the Dead it isn't though; and for all I say go watch it, be prepared for a bit of a genre stinker that you must remember even Mattei was ashamed to have his name attached at launch (he went as Vincent Dawn). Still recommended for that 80s euro-trash no-story maggot-crusted, flesh-munching zombie itch, but don't say you've not been warned, 6/10.

Steven@WTD.

Demons 2 (The Nightmare Returns) - review

1986 (Italy)

2012 Arrow Films Demons 1 & 2 Steelbook Blu-ray R(B/2) 

Contains mild spoilers.

I rarely see any mention of Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento Demons duology in zombie film discussions. It's as if horns and bad teeth are enough to cement the notion demons can't be zombies and zombies most definitely don't originate from the fiery pits of hell. Me? I'm more relaxed on the subject. Global viral pandemic, mad scientist, interstellar parasitical space moss, I don't care, take away the person who once had control and replace him, or her, with a drive and will they have no command over, whether that's rabid and instinctual or as the puppet of an actual master, and I'll call zombie. I know this leads me into deep waters, and at some point I'll have to actually think about drug addiction, mental health, economic slavery etc, but for now, all I'll say after watching the maniacal flesh hungry monsters of Demons 2 torment and rampage the occupants of a high rise apartment block, is I've never watched anything more zombie in my life.

The cinema screen this time is replaced by the television but the story is the same as number one. A group of intrepid, albeit naive kids stumbling around ancient ruins (this time the cityscape, it is narrated, which was ruined as a direct consequence of the outbreak and subsequent demon war of the first film), entirely avoidably set in motion a new demon resurrection which then somehow metaphysically spills into the real world of those watching. Ok, I'll acknowledge this meta-narrative-pre-amble that's copied from the first doesn't quite work as well; I mean who would either watch a quite lame demonic horror film at the dinner table or leave their young kid home alone with the remote and the permission to watch what they like, but I will acknowledge it's at least trying to continue the same esoteric duel narrative, and the first demon pushing itself out of screen is at least dark and eerie to watch.

The first victim is an angst ridden prima-donna sulking in her bedroom and ignoring all those party-goers I don't believe for one second would have actually turned up for her birthday party, Sally Day (Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni). A scratch, a bite and as she stumbles shocked back into the party to blow out her candles (yes, we're honestly supposed to believe that 18 year-olds of the eighties thought partying involved dancing and balloons and not getting utterly shit-faced) her veins start pumping, her teeth and nails start extending and she's ready to spread the fun. It's all cliché, tried and tested single location zombie horror without any character development or deep narrative but honestly Demons 2 is one of the best zombie films I've seen. There, I've said it. It has everything you'd want from the sort of film it's set out to be. There's claustrophobic scares, desperate survival horror, brilliantly gruesome choreographed murders and it's all done at break-neck speed to a fantastic eighties British new wave soundtrack which includes The Smiths and The Cult. I said watching crazed zombie-demons savagely torment the cinema-goers to 'Fast As A Shark' was good, well it was just as much fun with 'Power' by Fields of Nephilim.

Bava and Argento know what they're doing. The script doesn't stray, the tension, pressure and deaths intensify perfectly and the whole film flows with from scene to scene with ease. For the quantity of visitors and residence screaming and running about the film concentrates focus on a surprisingly few number. Hannah (Nancy Brilli), a pregnant woman after some of the reveller's cake, her husband  George (David Edwin Knight), who gets trapped in the elevator with working girl Mary (Virginia Bryant) and the star of the show the returning Bobby Rhodes as Hank the over exuberant body building grand-pedagogue who takes leadership of the panicking lycra wearing, shirtless eighties survivors in the underground car park. They're all competently portrayed caricatures you never particularly care about, but they play their roles as inevitable cannon fodder as well as required allowing the unquestionable star of the show to shine.

Sergio Stivaletti is again a make-up and effects wizard coming up trumps with zombie demons that appear and act with equal authenticity and fantasticalness. The first demon is brought back to life, or reanimated, it's never clear, by inadvertent drops of blood to its mouth and fangs and it's all very vampirish. Once through the veil and into our world it spreads the infection via bites, a scratch or if anyone is particularly unlucky to ingest any of the blood which corrodes and burns between floors like possessed acid. Turning zombie is pretty fast and once toothed to max it would appear all self is gone and the only desire is to rabidly hunt and attack anyone in sight. Like I said, in appearance and behaviour it's all zombie; there's no references to the devil, there's no magical abilities (other than the glowing eyes) and they're very much of our world limited to sight, hearing and being shot. If it wasn't for the mutations these films would appear on every zombie buff's film list and their fast pace and acrobatic movements along with high rate of infection might be even be referred to as the catalyst for the change in zombie pace we now see, rather than Boyle's imaginings which came sixteen years later. Talking of mutations I will mention both Toto the demon dog and the impish rubber demon that rips itself out of the young Tommy (Marco Vivio & Davide Marotta), which are quite frankly laughably appalling even by eighties standards. These aside there's really nothing production wise to gripe about though; it's authentic, sumptuously shot and stitched together with some quite beautiful lighting, and has the perfect amount of blood and death to satisfy any gore-hounds cravings.

Gripping from start to finish Demons 2 may be more of the same, retro derivative nonsense, with a confusing back story and forgettable acting , but when it's fashioned this well that's fine by me. I've noted it doesn't have many fans and I know it's not perfect but I genuinely enjoyed every minute of it recognising the many zombie tropes which crop up and admiring the artistry in the way it was all captured. Fast, action packed, gory and fun, Demons 2 might not quite reach the heights as its predecessor but taken together they're probably my favourite horror pairing. I also couldn't help but think a third (official) entry in the series, called Demons 3D with the demons popping through as the only thing with depth could be truly amazing; albeit I'll admit, a tad gimmicky. Maybe I'll drop Lamberto a line, 8/10.

Steven@WTD.

Zombie Flesh Eaters 3 (Zombie 4: After Death) - review

1989 (Italy)

2004 Vipco DVD R(2) 

Contains mild spoilers.

High temp rock / latin synth score complete with fast crescendo digital pan pipes, crazed chanting voodoo priest, a writhing dancing sacrificial victim cum savage zombie-demon exploding from the fiery pits of hell; oh yeah! I knew two things after the opening ten minutes; one, from the sound track and copious amount of denim on show this film is a total child of the eighties and two, I was frickin' loving every minute of it.

Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 was a rambling incoherent mess if we admit it. A mishmash of styles and genres brought about by combining the directing ideas of multiple directors. Yet, somehow, and maybe because of such a crazy mix it came together to be utterly compelling and easily forgivable; the perfect carnival of all things b-movie, 80s and zombie. The film they produced still retained the indistinguishable Fulci atmosphere, but it was also layered with a livelier action focus and a contemporary style added by Bruno Mattei and his associate Claudio Fragasso who had a vision of their own but not enough time to combine it all in any cohesive way.

Zombie Flesh Eaters 3 is Claudio Fragasso's baby, albeit under the pseudonym Clyde Anderson and while he does continue at a pace with the particular action/horror vision he brought to the second he doesn't by any stretch abandon the essence and ambiguous Fulci style of its predecessors. If anything I felt this third film felt more authentic to the tone of the first than the second, perfectly pitching the absurd, the shocking and the surreal back in a far more coherent way. Ok, we're not back with Fulci's original slow shambling macabre flesh eaters and the pacing had definitely upped the ante with new and improved zombie flesh eater (MII)'s jumping and throwing themselves about but Fragasso is allowed his own take, and at least there's general unity to the zombies' identity and behaviour (for the most part anyway).

White men came to a remote Pacific island to look for answers to all the incurable modern malaise, including an investigation into cancer and how it could hold the secret of eternal life. Looking at local tribal witch doctors' methods they combined their understandings and attempted to cure the local priest's daughter of leukaemia only for her to die and infect the rest of the tribe with some strange reanimating disease. Seeking revenge and to rid their world of the invaders, the priest opened the third gate to hell by reading from the book of the dead and sacrificing his wife. He wrought a curse on all the scientists by commanding the dead back to life and to hunger for flesh, which they did, all other than a three year old girl who managed to escape with a protective amulet. Honestly, it's utterly balmy, b-movie insanity, a strange heady mix of science and voodoo but not, if we think about it, that dissimilar from Zombie Flesh Eaters which too was deliberately ambiguous as to the exact origin. It's daft, it's presented in 80s b-movie amateur splendour with false fangs and cheesy effects, but, if you're inclined like I am for this kind of thing it's bafflingly brilliant.

The bulk of the film is set twenty years later. The girl who fled, Jenny (Candice Daly) has for some utterly unknown reason, gone for a little boat jaunt with friend Louise (Adrianne Joseph) and her boyfriend Rod (Nick Nicholson) and his three mercenary for hire buddies and arrived by remarkable coincidence, back to the island. The boat is possessed, lands and the group set off to look for help. Meanwhile,  three intrepid explorers looking to discover, for reasons I either missed or weren't overly explained, the answer to why the colony was wiped out by following clues from an old diary, find themselves in the ritual chamber with the book of the dead and decide it's a good idea to read from it. That's the build up, it doesn't take that long and the rest of the film is action, survival and lots of death, slaughter, screaming, and you know, normal stuff.

You're either going to love Fragasso's high octane vision, where zombies literally throw themselves at the ever depleting survivors en masse wave after wave, and agree to disregard the obvious impact having a severely depleted budget had on make-up, effects and costumes, or like many reviewers I've read, you're not. With funding drastically reduced because of the poor reception of the second film, other than the main front of house zombies, they had to make do with rags and bandages to cover the many extras faces. Personally I didn't think the effect was that bad and it all reminded me if anything of the undead from the hospital in Fulci's The Beyond; and that's no bad thing. By the front of house zombies I'm referring to the many actors that are bitten, die and come back horrifically and authentically unpleasant. In some respects the juxtaposition between these recently deceased visitors to the island who are very much undead parodies of their former selves and the reanimated indigenous horde works. They're two distinct zombie tropes and it kind of lets Fragasso off all questions of consistency, as we watch the new guys alone retain the ability to still fire guns and even mutter a few words.

I really was quite smitten with Zombie Flesh Eaters 3 despite going in with low expectations. The pacing is fantastic, the narrative flows cohesively from scene to scene, and for a crazy-stupid story it's actually convincing and beieve it or not never felt derivative. It's the action and the many copious zombie fights that makes the film and it's refreshing when those in possession of guns and the understanding that a zombie needs shooting in the head, to do so with such convincing efficiency. They limit their use of ammo, they choose when to take their shots and they're intelligent in all aspect of their survival; and other than when Rod loses his girlfriend and subsequent mind and goes all Rambo I was thinking these would be just the guys I'd like to find myself with come the end of the world. There's also a rationale, ok a pure fucking insane one, to the speed and aggression with which the zombies siege the clinic, and it makes for some good, entertaining action. Fragasso is also obviously a disciple of the shocking trademark gore and staged brutality. There's a return to the first and homage to Fulci's own gates of hell trilogy with some quite gruesome and gratuitous mutilations which all look convincingly gut churning and feel as totally overplayed as they should.

This was everything I would want from a cheesy 80s low budget zombie video nasty. Fun, high intensity, an unrelenting and unashamedly 80s sound track by Al Festa and no holding back. How does it compare to the other two? They're all good and all bring something different to the table but I'd argue After Death is certainly the most fun, and what an ending, oh yeah! 8/10.

The transfer on Vipco DVD I watched while being better all round than that of Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 was still quite grainy and murky on occasion (though never all the time) but I was having too much fun for it to ruin it for me. It's probably the best uncut version out, though there have been rumours of a HD Blu-ray release, though nothing substantiated at this time.

WTD.