(Black Zombies from) Sugar Hill - review

1974 (USA)

2010 Muntel Films / Fokus Media GmbH DVD R(2)

Contains spoilers.

History tells us that revenge is a dish best served cold; and for Diana 'Sugar' Hill (Marki Bey) what could be more cold than the decaying hand of a reanimated corpse?! Sugar Hill, re-titled Black Zombies from Sugar Hill, when it was cut and aired on television, is an American blaxploitation master-piece, full of funk, soul, seventies American street slang and the universal adoption and acceptance of the afro. Oh, and it's also primarily the cinematic story of the systematic and total slaughter of a group of white folk at the hands of black; albeit they kind of started and deserved it.

Sugar Hill might well be a quaint, quiet rural homestead out in the Texan bayou but the Sugar Hill of the title most certainly refers to it's occupier and natty dresser Diana 'Sugar' Hill. And her story is quite straightforward. Finding her true love Langston (Larry Don Johnson) beaten to death and tossed on the street 'like a piece of garbage' over his refusal to sell his nightclub 'Haiti', she opts to call on her families voodoo heritage and settle the score with the perpetrator, local thug and opportunist Morgan (Robert Quarry).

It's a very simple premise, on the surface. Diana is the very real, very helpless victim of corruption and violence, Mafiosi Morgan and his gang of henchmen the seemingly untouchable perpetrators, and voodoo and violence the only tool she has to strike back. In truth it's all a lot more complicated. Now one can argue back and forth whether the blaxpoitation genre empowered a suppressed minority, or irresponsibly perpetuated racial stereotypes at a time calm was needed. Whilst I generally feel where there's two such vocal sides there's probably more than a grain of truth to both, I also kind of feel some cinematic venting after hundreds of years of actual exploitation, apartheid, slavery and god knows what else is not only expected but probably justified. Though by saying that, I'm in the very danger of legitimising the very thing they're now venting against. It's chicken and egg; blaxpoitation was born from a legitimate anger against a world that had let it down, and yet can itself be accused of the same stereotyping and insensitivity. It's a tricky one I won't get further bogged down in; but I will note that not for the first time, that this is often where the zombie can emerge; as a metaphor made cinematic flesh; symbolising a binary paradox at a troubled time.

The original voodoo zombie was all about suggestion, symbolism and blurring the perceived boundaries of life and death; and this was best illustrated in the 1988 pseudo-documentary The Serpent and the Rainbow. Over the years physical deadness became more categorical and substantive, eventually consuming the metaphor, entirely but before independence and the drive to feed came with Romero, the will of a puppet master was still required, and this is where Sugar Hill fits in. Diana wants violent retribution, priestess Mama Maitresse (Zara Cully) agrees, and it's the summoned voodoo god Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley) who summarily provides the undead army, enthusiasm and strings to pull it all off.

With big vacant glazed silver bug-eyes, white paint used to accentuate the bones and adorned with rags, leaves and cobwebs, on paper the zombies of Sugar Hill don't sound the most convincing, or frightening. However, as a voodoo tool, which here is being played to full exaggerated effect, their look, demeanour and behaviour is a perfect fit. Sometimes playful, sometimes intimidating, each increasingly elaborate and violent murder is joyfully staged, with Diana, dressed to kill (literally) pronouncing judgement, the Baron the gleeful chortling observer and the zombies the perfectly scripted tool to enforce it. Also of note, that however increasingly contrived and staged each execution is, executions they still are; there's no flesh ripping, no innards out on display; it is a zombie film but we're back to a time they were more autonomous foot-soldiers than homicidal flesh eaters, and also gore-wise, where the mantra was definitely less is more.

Certainly a film of its time, I actually enjoyed the exaggerated performances, the theatrical killings and seventies street jibe probably way more than I should have. Putting aside all the blaxploitation stuff, Director Paul Maslansky's Sugar Hill is an extremely confident, perfectly paced and coherent revenge story that weaves in the myth and colour of voodoo to produce something truly unique and memorable. And more importantly, it's fun, from start to finish somehow maintaining a perfect balance neither being too serious nor too asinine,. Finally, that Maslansky has succeeded in fashioning a film where bad guys suffer, in particularly bad ways, satiating some perverse primal satisfaction I probably should feel some shame for, should be applauded. Recommended - 7/10.

Steven@WTD.

This German DVD 4:3 picture is more than adequate and comes with both the original English and German stereo soundtrack.

Zombies of Mora Tau (The Dead that Walk) - review

1957 (USA)

2007 Sony Pictures Home Entertainment - Icons of Horror Collection: Sam Katzman DVD R(1) with The Giant Claw, Creature with the Atom Brain & The Werewolf. 

Contains spoilers.

'In the darkness of an ancient world - on a shore that time has forgotten there is a twilight zone between life and death. There dwell those nameless creatures who are condemned to prowl the land eternally - The Walking Dead."

Director Edward L. Cahn's oldie worldly African adventure presents somewhat of a dilemma. Undoubtedly an important milestone in zombie cinema, ambitious with a remarkably high body count for a film of its time and ilk, and well-presented and put together, there's a lot to admire. Yet as a whole it just doesn't quite hold together, even taking into account a three-quarters of century shift in cultural appetite. Firmly a serious horror-action adventure the film gets straight to the point, the zombies are front and centre occupying plenty of screen time and action, and deaths come quick and fast; the film does everything right even by today's attention-deficit standards. But this is perhaps it's failing. With a narrative that feels harried, and interaction that while often delightful, more often feels forced and presumptive; the films comes across as just trying that bit too hard without the requisite nuance or subtlety. A scene to scene action film can work but the script has to be tight, cohesive and constantly self-invigorating and sadly The Zombies of Mora Tau fails on all three counts.

It's deepest darkest colonial Africa; not quite Conrad's Heart of Darkness but certainly a jumping off point. Just off the lake shore, a stone's throw from widow Grandmother Peters (Marjorie Eaton) grand colonial house sits the wreck of the Susan B, its cursed diamond treasure, and what should be the corpses of the twenty or so souls that perished as it was returning its ill-gotten gains to the new world. Except the scuttled ship lies uninhabited and the souls who perished aren't at rest. As the preface informed us; they're the walking dead, condemned to prowl the earth and waters, in this case to protect the diamond cargo and punish all who try to claim it as their own.

This is of course is where captain and mission underwriter George Harrison (Joel Ashley) and his crew fit in, as they intend to complete what all else have failed. It's a good story; Harrison, his coquettish wife Mona (Allison Hayes), the target of her wayward affections, lead diver Jeff Clark (Gregg Palmer) and African archaeologist Dr. Jonathan Eggert (Morris Ankrum) take refuge in Granny Peters and her recently returned granddaughter Jan's (Autumn Russell) house, and start to unravel the mystery. Along the way Jan gets carried off into the jungle by a zombie, Mona runs off into the jungle and the men drink brandy, do breakfast,  squabble about who should have what, and and forge ahead regardless of all the warnings.

The zombies are the walking dead, some seven years before The Last Man of Earth, some eleven years before Romero and a full half decade before its namesake series debuted and changed zombies and popular culture forever. Whilst voodoo is mentioned, here though there's no life and death ambiguity, nor, no priest or priestess enslaving the living as eternal servants; the walking dead are dead, are-no-more, ceased-to-be... They don't breathe, have no pulse, have no free-will and no morality. They are shells, echoes of their former selves and one of the first instances of the zombie untethered from another's will. As with other zombie films, there is still of course a guiding drive; though here it's not hunger, reproduction or blood-lust but the curse to ensure the diamonds aren't taken away, which in many ways makes them more akin to draugr, ancient ghouls tasked with protecting their treasure, and a mythology more Norse and Germanic than African. Also, it's the 1950s so there's no gouging or teeth sinking and certainly no unquenchable hunger for human flesh in the efforts to carry out their calling, so the zombies have to resort to strangling, stabbing and punching, though in a way that's still for its time quite dark and edgy. There's also an imperviousness to gun-shots, and other physical damage, with only a weakness to fire, again rather forward thinking.

An important and rather unheralded part of the zombie story, The Zombies of Mora Tau plays around with many tropes that eventually become main-stays. Yet while certainly not a bad film, the effects haven't weathered the passage of time, the script and acting, especially the role of the women of the film; primarily as hysterical victim, wanton floozy or doting or grieving wife all seems rather uncomfortably outdated, and, or hokey. With a set-up, story and narrative that had the potential to be gripping, enthralling and immensely original, that it ended up feeling so laboured, forced, repetitious and most disappointingly, merely adequate is a shame; especially for something so pivotal - 5/10.

Steven@WTD.

The Zombie Farm - review

2009 (USA)

2012 Lionsgate DVD R(2)

Contains spoilers.

What do you get it you cross the modern brain munching zombie with one hundred year old voodoo ritual, subjugation and plantation work, and present it as a Mexican soap with likeable characters, romance, drama, intrigue and social commentary worthy of someone who's just finished their first semester in Sociology and has something they really want to get off their chest. Well, you get director and writer Ricardo Islas's odd little tale from the crypt 'The Zombie Farm', which despite looking like it was filmed in the eighties direct on to VHS tape, is quite the endearing if flawed zombie short if one can stomach all the character build-up.

I say short with disingenuous motives as at ninety minutes it can hardly be accused of being presentationally-stunted; it's just that had they, the director and production team, decided to tighten the preamble, rein in the racial, class and gender dissections and not insist on exploring the depths of the main characters psyches then the story could easily have been told in the half-hour slot provided by the aforementioned popular long running TV series. The thing is though, and this has weighed heavy on me since finishing, is I actually quite enjoyed the utterly superfluous extras and the actors do a very good job of making the vapid and banal narrative feel real and important.

Ana Maria (Monika Munoz) has an abusive husband and no way out. Fortunately for her there's a local voodoo priestess, with intimate knowledge of the dark arts, access to the toxins in the liver of puffer fish and has a strong desire to zombify non-white locals. Preying on Ana's vulnerability, and desperation, she provides her with a potion which she duly administers but, but rather than being rewarded with Prince Charming, she ends up with a psychotic undead marauder hell bent on revenge. This is where Roque Santero (Roberto Montesinos), a fraudulent yet good hearted spiritualist, and his new best friend, reporter wannabe Adriana Cataño as Pilar Franco come in; at first involuntarily, then later as keen investigators, up for thwarting the sinister plans of the evil witch and saving the day.

The title of the film is Zombie Farm, and without giving too much away there is a zombie farm, though it's not as you'll picture it, if you've spent any time looking at the cover, of this 2009 re-release. The thing is, the late Antonio (Khotan Fernandez), and his whole being rather pissed off and not wanting to leave Ana alone, while an interesting yarn in itself, on inspection not only doesn't really fit with the wider narrative, but rather shows itself up as a forced vehicle to get everyone else to where they need to be. The farm which finally brings some darkness and tension, and one feels is the real focus of the story and the ultimate pay-off for the all the build-up, is at odds with his behaviour, motives and actions despite him still having a rather large part to play. There's narrative disconnect between the two, and maybe his role feels bigger than it should because he has so much screen time and attention; stumbling from one place to the next (with magical or convenient location finding skills and timing) causing carnage and mayhem in his wake; and the farm arrives far too late in proceedings to feel meaningful. And it's not the only incoherence.

There's a strange mix at work with the zombies. On the one hand, it's Brazilian, old tribal Africa and ritual and belief, mixed with Christianity and the new world;  a la voodoo, as we last saw in The Serpent and the Rainbow. The priestess administers a toxin, the victim displays all the traits of being done for only to later be revived and taken as a mindless somnambulist servant ready to obey her will. This is even hinted at with her line when all is revealed that they're 'not really dead'. Yet there's the position throughout that they really are dead, most notably in an early scene, where Roque clearly shoots Antonio clean through the noggin. Then there's the general hunger for human flesh and an actual mass zombie gut munch later on; something that seems at odds with the whole 'hypnotised but very much alive'. This lack of cohesiveness doesn't detract from a film already heavily focused non zombie things, yet it's a laziness that does irk, after all the trouble they'd seemingly gone to, to play with voodoo credibly in the first place.

At its heart, Zombie Farm is a good story well told. It's full of inconsistencies and strange choices but it somehow binds together to provide an entertaining, interesting and altogether not too unpleasant experience. Also while the characters first come across as a little too divergent from the norm, and the actors amateur and unsuited, Islas grounds everything and brings an assuredness to their performances and dialogue, and has them complimenting each other remarkably quickly. Not a zombie for film for the purist, nor a non-zombie film for the undead-averse, and also not by any stretch a good film; The Zombie Farm still manages to satisfy an uncanny void one never knew was there - 5/10.

Steven@WTD.

Zombies (Loonies) on Broadway - review

1945 (USA)

On 2009 Karloff & Lugosi Horror Collection DVD R(1) with The Walking Dead, Frankenstein(1970) & You'll Find Out.

Contains mild spoilers.

For a low budget 1945 horror comedy b-movie with sets, actors and characters aped directly from I Walked With a Zombie and Revenge of the Zombies, a puerile derivative mad scientist story and the poor man's Albert and Costello (Brown and Carney) Zombies on Broadway is surprisingly charming, funny and hard not to like. The key to this success I feel is the fact at no time while watching did I remotely come close to taking any of it seriously, and I think that's exactly what directors Gordon Dines and Gordon M. Douglas wanted.

Zombies on Broadway or Loonies on Broadway as it was called in the UK, if anything is a light hearted slapstick parody of the aforementioned more serious attempts at rehashing the colonial mad scientist / Haitian voodoo story. Comedy wasn't necessarily new; King of the Zombies and Revenge of the Zombies had Mantan Moreland to provide comic relief but the story and characters were still played straight. Zombies on Broadway is full on unabashed farce from beginning to end.

Ace Miller (Sheldon Leonard), nightclub owner and ex-gangster has hired Jerry Miles (Wally Brown) and Mike Strager (Alan Carney), two bumbling press agents to promote the opening of his new club The Zombie Hut. The problem for Ace is the two idiots have gone ahead publicising tat there will be a real live zombie (a contradiction in terms?) present and the talcum powdered actor they've hired won't cut it. Cue, Jerry and Mike taking a trip to a museum where they're told about Professor Paul Renault (Béla Lugosi), a prominent zombie expert now living on St. Sebastian in the Canary Islands, Ace putting them at gun point on the first banana boat and the two guys having quite the madcap escapade.

The story is nothing we've not already seen. Professor Renault is of course the evil mad scientist working on perfecting the zombie formula, the two oafs stumble around upsetting the islanders asking too many questions and somewhere along the way they get a dame, a broad, a canary, I mean a girl (Anne Jeffreys as Jean La Danse) to help. There's a naivety and innocence in Seventy year old b-movie films you just don't see any more. Wrong hands are held, people black-up and pretend they're voodoo dancers, monkeys slam drawers into peoples knees, and a minute doesn't go by without a joke that relies on one person (Mike) seeing something (a zombie) only for it to be gone before someone else (Jerry) can corroborate. Yes I did say people black-up; naive innocence remember. It's light heated, fun and hard not to laugh along with Brown and Carney's silliness. Even Béla Lugosi can't resist getting in on the action with a slapstick fights and some quite daft dialogue.

Darby Jones reprises his role as head zombie (Calaga) from I Walked With a Zombie. Professor Renault explains how he took him from the locals not long after arriving on the island, some twenty years ago and how in all that time his deceased body hasn't deteriorated one bit. Calaga was a product of local Voodoo and magic and an island native and Renault's aim is to reproduce this island's zombification but with science and western methodology. It's never explained why he wants to learn the secret of zombies; there's no girl to be saved or world to be conquered; he's an evil scientist parody and it doesn't really matter. What we do know, is he's close to perfecting his formula and all he needs if a few more specimens to test on; which is fortunate as two guys are about to come knocking.

Reanult's zombification comes in a syringe in liquid form. Once injected, the heart stops, and a person is put in a state of suspended animation unable  to feel pain and under the total control of another's thoughts and suggestions. Unlike Calaga, who seems to share some psychic bond with his master (although this doesn't appear to be absolute), the zombies made with Reanult's formula seem to be controllable by the person making the most noise. Oh, and like he said, it's also not perfect and only lasts a few days; after which, one can be revived, by say, seeing a pretty dancer in a revealing costume and everything's back to normal, pulse and all.

Brown and Carney are no Abbot and Costello or Laurel and Hardy but they play their exaggerated silly charters well and the banter is always perfectly timed and natural. Béla Lugosi steals every scene he's in, though this isn't as many as would normally justify top billing (though after his eyes alone getting a cover mention on Revolt of the Zombies, I don't know why I'm so surprised), and he's ever so nearly beaten by quite the comedy monkey that takes over half way through. Over-all it's hard not really like this silly little film; it's inoffensive, innocent and good natured, and well shot, well-paced and never dull; 7/10.

Steven@WTD.

The Serpent and the Rainbow - review

1988 (USA)

2001 Universal DVD R(2)

Contains mild spoilers.

Well here we are, review #100, and what better way to celebrate than to take a look at a cult 80s favourite from an established well known horror director and a film that's actually based, loosely, on the real world adventure of one Dr. Edmund Wade Davis who sought to uncover the secrets of the Haitian zombie, and wrote a book about what he found. I actually looked at this film last year, but passed it over assuming from the cover it was a vampire flick but I couldn't have been more wrong. It's definitely zombie although, and surprisingly for 1988, it's all about voodoo, or more accurately Haitian Vodou, the black arts and enslaved souls, and absolutely nothing to do with stumbling and shuffling around looking for fresh flesh to tuck into.

Bill Pullman plays Dr. Dennis Alan (Dr. Edmund Wade Davis), an ethnobotanist / anthropologist who spends his days scouring the far corners of the earth looking the next new super drugs. The film opens with what can only be described as a bad trip in the Amazon. Not wanting to refuse the hospitality of a tribal elder he's been dealing with, he inadvertently takes a  hallucinogenic potion, has a series of unearthly visions and receives a jaguar spirit guide. On sobering he then discovers his helicopter pilot has been murdered and then fearing for his own life he travels two hundred miles through the jungle on foot to get back to civilisation. Like I say, bad trip.

This is all just preamble though to the main story and an attempt to set the mood. Haitian voodoo is all about suggestion, symbolism and blurring the perceived boundaries of life and death / dreams and reality and Alan's Castaneda-esque spirit journey is used by director Wes Craven to set the narrative tone of a film that is equally ambiguous and tenebrous. Questioning not just what is real, but what real even means, is central to both Alan's Haitian adventure and the viewer's interpretation of events.

Safely back in Boston, Alan is persuaded by a large pharmaceutical company to travel to Haiti to investigate and bring back a sample of a drug they suspect is behind some reported cases of real life zombification, in the hope that if it is real it could make a potent new anaesthetic. Alan arrives in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince with a clear set of goal. Find and investigate Christophe (Conrad Roberts) the alleged zombie who was certified dead only to later be seen walking about, find out who gave him the drug, pay them a lot of money for a sample and get out. However arriving at a time of huge political upheaval and civil unrest, and completely underestimating how seriously the dark sorcerer Dargent Peytraud (Zakes Mokae) wants to keep his secrets and how deeply ingrained vodou is into all facets of Haitian life, it's soon apparent he's completely out of his depth and potentially in a lot of trouble.

Part thriller, part action, part horror, The Serpent and the Rainbow is a fantastical journey into a different world and culture sincerely capturing Haitain life and the customs and rituals of vodou from the perspective of its practitioners, rather than the colonial white interlopers we're more used to seeing. Alan is prescribed western rationality and science but the further he delves into the Haitian underworld to uncover the truth, the further this is challenged. His companions on the journey, local psychiatrist Marielle Duchamp (Cathy Tyson) who helps him find Christophe and a local bar patron Lucien Celine (Paul Winfield) help him bridge the gap between his world and theirs, but the theme of struggle, with Alan always the proverbial fish out of water, is constant.

For a zombie film there's not a lot of zombies in it and when they are, they're a far cry from anything else of the period. Zombies are made. They're not the reanimated or resuscitated  dead; they're deliberately drugged to make them appear dead then their souls are stolen by the bokor, or Vodou priest or priestess, who can then control their actions and invade their minds. The paralysing zombie powder which includes a deadly neurotoxin, tetrodotoxin from a puffer fish and other toxins from a marine toad and hyla tree frog also requires ground human remains and a complicated ritual that needs to be performed by the potential master. Alan succeeds in bringing a sample back to the states scientifically validating that it is capable of disabling rotary brain functions whilst keeping the subject alive with sensory awareness. But, and this is where The Serpent and the Rainbow allows itself some creative licence over the real life events of Dr. Edmund Wade Davis, it can't explain the very real mystical events he believes he's been a part of.

This conflict of accepting magic and sorcery alongside perceived scientific dogma is the fascinating challenge of the film. Such is the blurring of dream, reality, sane and insane that by the end even the viewer is left questioning and pondering what actually happened and to what extent the events that took place were real or all inside Alan's head. Does a 'bokor' have the ability to capture souls or could the zombie drug also cause brain damage resulting in the resuscitated being more pliable, more congenial to persuasion. Is Alan's deeply symbolic fight with Dargent Peytraud all a psychological battle in his subconscious to rouse him from the mental slumber induced by the neurotoxin or an actual mystical contest with the loser forced to forfeit their soul. It's never clear, was never intended to be clear and impeccably written and directed to reflect the very real ambiguity of Haitian vodou and zombie myth.

The Serpent and the Rainbow is a deep, uncompromising thriller with first rate acting from a whole host of recognisable actors that do justice to the coherent and intelligent writing. Those looking at Wes Craven's back catalogue might be disappointed at the lack of out and out horror but the dark sorcery and the alien nature of vodou culture, along with some quite provocative and memorable dream sequences help maintain a constant eerie atmosphere that's both disorienting and perplexing. Wes Craven brings a certain professionalism to proceedings also, and it feels quite the accomplished film; effects are polished, and the sets and directing are evocative and feel authentic, and it all flows with a quiet ease. A fantastic film that I genuinely think has taught me a thing or two about vodou and Haitian zombies; but has also left me, as it should, head scratching, 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.

I Walked with a Zombie - review

1943 (USA)

2009 Manga Films DVD R(2) - Yo Anduve con un Zombie

Contains spoilers.

The modern zeitgeist associates the zombie with blood, carnage, gratuitous gore and world ending apocalypse, but we know that's not the whole story. Before Romero, Fulci and Matheson zombies were a gentler more sedate proposition; they were folklore and whisper from the dark new world, no less frightening and mysterious, just of a time someone didn't need to have their stomach ripped open and their intestines feasted upon to get the heart racing.

I Walked with a Zombie is a movie of such a time. A refreshing palette cleanser from all the horror and gore I've recently indulged in, director Jacques Tourneur's atmospheric vision of life in the Caribbean is a beautiful reminisce of when getting dressed for dinner, never arguing in front of a woman, and using the term mental case to describe someone with was the acceptable behaviour.

Betsy Connell (Frances Dee) is the narrator; young and wistful, she recalls the time she accepted a position as nurse for the wife of wealthy sugar cane plantation owner, Paul Holland (Tom Conway) on the (fictitious) island of  St. Sebastian and got more than she bargained for. Paul's wife, Jessica (Christine Gordon) you see, is a zombie. A severe illness left her without will; lifeless and unable to communicate. She's still very much alive so to speak, with a heart beat and pulse, but the wife Paul remembers is gone and only a shell remains.

Producer Val Lewton was given the studio-dictated title and together with writers Curt Siodmak and Ardel Wray came up with a Jane Eyre / Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca inspired West Indies mystery/love story, capturing the essence of post-colonial island life; of social stratification and a people emerging from slavery. On the surface the Holland's island life seems idyllic and successful but Betsy soon starts seeing through the cracks; Paul believes his temperament dark and destructive and blames himself for Jessica's malaise, Paul's half-brother Wesley (James Ellison) is melancholic and envious, finding solace in the local rum and all the time their mother (Edith Barret) has removed herself from their affairs on a mission to persuade the natives to accept western medecine and doctrine.

The characters and their dynamic is the main drive for the movie. Behind the stiff upper lip is a web of pain, discomfort, accusation and secrets, and Tourneur handles all the complex suppressed emotions with great insight. It's obvious by the end why characters were motivated to do what they do, or say what they say but watching for the first time, the narrative unveils itself with great subtlety and intelligence. It's not all success though, for as much the characters are deep and believable Betsy and Paul's relationship feels forced, harried and quite unnecessary. If anything the film would have worked just as well, if not better, had her motivations not been so contrived. I'm guessing someone pointed out there had to be a love element and they shoehorned it in; a pity.

For all that the film is a complex character drama, it is still a horror, of sorts. Falling for Paul, and thinking it the best way to please him, Betsy turns to increasingly unorthodox methods in her search to find a cure for Jessica, and this eventually leads to a visit to the houmfort (voodoo hounfour  - voodoo temple/hut/clearing). The houmfout sequences are a delight; there's no parody or westernisation, just provocative music and ritual, and it's shocking and alien even to my modern eye. Her visit also sets in motion a darker tone, as the houmfort practitioners convinced Jessica is the walking dead set out to get her back for further study. First they send the towering Carre-Four (Kalfu), the Haitian vodou guardian/demon/Papa Legba Loa spirit of the houmfort to retrieve her then later the ritual leader uses an voodoo effigy to command her. Just as the early scenes were a journey into early 20th Century post-colonial life, the voodoo scenes really are a vision of life over the fence.

There is deliberate ambiguity to the zombie/s. Jessica appears the modern metaphor, yet the later scenes hint of more. Mrs. Rand confesses to placing the curse on Jessica as she partook in a voodoo ritual after discovering she was about to run away with her younger son though this is dismissed, and the effigy magic does appear genuine.  It's a heady mix of traditional voodoo hypnotised, with something far darker and we're not ever offered a final explanation. Carre-Four is a dark menacing figure who also feels entirely unnatural. In fact I'd kind of assumed he was a zombie before researching his role as the vodou crossroads and his actions shuffling across the Holland's estate, arms raised were certainly evocative of where zombies in the movies went. Ok, neither may actually be reanimated dead but it's heritage zombie and seeped in voodoo, magic and ambiguity and it doesn't matter.

The version reviewed is the Spanish release Yo Anduve con un Zombie and the only R(2) copy I could find on DVD. It's a passable albeit noisy black and white print though this was to be expected and doesn't detract from the experience. It has a a clear English audio track alongside a Spanish dub and has aged remarkably well. 

A brooding gothic drama of repression and lies, capturing a way of life now consigned to history this is a great film irrespective of its place in the zombie story. The fact it's also a zombie pioneer with an undoubted place in establishing the zombie movie template make it an important film for anyone interested in Z-history. With deligtful cinematrography and memorable intelligent narrative and pacing it's a black and white moody masterpiece that holds up extremely well. Recommended viewing, 7/10.

WTD.

Dead & Buried - review

1981 (USA)

2009 Blue Underground Blu-ray R(All)

Contains mild spoilers.

Now I've accused many zombie films of late of being a bit boring, safe and derivative (looking at you Zombie Apocalypse) and one thing I will say up front is Dead & Buried is certainly none these things. Directed by Gary Sherman and co-written by Ronald Shusett and Dan O'Bannon (who wrote Alien and in 1985 wrote and directed The Return of the Living Dead), Dead & Buried is original, tense, stylish and a genuine attempt at a plot heavy horror film; oh, and it kind of has zombies in. Actually, this isn't right and there's no kind of about it, they are zombies and there's a lot of them. it's just that what they've done with them isn't really what we've come to expect and certainly bears no resemblance to the fashionable Romero template of the time or anything that ever came later.

Dan Gillis (James Farentino) is sheriff of the postage-stamp size New England coastal town of Potter's Bluff where everyone knows each other and nothing ever happens. Married to Janet Gillis (Melody Anderson) one of the town's school teachers, his sedate peaceful life comes to an abrupt halt when he is called on to investigate a series of brutal and suspicious deaths befalling anyone unlucky enough to be paying the town a visit.

Unbeknown to the sheriff we know that the cause of these increasingly brutal and sadistic slaughters is actually the happy go lucky men and women of the town. When not going about their day to day chores and life they've taken it upon themselves to corner, trick and mutilate anyone travelling through, filming and photographing it all for sadistic posterity.

It's dark, brooding and full of suspense. You never feel you know what's going on or who is involved and you fully empathise with Dan as his investigations and suspicions become increasingly paranoid and fanciful. As he falls deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole we, like him, learn about black magic, voodoo and reanimation and start to share the same predictions and concerns as to where this all might be going.

The undead in Dead & Buried, while quintessentially the White Zombie voodoo worker soulless slaves, are a little more convoluted. Yes they have a master who has found a way to reanimate them, but to rid them of their soul, it's intimated, he's had to remove their hearts. As said, there's no instinctual drives or hunger for flesh and they're entirely at the will of their master, yet they're still not shambling or mindless automatons of previous voodoo films; though actually they kind of are and I'll explain. While they've been wiped clean of their memories and soul their master has somehow found a way to get them to perfectly imitate their previous selves and blend in unnoticed. It's almost as if he's found a way to give them access to their memories without actually letting them become the person with those memories. It's all a bit like they're possessed by aliens or parasites, or hypnotised, except here they're definitely dead and zombie. Like I said, I don't think zombies have ever been fully defined like this before; it's the traditional voodoo zombie tall drink with an extra large sci-fi wedge to the side.

Oh, and while I don't want to give it all a way, and this is a bit of a spoiler, I'll add he's also master of make-up and cosmetic recovery the like of which I've never seen, with the ability to hide the most heinous wounds or damage perfectly. All of this is a bit over engineered and you do come a way from the film rubbing your chin, but it mostly holds together and it does help retain the films generally cohesive single narrative structure.

The death scenes in Dead & Buried are brutal and graphic and earned it the 'video nasty' moniker and ban in the UK back in the early 80's. They in many ways remind me, in style, of the deaths in Fulci's films with that over-staged feel though they're never quite as long or extreme. Like all effects of the time when put up against today's they look quite tame and clearly artificial but they are sadistic and imaginative enough to evoke a feeling of unease. Shocks aren't really what the film is about though and it's the atmosphere, tension and confusion that really drives the fear.

This is a horror film first and foremost with the possessed townsfolk coming across more Invasion of the Body Snatchers than Night of the Living Dead, but dead and reanimated they are, so it holds a rightful place on a zombie blog. It is also, if I'm honest, all a bit too convoluted with an ending that tries a little too hard to tie up all the ambiguous narrative threads, leaving as many questions as it answers. Still, in a medium and genre filled with deliberate ambiguity to avoid making these kind of mistakes, and over simplified narrative it was refreshing to watch something so plot heavy that didn't hold back.

Dead & Buried is a fascinating film genuinely offering something different. I thought the narrative was highly original and strong, I though the characters were interesting and the direction oozed atmosphere and suspense from start to finish. With a first rate cast, including Jack Albertson in his last film role, as the coroner/ mortician William G. Dobbs, and many other well known faces with the great acting all round it was a nice surprise, 8/10

Steven@WTD.

King of the Zombies - review

 

1941 (USA)

2010 included on Ultimate Horror Classics SD Blu-ray R(All)

Contains spoilers.

Now this is why I'm doing this. How else would I have firstly come across then secondly chosen to watch and actually appreciate such an old world black and white gem.

It's World War 2 and pilot James "Mac" McCarthy (Dick Purcell), passenger  Bill Summers (John Archer) and his black manservant Jefferson "Jeff" Jackson (Mantan Moreland) off course and running low on fuel crash land on a small Caribbean island guided by a faint radio signal. Here they take refuge in nearby mansion owned by a refuge Austrian Dr. Miklos Sangre (Henry Victor, but originally penned for  Béla Lugosi) who tells them they will have to remain his guests for several weeks before the next supply ship arrives.

Forced to sleep and eat with the other servants the hilarious star of the film Jeff sits to eat and is informed quite openly by the other servants that many zombies also work and live at the mansion. Unnerved by this but trying not to make much fuss he settles down to sleep only to be approached by two. Thus begins a genuinely funny back and forward between him and his employer and pilot. He knows what he's seen and they know he can't of. I really can't emphasise how good Mantan Moreland is at playing this role with quick perfectly timed one-liners and perfect interplay with the straight men.

All the while Dr. Sangre in his secret underground caves is preparing a rite of transmigration to extract important war information from a previous crash victim, an Admiral Arthur Wainwright by transferring his thoughts through the Doctors hypnotised wife.

It's daft stuff but it knows it with each actor whether playing the US jock pilot or colonial have-a-brandy-stay-calm gent all hamming it up from start to end.  While the characters are all complete colonial racial stereotypes, and wouldn't be tolerated today, it is very much a product of its time and playing up these roles is an integral part of the comedy. Beyond this I'd even argue that if anything its all quietly subversive as it's Jeff that really solves the mystery and provides all the entertainment while the two white men stumble about clueless. There's even the symbolism inherent in having one of these white guys turn into a zombie taking his place alongside and equal to the black undead.

It's the 1940s and way before Romero so the word zombie still comes with drums and voodoo attached. Very much under the control of their master the zombies in King of the Zombies are the recently deceased, dug up and reanimated by magic. They stare blindly ahead and shuffle around doing their masters bidding very much like in White Zombie or The Plague of the Zombies. We learn they respond to a clap and require food as if implying reanimation is exactly that, back alive but without the mind or soul. In a hilarious scene with Jeff hypnotised into believing he one of the zombies he complains about the lack of salt in the food. Samantha, the Maid (Marguerite Whitten) who has taken a bit of a shine to Jeff tells him not only shouldn't he be talking if he's a zombie, but eating salt is bad for zombies, re-killing them and if he was a zombie he wouldn't have a reflection in a mirror. Interesting stuff...

It's quirky and silly with few sets and awkward conversation but far and away, not only one of my favourite old zombie films but perhaps one of my favourite to date and I'm actually already keen to watch it again. I believe it also has some part to play in the zombie story too despite never seeing it really referenced. In the big finale Mac, now a zombie definitely raises his arms as he goes for Dr. Sangre. I heard the phrases 'living dead', 'she lives but walks in the land of those beyond', 'zombiefied' and even 'dezombified' and I can't recall hearing them before. A very easily loveable black-comedy, 8/10.

Steven@WTD.

The Plague of the Zombies - review

1966 (UK)

2012 Studio Canal Hammer Blu-ray R(B/2)

Contains spoilers.

When I started to put a list together of those films and TV series that had most helped frame and influence the zombie tradition I came to realise there was actually quite a commonly held well defined lineage. White Zombie from 1932 with its Haitian voodoo was flawed and hammy but every good thing has to start somewhere. Matheson with the I Am Legend and The Last Man on Earth brought us vampires/zombies and helped define their behaviour with the whiff of infection and apocalypse all without magic. And then we always jump to 1968 and Romero with Night of the Living Dead which is where it all really took off. Or are we missing something?

Well a couple of years before this, Hammer Horror, a little UK niche horror studio brought out The Plague of Zombies and now having seen it I'm firmly of the belief it deserves a lot more kudos and acknowledgement in this origin story than it currently gets.

It's 1860 and Sir James Forbes (André Morell) with his daughter Sylvia Forbes (Diane Clare) have responded to a letter for help from his old understudy Dr. Peter Tompson (Brook Williams). Tompson writes that he is struggling to understand the large series of maladies and deaths that is plaguing his local Cornish parish and could Sir James offer some assistance. Arriving at the doctors house they find Alice (Jacqueline Pearce), the doctors wife acting preoccupied and listless, and a Doctor not only taking the blame for the parishioners' deaths but hand-tied in not being able to do autopsies to find the reason by the local magistrate and lord of the manor Squire Clive Hamilton (John Carson). Also, I'm not Columbo and I don't think I'll be spoiling anything but early signs point to Squire Clive  being the nefarious villain and cause of the problems, due mainly to the very obvious low-key menacing scooby-doo music that starts the moment he makes an appearance.

Not one to be told what to do Sir James starts throwing his title around. He investigates the burials, discovers missing bodies, hears witness accounts of the dead wandering the moors, and we soon come to share his realisation that the dead are afoot causing mischief. Ok, we're back to a time where zombie was synonymous with voodoo and magic and it's all White Zombie but even I wasn't prepared for just how zombie with a capital Z the undead would actually be.

Other than an early fleeting glimpse, it is the reanimation in all its glory of Alice herself, some forty or so minutes in and subsequent dream of Dr. Tompson, that brings zombies while not kicking and screaming, more shuffling and groaning, to the foreground of the film, and the scenes cement the films position as an important player in establishing iconic zombie lore. It's powerful and dramatic, tense and brilliantly paced. At first you're looking down at a deceased loving wife, then slowly her skin pales and ages, you hold your breath, waiting, then two piercing white eyes shoot open, dead and devoid of the soul they once housed. Imitated a thousand times this scene is now a zombie staple, a horror trope. Alice is gone and as Sir James cries out 'it's a zombie' you understand you're witnessing a genre taking creating its identity. Then out she crawls, as clear as day, the Romero zombie, but before and without Romero, climbing out of the dirt, cold and dead; then upright shuffling, with arms stretching out towards the living, and there's even a pale blue tint to her skin. It's good, nay, great stuff and unflinching, our survivor, Sir James deals with Alice the only way one should; he attacks her head, removing it with a spade.

The Plague of the Zombies is a cracking little film full of atmosphere and drama. I've always enjoyed a good Hammer Horror film though I'd never taken them that seriously but this ranks as one of its finest. The story never wanders off and remains tight and coherent. It's well acted and well directed and the action and effects are actually very solid.

You're never going to get visceral gory effects and hyper realistic make-up in a film that's half a century old but even so, the zombies are a made up a lot darker and more gruesome than I expected and dare I say even Romero's, reminding me more of Fulci's efforts which came a decade or so later. Also it's not as brave or contemporary as Night of the Living Dead, firmly entrenched in the idea of the traditional horror film narrative, echoing, not challenging prevalent class structure and misogyny, but then again it's a film set in the mid 19th Century in rural England. One aso can't ignore the elephant in the room; like White Zombie it takes the idea of the voodoo master, of magic and mind control learnt in the 'dark continents', of raising the dead to use as servants, and of ensnaring young pretty girls, and it's all far flung from Romero's apocalyptic global vision but there's room for both.

Ok, I'll say it. The Plague of the Zombies is one of the pivotal films in establishing  zombie canon. It might have all been done before but never quite with such panache pulling it all together in a brilliant narrative with iconic scenes. Regardless of all this I still think its a really good zombie film and it has everything you want; suspense, drama, good characters, good acting, deaths and turning; I really enjoyed it. And finally, maybe, just maybe it could be argued that it's maybe just as important as Night of the Living Dead, maybe, 8/10.

Steven@WTD.