Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979) - Horror Film Review

Of course, I own the classic Lucio Fulci (Demonia, The Beyond) zombie horror film Zombie Flesh Eaters (also known as Zombie and Zombi 2). It was one of the earlier films I picked up on DVD, so was surprised to see I hadn't ever reviewed it on this site. With the release of a new 4K version on streaming service ARROW, I figured it was about time I revisit this.

An apparently deserted yacht appears in the New York bay area and two police men are sent to investigate. They discover a strange blood soaked man who attacks and kills one of the officers before his partner ends him. The boat belonged to the doctor uncle of Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow), someone who she lost contact with three months previous, so she wants to trace where the vessel came from so she can try and locate her uncle. Meanwhile, Peter West (Ian McCulloch - Zombie Holocaust) is a reporter who conveniently enough has been assigned a story on where the boat came from. The two end up meeting up and hiring a boating couple; Brian (Al Cliver - Demonia) and Susan (Auretta Gay). Together they head toward where they believe the boat originated from, an island that the locals see as a cursed place. Eventually arriving there, the group meet Dr. Menard (Richard Johnson), someone who is trying to survive and understand a disease that turns anyone affected into the walking dead.

Initially I was a little underwhelmed with this. In my head, I had been thinking this was Zombie Creeping Flesh, a film that I have fond memories of. Alas, it wasn't that, but it also meant that lots of this was film I had forgotten about. Some parts had stayed with me, the shark versus zombie battle, and especially one very gory scene involving a giant wooden splinter getting impaled through someone's eyeball! I hadn't recalled how relatively slow the film was, with zombies not appearing in force until the final act. I liked this drip feed of undead goodness, with the undead initially shown mainly under sheets. The last twenty minutes is where it really is at, a great siege sequence featuring plenty of ghouls. The make-up for these creatures is make-do at best, a repeated use of effects that kind of look like people have had paper Mache added to their faces, so that they can look suitably rotted, and able to house real worms and maggots. These corpses are able to effortlessly rip victims apart, at least the violence on the victims looked great, lots of spraying blood and torn flesh.

The story is straight forward, but was a classic tale. I loved that the outbreak was already going on by the time the protagonists had arrived. I thought Dr. Menard and his assistant (Stefania D'Amario) were great characters, in over their heads, but a ghoulish curiosity keeping them in the thick of the unfolding chaos. I also appreciated there wasn't ever an explanation for how the outbreak began, locals putting it down to Voodoo, but the doctor convinced it is some sort of natural creation. The island setting gave a bit of a Heart of Darkness vibe to the story, and the simple plot meant it was always easy to understand the motivations of the various characters.

Zombie Flesh Eaters is a classic of the genre, and is yet another statement that to make a good horror featuring the undead you don't need the best make-up effects, less is typically more. This sometimes doesn't have the scope to be able to sell the story beats it is trying to sell, and the dubbing is amusingly terrible at best, but this has a diverse soundtrack and some classic moments of zombie horror. The 4K version of Zombie Flesh Eaters arrives on ARROW on 28th July, and is the best way to currently see this flawed yet undeniable classic.

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Mad Max (1979) - Apocalyptic Film Review

The post-apocalypse genre is a close cousin to horror, and so I am always happy to cover it on my blog. One of the greatest post-apocalyptic film franchises is Mad Max, a film which began in 1979 with a movie that I would more call 'apocalyptic' rather than 'post'. It was the subsequent sequels that more fit that moniker. I've always enjoyed the series, and it was due to my father that I am here writing a review of the original film. While on holiday in Australia recently, he visited the outback location where Mad Max: Road Warrior was filmed, and so I ended up getting him a Blu-ray boxset of the films for Christmas.

Mad Max takes place in an Australia that is on the brink of complete societal collapse, due to drastic worldwide fuel shortages. The police have been forced to adapt to this new world of roving gangs and increased crime, and so they all drive around in souped up muscle cars, with the old laws and rules only loosely followed. Max (Mel Gibson - Lethal Weapon series, Braveheart) is a cop, and after causing the death of a man calling himself 'The Nightrider', who had stolen a police car, he gets the attention of a psychotic biker gang, led by a man named Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne - Mad Max: Fury Road). Toecutter vows revenge on Max, and more by coincidence than planning, the gang begin to destroy everything that Max holds dear.

Mad Max is a film that teeters on the edge of being pure B-movie pulp, yet manages to stand slightly above that. There is a cartoony feel to the world that makes characters seem larger than life. Out of all the films, this was the one where some semblance of the normal world still existed, something that is alluded to in the iconic intro test that simply states 'A few years from now...'. I like how the unfolding apocalypse is never implicitly stated, with later entries adding in the suggestion that the world's oceans have also started drying up, explaining why everything later becomes desert. This is also a film very much of its time, the civilian population, in particular the younger characters have a hippy vibe to them, with their brightly painted vehicles.

Much of the movie takes place on the road, and features various vehicle chases, even opening on a thrilling police chase. Events sprint around from place to place, with story beats often rushed over in the race to the next action scene. I loved some of the more downbeat moments, for me my favourite scenes took place within the chaotic Halls of Justice. Here, the police are shown to be as obsessed with cars just as much as the criminals are. With the addiction characters have to driving it is no wonder that by the time of Fury Road this addiction has become transformed into a religion. 

There are plenty of violent moments throughout the film, but it is less gory than I remember. There are implied rape scenes, brutal kills, but a lot of this takes place between scenes, or occurs off camera. What I did love were the two moments where people get hit by vehicles, and mixed in with their death is a close up image of eyeballs literally popping out of the victim's head in surprise, it just adds to the comic book feel. The plot is a typical one of revenge, but remained entertaining, all the way up to the iconic ending where Max offers the final biker a hard choice.

Despite the chequered future that star Mel Gibson went on to have, Mad Max remains a pure classic apocalyptic action movie. It may be different in feel to the more wild later entries, but it has a wonderful and crazy vibe, the sometimes rushed feel to the way the story is told only adds to its charms.

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The Brood (1979) - Horror Film Review

The Brood is one of those iconic classic horror films that I have never gotten around to watching. Written and directed by David Cronenberg (The Fly, Scanners) it features some of his concepts he is well known for, in this case body horror. While rough around the edges, this stood out due to its pint sized killers.

After Frank (Art Hindle - The Void) discovers bruises on his young daughter's back (Candice played by Cindy Hinds - The Dead Zone) he becomes determined that she isn't to visit her mentally ill mother, Nola (Samantha Eggar - Hercules animated film) any more. Nola is a patient of Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed - Oliver!, Gladiator) whose controversial scientific methods has resulted in the ability for his patients mental illness to physically appear on their bodies as unnatural growths. With Nola he has achieved something unexpected when her paranoia and anger results in the arrival of deformed and evil children, who kill anyone who Nola believes to be a threat to her happiness.

Having known so much about this movie before watching it I really cannot tell if it is actually a twist that the deformed killers here come from Nola. I haven't included a spoiler warning as I felt that it was apparent, the first murder sequence is intercut with scenes of Nola in therapy with Dr. Hal, talking about how much she hates her mother, of course it is her mother who becomes the first victim. In my head I had gotten parts of this mixed up with The Changeling and so kept expecting moments that never came. For much of this I was wondering where the typical Cronenberg style horror had gone to. The psychological horror is here throughout, and by the end some of his body-horror has appeared, in a notable scene involving Nola. The effects were pretty good when it comes to the look of the mutant child and for the growths. The murders themselves at first glance might not seem as effective. The fact that the murderer is a child though makes these scenes more disturbing, especially one that takes place in front of a classroom full of young children!

Alien (1979) - Horror Film Review (2003 Director's Cut)

The Alien series of films have for whatever reason never really set my world alight. The other day I had the strongest urge to check them out once again and so rather than dig out my VHS tapes I bought a Blu-ray box set of the first four films. Before yesterday I had only seen Ridley Scott's Alien all the way through the once, and that was around twenty years ago, so I was interested to see what I would think of it now. I will add that it is the 2003 director's cut version of the film which removed five minutes of original footage and replaced it with four minutes of additional that wasn't in the original theatrical cut.

The crew of a space travelling merchant vessel that is on its way to Earth (that include among them Sigourney Weaver as Ripley) get awoken from cryosleep ten months early due to the discovery of a distress call from a moon their ship is passing near to. Protocol says they are to investigate the signal before they can continue their journey. The crew discover an ancient spaceship, and within it a whole load of giant eggs. From one of these eggs an alien creature bursts out and attaches itself to one of the crew members, the victim is taken back to the main ship where events happen and soon a huge seemingly unkillable alien creature is on a murderous rampage.

I at first thought that this seemed to be a little slow paced, but then I had to remind myself that one of my favourite horrors Halloween can also be seen as slow in the modern era. This is a masterclass at keeping the titular foe barely glimpsed throughout, indeed in around two hours the xenomorph gets just four minutes of screen time in total. I remember as a teen thinking the creature looked like a man in a suit, which it is, and to my mind it still looks like a man in a suit on the few occasions you see it properly. Usually you just get glimpses of it, all that are quite iconic images today, such as the tail wrapping itself around the legs of a victim, or the close up shot of its head with the second mouth coming out of the first. This is great creature design, and in general the film as a whole is very well designed.

Phantasm (1979) - Horror Film Review

Back when I was still getting properly into the horror genre my parents brought me a DVD that contained clips from various horror franchises such as Friday 13th, Leprechaun and Candy Man. It was the clip from Phantasm which really stuck with me though, the scene featuring the iconic sphere. I have been meaning to re-watch the series for a while now as I have never seen 5th installment that came out in 2016, so today on a week off of work I decided to head back into the surreal world of The Tall Man.

13 year old Mike (A. Michael Baldwin) has snuck into the Morningside funeral home to see the funeral of Tommy; a friend of his older brother Jody (Bill Thornbury) who recently was found dead in strange circumstances. Once everyone has left he is surprised to see the funeral director (Angus Scrimm) single handedly placing Tommy's coffin back in the hearse and driving off. Mike idolises Jody who looks after the boy since their parents died a few years previously and so follows him everywhere. One night while following him to the cemetery Mike gets attacked by a hooded dwarf which further cements the idea that something very wrong is going on at the funeral home. Soon Jody and his friend Reggie (Reggie Bannister) also figure something strange is happening, their investigations leads to the discovery of an army of evil zombie dwarfs, deadly floating spheres, and the terrifying reality bending powers of the otherworldly Tall Man...

I haven't seen this movie in quite some time, at least ten years and so I was slightly concerned that this wouldn't match the fond memories I had of it. Thankfully this even surpassed my expectations, there is no doubt in my mind that this is a stone cold classic - they really don't make them like this anymore! There is a strong sense of a nightmare about this, a lot of stuff doesn't make much sense, while characters die only to show up fine later on and vice versa. Then there are the many iconic dream sequences, the use of slow motion and exaggerated sound effects, and iconic shots that make so much of this memorable.  I just love how many different elements are going on here to always keep you glued to the screen, and how nothing is really explained in terms of what is happening and why.