Classic Zombie Trailer - The Beyond
The Blue Underground 2-Disc Special Edition of The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue, comes out today! This was released last year from Blue Underground under the title Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, with the same extra features that are on this version’s Disc 1, but didn’t include these new features on this edition’s Disc 2:
Disc 1 Extras:
International Trailer
U.S. Trailer
TV Spot
Radio Spots
Poster & Still Gallery
Disc 2 Extras:
Back to the Morgue – Interview with Director Jorge Grau
Zombie Fighter – Interview with Star Ray Lovelock
Zombie Maker – Interview with Special Effects Artist Giannetto De Rossi
2000 Interview with Director Jorge Grau
It’s also been fully restored with a new high-def transfer. Aside from Let Sleeping Corpses Lie and Zombi 3, this film has a history of having multiple, multiple titles, including my favorites Breakfast at the Manchester Morgue and Don’t Open the Window. The breakfast title is horribly funny, and do I even need to explain the humor that lies within the DON’T! title?
When I started doing reviews for the ZRC, I printed out our Zombie Movie List and began renting. Now and again I’d run into a film that was debatable whether it was actually a zombie movie or not. I’d call Nate and invariably the question “where do you draw the line?” would come up. We at the ZRC would like to bring that debate to you, our readers. Where do we draw the line on what is and what is not a zombie movie? Every Monday we’ll post a new movie to be debated by our readers and ask the question: Zombie Movie Or Not? Every Sunday we’ll post our findings and possibly strike that movie off our Zombie Movie List. The week should give you enough time to rent the movie if need be or if you desire.
What every reader must keep in mind is that there are two basic types of zombie that every zombie movie based off of - the Voodoo Zombie and the Romero Zombie. The Voodoo zombie, while not always raised by Voodoo necessarily, is basically a person, either undead or entranced, that is controlled by a person or entity for the purpose of completing tasks, often killing. Romero Zombies are basically mindless, flesh-eating undead whose bite will turn victims into zombies. Now, not all movies adhere to all of these rules, but if the basics are there, you got a zombie movie.
For the first week I figured we’d start with an easy one to get people in the mood: Frankenstein. There have been many movie adaptations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and I don’t see why we can’t be talking about all of them right here.
IS: Frankenstein’s monster is an automaton raised form the dead to do Dr. Frankenstein’s bidding, like a Voodoo Zombie. While not a flesh eating zombie, he’s still a killer and falls just inside the realm of zombiedom.
IS NOT: Frankenstein’s monster is raised from the dead after being spliced together from parts of other human beings. While raised form the dead, he’s hardly undead as he is still mortal in every way.
Now it’s up to you, reader. What do you think? Frankenstein: Zombie Movie Or Not?
Don’t forget to enter our February Contest!
The deadline for posting your Zombie Plan is TODAY at Midnight (EST)!
To enter, post your zombie plan here.
You could be the winner of Book of the Dead: The Complete History of Zombie Cinema!
LAST DAY TO ENTER!
This sequel to House of the Dead is actually better than the first one, but that’s not hard to do. The movie begins on the campus of Guesta Verde University where Professor Curien (Sid Haig) is trying to bring the dead back to life. He is subsequently bitten by his risen dead and turned into a flesh hungry zombie. So begins the zombie outbreak. This movie follows a couple of AMS (whatever that stands for) agents as they try to find the source of the zombie outbreak, the first generation zombie, so they can vaccinate the rest of humanity against a global outbreak. The agents are escorted by a group of marines some of which have more balls than brains and they’re not always reasonable, at least in the common sense. One by one the marines fall victim to the walking dead college students as the clock ticks, counting down till the whole campus is carpet bombed to contain the infection.
For the most part, this movie covers pretty well-worn territory. The new tricks they pull have been pulled before and done better. The marines are surprised by the zombies’ shambling through their usual routines as if they’re still alive (while I wasn’t since I’ve seen Dawn Of The Dead) even one that appears to be studying in the library while listening to headphones. In another scene, one of the agents gets the bright idea to smear guts all over himself so the zombies can’t smell him. I personally thought that was a good idea when I saw it in the Walking Dead comic book.
Here’s one thing that pissed me off about that scene. The two agents and the only living marine corner themselves in a room from which the only other retreat is through an air duct. The agent examines it and says something to the effect of “This can’t be open from this side”. It’s lousy air vent. The man has a gun, a big one at that. While he could blast the thing or at least use the gun to pry it off (it’s not like he’s trying to be sneaky), instead he comes up with a the plan to cover himself in zombie guts, walk around to the other side to open the vent cover so his two companions can squeeze through. Why don’t they all get covered in guts and walk wherever the fuck they want to? Nope. So, the guy, covered in guts, walks past the dead folks, around to the other side and opens the vent on the other side of the shaft. Not the vent he couldn’t open on the other side, the one at the end of the air duct that leads to the one he couldn’t open. He never even goes into the air duct to get to the other one. Ridiculous. But, this was the only thing that really pissed me off about this movie.
Somehow, Ellie Cornell reprises her role as Jordan Casper, despite dying in the first House Of The Dead movie. If I were trying to get a “No-Prize” back in the day from Marvel, I’d say she had survived as a zombie, but I’m not and that’s just stupid.
The zombies in the movie look pretty good. They’re done by the Almost Human Special Makeup FX company. I’ve seen two other movies that they worked on, All Souls Day and Gangs Of The Dead, I thought both had pretty terrible zombies in them, so I was surprised that I liked the ones in House of the Dead 2 after seeing them in the credits.
Despite it’s unoriginality and cliched everything, it’s an enjoyable watch if you’ve got the time to waste. It definitely had it’s funny moments and cool splattery gore moments too. Pick it up on the cheap if possible.
Kung Fu Zombies (1981) aka Kung Fu Zombie, Woo lung tin bye chiu chik gwai, Wu long tian shi zhao ji gui
Don’t forget to enter our February Contest! The deadline for posting your Zombie Plan is Sunday February 24th at Midnight (EST)! THAT’S TOMORROW! To enter, post your zombie plan here. You could be the winner of Book of the Dead: The Complete History of Zombie Cinema!
Edges Of Darkness, a new low-budget zombie flick, is finally done, so says their MySpace page. The page describes the movie as this:
“Edges of Darkness tells the tales of three groups of survivors holed up in an apartment complex during a zombie apocalypse. With their food supply dwindling, a vampire couple kidnaps a young girl. They intend to bleed her slowly to survive. Of course things don’t go exactly has planned. Dean, an obsessed horror writer is holed up with his neglected wife, Dana. Dean keeps his sanity by burying himself in his writing. He installs a new processor to run his computer on their limited generator power, but soon finds out there’s a high price to pay. Heather, a survival nut, rescues a young mother and her son from a horde of zombies. She takes them back to the complex. However, she soon discovers the mother and son are on the run from a group of renegade priests hell bent on destroying the boy.”
Still, there’s no release date for Edges Of Darkness, but you can check out trailers for the movie on their Official Website, plus there’s a stills gallery for your perusal pleasure.
Doctor Butcher M.D. (1980) aka Zombie Holocaust, Island of the Last Zombies, Queen of the Cannibals, Medical Deviate, Zombi Holocaust, Zombies unter kannibalen, La Regina dei cannibali, Zombie 3
Comments(1)
