Let Sleeping Corpses Lie
Introduction
Introduction
Thoughts going into it? Well, I still haven’t gotten my “Rocketship” recycler pipe from Smoke Cartel yet, but I *did* receive a diagnosis of an extremely anti-social nature the day before yesterday, so I guess that makes us even. Here I thought that I was a little defenseless rabbit baby, cowering in the tall grass while life passed me by, but do a couple word-association games with a doctor in a room set up for a podcast and suddenly I’m wearing the “Anti-social personality disorder” trademark logo around my neck.
This shit’s heavier than Mr. T’s gold. I pity the fool who fucks with me ‘cause I’m the kinda guy who can’t actually pity a person, since I’d rather be manipulating them since I have a personality disorder. What do I say to people at parties when they ask what I do? I mean, now, at least, I can say I’m a struggling writer, because believe me, the struggle is real, but how do I explain the particularly pathetic nature of my existence of spending long hours trying to decide on if I should go to the grocery store or gym first, even though I’m not getting any perishables and I have plenty of time to do both together or even separately if I wanted to.
But having the options isn’t the same thing as being able to pick one. And somehow, this is anti-social of me. I definitely can understand the various times in my life when I’ve been anti-social anti-social. Like, Anti-Social. A limousine paid with it’s rear windshield in one of my finest moments. Waste of a full beer though.
But it’s been decades since I crashed anyone’s limo, or limo-party, yet instead of moving towards anything, I’ve spun donuts in quicksand screaming WOOOO and now I just got told that I’m not actually *capable* of any other real contributions to society. I know that I’m not being held back by anyone but myself, and I know that all I need to do is to the things, so I need it known that I’m doing all this bitching out of the side of my mouth for yuks, but that doesn’t completely invalidate the feeling that I just looked out into the horizon and saw happiness, but then a sign pointing out that I can’t get there from here.
What the fuck do I need to do? Hitch a ride with flying monkeys? There’s no pill you can take for a personality disorder. This is like being sociopathic or narcissistic, probably a whole slew of other Dexter-ish personality traits apply. Yet it’s something in my wiring, it’s not just “being an asshole”. Like, I take things that shouldn’t be taken personally personally, and I sort of wander through life looking for a fight with someone I feel morally superior to. It used to be funny to feel this way, now I feel trapped in that I don’t know that I’m capable of feeling anything else.
This is like a super-villain origins story, except I’m far too paunchy, broken down, and bald for this to be an origins story. This is like chapter 8 “The chapter in which Harry learns that he’s actually got a fatally toxic personality disorder and as such will never feel the warmth of pure, unfettered joy.” Oh, and the Owl’s developed a nasty gambling and syphilis habit and the cute forehead scar has begun growing a hard, protruding patch of what feels like thumbnail yet has no nerve sensations whatsoever.
Yes, things could get better. How? I’m not exactly sure. My wife and I have a loose plan around prioritizing the time that I feel the closest thing to Joy, which is the contentment I feel after a long day of being out and about in the woods or desert and we’re cuddling down for the night. So, I do have that to look forward to.
I swear, I need to get the Jeep sorted out so we can go back to the dunes and sleep out some more. There’s your pretty obvious snapshot for the moment. I’m unpleased with my recent diagnosis since it pretty much hangs an “Asshole” placard around my neck that I feel obliged to keep on.
I’m getting another cup of coffee. The way I’m gonna look at it is this; I’m learning I’m kinda a fucking weirdo basket case with unflattering titles and maybe that’s the reason that no amount of higher learning could help me fit into a cubicle existence, but maybe I’m good at a couple things and I need to just live a small, quiet life while I work on those few things until I’m good enough at them to not be held back by the person I am, or rather, the personality disorder which is I.
So anyway, I’m sitting here feeling kinda mope-ish, but also feeling good and worn out, since I went to the gym today. If I’m a fucking ape with limited tricks and a short temper, if I can just work out and write each day, I’ll have a better life in any sort of professional or career sense than I’ve ever had before. At least I doubt I’ll end up firing myself.
But yeah, today and the past couple days been a bit rough, so after looking at a whole buttload of modern offerings- primarily crap from The Asylum or 3 star “Damn near a home movie” Amazon bullshit, I found myself wandering back to something I set in my que past a year ago. Let Sleeping Corpses Lie. “Two travelling companions, George and Edna, come across a small town infested with the “Living dead” that are satisfying their cannibalistic hunger on anyone they come across. Discovering that an agricultural machine using radiation waves is at the root of all the havoc, they are pursued by a relentless detective who is convinced they are responsible foe the ghoulish acts of violence.” This also appears to be called “The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue”.
George and Edna, huh? I hope I don’t have trouble telling them apart. Radiation? Cannibalistic agriculture? Relentless detective? I’m sorry, but I gotta spend a second grooving on “Watching the Detectives” by Elvis Costello; that’s just one of the best songs recorded.
But this one is relentless? And, from the sounds of it, wrong? Like, it sounds like the relentless detective thinks that George and Edna are doing all the killing? Pretty stupid detective if that’s the case. The picture I have to go on is, like, a blonde Peter Dinklage reaching, er…. Up…. To strangle me.
I think I see GG Allin in the background, there’s some crypts and shit, and then a full moon with what looks like a woman undergoing dental surgery superimposed over it? It’s a pretty busy yet senseless cover. I’m gonna be honest. I’m looking forward to some 70’s zombies. One of the big draws for me is that usually, 70’s zombies are stumbling “Braiins” zombies. And that’s what I’m in the mood for.
I am NOT feeling like watching some film student’s re-interpretation of The Serpent and The Rainbow shot entirely in their neighborhood using family friends as extras and Heinz Catsup for blood. This is rated R, 1975, 4.5 stars. That’s right. R rated back when it used to mean something (bad special effects and a probable shower scene) and 4.5 stars with 133 reviews.
I gotta say. I’m feeling like settling back for some War-ass LowRider Cheech and Chong zombie shit. In other words, I’m gonna get so blasted I want to drool and forget to take notes. We gonna take a couple hits, listen to some tunes a second.
I hope this is two screaming people getting chased by moaning, hungry corpses for a straight hour and a half. I do not want convoluted. Can’t take convoluted. And not in the mood for cheeky, or original, either. Jesus, I’m an old curmudgeon. Anti-social, even.
Review Notes
Review Notes
Well, I was right about the breasts. Large and prominent. Unfortunately, also made of stone.
Nice little bobber motorcycle.
That makes… pigeon noises.
Did he steal the breast statue?
Did the oister take it? – I have no idea what I meant to write, but I’m keeping it. I like it. Oister.
Did the green circles…
I’m getting sleepy
He’s fucking ugly
I’m so sleepy.
This is basic and forward. They’re not shying away from the exhausts and dead birds of ques of the modern world. As it was, like, wait. Naked woman. I’m gonna rewind, but Jesus, this movie is 45 years old? Wow. Back to the naked woman. She’s currently paused on my screen. Umm. Pretty sure that’s not a man, baby…
So, he’s riding his motorcycle and a random intersection gets streaked by a woman giving a peace sign. Was this normal in the UK? What the fuck were the Sex Pistols so pissed off about again exactly??
They’re really focusing in on the crap we emit into the atmosphere.
Man, I miss riding. It’s a death sentence for me though. Anti-social.
Is a quid the same a pound?
Dude! He was stealing a beer and she backed over his bike! But he’s got the statue! And, like, a hoarders pile of other shit.
This guy is a dick, but I like his style.
“I’ll drive. I mean, it’s not like we want to go all the way in reverse, do we?”
Cute little mini.
Cigarettes are gross, but I like his style.
He’s George! She’s Edna! They have lovely accents!
Big white truck. Mortuary.
George is driving like an ass! And, well, not very nice to other people. I like his style.
So… she’s… giving him her car… in exchange for driving her to where she wants to go first.
Cars must be really cheap in the UK. Makes sense though. I mean, look how small that one is. Can’t charge a lot for a car so… small. So mini.
Nice closeup on a cemetery sign there…
Funky pulse sounds, too.
I like her delaying tactic of getting them lost.
I like the distrust in his style.
The Madison’s House.
When in doubt, stroll, smoke, and litter. I mean, come on. That’s really pushing it. I’m not sure.
George wanders into the shit-center of a shit-farm, and now there’s piercing loud mop-owies, Shit, that’s loud. I mean, I get that they mixed this back when you needed sheer horsepower to push the big cones, but now it translates into *shrill*- like, my dog just got up and left. And that was after I turned the shit way down.
Big red tractor thing, two goons in white suits, a…. umbrella UFO groundhog tracker?
It looks like the MST3K prop people put that together. Dude’s waving around a big antenna looking thing while they argue about pollution. George is holistic, these guys are using ultrasonic radiation. Is that a thing?
That’s a directions fail.
Menacing lights…
Menacing birds…
Menacing idyllic glen by the river…
Scuba sounds. Menacing ones.
AND WE HAVE ZOMBIE!! Not 15 minutes in, there’s some dude looks like he just crawled out of the canal!
He’s fucking scary! He’s perfect! Did they have those kind of contacts back then? Is the actor just that badly hung over?
He does a slow turn, the lurching approach… she hides in her car.
He can’t actually reach her- rigor mortis and all, but she decides to flee anyway!
And totally pulls a Shockwave Rider* into the river. Ok, story time. And I’m using a friend’s old BBS name ‘cause, well, pay attention and you’ll understand. In high school a bunch of us used to pile into a couple cars and head over into Vermont and up some dirt road, and then through a little water crossing, and then there was a field we’d camp and bonfire at. It was pretty isolated, not many people would want to drive their cars through the river. We’d done it a thousand times, we knew it only got 8 or 10 inches deep, and that the bed was like concrete, so we’d drive through, but this kind of guaranteed our privacy. Considering some of the stupid shit we did, thank God. But people sometimes would set up camp on the other side of the river, like, where you drove into the river to make the crossing we’d take to the private field. And this one night all we heard were drunken girls voices coming from way over there. From our field we could hear them. Like idiots, we filled our pockets with beers- Rolling Rock bottles, or something equally pathetic, and wandered down from the field and across (through) the river, and found a much larger group of kinda intimidating people who really didn’t need a handful of extra dudes around, even if we *had* brought our own beer. So after a couple we decide to head back to our camp, where people like us. We get to the river and my friend Shock has two beers left, both are open (I think he took one away from some annoying girl? For being “too drunk?”) and as we’re wading our way back through the river, he tries to sort of skip-step across a couple of the barely submerged big rocks, and of course he loses his footing and eats shit faceplant style, and of course he put both hands out to break his fall, and of course he didn’t manage to get rid of the beers in each hand before impact; so long story drawn out and long, he ends up smashing both bottles in his hands as he splashes down into the shallows. Gets back up bleeding red out of really wet hands, starts swearing, and begins stomp/squelching his way back to camp, all the while pulling off wet clothes and wrapping them around his hands. I believe I was following and laughing at the time. (Anti-social personality disorder) The complete end result was him sitting angrily by the fire in a pair of soaked tighty whitey underpants with a white t-shirt around one hand and his spare set of underwear (theoretically ones for tomorrow) around the other hand.
I feel bad for the glee I get telling that story. It’s not that my good friend hurt himself, it’s just… the everything. Maybe Anti-Social is laughing when you think it’s funny even if you know it’s not funny?
Anywhoo, she done ate shit off the easy-rocks and splashed-down like a shuttle capsule.
She’s very dry for someone who fell in the river.
And the zombie has disappeared.
So maybe it was the transient who committed suicide! So simple! He *was* prone to shaking down motorists for spare change!
Jesus. Out of coffee again. Got the typing going on! Barely constrained!
A creepy man and his creepy photos and drawings. She does not look happy.
Put the damn fire out!
A-ha! The chasing of the shutting door!
Wait- there’s actually a… pie… rationing?
Who is she? A prisoner? Where does he want to send her? “She scratches a letter into a wall made of stone, maybe someday another child won’t feel as alone as she does, it’s been two years- and counting- since they put her in this place! She’s been diagnosed by some stupid fuck! And Mommy agrees, yeah!” (Ok, maybe I’m not doing as well with this diagnosis as I thought)
I’m gonna call him purse-man.
I think he’s the photographer of the tormented woman.
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” Damn, George, I like your style!
Purse man has set up a camera in a… grotto? Where the fuck is he? Lilacs?
The unknown woman is back in the basement of crap. Doing things.
Lighting candles. Doing shots. Or… no? Adding MDMA to a shot of something. She’s got her rig out. Looks dirty as fuck.
Scary noises… water stains…
It’s the red-eyed hermit!
I like the way she calmly takes the time to smash out a window.
Escape! Nice grasping-hand clutch.
Martin! Martin!
Martin just got his ass handed to him by the zombie and she just watched! Thanks for the assist! Jesus, you’re useless!
Ok, the useless woman is Katie.
And the zombie doesn’t like bright lights.
“Can’t send anyone until teatime.”
So they’re holding George. A sulking George.
The police have worked the scene and stolen all the cameras.
“A man dressed in Black” I hung my head…
These are sisters. Hmm.
We have found the true use of a magnifying glass! To be creepy in an official capacity! That makes it ok!
She doesn’t remember a shit-ton of naked bathtub party photos? We may not want to own them, but they exist.
Little girl looks like a zombie sitting there!
The dumbest investigation in a long while… Heroin! Heroin! Heroin!
Interrupted by Droopy Dog.
This detective is a dick! Oh! I remember the blurb in the beginning. He thinks they did it!
I don’t think they can mandate you stay in hotels…
VLU 120G It’s love at first sight.
Craig!
“Do me a favor darling. Don’t try to be funny, alright?” Damn, George, I love your style!
“It won’t bite you, it’s trained.” Referring to an Owl. The cat is glitching. How fucked up is that that *I* was talking about owls earlier?! It means something. But really- how often do owls attack humans? Whoo? Whoo? You, motherfucker!! (Sounds of a stomping accompanied by much aggressive feather puffing and ruffling)
No, that’s much more of a little bunny foo-foo experience.
This is a respectable joint!
A message for “The people involved in the murder” ….
Conversations don’t work well through windows, assholes.
Southgate Hospital. Nice.
Wait… I hear the scuba zombie breathing sounds…
Buncha Maytag Repairmen.
A spooky metal and glass casket! This is some science fiction shit!
Oh, it’s time to pull another one.
This is the creepiest scientist ever!
But then again, if nurses are losing eyeballs…
George, you’re gorgeous, but you’re outta your league.
The fucking baby!! Blinded the woman?? WTF?? GROSS!!
HE BIT GEORGE! Does he have teeth?
Can George punch him in them?
I think there’s be a bidding war to be George’s shirt.
George is able to connect the dots! These aggressive babies might have something to do with the ant-driver-nutser.
Those technicians are not helpful.
Newborn children… nervous systems…
Oh! The photos are obscured by a flower! Katie just is a cameo!
“You’re all the same, the lot of you, with your long hair and faggot clothes. Drugs, sex, every sort of filth. And you hate the police, don’t you?”
“You make it easy!”
Ok… I’m a bit uncomfortable with HH throw-backs to the 3rd Reich. I mean, I understand where you’re coming from, George, and I like your style, but I gotta check and get back with you on if that’s an ok one. His bad was totally unforgivable though, but that doesn’t, like, maybe doesn’t excuse yours? If there’s actually anything wrong with yours? I’m not a good judge of these things. (Anti-social personality disorder)
Front page corpse photos! Right after they took him out of the water! See, that’s what we’re fucking missing today in this bullshit world. Nobody has any appreciation for anything because everything is constantly swaddled and coddled and filed down so no sharp edges offend anyone. Show the corpses! Bring out your dead!
That’s the 2nd time I’ve heard crunching from outdoors.
Just loaded the .38 and tucked it in the bookcase next to me. Too much caffeine. Feeling jumpy.
I don’t think she’s driven her vehicle since he crunched his bike.
Dag, that detective is a dick!
The cop must be distracted by the Theremin
We’re back at the cemetery!
“The dead don’t walk around. Except in very bad paperback novels!”
So, I just hit pause to pull some of the Dawgfather shatter that I can’t get enough of, and in the course of things, I got it all over my desk and a huge chunk in my mouth. Even *tastes* good! Literally!
She runs like she’s flapping her arms.
Evidently, bikes are not consecrated?
Overgrown tombstones and weeds and crows and fallen tombstones which unfortunately are not the same color as the standing ones.
Oh! Is this where Katie was shooting up?
No one home.
This is kinda like Scooby Doo if the gang was really small.
George, you don’t break into tombs full of caskets!
His casket! It’s empty!
There’s a dead guy in there.
It’s the dead guy.
He’s pretty unstoppable.
And he’s decent at hand to hand combat.
And he’s thoughtful.
He touch blood. He walk to other corpse.
He touch eyes with blood.
Quick! Up and out the rabbit hole!
It’s too small!
Ladder fight!
And yeah, the other corpses, they’re zombies now too.
Quickly get a grip on George!
Kathy, get out! But you’re still in a tiny pit!
Theremin cop has shown up and is talking into his Walkman.
George is still fighting in the tombs.
George has found his way out as well!
Oh, shit. That’s nothing to fuck with.
Corpse just picked up a cross tombstone and is about to swing it like a baseball bat!
Yup! Hide in the decrepit church!
The cop has two shots.. he grazes a head and sinks a chest shot-
Wet zombie looks positively insulted.
Shot zombie is getting back up.
And now that we’re stuck hiding in the basement of a church, George is able to, like, know… everything about… like, how this all happened.
So, yeah. It WAS the radiation all the while. Because, like, plants go on living for a while after you’ve picked them, and baby’s nervous systems, and bugs nervous systems, and the nervous systems of the dead, these all share the common characteristic of being a simple nervous system that can be affected by the radiation. And, like, it’s a virus that’s in the blood now, too.
Jesus, these guys are wrecking shit!
The cop makes a run for the radio! Respect the police, hippie!
And… no. A zombie threw a fucking gravestone and hit you in the back like a Buick falling off it’s Harbor Freight jack stands and you’re down. Zombies 1, cops 0.
Well, there’s a couple minutes of zombies feasting and it’s honestly better than any of Romero’s eating scenes.
Zombies no like fire.
Zombies… even drowned zombie… extra flammable.
So, that was lucky. George, you got lucky.
Fleeing the cemetery.
I’m curious. We still got almost half an hour, and I think most of the zombies are dead. Where are they going to go with this?
George is giving her her car back, and he’s gonna go fix that bloody machine!
And… more shoddy Nicholas Cage science and a failed stolen car later…
George is attacking the red machine and the science goons, who have increased the range to 5 miles! This drives George MAD!
Beoford? Is this a UK Van type? It’s so cute!
George, you’re making an ass out of yourself. Even if we are all in danger.
You could fight off a tweaker baboon with that radio.
This detective hates drugs. And he’s heard of Satanists.
“Oh, if I could only get me hands on them.” Yes, he actually says this. Tallest, angriest, cereal-not-having-est unluckiest fucking lucky charms that I ever did see.
It’s really foggy. I think there’s a corpse wandering around somewhere?
There’s a bloody hand still gripping the car door… it ends at the wrist. It’s really foggy..
I think she just got attacked by Melvin Zombie. He scratched the shit outta her!
But she got away! Only to crash cars! And looks like she got the worst of it. I guess that’s par for the course when you drive a mini.
He’s back! I’ll bite that hand!! And we drive off, losing him in the gravel.
Hey, remember that story I told about my drunken friend? Well, I got another one that I’ll tell someday that has the chapter “Roommate on the cupboard”. THAT was one hell of a party, there WAS one of those car-dragging-off-hanging-on-rolling-into-the-gutter events that led up to the screaming and wandering down to a floor tacky with dried roommate. I’ll never forget how my feet felt, sticking to the floor each time I went to lift them.
Shit! There’s a chase on! I forgot!
Nice! I wouldn’t have thought that a mini would have the clearance, but she done drove him over!
Hearing the broken zombie… drawing breath… is pretty disturbing.
Go Speed racer!
Park in that ditch!
Why the fuck would you stop now? Drive at least another hour!
Edna… words… are hard. A lot of squeaking.
I love the girl in the gas station.
“Water, not whiskey! She may not have any money!”
Ok, these hallucinations, while totally warranted, go over about as well as midnight mid-dream kung fu. People get startled and fragile shit gets broke. Knock it off or we won’t be able to have nice things.
Is that gonna be enough Kerosene? Wait…
Oh, snap! It’s a ruse, you big dumb idiot!
The detective is STILL not gonna listen, George! They’re gonna lock you up!
Do these guys LIVE in their machine? Or the van?
The machine is back on! Well done, Claude! Or Clyde!
Tell you what- the fucking machine sound hurts my ears. Badly.
That was the most realistic corpse dump I’ve ever seen.
You’re just not safe in a mortuary these days!
Did they have a 12 year old type up that statement? I wish I could see what the page actually says.
“You’re the ones who are crazy! Not me!” All I wanted was a Pepsi! Just one Pepsi! And she wouldn’t give it to me!
Hey now, there’s no need for violence. That detective is a DICK. Can’t wait for him to get his.
Lotsa disapproval going around.
Just a casual corpses feasting in the morgue kinda day.
WET TOWEL TO THE FACE!
And George is out the window!
I think he just stole a cop car, too.
Oh, the gas station girl… broken window.
Hospital. Insane! Leave the car! Run!
That’s about enough needle-squeamishness for the week. Not cool.
Classic miscommunication. And once again, it’s the petrol station that suffers.
Corpses… a bit of mutilation… a lot of mutilation… some more mutilation.
I like naked zombie and diaper & head-wound zombie. There’s realism there.
“Kate says… have you seen my wig around? I feel naked without it…”
So… she gets trapped in an elevator and strangled, and the doc rolls an 11 with a THAC0 of 18, loses his weapon, and then catches it back in the forehead. It was an axe, so this is considered a fatal blow. As for how Katie got strangled, it’s about the same as her sister with the wet zombie in the very beginning, where she was in the car and it was close to her but couldn’t actually get her, and she still ran- if Katie had huddled down in the corner AWAY from the zombies, they… never mind. Idjits.
Fucking drive it like you stole it, yeah?
Katie… attacking her sister with scissors…
If the restraints were that easy to get out of in the first place…
Oops! Moot point.
George to the rescue now that everyone is dead… Ish.
Makes an axe… I mean, a torch out of an axe…
Runs around tapping zombies (and the occasional window curtain) with his “Torch of incineration +8”. All zombies instantly burst into flames. I believe the hospital does too.
He tries to rescue Edna, but… she turns! And he shoves her back into the burning room!
He gets gunned down! The detective catches him slipping in the hallway!
“I wish the dead could come back to life, you bastard, because then I could kill you again.” It’s slightly degraded by the fact it sounds like he’s in the middle of the Saltines Challenge while speaking these lines.
Lotta press. Lotta balding heads.
“I’m mad about apples.”
The detective makes it back to his apartment, but… George- wait- Zombie George- is waiting for him, and strangles him.
One last burst of piercing sound and roll credits.
————End Transmission——————–
Plot Autopsy
Plot Autopsy
- Boy meets girl
- Girl meets zombie
- Boy quarrels with subsonic radiation ant-tormenters
- Zombie plays tomb-tag
- The characters are whittled down. And eaten.
- The sexiest man since George Michael’s “Sex” video gets zombified
Zombie Description
Zombie Description
So, these zombies *started* as sonic radiation zombies whose nervous systems resemble bugs and babies so thus when the ants are being driven mad these dead corpses get up and get aggressive; but then it’s like, in the blood, so a zombie just has to touch another corpse ritualistically on the eyes, or scratch a person, or have been killed by a zombie, to turn into a zombie. Look. Sonic Radiation for the FIRST zombie, the soggy suicide, but then its pretty traditional zombies turning or coming back from the dead. These zombies in particular really hate fire, but that’s because even if they drown to death, or are butt ass naked, they burst into flame the minute a warm draft is played over them. These are motherfucking incendiary zombies, and it’s kinda like a BS out. But! These zombies are also alive babies, ripping out eyes, like I said, and I’m pretty sure I heard the words virus and blood at least once. And then there’s a whole question of sentience, ‘cause the zombies trying to break into the church sure understood things like leverage and kinetic energy, but they were also strong as hell, waving tomb stones around and heaving them at people. And then at the end? I’m pretty sure Human George got shot in the head once, yet he still comes back to life and somehow sneaks into the detective’s place to murder him? So I gotta say- these zombies were fucking awesome. Even if the logic behind them was all over the place. The zombies themselves were 10’s. 9.5’s if we have to quibble about advances in make up and whatnot. But these dudes are the real thing. The head-wound and diaper baby, the nekkid guy… I’m not listing off what I thought was best, but I’m fulfilled by the realism of it. These zombies really like strangling you, but they’ll also Donkey Kong your ass with a tombstone or attack you with scissors. Oh- and they’re teamwork zombies.
Where the money went
Where the money went
Hell, even spread out over everything and covered all the bases nicely. This is a bigger movie, from a time when everything was bigger. Cars were bigger, Chuck Norris was bigger, America was bigger, lapels were bigger. Minis… were smaller. But mostly everything else was bigger. Since cameras were so scarce, ‘cause the digital camera trees were still being invented, if they were gonna waste film on something it was actual film, and not just a metaphor. So back then, they cared about shit and didn’t try to use CGI and video-game HUDS to tell the story- they had people run around in poorly lit fog whispering each other’s name until one of them turns the corner and finds the zombie feasting on the corpse of the other. And that’s what fucking zombie movies are about! The gore and zombies in this are great, the rest of the acting… Ok. George. I bet a lot of money went into George. I gotta gush just a bit further. I wish I could have seen him jump off of some stuff in slow motion, or maybe he could have done some kung fu. If they’d just let us watch him blow-dry his hair. George, I like your style and, the whole being dead in the movie and probably being dead in real life thing aside, I’d like to be you when I grow up. Or Jade Puget. I wish they’d spent a little more on lighting, but at the time, shit was limited, and I don’t know exactly how dark the director actually wanted shit. But I couldn’t see part of the time, and it was annoying. Also annoying? The sound that signified that bad things were emanating from the sonic radiation machine. Mop, man. Fucking Mop.
Best Weapon
Best Weapon
Well, a wet towel to the face probably has to win the actual award. I’m gonna allow it, even though yes, by definition, it is most assuredly a less than lethal, but it was the right ninja tool in the ninja moment and George threw it like the perfectly coifed ninja that he is and damn if he didn’t get 100% facial coverage with his first toss. That copper is lucky that he went with the covering throw instead of a lighting blinding eye flick. George, in general- is one hell of a weapon. Not in the Lethal Weapon Mel Gibson “HeeHeeWhoWho” I play Batshit Crazy really well ‘cause I’m untethered from fucking reality kinda weapon- that’s just ahem… Toxic Masculinity. (Beams with pride at using correct terminology) George? He’s like if Jason Boune *was* Brad Pitt’s character from Killing Them Softly. He’s that smooth. Want to talk about something less smooth? Something painful? Whatever sound effect they had cranked at 11 every time they wanted us to know that the evil sonic radiation machine was turned on. I went from around 80% volume (to hear the dialog, etc.) to a panic drop to around 10% because it’s the audial equivalent of getting maced. This is the weapon the government (or maybe the UK government, guvnor) uses to disperse hippies.
That was new!
That was new!
Lotta shit here was new. Sonic Radiation is new, but we can just flush that. If it wasn’t there to give George something to smash up with a wrench, it could have been a comet causing this all. A lot of what was new here is circumstantial, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. I’ve never seen a baby gouge an eye out, I’ve never… considered a baby gouging an eye out. Here’s some serious inversion shit, too. Meaning, I’m being serious, and I’m talking about something that’s so old it could appear new. I’m talking about the casual use of homophobic and 3rd Reich references. As we can tell when the detective back-hands George, he’s really not a nice guy. This is further reinforced with his homophobic slur. As for George’s 3rd Reich retort, I can’t say that it’s in good taste, but I do dig his style in the “tell it like it is” category.
Can I get a hand?
Can I get a hand?
So, there were at least two really fun hand scenes in this one. First, the stand-alone, or whatever you want to call it- hand left holding the handle of the police van after the constable had been killed and eaten. How likely? Not likely, but still fun. Secondly, and more to the point, there was a great scene where George is trying to escape from a crypt through a top level tomb, but he has to crawl through it to get out, and the zombies keep grabbing his feet and pulling him back and down; no, it’s not a hand punching up out of the dirt, but there really weren’t any actually dirt-nap zombies in this one. There’s the one who started it all off in the river, but after that, everyone that got turned was already a corpse or turned into a corpse by a zombie. I think. There was also some really disturbing bloody infant hand. I’ve never seen a movie where an infant gouged out an adults eye, but the bloody aftermath was good. Oh! And when what’s her name got out of the window *just* as the hand grasped her? These are classic shots, people. That’s why they deserve note!
Overall Recommendation
Recommendation?
Are you a Zombie Movie fan? If you love the genre and have respect for the classics, then this is a must see. As a movie, it’s solid. This is a first rate zombie movie from one of the golden ages of zombie movies. The plot was basic and simply solid in it’s premise, the characters were basic and simple, the zombies were dead and hungry. I don’t think that there is anything particularly groundbreaking in this; giving it the quick think, I don’t feel there were any particular innovative parts, but what we do have is a solid period piece from a time when the rules were being established. I have to praise it for never compromising zombie or gore effects, as well as keeping the script… flexible until an ending that we could have seen coming were we to understand how fluid the circumstantial nature of the zombie rules was. There’s not a lot of shooting in this- there’s no military presence, the police are English police, so that means they carry rubber wieners instead of guns. Hell, guy who gets shot the most in this movie is the one who most deserves to live, and live beautifully. Out of all this shit, meaning, the world all around us, and specifically NOT referring to this movie as shit, but out of all this cosmic, universal shit, I really really wish George had lived through this one, donned his trademark… accessories package, and ridden his bobber off into the sunset. I wouldn’t have minded him going way off script and, given the opportunity, popping off most of a clip into the side of the detective’s car “Taking care of Tupac” style, too. I wanted someone to be effective at fighting these zombies, someone to win. But really, if we pull back and examine it through Romero’s lens, a strong argument could be made linking the plight of the last survivor- who gets shot by the “rescuers”, misunderstood due to circumstance, or race? And George- hunted to the end, well, the first of at least two ends, by a detective blinded by prejudice against hippies. I’d agree the similarities between the two plights ends there and does not come close to being equal socially, but I do wonder if this was an intentional re-interpretation. I’m horrible here in that I don’t remember when the original NOTLD came out, but I’m guessing at ’68 here? Lemme check. I’m about to be embarrassed. Holy *fuck*. I was right. Just like earlier when I guessed at Bullet. It was 1968 as well. I was pretty sure with both of them, but honestly, I can’t think of another movie that I’d say came out in ’68. And earlier, if you’d offered me a stack of cash to name a movie that came out in ’68, I would have blanked. All that said, this is a really small story set in a small locale, with a small cast of characters. By the end of the movie, most of the cast of characters has consumed most of the rest of the cast of characters. If that’s not reason enough to watch it, I don’t know what is. Go git yer history on and bask in the reverence. This is some old school quality shit.