Versus
Introduction
Introduction
So, I wasn’t really planning on doing this tonight. In fact, earlier today when I was running errands on my way to the gym and Prince’s 1999 came on, I was grooving so hard that I decided the next review I did, I’d just insert Prince’s lyrics- with full credit, of course, under the assumption that anything Prince did is better than anything I’ll ever do.
For the most part, I think that’s true. There are some exceptions though. I rock high-heeled boots better than he did. But that aside, Jesus, could that guy write a song!? “You better live now before the grim reaper comes knocking on your door!” I mean, I kinda live that ethos. I have “Live Young, Die Fast” tattooed on my chest.
That is Alkaline Trio advice (helped me achieve sobriety) and I guess part of having a mental disorder such as my own kinda makes me disinclined to do much else than live in the present. I’m not broken, but I can’t function. I don’t fit in, but there’s nowhere for me to go where I do.
So that leaves me wasting my life by conventional standards on immature pastimes like “get truck stuck in snow, get truck out of snow. Get truck stuck in snow again.” or “Spend 5 days alone, walking 40 miles through the forests of middle of no-where”. I’m not designed for this world. I’m a unicorn in a world without magic. And it took me until I was in my late 20’s before I was even willing to admit that I liked Prince.
I grew up on Beatles, CCR, some Marley. Then I got into my own with The Clash. Thank you K____, you inadvertently saved my life by introducing me to punk rock. And that’s where I got hung up on costumes and identity and all the other trappings of being a 17 year old fuck up with an undiagnosed mental disorder and a burgeoning drug addiction and got confused about what music was good vs. what music I was ok with people identifying me with.
So I rocked the leather jacket and the mohawk and the skull rings and the combat boots and looked like a fucking fascist bulldog cruising San Francisco’s leather district in the late 60’s. More to the point, I also publicly disavowed my love of the Purple One and all things funky. Not that anyone asked me if I listened to Prince, or said that they’d beat me up if I did or anything, but you know what I mean about being hung up on perception until you’re no longer true to yourself. And that’s what I was aiming for tonight.
I was feeling the groove, I was feeling the cruise, I was floating in the future on weed I hadn’t smoked yet watching a movie I hadn’t picked out yet but I already had the intro pegged, baby; we’re just going to CTRL-C 1999 and give it to you in your earhole.
But then I hit the gym and hung out with my wife for a while, and we were talking about this project in general, and that queued up an idea in my head about making sure that I review all the movies in the various Top 5, 10, 25 best lists.
So after I reefed a tad and got bored not being able to find the video I wanted to watch on YouTube (a couple of rednecks fighting at King of the Hammers during a night run) I drank the rest of last night’s coffee- which was waiting in the fridge, and I pulled up IMDB’s Top 25 Zombie Movies list and let my fingers do the walking.
Honestly, most of these I’ve seen, and are personal favorites, and there’s ONE that I think I have a serious problem with, and then there’s like 4 that I totally forgot about and am super psyched to go back and re-watch; but then I saw this 1974 title “Let Sleeping Corpses Lie” and I perked up!
The mid 70’s were solid with good offerings. Making these movies cost money then, so people generally gave a shit about what they produced. None of this “We’re making this movie for *ourselves* and if anyone else likes it, that bonus.” sanctimonious crap. People tried harder back then.
So I looked it up on Amazon, but it’s not available. Then, when I started looking around for it elsewhere, it turns out that I’ve already reviewed the fucking thing under another name!! Seems it was also released as “The Living Dead of Manchester Morgue”, and it’s a damn fine movie.
On one hand I’m all proud of myself for already having at least one of the IMDB top 25 done, and I’m pleased that I agreed with IMDB’s reviewer, but on the other hand, I was really looking forward to watching a cop and hippies and zombies and radioactive insect bothering. But see… there’s something about that that just… sounds familiar.
So I confirm that yes, I actually have already done this one, so I’m back in the list looking for something else worthwhile. And theoretically, since this is IMDB’s top 25, they should all be worthwhile, but I’ve got that serious case of Don’t Tell Me What To Do, and that unfortunately translates into what I’m willing to try.
You tell me to try something enough, guaranteed I won’t ever try it. Part of the personality disorder. So that’s why I was turned on to this Versus. It’s #17 on the list, and is called out specifically for being the only Asian movie (WTF Train to Busan?) as well as having quote “fast paced Samuri-styled battles between the living and the dead.”
Also, it name-drops Benicio Del Toro, who has been a fucking God ever since Way of the Gun. Him and Ryan Phillipe. Damn, that’s such a good movie. Probably seen it 30 times. Not a fan of Juliette Lewis, but she does such a good job in the role… “Moving!” “Move!” “Moving!” “Move!”. God, I get the tingly goose-fleshes watching that scene. That and the reverse-suburban KO. SO GOOD.
But let’s try to focus in as if we didn’t drink a highly caffeinated pre-workout while we were at the gym only to come home and start drinking coffee. I feel like the whoooosh of PCP is streaming past me in electric neon swirls of disturbed air.
I feel excited, like when I saw Akira for the first time. I was 11 or 12, it was playing at midnight on a double feature with PeeWee’s Big Adventure. Since I grew up with no TV and never had seen PeeWee at all before, that one just fucking confused me, except the trucker lady scared the shit outta me.
But then Akira came on and the lights off the bikes… All I have ever wanted in my LIFE is one good highway motorcycle battle against The Clowns. I just forgot everything about where I was going with that. Versus. “A relentless one-of-a-kind sensory assault chock-full of hyper-kinetic fight scenes, gangster shootouts, sword-slashing violence and gory zombies.”
And the picture? It’s a drawing of, like, waving a sword around and people’s faces. It looks nice. But what looks better is the 5-star rating. Yes. 5 complete full stars. That’s 675 people who have all agreed that this movie is the best thing on earth. I’m feeling like believing them. Give me the fucking Kool-Aid, I’m ready!
Where have I been all your life? Where have you been all mine? How has something that sounds this cool- like, as dysfunctionally excited as that sentence could be, it could be my writing! See? Perfect example! I own sentence fragments about gangster shootouts and shit! Gory Zombies! If there’s a motorcycle chase or space aliens, I’ve found my new favorite movie. Wait. Well, ok. So there’s subtitles. I’m gonna push on through and keep believing though. “Hold on to that feeeeeling….”
Review Notes
Review Notes
My Lord… So tasty!
Napalm films. Subtle.
Buncha stuff I can’t read…
The movie OPENS with the camera THROUGH the cut-in-half-vertically-by-a-sword zombie, focusing in on the swordsman as the two zombie halves fall away. I am so happy!!
We got one swordsman, surrounded by… many undead. All black robes. Some with swords.
Well, that was… elegant. Now he’s alone.
The texture of this film feels like old 35mm film, or maybe it’s the SD playback on this Chromebook, but it feels soulful. As does the sound, and the director has definitely watched his share of Golden Harvest films. This is reverence. I love it.
He’s got red on him
Waaaaaooooooooooooooo
Waaaaaooooooooooooooo
Waaaaaooooooooooooooo
I guess… he’s not our hero.
Some guy with a fancy stick and fancy hat… and a broken hat…
Roll title!
Run feet!
It’s like pre-parkour in the jungle. They’re still inventing it.
He’s got red on him.
He… has a hand… handcuffed… to him. Whoops! Gotta turn subtitles on!
“If you have severed hand, throw it now.”
I’m getting dizzy. Is this what they meant by frenetic?
The loneliest pimp procession EVER.
We have full techno music. I repeat. Full techno music.
We have sun worship.
We have jacket worship.
We have a guy wearing a backless shirt. It’s a bad look.
The prisoners are ansy about the gangsters.
The prisoners are going to antagonize the gangsters.
The gangsters, having the emotional age of a 12 year old (about 3 years better than I’m at currently) are reacting to the clothing based taunting!
That is the most artistic pistol-waving I have EVER seen. Damn interpretive.
She comes out swinging! I like her!
She knows one of the prisoners?
“Hey, let her go and take off your toupee.” I was just thinking that he looked like the 8th Beatle.
The LONGEST bullet echo ever. Sounds like crickets by now…
But the point is the prisoner did a Jason Bourne and shot the 8th Beatle.
And more artistic gun waving AND jumping!
The car has red on it. A LOT of red.
Clouds… a suitcase… wtf?
The 8th Beatle has gotten up again! Does this make him the 9th Beatle now?
He a zombie, he slapping!
Choking!
And… this is hard to explain, but the gangsters jump around like they’re doing ballet while shooting many, many holes in the 9th Beatle, including one in his head from point blank that does not drop him. What does this mean?? I’m… If you destroy the brain…
So 10 minutes of shooting and leaping-shooting later…
Suitcoat’s facial expressions are…
Ok. Startled! Didn’t expect that!
We’re down a prisoner!
We’re up a downed prisoner!
Putting holes in him!
Everything we shoot must get red splashed onto the camera. New rule.
AXE kick. Lord, if you don’t know… that was gorgeous.
Ok. Sparks coming out of the barrel. This is how you do it.
She has no reason to be hitting him. What a jerk. He rescued her.
At least she’s polite. And I heard that word from Domo Arigato…. Or whatever… but she said the 2nd one. Good for a smile to catch something in foreign language that isn’t a brand name, you know?
“I didn’t mean to help you. They just pissed me off.”
I haven’t seen this many close-ups of people’s eyes and faces since the High Plains Drifter trilogy. Ka-SPANG! (that’s the bullet ricochet sound, if you didn’t know.)
She senses dead people.
That guy has a new revolver… that makes the wrong sounds. Might as well go “pew, pew!”
All you need is Love and a Small Bag of Catnip
Dudes tied to trees with barbed wire.
The coat comes with it’s own guitar solo…
A fistfight only works if the other guy throws down his gun too…
Dude! Not cool! Just knocked out the girl!
And now he’ll fight?
Whole lot of very well done stylized fighting. I love kung-FU!!
That was one hell of a vein-bulge. Your corpses are missing.
HAND! FROM THE GRAVE! (shot to pieces)
More brawling. A strategic retreat. 2 of them?
Jesus, Glasses brought an arsenal.
Dead all around them, then one jumping out of a tree onto them?
So, these zombies can use guns, but they’re bad aims.
I like Suitcoat’s style. Even while he’s getting shot!
Zombie-Breach! Zombie-Breach!!
Lost the whole arm there…
WAAAAAAAHH!
A running jump-off-tree fight.
Hard to really explain what’s going on here, except a bunch of self-absorbed martial artists got a whole lot of money to make a movie that’s them waving guns around and kicking zombie butt. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just one of those “Constant action, no plot development” movies. If it’s your thing (Transporter) then that’s… great.
I’ve never seen spring-loaded zombies popping out of graves and through the air while holding two guns and, unfortunately, not going “Aarrgh!” But these are whack-a-mole zombies.
Suitcoat is off his rocker.
The girl is awake!
Never seen two zombies kill each other in a scenario I’m not comfortable describing in the only way I know how to, which is to use a culturally insensitive term.
Why does this one guy keep John-Woo’ing?
How does that pistol taste?
I think he just ripped a jaw off…
Gangster skinny red face just almost shot gangster glasses.
I’ve never seen someone hold up a zombie’s dismembered head to receive the knife that was thrown… at their head.
Man, Suitcoat is NUTS.
After all that dancing, and I mean a lot of nice knife-work, it all comes down to a headbutt.
And then, well, a friend with an automatic weapon.
One of the corpses is burning. How could it have caught on fire?
“This is getting complicated!” No shit! That’s exactly what I was just thinking. But, yet, it’s not! It’s as simple as “5 guys get in a fight for no reason in the middle of the woods.” I want 5 Guys. Doing so much better though. Back in the gym. Gotta stick with it.
The Runt! I like it.
He just waved his coat like Batman. That was ridiculous.
What? These gangsters are NOT trustworthy.
Just slashed the hell out of this guy’s face. And then shot him. (Spinal Tap Guitarist Voice) There’s so much red that there’s not really any red at all.
“It’d be a pain in the ass if you became a monster… so die slowly.”
That’s a very sensual embrace for two red-covered gangsters.
The Red-Faced-Runt (RFR) is dragging the girl around…
Am I supposed to know why that car crashed?
“Hey… your hand. They took it.”
Oh! This is where the prisoners escaped from in the first place. Totally forgot about that.
So, not only was he FBI but “I grew up at Yellowstone National Park in Canada.” Said by a guy spitting image of Asian Sherlock Holmes with DNA damage resulting in him looking also slightly like Jaws from 007.
RFR… isn’t anymore.
Very intense conversation about morals when you shouldn’t be having one.
I like the music. I can’t fathom the characters that just arrived. Like 80’s cyberpunks. One of these is the big boss?
Never seen that before. RFR sat up and blew blood out of his nose. Everyone does the “and spits blood” thing, but this… is commitment to playing a character that just got his ass kicked. Thespian type shit. For reals.
Suitcoat is off his rocker.
Hands… everywhere.
A hand reaching down out of the fog…
She has amnesia? Really? I mean, it’s not like you had already used up most of your ink budget writing the plot at this point. You COULD give her a backstory. So far, all I’ve seen is a bar napkin with “Wear black, fight in woods” scrawled across it.
Maybe THAT guy is the boss? He has enough hair for it.
And enough suitcases to throw them around.
The big hair big boss doesn’t like Suitcoat?
Ok, the Neo thing by the tree was a big fail, pink.
Dominatrix 6-Gun?
Suitcoat, you’re off your rocker.
No SHIT he’s standing back up. But wait, he’s not dead?
So, it’s 5 on 1 again.
Lotta leaping…
Never seen someone rip off another’s cheek as a fighting move. I mean. Ever. To be honest.
I like the gun-punch and rib work that preceded it. It reminds me of a time far ago.
Suitcoat brought a gun to a demon knife, I mean, a knife to a demon gunfight… it’s over anyway. He’s been hoisted on his own petard. I mean, on Big Hair Boss’s fist.
A bunch of confusing art and distorted perspectives, but evidently the woman knows the Big Hair Boss…
He had his fist inside Suitcoats ribcage… and Suitcoat sneezes?
Just punched through Glasses and grabbed his heart out in the process.
“Does it hurt?” Asked while showing him his own heart.
That was fucking gross. I expected it, but not that…
She’s got red on her.
Neck licking?
“Human life is only an instant.”
Interesting seduction technique…
Wait. He’s a vampire?
1 hand just Glocked someone through the passenger window?
That… is a Barrett? Fucking huge gun.
Suitcoat… is not doing so well.
The RFR is not doing any better. In fact, they’re cuddling.
That… is a .44 Automag.
That’s a Desert Eagle.
So, like, some other stuff has been happening while I’ve been mesmerized by this parade of exotic hardware. RFR rolled around with Suitcoat, then noticed, like, Suitcoat’s heart was missing?
So he cut him on the head and then panicked and ran away?
And Suitcoat shot him in the butt, but the sack of catnip caught the bullet and catnip also cancels out kinetic energy.
Zombies all around Suitcoat, he puts the gun to his head, he clicks on empty. So not fair.
Now he’s in for it.
I like long domestic squabbles down by the river.
It’s his destiny?
The hero and the Big Hair Boss are foretold to fight each other?
Zombie Pink just floated down from… up.
Dude! STOP HITTING HER.
It’s like watching a bad fan-fiction Matrix offering that was shot down by the reservoir over a weekend. So much leaping around kung-fu by two dudes in all black.
She sniffs the knife?
Those sunglasses come with their own guitar solo. Including one of disappointment. There’s a lot of self-depreciating humor here, but it’s flavored.
Didn’t see THAT coming. Big Haired Boss just punched his fist through Pink’s head, and then we could look through the tunnel and see teeth. Yuck. Took out his eyes too.
It’s the Resurrection?
She’s a great tour guide.
Or just a really lazy narrator?
Nice. She dodged this time.
We’re back to fighting again. Good kung-fu, bad comedy.
RFR is still here? And… able to spin the zombies like a disc-jockey?
“I can smell like a dog. Like a top dog breeder.”
So they had a spare Geo in the budget… Splash!
I can’t imagine being that happy about anything when you’re rocking a wrist-stump.
RFR doesn’t know how to flirt. Or fight.
This slapstick is barely working as filler.
This sincere conversation has a loose thread in the bottom left corner of the screen. That’s new.
So, their souls know each other.
I think… they just teleported somewhere?
Stop trying to fight the devil and listen to him!
So, an hour of fighting into the movie, this one character is going to explain everything in 5 minutes as if his tale of 500-year vengeance explains the last 47 minutes of zombie kung-fu.
Little Brother?
That… was a great blood-spit. But it can’t compare.
Is that Suitcoat as a zombie? WTF? Scary!
Yuck. She just cut herself. I guess it’s for a good cause and all that, but this is turning into vampire shit really quick.
Suitcoat Zombie, you are off your rocker.
Soooooo… I think these characters are the same ones from, like, when swords and stuff, and they’ve been locked in some mystical something for at least 500 years, and now we’re back in olden times but everyone’s red mascara still looks like 80’s cyberpunk.
Lady, I could see your contacts right there.
Whoah. WTF? Did he… I think Hero just cut off her head. I was not expecting that.
A big fighting battle again. Like the other ones.
The Hero is down! And, like, impaled and gutted!
But back in real now time, he gets another chance?
The lights… is he in the fairie kingdom?
If I reach up towards the sky and scream really loud when the lighting hits, can I have a sword too?
Tied… to a tree.
Dude! Stop hitting her!
My right-hand smells like fireworks or gunpowder. Strange.
My left smells normal. At least I don’t smell toast.
So, it’s just like a token that gets passed from one person to another?
Dude! Stop hitting her!
Oi!
I think this is Zombie Hero?
So much changing techno music…
Zombie Suitcoat, you’re fucking off your rocker.
Hero goes Ginsu…
A couple people get holes shot in them…
Zombie Suitcoat, you’re the best!
Gull wings? What kind of car is this??
It’s a chin-squeezing competition!
Eww! I’ve never seen anyone “stab” another person with the jagged broken off stump of their wrist as a weapon.
RFR *cannot* hit the person he’s aiming at.
RFR just stole the Barrett. It’s bigger than he is.
We finally see what’s in the devil’s suitcase. It’s a sword. Like, an anime sword. Pretty sure he broke the laws of physics assembling it, too. But it’s a very spiky, silly sword.
Stole that pose from The Deerhunter.
Suitcoat Zombie, you’re off your rocker! But you know monkey-style! Fucking A!
And… gopher style, too…
RFR just pulled the trigger on the Barrett and went flying backwards like Ash in the Evil Dead series. Nice.
“Now I’m supposed to have two left hands?”
Mike Tyson would have done better than that. But nice. I really enjoyed the middle-aged accountant’s take on what Neo dodging bullets might have looked like if it was a middle-aged accountant waving his arms around in the woods.
One… last… swordfight… (crosses fingers) Nice tune for it though.
A little Bruce…
It’s the battle of the contact lenses, ladies and gentlemen!
I have never seen anyone wiggle their tongue that suggestively while in the middle of a swordfight.
So they’re fighting with swords, and then suddenly they both pull our guns and empty clips at each other and every bullet hits it’s opposite bullet head on. I get it. This is the duality of nature, they’re the yin/yang, it’s the reflection… “I’m talking to the man in the mirror! I’m asking him to make a change…”
Back to swords…
Ooh. The Devil just won the swordfight. I mean… it sure looks that way. This isn’t the Wheel of Time. You don’t “Sheath the blade”.
So when he spits blood now it sizzles and burns up in the sun? They’re both vampires? When She gave him her power of resurrection did vampirism tag along like a STD?
YETH! THE BLIND FURY SEATED NO-LOOK HAND-CLAP SWORD CATCH.
So, they do some sort of cool back-to-back face-off where neither one moves for, like, a minute or so… unfortunately, the camera is racing in circles around them like a cracked out Labrador after a squirrel around a big tree trunk- but then they break apart in a burst of spinning and attacking. Pretty cool. Beats driving John Deere tractors at each other.
The Devil gets decapitated.
I would NOT get on a motorcycle with a driver that only had one eye. Depth perception is EVERYTHING and gravity *always* wins. There’s only two types of riders. Those that have been down, and those that are going to go down.
Did they dye his eyebrows red? That’s deadication.
Only squids don’t wear gloves.
Rides off down a tunnel… into darkness…
Into… a small… model… set. Like, a draft of the Terminator future or something.
But the screen tells us it’s 99 years in the future, but I can’t tell, ‘cause it’s just another guy walking around with a sword. He’s inside now though. These are funny looking people.
Dude! Stop hitting her!
So, in the future, the Hero has turned into the bad guy and ruined the world and she regrets not going with the Devil in the first place. This is why I *always* went with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. You’ll regret it if you don’t.
Oh, and the movie ended with more sword-fighting.
————End Transmission——————–
Plot Autopsy
Plot Autopsy
- Two prisoners have stolen a hand
- At the rendezvous, Suitcoat refuses to cease practicing his mating dance
- Everyone is wearing black and running around in the woods
- Everyone is wearing black and fighting in the woods
- Everyone is wearing black and running and fighting in the woods
- Everyone is wearing black and fighting and running in the woods
- Turns out this shit’s been going on for HOW long?
- And it’s going to go on forever.
Zombie Description
Zombie Description
So, as I’ve already ranted, these aren’t really zombies. It’s a magic forest that resurrects people, plus a girl who can resurrect one person if she’s in the forest, but the undead in the forest leap around and shoot guns and do Tae-Bo and stuff. And most of them are wearing suits. They leap out of trees like jaguars onto unsuspecting tourists, but then it turns into a martial arts fight. See, they don’t really do any biting, and the dead get up and kill shit, but not mindlessly like they ought to. These get, like, turned or possessed or something and then they’re wearing really uncomfortable to look at make-up. Like, they look like the guitarist of System of a Down. Like they stole his entire stage wardrobe and then split it up amongst themselves. But those are only the… character zombies. The NPC zombies are just really dirty and hyperactive. There’s no brains eating, there’s no shambling, there’s really no horror to these zombies. They’re just mindless goons covered liberally… and I mean hosed on with very diluted red. But that’s the point of it! If you go back and look at the martial arts movies that this is an homage to, they had the CHEESIEST blood special effects. So that’s what these guys do, unless they’re going to drill a hole in someone and then run the camera through it a bunch of times. ‘Cause they’re really fond of doing that too. The filmmakers. Not the zombies.
Where the money went
Where the money went
It went towards renting exotic firearms and black clothing and a couple gallons of discount red. It did not go towards sets, script, hell, there was even lint and crap on the camera lens in one shot. But now that I think more about it, I think it’s intentional. You know that movie Street Thief? If you haven’t seen it, don’t read shit about it, just watch it blind. You can learn about it once you’ve gotten the wind punched out of your sternum by disbelief when it ends. I think they put that level of thought into this movie, but kinda painted themselves into a corner when they embraced the constraints that they were celebrating.
Best Weapon
Best Weapon
Suitcoat. Having a well-dressed, highly expressive gun-waving and dancing psychopath in your movie makes it better. Just ask Christopher Walken. He’s the fucking OG Fatboy Slim dancing God in this regard. Suitcoat, you’re not Christopher Walken. But you’re fucking crazy enough to be equally great in your own creepy way if you want to. The guns? Shit, that’s lame ass stuff for inventiveness when it comes to this kind of fear and scary. I just watched a YouTube video about the .44 Automag and turns out the gun was a complete piece of crap. Still wouldn’t want to be hit by one, but point is it’s rarer than shit and no gangster would be running around in the woods with one. Same with the Barrett. I’m sorry but I’m not going to consider your silly fancy swords, either. Swords are good for cutting and killing things. They’re like hatchets, or AK-47s. They don’t need to be gussied up. They’re sexy as hell in their utilitarian simplicity. And that’s where Suitcoat nailed it. He kept it simple. He kept it crazy. Whether he was artistically waving a handgun or knife-fighting or crawling headfirst down trees, if Suitcoat was on the screen, Suitcoat was making the movie.
That was new!
That was new!
A movie centered around the male figure knocking the female character unconscious as a running gag was new. Could have done without, but- whatever. She learned to dodge, maybe I’m missing precedent or context. Seeing a guy stab another guy in the chest with bone shards sticking out of his mangled wrist was new. Seeing Suitcoat’s interpretive pistol waving dance was new. I’ve never seen some of the martial arts moves either- although, I have seen a bunch of them as variations of Kung-Fu forms. There was a lot of joy and beauty in that dancing. But ripping off someone’s cheek? That’s a new move. Also, the broken nose simulation that RFR gave us as he got red all over him, hence the name. Dude sat up and blew CHUNKS out of his nose. That looked so real. That was amazing. Contrast the realism of that with the watery red ink of the up-close knife cuts or the ending Hero’s face? They intentionally made some of the special effects great and others crappy. Oh. And I’ve never seen or ever heard of a zombie movie where shooting them in the head doesn’t kill them. That part… Blasphemer!
Can I get a hand?
Can I get a hand?
Jesus. Amen. There were SO many hands in this movie, I felt like I was being pranked. That pan across the graves towards the end? I think I counted 4 severed hands in that scene alone. So let’s break it down. We had the dismembered hand right out the gate, which we threw, and then we had Zombie Breach- which at first was awesome. That firsthand coming up out of the ground? I swooned. But then the… intensity that the zombies began leaving the grave… like they were launched by a hydraulic t-shirt cannon. I’ll take my hand clawing out of the dirt gracefully, thank you very much. Then we have to consider the character 1 Hand. He ran around the entire movie looking for his hand. And then at the end, jokes on him! Have to call him Bill the Galactic Hero though, I believe. We had hands punching through people’s chests and ripping out their hearts… (Which, you know, didn’t exactly make the 2nd Indiana Jones movie any better than the pile of crap it was, so why did they think it would add something here?) (Unless it was just so the Devil could rip a bite out of it? That part was good.)
Overall Recommendation
Recommendation?
If you want constant fighting action filmed as if it were inside a tornado, this is your bag. It not bad. It’s a good movie, but you have to know what you’re walking into. There is so much more to this movie than it would appear, because on the surface, it seems like a dozen people dressed up in black, bought a gallon of cheap fake blood and cut it 5:1 water to blood which was liberally super-soakered all over the place while people leapt around waving swords and kicking, then shit, Cleetus, this… uh… Let me start over. This movie, everything about it- is a throw back to the old REAL kung-fu movies. The Chow Brothers and Golden Harvest. All the filmmakers did was take an old movie (not a specific one, but the feel and soul that they all shared) and reframe it where half of it takes place in what is essentially modern times. The characters are the same 500 years ago or now, or even 99 years in the future. Just like the essence of a kung-fu movie, the essence of cannon and classic, these don’t change. This was not a particularly good kung-fu movie back then, and it’s only marginally better now, but that doesn’t make it unenjoyable. You just have to understand that you’re going to have to take a bunch of mystic shit (that changes as the movie progresses) on faith and there’s not going to be any plot advancement, just re-hashing the same physical conflict over and over with different characters matched up like the old Streetfighter video games. There is so much in this movie that I love, but I don’t understand why the hell it’s on IMDB’s top 25. Especially if they’re gonna say it’s the only Asian film worth including and who the fuck was supposed to be Benicio Del Toro? I think the IMDB writer was on acid when he did this one. Like I keep saying, it’s not bad, but it’s not really a fucking zombie movie. It’s more of a ghosts movie, or shit, Vampire movie that rips heavily from Zombie movie imagery. Spring-loaded pistol-shooting zombies popping up out of the grave, levitating silently down from… out of screen, leaping out of trees that we’re not sure how long they’ve been up there… It’s that kind of movie. Like a wacked out kung-fu movie, not a zombie movie. They did so much good on the zombie notes, but overall, this is… weird. And too long. And possibly too loud. Hey you kids! Get your incomprehensible martial arts meets the undead movie off my lawn! I want my undead hungry, I want my undead mindless (or creepy), I want my undead killed by a bullet to the head. In all these things, this isn’t really a zombie movie. But do corpses rise up and run around killing people? Yes. Is it worth seeing? Yes. By God, yes, and don’t let my reluctance to finally say it stop you from giving it a whirl. Were I able, I’d deconstruct it and give it to an editor and ask them to try to mix a different movie out of the footage. I’ll take a shorter one that makes slightly more sense that I care about slightly more that doesn’t confuse me anywhere as much as this one. My gold star for the day goes to Suitcoat. If anyone had a good time making this movie, it was that dude. And he let it all hang out and didn’t leave shit on the table. That was full force powerful. Danny Devito’s Penguin wished it had 1/10th your presence. I think you’re batshit crazy and would probably assault you if we were to hang out in person, but I’m pretty sure it’d be your fault ‘cause you’d start doing some zombie shit to freak me out and it would and then I’d tell you to stop or I’m going to hit you and you’d think I was kidding and then we wouldn’t be friends anymore. Which sucks, ‘cause you were by FAR the best thing here. Yeah, there were a bunch of cool and rare firearms, but that just means they had access to some rich fart’s private gun collection. Couldn’t someone have donated anything “Set” to them? A couple vehicles. That was the extent of the set material. Well, that and gravel. But I’m ranting about shit that belongs in other sections. So- If you like old Kung-fu movies, check this out for sure, and if you’re just bored, give it a watch. Set a timer for an hour, and when it goes off, ask yourself, “Does this movie deserve to be #17 in IMDB’s Zombie Movie List?” Ask yourself that again when the movie ends. I think IMDB owns this error, though. NOTE: This is all joking aside. This movie has a bunch of instances of casual misogynistic violence that didn’t sit well with me. Nothing horrible, but although slight, the flavor left wasn’t enjoyable. If you have triggers or sensitivity/aversions, be aware.