The Dead 2
Overall Recommendation
Recommendation?
Watch this with the lights out. It’s fucking great- on every level. My biggest gripe? Her father and the fact that I can’t throw a punch at him for being so stupid. But that’s me wanting to fight a character, not actually criticizing the movie. There’s very little to criticize and so much to love. Yes, the flight thing was a bit… odd. But that’s the greatest misstep in this masterpiece? This should be seen so that one can understand how good a zombie movie can be. This should be shown in film class to underscore the importance of a cast of thousands if you’re really going to show the end of the world. A vast chunk of this movie are essentially the same scenarios that Romero used- but I think that this is what he’d have filmed if he were starting off today. This is more in the spirit of early Romero than some of the later Romeros were. This is purity. And Jesus, that car scene. I have never seen that. I was instantly both appalled and enamored. What a good movie. What a good movie.
Plot Autopsy
Plot Autopsy
- Like watching ants having their own little zombie apocalypse out in the distance.
- Pregnant? Daddy doesn’t approve? Mommy’s been bit? Call 1-800-FOR-NICK
- Overlanding through the land of the dead. With a strange, erratic child in charge of navigation.
- REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED FUCKING AWESOME REDACTED
- Have you ever wondered about unloading an AK47 into a wall of zombies 2 feet away? (I have)
- I propose to the ending since it’s so perfect and everything that a zombie movie ending should be.
Zombie Description
Zombie Description
The zombies in this movie are ________. Spectacular? Luscious? Perfect? Everything you want without any extra crap? Low calorie and great tasting? Yes! These zombies are all of that and more- more, since there’s more of them- so much more. I don’t know if it has to do with the economy of filming in India, but there is no shortage of wandering bodies in any scene. The huge wide drone shots? Yes- there are zombies waaaay out in those fields too, not just up close where the camera can catch their features. The zombies are simple Romeros. They shamble, they don’t think, they want to eat you. The sheer quantity of them is magnificent though, and in a way that does not sacrifice any individual quality. I can think of few movies that have… utilized… such large urban areas to show the chaos *without resorting to CGI*. Example: World War Z. When they wanted to show the city square being overrun from the top down, they CGI’d in zombies sprinting all over the place. This movie? They hire that many extras, give them all the excellent treatment, and then have them shamble around like zombies would. It’s… the difference is home-made pie vs. store bought pie. This has achieved a level of excellence that is rarely attempted for, let alone bullseyed.
Where the money went
Where the money went
The money went into making a great fucking movie, that’s where it went. A little more precisely, the money went to India, where you evidently can film hundreds of people per scene for a reasonable budget. The money went into great special effects- no skimping here. White contacts by the truckloads, but God, it was so effective. Even the CGI, which thankfully was used sparingly, was done well. I’d have preferred to see Javed taken off screen in a real honest to God truck than a CGI helicopter, but hell, I’m not complaining. This movie rocks. I can’t wait to watch the first one again.
Best Weapon
Best Weapon
I admit, I’m biased here, since this is my own personal go-to, but the AK47 really shines in this movie. In the end, when he’s in the shed and they bust in, and he stands up and single shots his way through an entire magazine, chopping down the swarming zombies like swinging a hatchet… blood splatting back on him… Man, this reminded me of why I fell in love with that gun in the first place. You can’t say a scene like this is glorious, but emerging from certain death while covered in the blood of your enemies… There’s a glory in survival.
Can I get a hand?
Can I get a hand?
There’s hands all over the place. Feet, too. And there’s some really nice classics, like the “bloody zombie trapped in the car slapping at the window” and “Fresh grave being slowly disturbed from within”. There’s no real zombie breach here, but that’s ok. Everything else is stellar, there really was no need to spend time paying homage.
That was new!
That was new!
It’s been such a long time since I saw someone shoot the hostage. That whole scene totally fucked my mind sideways. That by itself makes this movie a must-watch. Jesus. I have never seen such a realistic depiction of the brutalities that we will need to commit in the name of compassion. I have never seen someone do “What had to be done” like that. I’m pretty fucking speechless. My jaw is (and just as I wrote that, a huge cow jawbone appears on the screen) is in my lap. There’s drool on my sweatshirt.
Review Notes
Review Notes
Oh, this is a good intro. Super sweet vibe.
Not saying that this is a super sweet place to be though… India is quite dirty.
Bunch of workers on a dock. One has been bitten.
He’s not looking good. Sweating like me after sparring.
Oh. Well, now he’s dead. That was quick.
A cold wind…
And here he comes. I forgot how good these guys film zombies. Nothing is rushed.
They walk so slow… yet they move so fast.
Our American is a brave guy who repairs windmills. By hanging 6000 feet up in the air off them by a single rope.
I love the optimism of looking off into the distance when something hasn’t arrived.
In the hospital… lotta people showing bites.
Oh… he can see the people below him beginning to flee. That’s a scary sight.
He’s gonna be a daddy. They both look confused about it.
People are running around bleeding.
There’s helicopters…
And her dad isn’t going to let her go to America with him.
He’ll be upset that he got his daughter pregnant. Understandable.
Oh, shit. He just watched a guy down below him get taken down by a zombie.
Her dad is yelling at her…
“And all the while, no doubt you’ve been seeing your fancy man.” Ouch.
Dad just stole the phone! And forbid him from ever seeing her again.
Oh, we got a bad situation here.
Nick. That’s his name.
Her dad is pushing her to marry some local guy. He doesn’t trust foreigners.
Oh, people are being eaten in the streets. Dad locks the door.
Damn, that place is a fortress if he wants it to be.
Oh. Oh. Oh. That’s a lot of red on the windshield.
Damn CB… always distracting me…
That’s good gore!
Fuck! Scared the shit outta me!
All of this is such good gore… A good chunk is CGI, but it’s well done and minimalist.
Blood on the floor, blood on the counter…
He dead, or he resting?
So. The 2 lb sledge for the hat-trick!
Oh shit! Dad just spiked the phone! I threw it on the floor!
Hey! Don’t hit her! Fuck, that pisses me off.
Max is quite the twat.
Well, we got a gun. That’s a start.
We got HIS gun, actually.
Bad shot.
2nd bad shot.
Ok, that was cheating. You’re going to have to do a lot better than that going forward.
Zombies everywhere! Nick is getting rushed!
Fortunately… there’s one of those back-pack lawn-mower parasailing thingies. As usual.
So many zombies out there. Fuck, they do such a good job of filling the screen.
Climber zombie is pretty scary. In fact, all of these are.
Oh, that launch was such a fail.
But the wind… lucky wind….
I believe I can fly…
I also *know* that gasoline is finite.
Yup. Gravity always wins.
Oh, that’s some good chaos. That’s quality terror. Quality gore.
Kid just saved his little sister! Good on him!
Oh, Nick, you’re a tasty treat-filled human pinata to these guys.
They want your boots…
Somehow got down without getting bit…
Somehow saved the little kid without getting bit…
Free hugs!
Damn! Dad! Stop opening the door!
Javed. “I’m my own boss now.”
And just like that, Javed got himself a client. I like his hustle.
“I don’t think he needs this any longer.” (pats car)
Javed, you’re not helping anything!
Fuck!
Stop opening doors! I’m jumpy.
Nice. I have no idea what kinda car that is, but it’s got the ground clearance to take a zombie and a trashcan.
Rally-Style!
Shawnee’s mom not looking so good.
Everywhere they go, there’s zombies wandering around.
Random burning feet…
Random conversations about love and babies…
Javed is a Calvinist.
I think I’d have the windows up…
Dead cow…
Some sort of military stop point.
Searching a bus…
Oh, we got a bitten!
Well, that’s how you contain something like this. What do you people want?
“But the roads are bad.” Sounds like a challenge to me!
That’s not a good place to be.
Poor little car… we barely knew ye.
I would kill someone for some grapes.
Have monkeys, will rest.
Jeeze, Nick, you’re kinda bad with kids. Like, withholding water level child-abuse bad with kids.
Javed, did you know they’d make it look like you had a booger the entire movie? Did you agree to this?
A local legend about death and reincarnation.
A hunter’s lodge? Is that what he said?
Kid has no sense of caution.
Nick has no sense of caution.
Why does it have to be dark?
I thought he was going to hit the goat…
A Royal Enfield. I think I would like?
Even if it looks to have a top speed of about 25mph.
Zombies everywhere…
Shit!
Dad! Stop opening the fucking door!
Oh, this is some bullshit-level-scary motorcycle path-riding. There’s zombies everywhere!
Dad! Stop opening the fucking door!
That man is weapons-grade-stupid!
Ok, I need something snacktackular.
Fuck!! I’m sitting here arguing with my dog over whether or not I’m going to give up my seat and then whether or not that makes me an asshole, and then I’m startled!
Oh, that’s good zombie.
Now we’re questioning Buddhism?
I mean, I agree with her point, but what’s the point of arguing with your dad? He’s just going to hit you again. Asshole.
Dad has a good point about us deserving the zombie apocalypse, but…
Javed, you little fuck… I would beat him for not communicating better. You’re awesome for finding food, but you have to be a team player.
Windfarms. The purest source of energy. Really? I’m curious to find out if that’s actually true.
Oh, Nick. You failed as a guy, so you ran away to India where you’re taller than everyone else.
I’d have shot that guy. No-one re-steals a stolen motorcycle from me.
This… is a shit-ton of graves. This is scary. I think you can hear the corpses in the coffins scrabbling to get out. This is scary.
Waking up to hear the shuffling of feet coming closer…
Oh, the zombie eye peeking in. That’s fucking creepy.
There is such a beautiful fragility to this moment.
Fuck!
Startled.
Dreaming of his woman. And a chair. In equal amounts.
Javed is on point!
Oh! Javed lost his little sister’s toy rabbit!
Or, bear. Or… well… It’s quite the story. I hope it’s true.
A random chopper lands and rescues Javed. That’s convenient to the story line. Can move quicker now.
Don’t get too close to mom!
Mom says to follow your heart, and by the way, I never really loved your father.
Oh. Dad’s listening in? That must feel good.
Oh, crap. I’m not good at watching this kinda stuff. I’m kinda looking away a bit.
But zombies are getting closer…
Fuck. He’s getting a 2nd child?
Oh. Shit. Fuck. That… Shit. Whoah. I’m…
Uh…
Fuck!! Startled!!
Road trip!
That’s nice “City burning”
Mom just died. Relatively.
Zombies everywhere, we’re off the bike- got an AK…and a place to hide.
Behind the orange doors…
Mom bit dad.
That was the *coolest* footage of an AK47 going buck wild that I have ever seen.
Here comes Nick!
Will he make it before Dad turns?
Looks like it! We got sweet music playing and foreheads being kissed…
AND he will most probably get to shoot his father-in-law
Then some good old Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid run-and-gun exit…
They made it, it’s the next day, they’re… running up a serpentine mountain road?
Oh. Shit. Are you shitting me? I… Well, this is a bit extreme. I can’t believe I’m getting Jeffried like this.
Oh, shit, we’re really blowing things up now!
Not sure where they are?
They’re buried alive in a tomb? That’s a bad thing.
————End Transmission——————–
Introduction
Introduction
There are Dunkin Donut’s Jellybeans in the kitchen calling me. I know if I open the bag I’m in trouble. That’s crossing a line that cannot be uncrossed. My “Want to go eat sweet things” meter is pinging at 11.
I don’t think I ever felt this sort of physical dependency on cigarettes or alcohol. Definitely never for marijuana. As strange as it may be, I went a good chunk of my 20’s not smoking pot.
I think I was around 22 when I moved out to California in a drunken debacle that ended with me driving “home” 3000+ miles in a Penske box truck in 3 days of manic pushing. I slept on the floor in the back in a sleeping bag at rest-stops when I needed to. I even pissed in it, since it had a door to the box from the cab and I had plenty of Gatorade bottles. I didn’t even get out of the truck at some rest stops- just rolled close enough to a trash can to huck the warm Gatorade bottle into on my way out.
On that entire trip back across the states, I only stopped at rest-stops that had both Subway and Dairy Queen. I picked up a grasshopper as a hitchhiker and talked at it for three states before I looked over in the middle of another deep thought and realized he’d jumped out the window. I hope that went well for him.
I think I was about 200 miles away from my destination when I realized that the liquor stores were going to be far closed by the time I arrived, so I detoured the slightest and bought a bottle of tequila so that I’d be able to drink when I arrived. I’d been sober for around 70 hours at this point, so maybe there was some physical dependency ensuring that there’s be booze available upon arrival.
I remember drinking it, sitting in a recliner watching television somewhere around three in the morning, and being struck by how shitty and acidic it tasted, and how I didn’t feel like cutting up limes and getting out the salt. I was un-fun drinking. (What I intended to type was “It was un-fun drinking.”, but then again, why erase the truth just because you didn’t mean to put it out there?)
So that’s where I am. Fending off the bored munchies, out of grapes, and a bit peeved at myself for being out of grapes. I thought about heading on to the grocery store when I was on my way back from the gym, but then… well, I don’t really remember why I came straight home.
I remember thinking about the car that was behind me for a while, so maybe I just dropped the beat and swam home like salmon. I understand about the cycle of life and bears gotta eat and all that, but I would feel cheated and pissed off about it if my lifecycle’s end was pre-ordained like theirs, where they die after spawning. At least, I think that’s right. No, I think it’s wrong, but I assume it’s correct.
The other animal that really got the shitty end of the design stick? Octopi. I don’t believe I’ve ever typed that word before. I was hesitant how to spell it. But octopi essentially hit the end of their lives and then they start dying without actually dying. What I mean is they don’t die in the binary sense- they just start the decomposition process while alive. They start breaking down.
It’s like clockwork, too. There’s nothing that can be done to prolong their lives. So not only are they some of the most interesting pets you can have, they’re also super-short lived for something that interesting. I will be the first to point out that my academic background in philosophy, Shakespeare, and business management leaves me with very little actual octopi… anything.
But I wanted one as a pet once and was researching them and that’s why I never moved forward with that plan. So, at least, the proof that I don’t intend to deceive you is in my own lack of ownership of an Octopus. It’d be like Old Yeller all over again.
Something else that I got *another* spin with recently is the Denzel/Goodman classic “The Fallen”. At multiple different points of my life, this has been my favorite movie. It’s an intelligent man in an intelligent movie. Man on Fire was good, but… “Tiiime is on my side… yes it is!”.
Oh, I just took huge gulpings of black coffee. I can feel things twitching and firing in my nervous system. As I was saying, once I moved out to California, I didn’t smoke for a couple of years. I was the one guy in the group who always passed. I didn’t really have a reason to, it was just… the way things were.
I knew I was an alcoholic in the way that waking up sick at 2pm and googling “Am I an alcoholic” reminds you that you have a problem with alcohol, but alcohol and marijuana were always different lovers. Use of one didn’t impact use of the other, unless we’re talking in a single-evening-cumulative of more that I could handle and then the spins meet the whirls and we’re hanging our head somewhere.
Eventually though, I was sitting on the couch in the apartment my riding buddy had under mine, and they had a joint going around, and my friend was pretty trashed. When the joint came to me, I had the sudden realizations that A: no-one in the room was paying attention to me except my drunken riding buddy, and B: I really couldn’t articulate a reason for not smoking grass.
Instead of just passing the joint this time, I took a reef off it, and as I passed it I exhaled away from the group, and down past the couch, so no-one noticed I was exhaling. My buddy, the only guy who noticed, suddenly starts bellowing out “Holy shit! He just took a hit! Jackson just took a hit!” and I replied “What the fuck are you talking about? You’re fucking hammered!” and then we yelled back and forth at each other for a while until suddenly I got kicked in the head by the weed and everything went spacy-Pink-Floyd wah-wah and I had to bail. I couldn’t stay there. I had caught The Fear.
I don’t remember how, but I excused myself, and then I was walking through the stars and night on a bike trail on a long loop that would take me over by the house of my friend and poker mentor, and then I was at his front door. He took one look at me, chuckled, and called back to his wife that he was going to have to miss sitting down for dinner, that I’d shown up and I was tripping my balls off and that he and I were going to sit on the porch.
I remember what he said. “Enjoy it, man. It’s never going to be this good again unless you don’t smoke for another 6 years.” I think that’s actually a good thing. If I could feel that way- that safely obliterated yet in touch with the stars, I’d never be able to put that down.
Same friend, in the same wisdom, punched me out in a casino parking lot when I insisted I was going to drive after far too many drinks. I bounced off my pickup’s fender and hit the ground and then he had my keys and was offering me a hand up and a ride home. That’s class.
He’s a normal guy, but he’s one of the most accomplished and successful men I know. I couldn’t do his life. There’s too much. Where does he find enough of himself to be all those things to so many different people? I wish I could be someone like him.
Not him. I wouldn’t trade a kidney for all the Phish shows on the planet. But I wish I could be someone who did things and learned things and then made plans and choices and followed up on stuff. What is referred to as “Adulting”.
I’m fascinated and envious and simultaneously revolted by the idea of Adulting though. I’d still be in the streets screaming “Don’t trust anyone over 30!” if I wasn’t way older than that myself now. I want to be able to do adulting, yet I don’t see why anyone would choose to do it. “Lord I wish she could be here… but only if she only could.”
The Dead 2 “The zombie apocalypse sequel to the worldwide horror hit, THE DEAD. As an infectious disease spreads through India, an American learns that his girlfriend is trapped in the slums.”
I’ve seen this before, but only once. I know I thought that both this and the first one were good. I’ve seen the first one a couple of times, actually. Which is mostly the reason that I’m watching this one now. Novelty. Until I get around to reviewing The Dead, let most things that I say about The Dead 2 be considered to also be applicable towards, you guessed it; The Dead.
From what I remember, these are small, simple stories that are told with a lushness and excellence. The first one was done by just Howard, so I wonder what his brother adds to this second movie? I’d really like to leave a review to push it to the 500 mark, too, but Amazon has suspended my ability to leave reviews on items.
I *think* it was due to leaving “They have not spontaneously combusted” as an underwear review. But I’ve emailed them a couple times and Amazon is like Honey Badger. It don’t give a shit.
The worst thing is that Amazon itself keeps emailing me, asking if I can help out with such and such a question related to something I’ve purchased, or if I’d like to review a product… but then when I click the email link, it pretty much gives me a middle finger, cold shoulder, and bum’s rush- all in one. I’m considering making myself a corporation. I’m considering getting robot legs.
It’s the coffee talking. I gotta get set up for viewing. Fuck. I can’t find the 2nd computer’s mouse. It’s too dark in here. I’m feeling things on the table and shelf next to me that that look mouse-ish, or are in shadows. Handgun, box of Triscuits, stack of Terry Pratchett novels, human anatomy flashcards, random jar of dark green glitter… Lights… And there it is. On the floor under the far corner of the table. Well, corner isn’t accurate. The table is a circle. So corner is… really inaccurate.
In fact, it’s a boldfaced outright yellow-bellied lie. It’s the one thing that the mouse is *guaranteed* to NOT be under. Thinking that through, shit… what else have I lied to you about? Dude. Super-bonus. I just pulled up my old amazon account on the other computer- the viewing one- and at some point I bought this movie. No charge this time.
I should look into this old account’s other purchases. I bet I have some good stuff tucked away in there. If I know anything, it’s that along with immaculate comic timing and cat-like reflexes, I have great cinematic taste. Like I said; what else have I lied to you about?