Hell of The Living Dead
Overall Recommendation
Recommendation?
Here’s where things get difficult. This is in no way a good movie. That said, this is a definite must watch. Its not a top-number list movie, everything is too erratic and slapped together, and the simple audience-trust-abuse of shoveling this much filler-stock-footage down our throats is unacceptable, but all that said, this is a zombie movie from the glory days of “Well, most of our budget is in cocaine” and “Yeah, but is there a reason she *can’t* be naked?” level film-making. This was when stupid was considered inventive, yet inventive was generally considered stupid. There are so many other zombie movies that are better than this one, but there are magnitudes more that are so much worse. These are poorly painted, shambling, not-really-sure what they’re supposed to be doing zombies chasing around mostly hack actors through the same tired premise scene after scene, but this movie must be counted in a finite pool of Italian Roots Classics. This is the spiritual sibling of Oasis of the Zombies, this is thin red splashed liberally, this is up close sweaty-vision; now with even extra eye-bulging! Get a couple friends on a rainy weekend, cook up some trouble and some food, and then lean back and watch this and laugh. This is not a movie that’s so bad it’s good. This is a movie that’s good in spite of it being so bad.
Plot Autopsy
Plot Autopsy
- Ever notice that industrial accidents always happen in big factories?
- Or wait, I meant, Hostage situations always happen in American Embassies?
- Like, when you’re… in a stolen vehicle in Papua New Guinea?
- Zombie shit-stock footage-zombie shit-stock footage
- Stock footage-stock footage-she took her clothes off-stock footage
- Everybody dies screaming. It’s fucking awesome.
Zombie Description
Zombie Description
This should be so much easier to explain, but it’s hard, because in the last 10 minutes of the movie the reporter goes on a rant explaining all the crap we just watched and tying it all together with a nice bow. But nothing that she says makes any sense, because, well, of what we just watched. Which used birds diving into water as zombie-fight cut-scenes. You know, you go from fighting these zombies, to a couple birds plunging for their dinner, then over to a completely different fight with some other zombies… So, science was trying to do science things and it fucked up. Something bad happened in sector 9, I guess. Which lead to some gas being released, which turns people into zombies. Now, MOST of these are B+ “got painted up in blue” zombies, but every once in a while you could tell that someone paid for their own zombie makeup and artist, ‘cause it’s suddenly top notch. Two minutes later, they’re literally rubbing mud onto people to make them look decayed. You gotta shoot them in the head, they want to kill you and eat you, and none of them seem to be sure exactly how a zombie moves.
Where the money went
Where the money went
Not into continuity… I think this was less of a scripted movie and more of a bulk purchase of cutting room floor film that was then pasted together under the concept that most of the actors with weapons were wearing blue jumpsuits. So, what film did they purchase? Discount Eddie’s Stock Animal Footage. All of it. And then they didn’t give a shit to remove the stuff that doesn’t live where it was being filmed. Might as well have included some CGI velociraptors for all the sense elephants made. Why… The UN shots… or rather, shits… You can’t film 6 people in a hockey arena and make it look anything other than pathetically empty. Adding a half dozen small paper flags to the scene just illustrates how sad it was. As for happy? Let’s spend some time basking in the cat poster from around 33:38. He’s hanging in there! Yes he is! Less successful? What the hell was with the SWAT team’s suits? Pathetic! They looked like rejects from the Dirty Dozen. Two looked the same, I couldn’t tell them apart. Then there was Harpo. Was that the gig with the hat? I was so confused.
Best Weapon
Best Weapon
Zantoro – Actor/Director named Franco Garofalo who in 1974 was in The Arena, with Pam Grier. Let that sink in. Pam. Grier. This guy can’t act. But he can freak out. It’s his thing. It’s what he does. How we got one Kevin Bacon away from Cleopatra Jones, I don’t know. But I dig it. Regarding fighting back against the zombies, the arsenal thing just didn’t pan out. No-one was carrying anything other than a firearm or two. No ammo. But they were waving around some excellent battle rifles, as well as some conversion of the Thompson.
Can I get a hand?
Can I get a hand?
There were some really good moments here. There was literally a severed hand in the middle of the trail, serving as warning. Or something. This had a great Undead Priest, maybe the best one that I’ve seen so far. We also had… some kid- man, I’d love to know where he ended up…going the child dies and then revives and eats it’s parent route, which is always special and creepy, and then in a nod to Fulci, we had a prosthetic face with it’s eyeballs getting popped and pulled out.
That was new!
That was new!
Well, usually the nudity isn’t that hard to keep a straight face through. But this… this took stupid and offensive and banged them together yelling “NAH NAH NAH NAH!!” repeatedly until neither was recognizable as any reason for a woman to strip nude, paint herself in geometric idiocy, fashion an ivy thong, and go look inquisitively at shit that’s obviously not there. 13 year old me would have noticed more than just the fact that she was topless; the extras in the scene were having trouble keeping straight faces! Mind you- I worked in porn. This didn’t bother me at all, I just wish it was either funnier, sexier, or just removed and replaced with zombie mayhem. Elevators are becoming a theme thing. It’s beginning to be a common way to take a character out of action for a while, or to create a literal pressure cooker scenario. But in all the elevator shit that I’ve seen, I’ve never seen blood raining down an elevator shaft. That was fucking gross and awesome. It’s also totally new to me to have to watch so much stock footage as filler that I find myself wondering if I’m actually looking at dead corpses. What was the point of the fox killing thing? I’m used to people pulling dumb ones in zombie movies. It’s even a joke in some of them- how “unwilling” to survive can some people get? But I’ve never seen anyone dumb enough fall asleep with a bitten and dying child on their lap. That zombie child brought something special.
Review Notes
Review Notes
Oh shit. Yes, I have seen this one. Or rather, heard it. This “music” is like getting punched in your ear’s nuts.
“Beauty technicians, report to sector 9 at once.” What the hell??
All sorts of nuke plant melting down type stuff. Everyone has a hard hat with a sticker “Hope”. I think that’s what it says.
They really like their green lights.
So many white coats.
Dunce cap twins. Nice to know what these guys like.
The meter’s needle moves in proportion to the man turning the dial. I should see if IMDB has this noted.
A dead rat! It’s NOT dead!
Oh. It’s… Tunneling. Have you seen Alien? Think about if it were played in reverse?
I love the synth dub dub dub dub dub dub dub dub…
Green gas leaking out…
“Operation Sweet Death…”
We’ve started a lockdown. Gasmasks.
There is a certain “succsess” of ambiance here. It’s the golden moment for our ears.
We have a zombie and we have a neck-eating! Good! Well done!
Oh. That’s a lot of zombies. Not so much… well done… makeip wise.
Good corpse-eating!
Why take the mask off?? Idiot!
The lead scientist is remorseful.
Gotta love whatever Italy or whatnot where they filmed this and the weapons the police are armed with. Thompson submachineguns.
So, wait. I’m confused. The cops… aren’t there for the meltdown? There’s some sort of hostage situation?
Swat team. I love the FN-FAL; pretty sure that’s what those are.
I do not think the women are truly naked and wild.
Half of these people look already made up as zombies.
And the swat team… a bunch of plumbers with what looks like a single magazine a piece.
Really. Team B? They look like guys that The Ramones deemed “Too Sketchy” to be roadies.
Terrorists, 8 hostages, American embassy.
So many blue jump-suits!
I’m… that was cold. The dude surrendered and dropped his piece and the other guy still cut his throat? And then… what’s that weird little Clockwork Orange dance? Was he one of the Droogy gang? He’s ugly enough to have been one.
Tear gas? That’s fun! Been there, done that!
Dying terrorist guy has some pretty harsh words!
Ah! Skulls! Yuck!
A guy is bitching into a radio.
I think this group of idiots are now… in Papua New Guinea?
So much banter to explain nothing.
They’re in a rain forest. Pretty sure that’s not a dry climate.
Who? Some couple… a bad infection.
“The wound is still suppering!” And I’m over-reacting!
And I should be playing the drums somewhere.
Domestic fighting. I love it. I love angry dads yelling at me.
I can’t wait until this guy dies.
She’s getting some water and his mustache is going with her.
That kid is turning zombie if I’ve ever seen one.
I’m hungry, but I still feel crappy. I feel like I accidentally drank a lot of sea water.
That’s a poor use of a camera.
Give me “The boy”. He’s your son. Doesn’t he have a name? No wonder she is strutting away from you.
Falling asleep with a bitten, dying child in your lap. Not smart.
Breaking and entering and bothering. Not smart.
Father… Father…
The crazy corpse priest!
Yeah, that’s a pretty freaky child death-reanimating. It’s well done.
Water zombie!
Wounded woman making the desperate push back to the car!
The undead priest following! (And really setting the bar, people. So far, this is the go-to for the genre standard.)
I love frozen strawberries!
“They probably don’t intend to harm anyone.”
Why is that one guy wearing a wig?
Slow, staggering blue-painted zombies.
Oh. I thought that was two women running for a second. That was before I saw Daryl Oates’ mustache.
That is good little kid zombie. VERY good little kid zombie.
Puke… anywhere but on yourself. That’s gross.
Now these guys are in black uniforms?
Why the hell is he wrestling around with that kid? What do you hope to gain?
Yes! Continue shooting the zombie child!
So… none of those shots went through?
Who is Josey and why are you shrieking for them?
I… think I remember her? The one with red all over her?
Dead Priest again… why you let it get that close?
I love the chalkboard. “beautiful day”
An ambulance just shot by my house heading left, and then a few seconds later I heard what sounded like a really powerful muscle-car/truck taking off. All Vrroom. What’s up tonight?
It’s taking these guys a really long time to figure out that it’s shots to the head.
Now we’re in a television station?
Look at that cat! 33:38!! That cat. I love you. I want that cat poster.
All sorts of dialogue about catastrophe and stuff. Science that I don’t care about.
And now we’re padding things out with stock footage of animals and jungle and the guys are back wearing blue.
Now it’s stock footage of indigenes people. I hope they were duly compensated.
Oh! They’re afraid of the drum-beats!
“I wouldn’t want to end up like chickens on a spit at a back yard BBQ.” That makes two of us, but you’re saying it a bit insensitively.
This is some of the best intentioned… it’s not blackface… but it… kinda is… I mean, it’s off the charts for gratuitous, but also for… insensitivity… To paraphrase Pete again, do you know how annoying it is when *I* notice something is insensitive?
We have a naked woman running around for the sole purpose of having a naked woman running around.
We are cutting the footage of the naked woman running around with… much older, grainier, differently processed footage of more, different indigenous people.
It’s really not working. Although, I do appreciate them trying. I will appreciate them being back to the zombies whenever we get the opportunity.
It’s REALLY not working. We have a woman’s face, painted to resemble a vase, pretending to be wandering a village watching the people make reptile innards braided sausage links as well as shield dance and drum drummy and… Her eyes are focusing in the wrong directions. You can watch her and pretend she’s on acid watching a camp-fire and imagining all the spark-fairies flitting around.
Hungry like the wolf… Hungry like the wolf…
She looks like a rejected all female Kiss rip-off band try-out. She’d have been Kriss, I think. Wasn’t that the silly cat?
I am not convinced that that none of that footage could have been real death-rites footage purchased as stock and repurposed as stock background filler.
This has gotten to the point that some people may feel uncomfortable. There’s a circle of poorly painted black dudes circling a naked white woman, pawing at her “in curiosity” and I swear I just heard “ooga booga”. None of this is malicious, it’s just idiotic. Dynamite in a China shop level clumsy.
After all that weirdness, she puts on a paper Mache huge-head and then there’s stock footage of celebration. Yay.
Watch around 43:32. She has to feel her way down the jeep ‘cause she can’t see in the stupid bobble-head.
Oh, there’s corpses, and there’s decay, and there’s larva, and there’s… a person eating the larva off the corpse. And that… That…
Is this some sort of drug circle now? What is going on?
Pan flutes? Electic Pan Flutes?
Oh… Yes, this is quite the drug circle. And he can’t hold his.
An owl?
That zombie be sitting up.
The bird thinks it’s funny!
Why didn’t her shoot the zombie?
These are kinda scary legs.
Why… the soldier isn’t shooting?
This is all chaos and biting yelling screaming, but its pretty good zombie stuff.
I mean, the village was overrun and everyone… not indigenous… got away…
“Why the long face? Something eating you?” HA! It’s a biting joke in a zombie movie!
Oh! They’re gonna kill the girl? She knows too much?
They need to consolidate vehicles…
Uh… She’s got a gun. And she’s already shot a guy before? Wow.
“Keep your shirt on and listen to me, young lady!” -After they all just stood there watching as she disrobed to go commune with the stock footage.
The face of derangement is on 52:46.
It’s amazing that he was able to time disarming her with the cut in camera angle.
No… Sorry, I had that wrong. The face of derangement is 54:13. That dude is off.
I covet their Land Rover.
Oh shit! Yeah, startled.
She’s chewing tobacco? What the hell kinda movie is this?
Oh! The blue team is fighting over the woman!
Stock footage of elephants? I just looked it up. Elephants DO NOT LIVE IN Papua New Guinea.
Stock footage…
Waiting…
A hand! A severed hand! Ah! There’s a body up in the tree, too!
How… Did they know a big group was coming?
I remember this scene.
Max… walking blithely into the zombies for some footage.
Zantoro… with the racial invective…
Offering up a wing?
Then… birds plunging into water?
Radio chatter… an empty fake UN?
So much stock footage. So much stock footage. Such bullshit.
So much negativity. Such low film values.
So much stock footage.
Now… binocular vision?
Playing on a slide?
Time to check a house? Pretty sure they’re just making shit up by now.
Oh? A bad smell during the zombie apocalypse?
Such distain for Big Shots.
Costume time? WTF? WHY is this guy playing dress-up? Is this more Clockwork Orange homage?
Grandma-ma! Had… a cat… inside of her.
Dancing boy didn’t put up much of a fight. No one is, really.
So many zombies outside of the building. I love it.
Grandmother crawling over, smiling. I love it.
The hands bursting in through the window, trying to pull her out!
Shooting into the oncoming wall!
Now they’re coming through the window!
Out of the woodwork, for Christ’s sake!
“Jesus. There’s a whole family of them here!”
Hands reaching through the crack in the doors, puling his hair… everyone is pulling his hair today.
Zantoro’s lost his mind. He’s pushing it. Bluffing works every time except once.
Nice zombie flambe
Is the car going to start? Yes? No? Yes? No? Yes?
Everyone is very tired.
Zantoro is losing his mind. Much, much more than before. Notice the hat orientation?
Stock footage of some sort of fox thing killing some sort of bunny-squirrel. You know. Just because.
Nice “over-roading through the undead” shots…
“Ok. Get the motor to the dinghy. From now on, it’s every man for himself.” Well… but… no. Get the fucking thing yourself.
Dead fish! Dead fish!
I had a pair of those boots.
A DOLLS HEAD??
We’re taking an inflatable zodiac into the high seas.
While leaving hordes of zombies on the beach behind us.
Oh… But we finally ended up back at the breakdown plant from the beginning of the movie. I think I see how it’s supposed to be coming full circle now. I think. Still not sure why there was all the footage of exotic birds.
This is some of the funkiest 8-bit music known to man.
As they go looking for the freight elevator to go to the higher levels, they detour into the basement…
Oh… do not pace in front of doors with obscured windows…
Very… very slow reaction time on the SWAT team’s part.
Oh shit. The elevator abducted him!
Red red rain…
I love the staircases.
Are they there to get the tape or something?
Where the hell does she think she’s going?
Does *anyone* actually want to live through this?
Zombie destroy records.
I’m glad she can pierce together the whole puzzle. I can’t even figure out how to get the box open.
All this was to destroy about 6 pieces of paper?
She’s… trying to tell us the plot now? This has something to do with overpopulation? How? By… Oh, never mind. It’s just a shit-ton of zombies walking around.
No, she’s still talking… This is sort of Soylent Green from a different angle.
A very different angle… She just got her face ripped apart. More eyeball popping. Fulci would be proud.
Now a random bar… a random couple. He says it’s all science fiction. Liar.
Now there’s a make out session.
And a turning down.
And… one last final gory feast.
This is my kind of ending. This is my kind of ending! EVERYONE DIES!! I love it!
————End Transmission——————–
Introduction
Introduction
Wow. This is going to be a good night. I mean, there’s no reason it shouldn’t, aside from the crappy scratchy throat I’ve got, the fact that I’ve thrown up twice in my mouth so far, and just dropped the first half of a car’s worth of money on a new sidewalk, because, you know. The town told us all to.
The reality is a lot more in the grey area that comes down to if you want the good that comes from government- whatever little or lot you may perceive that to be- people do that stuff as jobs and need to get paid and so we pay taxes and pay for the upkeep on our land and stuff. Like my house. I own the property, I’m responsible for the sidewalk.
But here’s my perspective. People can walk in the street. Or make a muddy hell out of the strip of dirt over by the curb if they want. Nothing stops them from tossing down a cigarette or impels them to pick up their dog’s shit. So why, exactly, do I want to… further enhance their “walking on my shit” experience? NOT sure.
Probably shouldn’t have bought a house on Main Street if that were the case, too. I am not shitting when I say I want a house on this property, and then the rest of the land- everything- gets wreathed in a bamboo and blackberry thicket. You think I’m kidding. You want to stop zombies? Like, even if they’re driving a big lifted up Chevy Suburban? Bamboo and Blackberries.
I need to start a duet team with… well, I’m neither very bamboo, nor am I very blackberry. So, I guess… I’ll be Bosley. I found a new movie to watch tonight which is reason to get (high pitched frat boy voice) STOKED!! but then noticed that it’s only PG. Deathdream– AKA: Dead of Night is a 1974 classic that’s included in some of the Top-Number lists, and I found it on Amazon, and I was soooo close to pulling the trigger… until I set up the viewing laptop and started poking around on it and found something rated R. I’m sorry.
I do and will review the… lesser… intensitied movies, but later. I want gore if the scene calls for gore, I want vulgarity if the scene calls for vulgarity, same thing for nudity, and goddamn it, if there’s gunfire I wanna see blanks, people! And kinda for some of these reasons, I just… didn’t pull the trigger on Deathdream. Even if a 1974 PG can easily be the equivalent of a rated R or PG13 these days, there’s something about them intentionally not swinging hard that turns me a bit off.
Like strip clubs without stripping, or alcohol. I’m not saying I’m having a bad time in any environment where it’s comfortable and the Redbulls are only costing me $7.50 each plus liver damage. I’m just saying that if I order a mushroom and pepperoni pizza, I’m not going to be ok if they use the pepperoni to make a picture of a mushroom for me. I want the thing I want.
If that thing is zombies, I want zombies, and unless you got a really good reason for the zombies to be anything other than callously brutal death, then you need to say something up front and let me know so I’m not feeling disappointed if it turns out that you promised your mom that your first movie would have a happy ending.
I’m not getting through here. I can tell that. It’s because part of my brain is stuck thinking about vans, and the other part is stuck thinking about the house we’re gonna build, and then there’s part of me questioning if I should even watch the *second* movie I found- and then decided on, or if I should go back to the one I’ve been ranting about yet don’t intend to watch tonight.
I’m so glad I’m no longer dating. Being put in charge of things like picking restaurants and then getting furiously disrespected if my choice wasn’t accepted. (ClusterBeeSorry!) Whoah. Went off on a tangent there down a Wiki-hole for a bit. Sociopathy things. Sorry if you don’t understand; we can’t all be the cool kids.
So anyways, I says to Mabel, I says. Fuck. I just bit myself. I’m eating raisin bread again. I started smiling in the middle of a chew and since I’m operating on pretty miniscule levels of tolerance here when I eat as it is- I inhale and chomp frantically- most ends up in my stomach. Some ends up on my shirt. Some ends up in my lungs. But since me eating is the same gusto-oriented safety-first approach of using your chainsaw to push logs into the woodchipper faster, one little twitch and my raisin bread is now… Well, shit.
I have a joke that I can’t make. Don’t you hate it when that happens? I’m known for saying the joke anyway. I’ve said some truly horrible things. But that’s life. Wanna know something else? Today… Is 311 day. Today is 90’s rap-rock day.
Today is “last night’s on my mind… something I need to get off my chest!” Today we’re “all mixed up!” Today we’re… Korn… Korn is suddenly relevant again? What? How? Did Johnathan Davis start taking or quit taking a new drug or something? I jest, but I stand FIRM in my commitment that Korn was THE rocking-ist concert I ever saw.
I barely remember shit from their set; I’d gotten in a fight earlier and got punched in the back of the head a lot. See? That sounds fucking horrible, like I’m some kinda bully-goon! No. The reality is that it’s a huge rock show outside of Wheaton, Mass. Not Tanglewood. The other one. I think. The place that got destroyed during Ministry’s set.
But before Korn even played, I saw two guys brawling, and I watched it, ‘cause I was drunk and I like watching people fight. Then one of the guys went down, and the other guy jumped on him, and it wasn’t really a fight anymore, it was getting close to a beating- which I don’t like to watch.
So I grabbed the dude that was on top and threw him off and then turned to face him, knowing I might now be part of the fight since I interfered to help the other guy. The other guy who then gets up and sees *me* standing in front of him with my back turned- and starts punching me as hard as he can. At the same time, the dude I threw rolling in the dirt has gotten back up and yes, he does take offense to my intrusion into his fistfight, so he’s happy to knuckle up with me too.
In the course of 4 seconds I went from trying to break up a beating to standing in the middle of one with an enraged opponent both fore and aft. I don’t know if either of them realized a third person had stepped in or not, I just knew I was getting punched in the back of the head and some were getting around my front guard too, so I took off running back to the dudes I went there with and I leapt through the air and landed on the back of one of the biggest, kindest monsters of a human I have ever met, this huge dude called Moose. I think his real name was K____.
But I came flying out of the losing end of an ass-kicking contest and in two steps and a jump K____ was wearing me like a backpack. It didn’t phase him in the least- he turned around to see who it was, but it was me, on his back like a tiny rhesus monkey, so he turned around and I don’t know if either of the guys were following me, but a second later when I slid back down to the ground, I was safe again. So see? So much of my life has been good intentions that paved the highway to hell. Korn though. Damn. So good live. Pretty sure I’ve ranted this bus before, but Ben Kweller. Damn. So good live.
Where does that leave us tonight, though? If we’re NOT watching the movie that we got really excited to learn existed and then felt dread at the PG rating? We’ve chosen one that I know I’ve seen before, but I have no idea what its about. Hell of the Living Dead. “An accident at a chemical plant unleashes a horrific virus, and an elite S.W.A.T. team is sent to New Guinea to investigate. But when they arrive on the hellish island, they discover a plague of flesh-eating zombies as well as a beautiful female reporter who practices nude anthropology. Can the commandos survive this cannibal rampage and uncover a shocking government secret?”
Well, I can say this. I think I remember the nude anthropology thing to be sort of a tacked-on segment. “Dances with boobs.” or something like that. I can also say this. In reality, the people most prone to taking their clothes off in public are the ones you are least interested in seeing naked. I worked in the adult industry. I know these things.
Something else worth knowing is that my wife and I just watched Commando for her first time ever a couple nights ago. How awesome is that? How crazy is that? She grew up child labor in a video rental store and she’s never seen Commando?
So, anyway… I was diggling it the whole time. “Let off some steam, Bennett.” or however his name’s spelled. That’s the great thing about Arnold at that point- you can call his enemies anything, really. He’s just mashing foreign syllables around in his big Austrian mouth at that point still.
I am not feeling that great as far as a functioning human machine unit. I feel like someone turned my Ick up to 11. I shouldn’t be drinking coffee. Bruno Whats-his-names… ok, this is directed by a big name. A big Itallian name. Mattei. Sort of in the same league as Fulci and Romero. I *think*. I don’t remember… Let’s just go for it. Hold my fizzy water. Gonna send it.