I
hadn’t planned on doing this, but after recognizing American
excellence in zombie movies I felt I owed it to the rest of the world
to take a look at their contributions. After all, several of the
movies on this list would have made it into at least the top ten on
the other list.
10)
The Plague of the Zombies
As
far as I can tell, this is the only zombie movie Hammer Studios
produced. I haven’t seen it in years, but it’s Haitian voodoo
take on zombies really freaked me out. There’s something about
period horror movies that makes them creepier to me. Maybe it’s the
total separation from anything that is familiar to me. Plague
is an undeniably Hammer –tinged film; from the creepy, dismal
atmosphere to the theatrical tone of the acting. It also predated
Night of
the Living Dead
by two years. I’m not going to say it’s a creepier or even more
successful movie, but there are many similar elements between the two
and you rarely hear this one mentioned.
9)
Cemetery Man
Very
rarely does a horror film qualify as being artsy-fartsy. And it’s
even more rare for me to like
anything that’s artsy-fartsy. I have a very low tolerance for
dense, incomprehensible narratives. But Cemetery
Man –
or Dellamorte
Dellamore
– is a movie that will entrance you the first time you see it. It
kept me on the edge of my seat. Not with excitement, but by being
such a compelling narrative and an amazing collection of visuals.
Rupert Everett plays the groundskeeper of a cemetery where the dead
come back to life and he has to return them to their graves. I don’t
want to say any more than that. It’s a great flick. If it didn’t
get so darned slow in places it would be higher up on the list. You
won’t notice the pacing the first time, but on repeated viewings
the movie does have a tendency to drag.
8)
Dead Snow
This
Norwegian movie about Nazi zombies in the snow was surprisingly rad.
Not only is it one of those movies that takes its time to build
tension towards an absolutely batshit ending that will have you
biting your nails to the quick; it’s also the only movie I’ve
ever seen to feature a blumpkin.
7)
The Beyond
This
Fulci classic has too many damn names for me to bother listing. Like
any Fulci movie, The
Beyond
is super fucked up. There’s a whole lot more going on than just the
dead rising from their graves, but these zombies are some of the
creepiest I have seen on screen.
6)
Tokyo Zombie
I know I reviewed this movie, but I can't find it.
Just know that this Japanese film is about a guy who wrestles
zombies. Like, pro wrestling-style.
5)
Undead
It’s
an Australian zombie flick and its damned strange. One of the best
things about foreign zombie flicks is their tendency to add weird
shit in on top of the zombies. Undead
does this spectacularly well.
4)
The Blind Dead series
I
thought for years the Blind
Dead
movies were Italian. This even came out on the Earth Station Boo
podcast I hosted the other night and I had to figure out how to
correct myself without sounding like even more of a moron. I don’t
think it worked. Anyway, I didn’t find out these movies were
Spanish until I bought the DVD box set a few years ago. I also didn’t
realize that they were all directed by the same dude and intended to
be sequential. Now I know that all four movies – Tombs
of the Blind Dead,
Return
of the Blind Dead,
The
Ghost Galleon,
and Night
of the Seagulls
(yeah, I know – not the scariest title) – are related and part of
the same narrative idea. I could have listed them separately and
bulked my list out to thirteen, but they’re all from the same dude
and I hate doing that with franchise movies. Or anything, really. I
tried to avoid listing multiple albums by the same artist in my Top
Fifty Albums list as well.
The
movies are the creation of Amando de Ossorio and revolve around
relentless, undead Knights Templar. The first two movies establish
that the Templars’ eyes were violently removed prior to their
deaths and that they hunt their prey by sound; making for tense,
terrifying pursuit scenes throughout the movies. Ossorio always
specified that his Templars were not zombies (as a matter of fact, he
didn’t always refer to them as Templars), but for the purposes of
my list they’re zombies. All four movies are pretty great, but The
Ghost Galleon
(which I first saw as Horror
of the Zombies)
is my favorite. Not because it’s the best, but because the first
time I watched it was with my old roommates and horror buddies T-Dawg
and Beth Van D. It was a hoot. We talked about that thing for weeks
afterward. Still do today, as a matter of fact.
3)
Zombie
Another
exemplary Lucio Fulci movie; this one is perhaps most famous for the
scene where a zombie fights a shark underwater. Or the scene with the
girl’s eye and the splinter. But there’s a whole lot more to
love. The story is actually quite good, with a mysterious yacht
delivering a zombie straight to New York. People go to the island of
origin and find teeming hordes of nasty undead. After barely escaping
with their lives, they hear that New York has been overrun by
zombies. It’s pretty awesome.
I
think Zombie
might have been the first foreign film I ever saw back when Anchor
Bay first released it on VHS (not counting some unfortunate
experimentation with anime in the early 90’s) and it opened me up
to a whole new world of horror when I was beginning to feel like I
had tapped America’s supply dry. Anchor Bay had such an amazing
impact on my life back in the late 90’s. I should probably write
about that someday.
2)
Shaun of the Dead
Edgar
Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost straight-up invaded America with
this movie. I didn’t know any of those names prior to seeing Shaun
of the Dead,
but afterward they became ingrained into my nerd consciousness. Shaun
of the Dead
is a combination tribute/send-up of every zombie movie ever. It’s
not a parody. I resisted seeing this one for a while because it was
one of those things that just got very popular very quickly, but once
I saw it I was in love. This is such a clever, well-done movie that
it almost makes me a little sick. This thing was made by people
exactly like me who are just doing much more interesting things with
their lives.
1)
Dead Alive
Like
many people, this is the movie that made me fall in love with Peter
Jackson long before his masterful adaptations of Lord
of the Rings.
As a matter of fact, the Lord
of the Rings
trilogy kind of bums me out a little bit, because it seems to be the
point at which Jackson abandoned his once trademark silliness.
Dead
Alive –
called Braindead
in its native New Zealand (and I think the American title is much
better) – is the only movie that comes anywhere near the fun and
quality of the Evil
Dead
movies. I will always hold Raimi’s horror trilogy sacred, but back
when I first saw Dead
Alive I
was of the opinion that those were the very best movies ever made.
Much to my surprise, Peter Jackson’s zombie tale held up to the
Evil
Dead
standard. It was just as sick, gruesome, and funny as Raimi’s
flicks. But it also had a style if its own. The hero was very
different from Ashley Williams.
I’m
a little shocked I couldn’t hit the magic thirteen for this list. I
would never have guessed there were so few international zombie
flicks as compared to the United States. Think about that – one
single country has produced more films about the undead than the
entire rest of the world combined.
America,
fuck yeah!
Phantom
Troublemaker vs. 31 Days of Halloween
If
you’re new here or haven’t been keeping up, this is where I give
my thoughts on SyFy’s “31 days of Halloween” programming.
Obviously I haven’t seen everything I’ll be talking about, but
that’s kind of what the internet is all about – talking out of
your ass.
Each
day I will cover the schedule from the time my post goes live
(usually 11 AM) through the following 24 hours. On Fridays I will
cover the whole weekend, which is a huge pain in the ass but also
kind of fun.
Enjoy!
11:30
AM – 1:30 PM – A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge
– I watched my DVD of this one again the other day after writing
about it the twelve times SyFy has replayed it. I still like it. Mark
Patton is very likeable even if he does have the girliest scream I
have ever heard in my life (he’s not an honorary B-Movie Scream
Queen for nothing). If you haven’t seen Nightmare
2 in a
while you should watch it. The exploding parakeet is hilarious, but
Mark Patton’s dad trying to accuse him of rigging it to explode is
even better.
Side
Note: I hadn’t realized it before, but the quality of the transfers
in my Nightmare
box set is pretty lousy. Especially this one. I guess I might
actually have to upgrade to Blu Ray someday.
Halloween
score – 5
Quality
score – 3
1:30
PM – 3:30 PM – A Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
– I watched this one the other day as well and it’s pretty
awesome. The image quality isn’t noticeably awful and it’s still
a fun movie. The Freddy baby is awesome. I’d like to buy the new
NECA figure that comes with it, but the adult Freddy either had bare
feet or a really long arm and I’d prefer a regular Freddy. Ooh –
I did find a new RoboCop with the spring-loaded holster, though!
Halloween
score – 5
Quality
score – 3
3:30
PM – 5:30 PM – Halloween H20
– I don’t intend to ever watch this movie again. Not even Jamie
Lee Curtis could polish this turd.
Halloween
score – 5
Quality
score – 2
5:30
PM – 7:30 PM – Pulse
– I still haven’t seen this, even though I’d like to.
Halloween
score – 4
Quality
score – 3
7:30
PM – 12:00 AM – Scare Tactics
– Wow. I picked the wrong time to run out of Tracy Morgan clips to
post. But the right time to not feel like writing about SyFy’s
schedule anymore.
Halloween
score – 5
Quality
score – 2
TUESDAY
12:00
AM – 4:00 AM – Scare Tactics
– See? This was an easy one.
Halloween
score – 5
Quality
score – 2
4:00
AM – 8:00 AM – Paid Programming
– I wonder if anybody records infomercials. In a universe of
infinite possibilities, somebody must.
Halloween
score – 1
Quality
score – 5
8:00
AM – 9:00 AM – Scare Tactics
– For reals easy.
Halloween
score – 5
Quality
score – 2
9:00
AM – 11:00 AM – Thir13en Ghosts
– Okay, SyFy. You’ve been asking for it. I guess I’m going to
have to do it. Bust out the Sexy Shannon Elizabeth Photo Gallery:
Halloween
score – 5
Quality
score – 3
Check
back in tomorrow for who knows what. As I write this I have a stack
of figures I still haven’t reviewed, a bunch of movies I didn’t
get around to watching, and three days off between now and Halloween.
Who knows what I’ll get done? Probably nothing.
-Phantom
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