Two more entries:
Flight of the Living Dead (2007) — There are zombies. They’re on a plane. That’s bad. But it’s good.
Land of the Dead (2005) — Remember: Suits = Republicans, and Republicans = evil!!!
Recent Comments
FROM THE VAULT
- The Horror Out of Hong Kong — posted by KeithA on October 12, 2010
- You can't pick your family — posted by lyzard on May 1, 2010
- The secret life of Liz — posted by lyzard on August 1, 2011
- B-Fest Roundup 2012 — posted by El Santo on March 11, 2012
- These Have Been Up for a Few Days… — posted by El Santo on June 1, 2022
Pages
- About the Cabal
- Full Index of Reviews
- Roundtables
- 01: Brainathon ’99
- 02: Bangs'n'Whimpers
- 03: Post-Apocalypso
- 04: Review All Monsters
- 05: Pretty Mad Scientists
- 06: Tainted Love
- 07: Days of Future Past
- 08: Secret Santa
- 09: Catch a Throwing Star
- 10: Four-Color Features
- 11: Big Bugs
- 12: Fish With Bicycles
- 13: Go Go Go-Go Boys!
- 14: paLe IMITATIONS
- 15: We're Gonna Need a Bigger Roundtable
- 16: Whoa… Deja Vu.
- 17: Month of the Living Dead
- 18: B-Masters Beach Party
- 19: Kinji Fukasaku – The Man No Genre Could Tame.
- 20: Home Video Holocaust – The Video Nasties
- 21: Father Dearest: Who's Your Daddy?
- 22: So Sorry…
- 23: Back to the Well
- 24: Another Month of the Living Dead
- 25: The Ottoman Empire Strikes Back
- 26: Rubber Soul
- 27: Shhhhhh
- 28: Month of the Alternative Living Dead
- 29: On Time & Under Budget
- 30: These Kids Today…
- 31: Mea maxima culpa
- 32: Stingathon ’09
- 33: 10,000 B.S.
- 34: Foot Notes
- 35: Don’t Touch That Dial!
- 36: He Conquered the World
- 37: Secret Santa’s Revenge
- 38: At the Movies of Madness
- 39: They Might Be Giants
- 40: The Other Elizabeth Taylor
- 41: The Dark Guys of London
- 42: Falling Stars
- 43: To Be or Not To Be! (Pilot Error)
- 44: Teeth and Tentacles
- 45: Brunoween
- 46: Howl of the B-Masters
- 47: It’s Alive!
- 48: Bad, Black and Beautiful
- 49: Don’t Quit Your Day Job
- 50: B-Mentia 15
- 51: Quelle Horreur!
- 52: Carradine, Thou Wayward Son!
- 53: Tall, Dark and Gruesome
- 54: Pets Gone Wild
- 55: The Bad Place
- 56: From The Bible To Barbarella
- 57: A Fistful Of Pennies
- 58: Hello, Dolly
- 59: No, Not That One!
- 60: Dr Terror’s House Of Honours
- 61: WTF!?
- 62: In The Key Of B
- 63: The Forgotten Dawn Of Horror
- 64: The Most Dangerous Roundtable
- 65: Room For One More
- 66: Were-WHAT?
- 67: The China Anniversary Syndrome
- 68: The China Anniversary Syndrome: Part 2
- 69: The China Anniversary Syndrome: Part 3
- 70: The China Anniversary Syndrome: Part 4
- The Links We Love
#1 by Blake Matthews on October 11, 2007 - 5:54 am
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Good reviews. I’ve heard such mixed reviews for “Land of the Dead” from the B-masters and the BMMB, some saying that Romero blew his chance for a good comeback and others saying that their hat went off to him. “Flight of the Dead” sounds like a hoot…should be better than “Turbulence”, anyway.
#2 by Zack Handlen on October 11, 2007 - 6:48 am
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It’s remarkably unsubversive for a Romero film. Definitely fun to watch, but I can never get rid of that nagging sensation that it’s just not all that good.
#3 by Nathan Shumate on October 11, 2007 - 7:55 am
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Zack, I swear I will steal that line and use it someday.
#4 by Zack Handlen on October 11, 2007 - 8:01 am
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Nate, with the number of reviews on your site, I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d just stolen it from you. 🙂
#5 by Matthew Fudge on October 11, 2007 - 8:57 am
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It’s the battlebus thing, isn’t it from some Aussie post-apocalyspe movies from the 80s? If it isn’t it feels like it is.
#6 by Blake Matthews on October 11, 2007 - 9:11 am
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I have a question. Do you all think that the advent of the internet, with its loads of B-movie review sites and forums and whatnot have been detrimental to film franchises? I mean, it seems to bring fans together, which is good, but the fact that they can coverse and trade ideas about a movie’s pretensions (be they there or not), do you all think that creates abnormally high expectations for the recent entries in the franchise? Star Wars, Godzilla, Land of the Dead, Mother of Tears, etc.
#7 by Nathan Shumate on October 11, 2007 - 9:23 am
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The examples you cite are not convincing. The Star Wars prequels and the American Godzilla sucked on toast; we didn’t need an internet to tell us that.
#8 by Matthew Fudge on October 11, 2007 - 9:32 am
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I think there is an argument that the internet has led to a fetishing (so to speak) of some b-movies and a consequent cannonisation of the creators, which they themselves are unable to live up to, and probably feel aggrieved that they are expected to. So sometimes sequels and new movies from these people get bundled to front of the queue and expected to bear a weight of scrutiny that the originals were never subjected to. I don’t include StarWars and Godzilla in that because those guys could make any film they wanted to, but George Romero can’t, and yet he is no longer really judged within the framework of the b-move land he inhabits. deep breath.
#9 by KeithA on October 11, 2007 - 9:32 am
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Land of the Dead felt to me like George Romero trying hard to make a George Romero film. As in, “Oh, people expect some sort of social commentary, so I better get some in there.” And what was in there felt clumsy, somewhat predictable, and overly conscious of itself, where as in previous movies, it seemed more of a natural, organic part of the film that evolved without being forced (or perhaps even intended) as the script was being written. I think my reaction to Land of the Dead is not uncommon: I really don’t dislike the movie, but I won’t ever love it, either. Something just doesn’t quite click with it. And it’s not just that it’s a bigger budget, because I don’t ever really have a problem with that (and after a year spent watching tons of horrible, no-budget, shot-on-video zombie movies, I was thankful for a real one).
That said, I’m actually kind of excited about Flight of the Dead. I need something to take the foul, foul taste of Shatter Dead out of my mouth. Ahh, Shatter Dead…a zombie movie that dares wonder, “What if the dead came back, and they were really pretentious and boring?”
#10 by Matthew Fudge on October 11, 2007 - 9:50 am
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I think that kinda proves my point, that George Romero (hey, possibly) is aware of how high expectations are now for his stuff, so he consciously tries to provide what people want and in doing so loses whatever it was that made the originals special.
I think that the internet has definitely made the studios more aware of the appetite for b-movies, which has resulted in streams of both crud (pardon my french) and gold coming out on DVDs, plus the release of self-concious ‘b-movies’ like Snakes On a Plane (hey look at my movie! It’s shit! Isn’t that great?!).
Personall I’m rocking The Video Dead, now there’s a movie without ambition.
#11 by PCachu on October 11, 2007 - 9:52 am
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Alternate LOLzombie caption for the first “Land of the Dead” screencap:
ALASS POER YORIK
I PWNED HIM LOL
…I’ll be quiet now.
#12 by Ken Begg on October 11, 2007 - 9:58 am
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I think Romero is the victim of his own press clippings. Political subtext is fun because a) it can be ignored if you just wish to take the movie on face value, and b) is at least somewhat debatable as to what is being ‘said’; people are still arguing about whether the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a critique of Communism, or anti-Communism. (My guess: It’s neither, in terms of actual intent.) This sort of thing draws the viewer into really thinking about the film, but a little goes a long way. I still Dawn of the Dead was about as explicit in terms of commentary as you can get before it just without it just becoming in your face.
However, Land of the Dead seemed to be the movie where Romero had the invariably fatal thought, “If *sub*text is good, then *text* will be even better!” No so, sadly. And aside from all the other issues Nathan raised with the gated community, the damn thing wasn’t even ‘gated.’ I know it was meant to reflect the smug, unfounded sense of safety the rich had, but seriously, they wouldn’t even have a security gate to protect all those huge plate glass windows the zombies just come smashing through? There’s a reason the rich used to live in castles, and the fact is that one reason the rich get to be the rich is that they are very good at protecting themselves. (I realize there was an outer barrier, but still, this aspect was unbelievable to me.)
The real problem is that Romero doesn’t have anything new to say in a zombie film–which is probably why he tried so hard–and when you have Shaun of the Dead or 28 Days Later or even the Dawn of the Dead remake to contrast to Land of the Dead, well, it just doesn’t seem that good. Not horrible, but sadly, kind of run of the mill.
#13 by Nathan Shumate on October 11, 2007 - 10:19 am
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Matthew:
1) I think what made the studios more aware of the appetite for b-movies is the fact that people keep renting or buying them; if anything, Snakes on a Plane told them that all the internet buzz in the world won’t buy a McMuffin.
2) “Crud” ain’t French. It’s barely Quebecois.
#14 by Ken Begg on October 11, 2007 - 10:28 am
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I don’t think the Internet communities are to blame for crappy genre films any more than they are responsible for Spider-Man II or Hellboy or Lord of the Rings. (Although they had a lot of input on Snakes on a Plane, and it was a great movie.) Just off the bat, would you bet on a bunch of films made by del Toro, Raimi and Jackson, or by the Emmerich and such fading directors as Lucas and Romero? That’s what tells the tale, I think
#15 by Blake Matthews on October 11, 2007 - 11:55 am
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I think I’m just bitter that I see so many people bashing the Heisei and Millenium Godzilla films, the third Spider-Man film, and the Star Wars prequels, that I can’t seem to understand why. With the prequels, I have no emotional link whatsoever, so I could easily watch them for their action scenes. I grew up watching Godzilla films because I liked monsters wailing on each other and I always got just that (only G vs. Megalon really disappointed me, but I can tolerate it without any pain whatsoever). I’m just bitter because not everyone sees things my way…I’m going to hell, aren’t I? 😉
#16 by Ken Begg on October 11, 2007 - 12:48 pm
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Well, milage varies. I like the later Godzilla movies, except Final Wars which is a mess (although Space Godzilla was pretty lame and Destroyah was ‘eh’). Spider-Man III took heat because it clearly wasn’t as good as the second one, and probably tried to go too much in one film. I’m sure some disliked it more than I did, but what are you going to do? Meanwhile, many of us, perhaps most, just found the second (first, whatever) Star Wars trilogy to be a turgid bore, a victim of Lucas’ increasing obsession with technological rendering toys and diminishing patience for solid story-telling and characterization.
All the films you talk about made money, of course, so I don’t think the fan community threatened them in any larger sense. And to the extent that studios try to use the fan communities to pimp films, well, that’s a two-edged sword. I don’t see del Toro worrying about fan reaction while making Hellboy II, however.
As for our original subject here, let me say that I don’t think Zack would be amiss to give in to the nagging in this particular instance.
#17 by KeithA on October 11, 2007 - 2:27 pm
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I also thought the lack of any real security was somewhat unbelievable. Maybe Romero’s survivors should have holed up in a castle, all Decameron style (or Masque of the Red Death).
This sounds like a job for Uwe Boll!
#18 by Ken Begg on October 11, 2007 - 2:42 pm
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“This sounds like a job for Uwe Boll!”
Oh, that’s your answer for everything!
#19 by KeithA on October 11, 2007 - 2:46 pm
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That, or fire.
#20 by Ken Begg on October 11, 2007 - 2:54 pm
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Fire’s good, but everyone monster movie fans knows your most valuable survival tools are a) a fire extinguisher, and b) a flare gun. Those will fend up almost every monster ever.
#21 by Matthew Fudge on October 12, 2007 - 2:48 am
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Yeah, I guess no-one has pitchforks anymore.
#22 by The Rev. D.D. on October 12, 2007 - 8:37 am
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Fire extinguisher, flare gun…don’t forget a fireplace poker and a can of shaving cream. Because no one likes a mouthful of shaving cream.
(Anyone who gets that reference…well, actually, around these parts, I’m betting quite a few will. Eh, nevermind.)
I have my ups and downs with the newer Godzilla movies. Some of them are among the better ones, a couple among the worst. I enjoyed the Heisei ones more than I didn’t; on the Millennium ones, I’m mostly of the “eh” opinion. I liked GMK and Tokyo SOS (which I didn’t expect, since GxMG was boring and slow and had a severe lack of city stompin’), but 2000, Megaguiras, and Final Wars, while being fun in places and not terrible, just didn’t do it for me.
Happily we’ve got the Gamera films to give me the ass-kickin’ kaiju action I crave.
We were talkin’ ’bout zoms, weren’t we?…
Flight of the Living Dead…I’ll have to check that out. Sounds good.
The Video Dead…meh, I’ll take The Dead Next Door for unambitious zombie film fun.
#23 by Nathan Shumate on October 12, 2007 - 8:41 am
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If my VCR-to-PC hookup weren’t fritzing right now, I’d be all over grabbing a copy of The Video Dead for this month. It’s so… bad. I mean, come on — the way to defeat the dead is to exploit their claustrophobia?
#24 by Matthew Fudge on October 12, 2007 - 9:14 am
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hey, if you’d be locked ina coffin, you’d be claustrophobic too
#25 by Matthew Fudge on October 12, 2007 - 9:16 am
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It was of it’s time wasn’t it? These days it’d be “The ‘i-pod’ dead”
#26 by Zack Handlen on October 12, 2007 - 9:40 am
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Well, life in a box is better than no life at all.
#27 by KeithA on October 12, 2007 - 1:30 pm
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It was of it’s time wasn’t it? These days it’d be “The ‘i-pod’ dead”
Beware…The Streaming Video Dead.
It would explain why they stutter and pause all the time.
#28 by Blake Matthews on October 12, 2007 - 3:34 pm
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The Alien Dead sounded like it’d be Jabootu-level material. Can anyone confirm that?
#29 by Nathan Shumate on October 12, 2007 - 3:37 pm
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If by that you mean “a bad movie,” then yes. If you mean “a movie from which one could derive a review which finds something worthy of comment and criticism in every scene,” then no.
#30 by KeithA on October 12, 2007 - 4:04 pm
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I haven’t seen it since the 80s, but I seem to recall Alien Dead, back then, was one of the movies that defeated me. I didn’t finish it. It inhabits a lofty nirvana alongside The Supernaturals and A Virgin Among the Living Dead of movies that bored me to the stop button. I have a feeling if I watched any of them again, I’d make it through, but I’m not entirely proud of that. Of course, I’m not entirely ashamed, either.
#31 by Blake Matthews on October 12, 2007 - 5:33 pm
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I remember thinking the video box cover was kind of cool, almost scary. I think it was one of those bigger, puffed up box cases.
#32 by Nathan Shumate on October 12, 2007 - 8:15 pm
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Always a mark of quality, though nothing beats the flashing eyes on the box for The Dead Pit.
The main problem with The Alien Dead is that it’s clumsy. It was Ray’s second feature, produced independently in Florida with a crew that was really no more experienced than he was (Buster Crabbe as the sheriff being the lone exception). Which proves the dictum that “Practice makes perfect” — while no one could say that anything Ray’s done since has been High Art, he’s a smooth and systematic director that investors can count on to turn in a watchable product on time and under budget.
#33 by rjschwarz on October 12, 2007 - 8:19 pm
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Land of the Dead just seemed unreal to me. Yeah there are zombies and all but somehow Romero gave a sense of reality to his other zombie movies anyway. In Land that wasn’t so. I mean zombies have been around for awhile and yet the soldiers are still shooting bursts into their chests instead of headshots? You’ve got a minimally populated city and unemployed masses yet instead of levelling buildings to create an impenetrable masonary wall they rely on chain link fences? Instead of retasking and old military vehicle we’re supposed to believe they designed a new one from scratch? And why missiles on the vehicle when the enemy is zombies? And the idea that the masses would ever tolerate the way the wealthy were treating them is laughable.
To many soft spots in the story and I guess I hold Romero to a higher standard.
And the peoples attitude that zombies are just people too is the worst thing about the series. It’s not as if the zombies are just misunderstood, they eat people. They destroyed civilization. A live and let live policy just seems really forced.
#34 by El Santo on October 13, 2007 - 11:09 am
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Re: The Alien Dead
In some review somewhere (I think it was the one for Alienator, I had occasion to name-drop that film, at which point I described it as “the worst 1980’s zombie movie not directed by Bruno Mattei.” When I wrote that, I had forgotten that Redneck Zombies came out in the 80’s (for some reason, I remembered it surfacing sometime around 1991), but were it not for Redneck Zombies, I would continue to stand by that statement. So bad. So boring.
#35 by Nathan Shumate on October 13, 2007 - 12:49 pm
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I disagree. I think The Alien Dead is far less entertaining than Redneck Zombies, a fact I shall demonstrate when I review the latter this week. (You heard it here first, folks!)
#36 by Matthew Fudge on October 15, 2007 - 5:43 am
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Does it not ever just blend into one long movie where our hero is cursed to barricade the windows while gurning extras wave their hands through the gaps forever?
By which I mean that I am impressed that you guys can still distinguish one zombie movie from another.
#37 by Nathan Shumate on October 15, 2007 - 6:03 am
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I won’t be able to by the end of this month, I guarantee.
#38 by Matthew Fudge on October 15, 2007 - 6:27 am
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I know that I went through a phase of watching so many cheapo 80s sci-fi movies that when they come up now I have no idea if I’ve seen them or not, indeed most of them are so generic that I can get half way through before realising that this isn’t reminding me of a film i’ve seen before, it is the film i’ve seen before. It’s starting to apply to zombie movies too, thanks to the recent rush.
Oh, special mention deserved for ’48 weeks later’ currently for sale in a Woolworths near me, with the tag line ‘the devestation continues’. Subtle. Anyone know what this film was called before 28 weeks later came out?
#39 by Nathan Shumate on October 15, 2007 - 6:37 am
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Heh. That one was shot as Last Rites, then became Gangs of the Dead for its US DVD release.
#40 by Matthew Fudge on October 15, 2007 - 8:42 am
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I like the ‘the bums are eating the cops!’ line on the back.
You’ve gotta have a lot of confidence in your product when the only plausible sales technique is to pretend it’s a different movie and hope someone buys it by mistake.
#41 by Nathan Shumate on October 15, 2007 - 8:47 am
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Or a lot of confidence in the stupidity of the average renter. Hey, I’d bet on it.
#42 by rjschwarz on October 15, 2007 - 9:11 am
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Gangs of the Dead wasn’t as bad as many zombie movies. Yeah it was the typical board ourselves up inside (in a wharehouse) and fight amungst ourselves until the zombies finally break in style of zombie movie but it still was half decent. Sad their own marketing had a lesser opinion.
#43 by Matthew Fudge on October 15, 2007 - 9:48 am
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Hey, I wouldn’t blame people who have lives for being confused. Even at the ‘top end’ of the market (a relative term), you have Romeros new ‘Diary of the Dead’ coming only about two months after the release of the ‘Zombie Diaries’, both of which use the sane Zombie on camcorders gimmick. Or so I believe, I haven’t seen the romero one, I don’t know if it’s come out anywhere yet though there are reviews floating around.
#44 by rjschwarz on October 15, 2007 - 9:52 am
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My guess is your average zombie fan is not going to be confused and just might rent/buy the thing anyway. Maybe I’m just covering for a few of my own questionable purchases but judging from the reviews on this site I don’t think I’m alone. So the question is, are we a minority on a ghetto genre or did they make/market a movie they really don’t know much about the audience for?
#45 by Matthew Fudge on October 15, 2007 - 10:00 am
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hey I’ll watch any old rubbish but I have to admit that these movies are (for the most part) knocked out by producers who couldn’t care less what genre it is, only that zombie movies are cheap and successful.
#46 by KeithA on October 15, 2007 - 11:55 am
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A glut of microbudget zombie films that went from awful to worse, coupled with the current precious trendiness of zombies among New York City’s Williamsburg hipster has put me off zombies for a while. Witness, for example, Williamsburg’s “Living Dead Yoga” performance art.
I’m sticking to movies where Peter Cushing examines things.
#47 by Nathan Shumate on October 15, 2007 - 1:08 pm
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[blofeld] You disappoint me, Mr. Allison. [/blofeld]
#48 by Matthew Fudge on October 16, 2007 - 1:09 am
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Zombie hipsters? Lord above.
Those Hammer movies I have just as much as a problem with. I was in HMV (a ye olde world music/video shop) t’other day looking at the Dracula movies and I couldn’t tell if I owned them by either looking at the name, or reading the description. Now I’m not saying that Hammer made the same damn movie over and over again, oh wait, so I am.