Something old, something new, nothing really all that good:
City of the Living Dead (1980) (aka The Gates of Hell), in which Lucio Fulci adroitly divides the audience reaction between “Whuh?”and “Eww!”
Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis (2005), which deserves as many “Law of Diminishing Returns” quips we can throw at it.
#1 by Matthew Fudge on October 25, 2007 - 5:10 am
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This is only the 4th Return of..? Wow, that’s a relaxed production schedule.
#2 by Nathan Shumate on October 25, 2007 - 6:26 am
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Well, no. They knocked off after the third one because, frankly, no one was interested anymore. But a dozen years later, when zombies had become the new black, some development exec assistant was looking through a desk drawer and said, “Hey! Guess what franchise we have the rights to?”
#3 by Matthew Fudge on October 25, 2007 - 6:34 am
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Fair enough, make hay while the sun shines and all that. If it makes a profit (over $50 say) it can become another one of those horror franchises that start badly (or at least unremarkably) and inexplicably go on and on and on, long after anyone can even remember the first one (I’m looking at you Children of the Corn).
#4 by Blake Matthews on October 25, 2007 - 6:43 pm
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Good reviews. I guess what the Stomp Tokyo boys said about Dario Argento applies to Lucio Fulci too: He fought a two-front war against plot coherency and audience credulity. That’s such a poetic statement.
#5 by Nathan Shumate on October 25, 2007 - 9:36 pm
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But not as pretty.
#6 by KeithA on October 26, 2007 - 1:32 pm
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Oh, so that’s how Necropolis ends. I thought I watched the whole thing, until i tried to remember the end. Apparently I never finished it, though I did make it through more of this than I did “Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave.”
#7 by Nathan Shumate on October 26, 2007 - 1:54 pm
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Well, I didn’t really tell the end, largely because (a) they were AS OBVIOUS AS THEY COULD BE in leaving room for the sequel to start shooting in fifteen minutes, and (b) I had lost interest by that point.