old review | Post Apocalyptic Movie Mania

Old Review: Night of the Zombies

You know, I never claimed to be the brightest guy in the world. In fact, I may just be right above Jim Varney. Anyway, I just saw this 4 days ago and I can’t remember if this is the name of the movie or not. I’ll go back and check, but I figured I’d point out my idiocy to you all.

Anyway, on to the movie. This is your basic, Italian zombie movie. Only, they didn’t have much money for special effects, and they didn’t have much money for film, and they really didn’t have much money for actors either. I say this for several reasons. 1) There is more gratuitous usage of stock footage than even an Ed Wood movie. I think they managed to get ahold of a national geographic special on tribes and junk. Because they aren’t picky, there are pygmies, aborigines, massai warriors… you name it. But they are all supposed to be one group. 2) The zombies are just people with black-face on. Unless they are black, in which case they have blue-face one. I swear I am not making this up. 3) In a scene with a device that is measuring something or other, the readings go “off the scale”. This is accomplished by the actor carrying the device. He merely turns the little knob by the needle and makes it go “off the scale”. This was actually pretty dang funny. The plot is simple, zombies, tribal anarchy, eco-terrorists, mother earth revolting, the military and the press. Doesn’t that all sound like it should fit together? Heh heh… blew my mind I tell you. There was nudity in this movie though… just a touch. For some reason, the heroine in the movie decides she needs to strip naked and paint her body, to better relate to the natives… They still tried to eat her. You may be wondering what this all has to do with the Apocalypse? Well, that’s fair enough I guess. You see, the earth is mad, so it makes a nuclear power facility (or some such junk) leak poisonous gas. This gas makes everyone turn into zombies and eat the living. Pretty soon, almost everyone is dead. OK.. it’s weak, but I’m still counting it.
Note: This original review was written sometime during 1996-1997, when I was a drunken, twenty-something nincompoop. I am no longer that person. Or, that is to say, I am in my thirties now.

P.S. No, I didn’t link the wrong movie. This movie is apparently also known as Virus, Zombie Creeping Flesh and Hell of the Living Dead.

Delicatessen

Boy, I bet if you had to guess, you wouldn’t even think I knew where the furrin section was in the video store. Well, I guess we are both wrong. Delicatessen has become my new favorite post-apocalyptic movie of all time. It adds so much to the “genre”. (See, I’m even usin fancy words and junk.) Here is just a taste.

First of all, it’s interesting that there seems to be some vestiges of civilization left. I think that’s pretty realistic. Then, the goofy stuff they add completely makes it. The troglodytists or whichever. They reminded me of the cursed earth mutates in Judge Dredd comics… wait… I’m getting this mixed up. I think there are real troglodyte characters in Judge Dredd too… Anyway, the images in this movie make it supreme.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t know anything about camera angles, lighting or whatever. All’s I know is that these guys knew what they were doing. Everything had this hyper-real color to it. When they’d show the butcher’s face and evil grin… it looked perfect.

This movie had many images and ideas in it that (As far as I know) have never been done before. I mean, filling a bathroom with water to escape an angry mob? A big group of civilized happy cannibals? A man who lives half submerged in water with an army of frogs and snails? I’d like to meet someone who didn’t care for this movie. Just so’s I could punch them in the face.

Note: This original review was written sometime during 1996-1997, when I was a drunken, twenty-something nincompoop. I am no longer that person. Or, that is to say, I am in my thirties now.

Damnation Alley

Damnation Alley is one wacky monster of a movie. It stars both Jan-Michael Vincent (the guy from Airwolf) and George Peppard (Hannibal from the A-team). In fact, you can just mash both of those old TV shows together, substitute a tank machine for the Airwolf, keep Hannibal exactly the same and you’ve got Damnation Alley. But, I’m not saying that it’s all bad. Good mixes of giant scorpions and killer cockroaches keeps it interesting.
My favorite part of the movie was when they are in Las Vegas. Thank god it wasn’t destroyed! Anyway, they have these quarters and nickels and start playing slots like mad. I get shaky just thinking about it. See, there are casinos here and I think I’m addicted… so I went cold turkey. Ugh. I also figured out another valuable lesson to surviving the apocalypse.
LESSON: If you are traveling across the barren wasteland, that is the post-apocalyptic United States, in a giant killer tank-van, then keep this in mind. Every other time you stop the van, something bad will happen. The other times will prolly be to pick up freeloaders. In this movie, this lesson was pointed out as follows.
Stop 1: Nerdy guy dies.
Stop 2: Las Vegas, freeloader chick hops on.
Stop 3: Soul man eaten alive by giant mormon cochroaches.. heh.
Stop 4: Pick up little kid. (freeloader)
Stop 5: Stop at evil gas station, attacked by hicks.
Stop 6: Have a nice dinner outside.
etc. etc. etc. Anyway, it’s good. Well, it’s at least o.k. I still miss B.A. Baracus.
Note: This original review was written sometime during 1996-1997, when I was a drunken, twenty-something nincompoop. I am no longer that person. Or, that is to say, I am in my thirties now. 😉

Old Review: Zombie

I know Zombie can mean many different movies, but the one I’m talking about was directed by the Italian guy, Fulci. He’s a real master. I heard it was also released as Zombie 2 and it was known as a sequel to Dawn of the Dead in Italy. I dunno if any of that is true. Anyway, I saw this a while back when I was watching Zombie movies like I eat goldfish crackers. I was just reminded by a friend yesterday that it was post-apocalyptic… So here goes.
Very Dawn of the Dead-ish. Zombies eating humans. Brain shots the only way to kill them. It basically has our heroes (a group of whiners) stuck on an island with a bunch of dying natives and more zombies. I never will understand the Zombie/Jungle combination… but i’ve seen it in lots of movies. The best part of this movie has a Zombie underwater, fighting a shark. Can you believe that. It’s a real shark too I think. The shark would try and bite the zombie and the zombie would return in kind. Fantastic!
I can’t remember who the special effects guy was on this movie, but he made it. There’s a real famous scene that all the kids in the horror circles talk about. Mia Farrow’s sister is looking for her husband, and happens upon a zombie. She runs from him and closes the door on him. He smashes his hand through the door and there is a big splinter of wood. Then the zombie grabs her head and slowly pulls it toward the splinter. You watch the splinter actually puncture the eye. I don’t know how they did it. It was gross.
Anyway, what does this all have to do with the apocalypse? Well, of course noone can stop the zombies, so they make it on a boat and get to America. The last scene has them all shambling over the Brooklyn Bridge. The End.

Editor’s Note: Hmm.. I was corrected on this one. Apparently the eyegouge chick wasn’t Tisa Farrow, it was Olga Karlatos. I know, I know, you don’t give a rat’s ass. Well, believe me, there are some people out there who get pissed.

Additional Editor’s Note: This original review was written sometime during 1996-1997, when I was a drunken, twenty-something nincompoop. I am no longer that person. Or, that is to say, I am in my thirties now. 😉

NOTE: Yeah. I know. A note before the review, that’s weird, right? Well, I just want to reiterate that this is my original review of Night of the Comet from 1997-ish. Clearly I was drunk when I wrote it. Clearly I was wrong because I’ve been getting shit for this for nearly 13 years. So, my plan is to post this and then re-watch this movie and give it a chance this time. Yeah, that’s right. I’m not such an asshole that I can’t admit when I might have made a mistake. Ok. Enough hedging, here’s the original review:

Ladies and Gentlemen. Announcing a cage-grudge-death match. In this corner, we have Dawn of the Dead. In opposite corner, Day of the Triffids. And in our third corner, Valley Girl.
This is what Night of the Comet is. If you are wondering who wins in such an unusual match, the answer is no one. I watched this movie in the same weekend as Warriors of the Apocalypse and it took me three attempts to get all of the way through it. Whereas I just breezed right on through “Warriors“. I think that much speaks volumes.
Now, don’t get me wrong. A lot of the movies I’ve reviewed for these pages have looked and been much, much worse. I think this one bothered me because it was almost like a real movie. I mean, the only thing you can really bitch about is the plot. There aren’t minor filming, acting, effects flaws to distract you. Therefore you can focus your full hatred on the plot. Does that make sense?
Anyway, this is your basic Up-All-Night movie, only without the nudity and quirkiness that makes them so charming. Comets fly over the planet and instead of turning everyone blind (a la Day of the Triffids) they turn everyone into dust. Somehow, though, some people are turned into zombies instead. I have to admit that I liked this, even though there was absolutely no explanation given for it. I mean, there is no movie that is so bad that zombies won’t make it worse… umm.. yeah.
O.K. To top it all off, there are some wacky plot twists in this movie that they actually did pretty good. I won’t ruin it for you. Course, if you have a half a brain you’ll prolly figure it out way before I did. Well.. actually I never figured it out until they revealed it. See, I am dumb. Anyway, I forgot to talk about the “Valley Girls” in this movie. Maybe that is because they are about as Valley-ish as a drunken monkey. Huh?
Anyway, you can prolly afford to skip this one. That is, unless you want to hear cool 80’s-ish music and a wicked cover of “Girls just wanna have fun” that sounds just like Cyndi Lauper, only different.

Okey doke. I’ve gotten a lot of crap about my review of this movie. My advice, avoid criticizing 80’s nostalgia movies. Anyway, here’s a guest editor comment from Gene Splicer:

Guest Editor’s Note: You reviewed Night of the Comet, and stated that no explanation was given for some of them turning into zombies. The explanation was that exposure to the cometery radiation (bleeeeach) messed up your brain chemistry, making you prone to outbursts of anger. This didn’t really matter, because it also caused rapid and fairly impressive dehydration (in the lose ALL your water content and turn into dust manner) (paraphrasing madly here) Somehow this effect is blocked by steel, so people who were in airtight, steel containers were saved. People with partial protection (unsealed containers, sleeping under sheet metal) weren’t affected so badly, and started dehydrating verrrry sloowly. They didn’t actually turn into zombies, though. Just a bunch of soon-to-be-dead psychopaths with flaky skin.

Besides, the REAL point of this movie is to watch Chakotay swear.

Night of the Comet (1984) Starring: Robert Beltran, Catherine Mary Stewart Director: Thom Eberhardt

Tag: old review

Old Review: Night of the Zombies

Delicatessen

Damnation Alley

Old Review: Zombie

The Omega Man

Review: Waterworld

Night of the Comet (the review that got me into trouble)

The Quiet Earth

Exterminators of the Year 3000

Day of the Triffids