Ghost Brigade

Ghost Brigade
aka - Grey Knight

United States - 1993

Director - George Hickenlooper

Turner Home Entertainment, 1995, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour 20 minutes

Fangoria #48 - The Supernaturals

It's been a while since we posted an old magazine scan here at LVA. While filing away some old Jimmy Carter issues of Newsweek I ran across this issue of Fangoria. Here's an interesting article on the 1985 Civil War zombie film The Supernaturals which we posted on back HERE. The film itself leaves something to be desired, but this article makes up for that. Plus how can you go wrong with zombie pictures. Written during the filming of The Supernaturals (apparently singular at the time, note the first page title), the article makes connections to other contemporary films like The Mutilator and Android, but we'll let you read the article and find out for yourself.

From Fangoria issue 48, published in March of 1985 I believe.

For more of our old horror magazine posts check out Ephemera.

Mortuary

Mortuary

United States - 1983

Director - Howard Avedis

United American Video, 1991, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 35 minutes

How many times do you have to be told, nothing good ever happens at a mortuary.
Alas, this is another of those movies that sounded so promising but proved to be less than awesome. I must say I was thrilled to see wife-husband team of Christopher and Lynda-Day George again. It had been a while, probably since Day of the Animals or something. In a roundabout way the Georges were a little like an early version of Bronson-Ireland with a little less reknown.

Since this tape was such shit, I'll have to watch the DVD that was released this year.

Dead Heat

Dead Heat

United States - 1988

Director - Mark Goldblatt

New World Video, 1988, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 26 minutes

Among the more bizarre buddy cop films, Dead Heat ranks pretty high up there. Although the plot itself, with a mad-scientist transplanting old people-souls into young people bodies, isn't all that exciting, the execution is pretty damned fun. Joe Piscopo and Treat Williams are at their knuckle chewing best as endlessly annoying and whiny buddy cops respectively. Who would have them any other way? Quite possibly one-upping the medical supply warehouse scene from Return of the Living Dead in which the butterflies and split-dogs are zombified, Dead Heat features a similar scene in a Chinese butcher shop
They don't make 'em like this any more.

Zombie High

Zombie High

United States – 1987

Director – Ron Link

Cinema Group Home Video, 1987, VHS

Run Time – 1 hour 31 minutes

I grew up just early enough to catch the second wave of zombie films that came with the 80’s and early 90’s and I am a huge fan of that era. It’s been difficult to get behind the zombie films of the third wave that began with 28 Days Later. They have such a different aesthetic and context that my greater awareness as an adult has prevented me from enjoying or even appreciating them much. There are a few exceptions of course, namely the recent Romero films, and the Dawn of the Dead remake. Still, nothing compares to the original, or Fulci’s masterpiece, Zombi 2.
Then there are also exceptions to the rule that zombie films of the second wave are universally better. An obvious stinker might be The Video Dead, but I can get behind even that terrible piece of shit because it still adheres to at least one of the (my) critical Zombie Movie Rules.

One, with the exception of voodoo, films should not attempt to explain the origin of zombies or zombification. Big no-no in my book and a sure-fire ruiner of any zombie centered plot as last year’s TV disasterpiece The Walking Dead proved. Second, if you’re going to have gore, don’t make the plot too complex and vice-versa, if you’re not going to have gore, you better have a good story. Finally and most importantly, zombies should not be self aware, this includes their use as a distinct political or demographic statement in and of themselves. Romero used his zombies as a catalyst to discuss social issues in his early films, but they were not intrinsically a metaphor for any distinct subject or issue. Now I know some people will want to argue these points, and I welcome the discussion, but I’ve thought about this quite a lot and am pretty convinced.

There are of course isolated exceptions to each of my rules (opinions), however any film in which violations manifest immediately becomes suspect. Thus I raised an eyebrow as the opening scenes of Zombie High began playing out across my screen. As much as I despise classism and plutocracy, as a separately defined antagonist group in a monster movie, they belong to the despicable Vampire genre. In Zombie High the titular monsters are the elite students of an already elite prep-school. Until the opening of this film, the student body had been exclusively male, but Virginia Madsen’s character Andrea is among the first contingent of double X chromosomes to attend and it’s pretty clear that she comes from a “lower class” demographic. On top of this, the zombies are explained, created by a brain serum and controlled by their zombie overlord with the use of a crystal and a cassette tape of classical music. Essentially they’re vampires again. Finally, there’s virtually zero gore, and as I just described, the story is pretty stupid, so you’ve got an all around loser here.

Hurry, flip the tape!

I did not originally intend to compare this film to Video Dead, but it ended up that way. Because they came out in the same year it works out well to demonstrate how one exception to the rules can make so much difference. Video Dead doesn’t make its zombies exemplary representatives of any class or group and thus despite being an otherwise lousy film, it beats Zombie High hands down.

A UK VHS sleeve from It's Only A Movie.co.uk

The Supernaturals

The Supernaturals

United States - 1985

Director - Armand Mastroianni

Embassy Home Entertainment, 1986, VHS

Run Time -1 hour, 25 minutes

I came across this film while looking for another civil war zombie film I saw years ago called Curse of the Screaming Dead. The Supernaturals itself has little to recommend it. Beginning with the cover art which features a historical discrepancy so glaring I won't even begin. Furthermore, although set in the 1980's when the US military was entirely volunteer, the characters whine and bicker and laze about as if they were draftees. And finally, there is no gore whatsoever. A perfect opportunity in the golden age of American splatter cinema to cash in on the ubiquitous confederate catchphrase of the modern era "The South Will Rise Again," and they went and wasted it. Curse of the Screaming Dead used it, but that movie is also terrible so it was more or less squandered.
 On the plus side, The Supernaturals does have original music by Robert O. Ragland, and it co-stars LeVar Burton of Reading Rainbow and TNG.

Tombs of the Blind Dead

I added new VHS boxes to several movies that have been posted here in the past. I found a very old Media Home Entertainment release of the British thriller Schizo.
In addition I added several  UK sleeves, one for the Texan film The Outing bearing the original title "The Lamp" and another for the Canadian film The Vindicator.
Bionic Ninja got a new VHS thing, and
Goin' All the Way got a new poster image. Check 'em out!

And, just so this post isn't pure text here's a sweet Dutch VHS box for one of my favorite zombie movies of all time. Can't remember where I got the image.

Tombs of the Blind Dead

 

Tombs of The Blind Dead

Spain - 1971

Director - Amando de Ossorio

I bought this poster years ago from a poster shop in Albuquerque when I was living there. The owner was going to a convention in Florida, I asked him to get me anything Blind Dead and he came back with this thing which he said was from Australia.

This is one of my favorite zombie movies ever, but as a fan of excess in American film making, this sounds a little strange to say since Tombs is in no way excessive or over the top. In fact I'm not entirely sure what I like so much about this slow and plodding, film that lacks the gore, nudity and insanity of my other favorite films. All I can say in my defense is that the zombies, The Templars, are rad. What sells them their state of decay which should preclude them from hearing anything, but that's how they find their victims. The atmosphere and tension of those scenes when they are in the room with a person trying to avoid detection; excellent, just excellent.

Garden of the Dead

Garden of the Dead

United States - 1974

Director -John Hayes

Showcase Productions, 1988, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 26 minutes

I will probably never get around to writing anything of significant length about this film because it, or in any case, my copy of it, is absolutely terrible. I've gritted my teeth and drank my way through it twice, but it is a visual train-wreck of home video. The box art consists of a heavily cropped version of an already crappy poster and the synopsis reads like it was written by a warehouse clerk. The transfer of the film itself is a murky, grainy and painfully dark print that makes shooting day-for-night seem like a good idea.
Seeing as this tape was squeezed out some twelve years back, I can only hope that there is a better version available out there in this modern age of computronical video. The plot of the thing was pretty ridiculous and the acting on par with the hillbilly characters, but it seemed like it might be at least groan-worthy amusing. I can usually take bad, as long as I can see it.

Dawn of the Dead Rednecks

Dawn of the Dead
United States – 1978
Director George Romero

Experiencing the original Dawn of the Dead to the fullest requires something more than a love of zombie cinema, it requires an intimate and profound understanding of American culture and the subtle and often overlooked social commentary of George Romero’s anti consumerist narrative. Part of this is exemplified in the main protagonists of the film; Peter, Fran, Roger and Stephen whom, devoid of any real character exposition hypothetically represent different cultural archetypes. But to cloister oneself in the confines of Romero’s narrative, like his protagonists in their cathedral of consumption, is to commit the same error Romero himself criticizes; the failure to question the nature of truth. Denial, especially within the post-modern meta-academic delusion is still not any kind of solution. To really experience Dawn of the Dead you need to look outside of the mall, through the keyholes at the outside world. To really experience Dawn of the Dead, you need Iron City Beer.

And this was just my goal when I invited some of my closest friends over for a night of flannel shirts, work boots and Pittsburgh’s finest lager, and most importantly a viewing of George Romero’s 1978 masterpiece Dawn of the Dead. The first time I saw Dawn was both prophetic and comedic for the same reason, and probably only to me. Nevertheless by that time I had tasted my first beer, and loved it, and by my third viewing had become intrigued by the scene in which the protagonists fled the city in Stephen’s stolen rotary-wing aircraft. As they pass over the pastoral farming landscape of southwestern Pennsylvania Stephen mutters, “Those rednecks are probably enjoying the whole thing.” (00:19:15)


Subsequent shots of the rednecks in question showed that his assessment was more than likely correct. But they weren’t just having fun, they were drinking Iron City Beer and having fun. Somehow in a bizarre twist of meta-perception, these guys really were enjoying the Dawn of the Dead. Unlike our protagonists who, by the time I had worked all this out mentally were already moping around in their mall. They were enjoying it the way I wanted to enjoy it; in participatory fashion.

Unfortunately when Iron City Beer first blipped on my hazy teenage radar in Dawn, it was for all intents and purposes a relic of a bygone era. Nevertheless it stuck in a corner of my brain and stayed there. And a good thing too, since ten years later working-class ironic-cool managed to drag Iron City out to the west coast in the wake of its better known “award’ winning competitor. My plan upon seeing it on retail shelves in my neighborhood was to really experience Dawn of the Dead along with my closest friends. For this event we would need the obvious stockpile; a gaggle or three of Iron City mortar-round bottles. Thusly provisioned by the local grocery mart, we safely ensconced ourselves in the house and settled in for an evening of watery lager and overt cinematic metaphors.

As elected representative of those present, I can safely declare the event a success. As it turned out, Iron City Beer had absolutely nothing to contribute to the experience unless you count innumerable bathroom visits and a shitty, shitty hangover. Based on personal experience I’ll wager that by the time the next Day of the Dead rolled around those rednecks were in pain. Fortunately for Romero and Dawn, the film remains awesome and its subtle cultural criticisms as timely as ever. It’s one of those few from its time that can be watched again and again given enough lapse time, and still reveal a new experience. Clearly those rednecks had one thing right though, to experience Dawn of the Dead you need good company.

Thanks to Phill, Amanda, Anna and Regis for sitting through this one with me.

And for the sake of box art, this is the first legitimate copy of the film I got, a double VHS from Anchor Bay. They subsequently suckered be into buying two different versions on DVD one of which, the Divimax version, we watched for this event. Below is the interior "gatefold" art from the above VHS version.

After exactly two years I'm pleased to announce that this is the 200th post on LVA. At roughly 8 posts a month what we lack in quantity we make up for in quality. You keep readin' 'em and we'll keep makin' 'em that way.

Zombie

Zombie 2
EDDE Entertainment ca. 1992
Run Time - 1 hour, 32 min.

This is a VHS box I've never seen for a personal favorite, "The Lucio Fulci Classic" Zombie. My friend Phill passed this one my way. The artwork is so dark and muddy, how did they design this box, it looks like an Alice In Chains album cover.
The best part is the title which seems to denote a molecule composed of two zombie atoms.
A heavy isotope of the Zombie element indeed.

Dark Tower

Dark Tower

United States - 1987

Director- Ken Barnett

Video Treasures, 1994, VHS

Run time - 1 hour, 31 min.

I personally believe that it is a bad idea to try and push anything other than the plot of the film at hand on the box itself. The obvious deduction when you see a video sleeve with claims like “in the tradition of…” is to think the film can’t stand on its own merit. When it’s an indie movie, like Dark Tower, it might also be a bad move to call out all the actors and their previous roles, in a bulleted list no less, to try and generate interest in the film. In short, any attempt to play up the quality of a film by invoking other films is a bad idea. But, for all I know, that was the only thing the marketing team though they had going for them.

Carolyn Page (Jenny Agutter) gives a bunch of fellows a tour of a skyscraper under construction and then retires to her office to undress and walk around in some underwear. A window washer catching an eyeful cranes his neck to get a better look but when she sees him he suddenly starts getting jerked around by an unseen force, his head bashed against the window and finally hurled over the side of his pulley falling like a giant bird poo to splatter on top of one of the guys who was just getting the tour. This says less I think about the fall, than the woman’s full closet nightie setup in her office, in an otherwise totally unfinished building.

Dennis Randall (Michael Moriarty, The Stuff, Hanoi Hilton) is called in as a head of security or something, to give the film a procedural feel and sporadically squeeze out his lines with a manic yell. Randall also has numerous waking psychic episodes in which he visualizes himself raping Carolyn while some guy in a shabby suit watches. He also appears to be sleeping with her while he has these visions, but the films producers deemed this paradox beneath clarification. That evening a security guard is menaced by a malfunctioning fluorescent light fixture and some spooky music. The whole thing is like a primitive god concept, in which a little understood phenomenon, mechanical failure in this case, is explained by the irrational invention of a supernatural controlling force. Hence the evil elevator, which drops at terminal velocity to splatter the security guard, but remains functional for the rest of the film to perform the same trick ad nauseum with the same boring static shot. Nobody calls a repairman, it’s just taken for granted that it's an evil spirit.

Instead, Randall hires a "French" paranormal-psychologist to bring still more verbal diarrhea to this buffet of talent. The shrink, Kevin McCarthy (My Tutor and Innerspace among other gems) gets drunk and tells everyone they are stupid. Advice for the ages to be sure, but perhaps better received prior to signing a contract to be in this film. In any case all three of the boys team up to tackle the building's poltergeist, dragging a snarky Carolyn along for laughs. Soon confronted by some wind and noises, everyone becomes overwhelmed by the awesome vapidity of the film. Randall becomes possessed by said spirit, apparently Carolyn’s dead husband, and barks out the whole back-story like a steaming hairball into Carolyn’s lap. Inexplicably he becomes a cheap rubber zombie and chases Carolyn around the building, grabs her and magically re-seals them both back into the broken concrete piling of the buildings foundation before reappearing moments later as Moriarty, apparently at peace with the whole ridiculous poltergeist-zombie-transmogrification thing. Well, that’s faith for you. Amen.




IMDB claims that this was directed by Freddie Francis who was later replaced by Ken Wiederhorn (Return of the Living Dead II, Shockwaves), the former seems ridiculous because he's a multiple Oscar winner, but the second sounds more feasible simply because this is his caliber of film

Fangoria 71 - Night Of The Living Dead

I know I've been slacking on the posts in the last month, this quarter has been a lot more brutal than I expected and I've had little time to devote to film. That said I'll give you some old Fangoria back when it was still a fun rag. One of the great things about these old issues is that in addition to having contemporary articles about the films you still love (in this case Brain Damage), you can find all kinds of stuff you forgot about (like Cellar Dweller).

So the article I'm featuring here is a Fango "exclusive" of some full color Night of the Living Dead production stills. Behind the scenes shots so to speak, though none of them are terribly interesting. My love of zombie movies makes this one of my favorites, and I always think it's interesting, at least from a nerd point of view to remember that NOTLD did not have to be filmed in black and white, it was just cheaper that way. After all, full color footage was daily being flown back from the killing fields of Vietnam and screened every night on TV in 1968. Incidentally, that's where Tom Savini was, Vietnam, serving as an Army combat photographer, that's why he wasn't working on NOTLD despite the offer from Romero.
Anyway, enjoy.

Fangoria 8 - Zombie

You've gotta love this toothy fellow, one of the greatest horror film images of all time in my humble opinion, flopped left to right from the original for this cover, published October 1980.


You can tell who the Italian darling of the Fangoria staff was because they screwed up Lucio Fulci's name on the table of contents. I'll bet they never accidentally called the other guy Lucio Argento, I guess they kindof have a decent excuse though, before Zombi 2, Fulci had mostly been doing westerns and White Fang adventure films and hadn't shown up on American genre radar yet.





The article was written by Jim Wynorski who went on to direct Chopping Mall (1986) and Deathstalker II (1987) and more recently a plethora of soft-core skinflicks like The Bare Wench Project series.

Zombie

Zombie

a.k.a. Zombie Flesh Eaters

Italy - 1980

Director - Lucio Fulci

Anchor Bay, 2002, DVD

As an unabashed 15+ year fan (short for fanatic) of zombie movies I must admit that one of my favorites, in fact my absolute favorite zombie film is Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 (known to most US viewers of course as simply Zombie).

There are several reasons for this effusive gushing affection (I choose my adjectives with care).

• The spiritually and emotionally uplifting poster art, see right.
• The effusive gushing gore brought to you by Gianetto DeRossi (more recently he did Haute Tension, a gory (duh) French slasher film from the directors of the decent remake of The Hills Have Eyes.
• The low budget plot which is taken up primarily by zombies eating people, zombies shuffling, zombies rising slowly from improbably shallow graves, and people shrieking as they flee the shuffling hungry zombies. Of course there's some dramatic tension and character development in there too, oh and some nudity, but who's counting when the impromptu tracheotomies-via-zombie-mandible are taking place?
• Tisa Farrow, and more importantly Ian McCullough, two steadfastly mediocre actors who put every ounce of passion into every zombie induced shriek.
• Ummm, it's fucking Italian, and frankly you cannot get much better than an Italian exploitation film. The Wops did it best and they did it best, period. There is something in the Italian cultural mentality that allows for envelope pushing extremes, just ask Benito.
• The soundtrack which just adds a level of low budget menace which cannot be equaled I think by anything American, and few things Italian. Piercing, unnerving, almost nauseating, it is the perfect compliment to the film. When Phill and I at Kung Fu Grindhouse showed this movie, one of the things we were most excited about was getting to hear the soundtrack over a full PA system. It was a thing of beauty.

This last point is a big one, and it is what inspired me to write this blog entry. I've long wanted to have myself a copy of the soundtrack in order to assail my ears with images of undead mastication whenever it so pleased myself to do so. Alas, the one semi-bootleg copy available retail was ridiculously overpriced and had to be shipped from the land of really bad movies (see also the United Kingdom), not to mention being out of print.
Enter The Manchester Morgue, a blog which I found because it was kind enough to post a link here. I wasn't sure for a while what Manchester Morgue was trying to do besides being exploitation movie nerds (which is fine in and of itself) but hey, on closer inspection I got it. If you want to find the music from an old exploitation movie, Manchester Morgue is the place to look. Once I figured that one out (which took all of 3 or 4 minutes of actual attention paying) guess what I began searching frantically for?

Oh sweet wienie roast. Now I can think of flesh eating all day long with a smile on my face.

Visit my new friends over at The Manchester Morgue for good things and look HERE for more Zombi 2 coverage from LVA, and HERE for zombies in general.