Day 10, 11, 12 and 13!

Zombie-a-thon!

It’s the, “ZOMG I slacked off all weekend and didn’t get any movies done Zombie Movie Marathon!” Yes, four zombie movies all in small, bite sized pieces for easy digestion. Let’s get right to it!

October 10th

Hell of The Living Dead (1980)

While it’s one of the best of Zombie flicks to come out of Italy at the height of the late 70’s – 80’s zombie craze, Hell of The Living Dead is still an incomprehensible mess. Still, if you’re looking for a fun “cheesy” movie this is one of the greats and yet it still manages to be a little creepy.

A SWAT team (although they seem more like hired guns) stops a terrorist organization from taking over a building and are then assigned to go to New Guinea to go on vacation or something. There they meet up with a female reporter and find that there’s a zombie plague spreading amongst the native population that will soon escape the jungle and affect the entire world!

It seems a secret chemical plant had a leak and some of the stuff they were making got out. Of course it turns out that it’s a big government conspiracy to make a zombie virus to wipe out the third world population to end the hunger crisis. Our group of not particularly likable heroes has encounter after encounter with our undead friends and it quickly becomes apparent that the epidemic is out of control as the natives don’t burry the bodies of their dead underground or something like that.

This is a crazy film. Blood is everywhere, limbs are ripped apart and a zombie rat goes ballistic on a guy in a chemical suit. There’s so much stock footage from animal specials that it looks almost like a National Geographic film at times, the dubbing is horribly bad and a grown man dresses up in a little tutu and dances around while taunting a pack of zombies.

That’s right; we’ve hit the bad movie mother-load.

While it’s not a good movie it sure as hell is entertaining, and that’s why I’m happy to recommend Hell of The Living Dead this year. Watch it as an unintentional comedy for the full effect.

Rating –

8 out of 10 if you have a completely warped sense of humor like I do.
1 out of 10 if you’re a “normal” person.

October 11

Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things (1973)

A small troop of actors led by supreme jack ass Alan arrive on an old cemetery island where dead criminals used to be buried. Alan plays tricks on them and eventually he conducts a ceremony where he calls upon old Satan himself to raise the islands dead from their graves. Nothing happens and everyone heads to a small cabin on the island to party.

Once they are inside however the dead DO rise from their graves in a spectacular scene, and then start eating people left and right. From that point on it becomes a zombie home invasion film where the actors try and keep the zombies from breaking in.

This is a great flick but some viewers might be put off by its slow build and the very 70’s appearance of it all. If you can make it through that you’ll be treated to one hell of a climax. As soon as the actors arrive on the island and start disrespecting the dead the audience knows that something really bad is going to happen to them, and when they start invoking the dark forces they’re really asking for it. This creates a sense of impending doom that adds some great tension to the films proceedings.

The zombie makeup is actually really good and that along with the awesome location, smart script and good direction helps to elevate this film from just another zombie movie to one of the classic ones. An excellent film for late night viewing, Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things is one of the better zombie movies that most people outside of the horror circle haven’t seen before.

Rating – 6 out of 10 is you’re sick and twisted like me.
Rating – 3 out of 10 if you have no attention span and you can’t sit through 40 minuets of film before the zombies show up and start eating people.


October 12th

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974)

This is another goodie. A woman smashes into a guy’s motorcycle at a gas station in England, wrecking it. They become unwilling traveling companions as they head off into the countryside as the woman is going to visit her sister, but it’s not before long that they run into the reanimated corpses of the freshly dead, who are being resurrected by an experimental machine that uses ultrasonic radiation to kills pets by scrambling their brains and causing them to attack each other. To make matters worse there’s an asshole of a police inspector who suspects our hero’s are responsible for the killings hounding them at every turn.

Until is was re-released on DVD some years back this movie was hardly seen by anyone other than the hard core zombie cinema fans, but now everyone can enjoy this film for what it is – one of the best zombie movies of all time. The acting, pacing and atmosphere are all superb and the film looks slick, as though it had a much larger budget than it really did. The characters are likeable and the zombies look good, although not as juicy as some gore-fans might like.

One thing to keep in mind is that this flick was made only 4 years or so after Night of the Living Dead and it predates the huge European zombie boom that followed after the release of Dawn of The Dead in 1978. As a result this is a more thoughtful and original movie than some of the other zombie flicks that came out later and it’s one that’s very heavy on the atmosphere.

A fantastic movie, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie is one of the best and it deserves a place in your horror collection. (Uh, if you have one.)

Rating – 7 ½ out of 10 if you love a good zombie movie.
Rating - 4 out of 10 if you’re normal. (AKA Boring.)


Day 13

King of The Zombies (1941)

Here’s a golden oldie for ya.

Three men crash land on a remote island during World War II and are welcomed into the mansion of creepy German Dr. Miklos Sangre, who unbeknownst to them is raising zombies to help win the war for the Third Reich! However, what the doctor doesn’t know is that our heroes “crash-landed” there on purpose to save an Admiral that the evil doctor has captive.

This was the age before Night of The Living Dead and therefore before zombies started eating people. The zombies in this film are vacant, soulless husks as all zombies were of that period. Brought back to life via Voodo they shuffle around and do random tasks for their master. As far as the film is concerned this is just a standard plot boiler that would have been pretty boring, if not for the amazing comedic performance of Mr. Mantan Moreland.

An African American, Moreland plays one of the unfortunately stereotypical roles given to non-whites of the period as the skittish manservant terrified of his own shadow. However, Moreland takes the material, runs with it and completely steals the show. It looks like the makers of the film must have had a lot of faith in him too because he gets just as much if not more screen time as the white actors. While the rest of the cast is forgettable Moreland is dynamite and this really is his movie.

King of The Zombies is in the public domain and can be downloaded for free all over the internet. It’s certainly worth watching as it does have somewhat of an eerily atmosphere and Moreland brings the house down. It’s safe for the kids and a good time all around.

Rating – 6 out of 10 assuming you have a sense of humor.
Rating – 4 out of 10 if you can’t stand those, “old movies”.

31 Days of Halloween day 9

Demoni (AKA Demons) 1985

We need more Italian monster movies in this list and so I present to you one of my all time favorites, Demons, directed by Lamberto Bava, son of the famous Italian director Mario Bava. European horror movies from the 60’s – 80’s have a special atmosphere all their own. Unlike American films these Eurohorrors tend not to offer explanations for the supernatural occurrences that may occur nor is there much logic to the plot. This leads to them often feeling rather dream like and surreal.

Demons is a great example of Italian horror in general and a cult favorite. A bunch of random people are invited to the premier to a new horror movie by a man in a strange silver mask in West Berlin. As they enter the lobby one woman cuts her hand on a sinister looking mask; a prop from the film on display. As our quirky cast of characters from all walks of life sit down to watch the movie, the girl who cut her hand starts to feel ill and rushes to the bathroom. There she undergoes a hideous transformation into a demon! Every person she attacks turn into a demon as well and as the doors to the theater are sealed the remaining humans must band together to try and survive the demonic onslaught.

This is a great movie for so many reasons. First of all and most importantly it’s a lot of fun to watch. The plot moves fast and there’s always something going on to keep the viewer interested. The make up and special effects are very well done and the demon transformations are incredibly gory. Most of the actors are forgettable and dubbed poorly but it doesn’t really matter.

One great thing is that no one is safe. People you expect to survive are bumped off left and right and you never know what’s going to happen next. The demons are similar to zombies as their bite and claws can cause the transformation into a monster but these demons are more of a threat than any zombie I’ve ever seen. The lighting and cinematography are fantastic and add the touch of class and artistry the film needs to elevate it from just a fun movie into a great one. (And dig that 80’s synth and heavy metal soundtrack!)

If you can go into the film keeping in mind that this is a fun, campy movie from Italy made in the 80’s and not some new glossy Hollywood flick I think you’ll have a blast. An excellent gateway into Italian horror, Demoni is a solid monster movie from start to finish that never fails to entertain.

Rating – 7 out of 10 Demons.

31 Days of Halloween Day 8

Trick r’ Treat (2009)

What? A NEW movie? Yuppers, Trick r’ Treat just finally came out on DVD and it’s the best new horror film I’ve seen in a long time.

Trick r’ Treat is actually an anthology film of 4 stories all tied together almost seamlessly. One constant in each story is a mysterious little boy in an odd Halloween costume named Sam who seems to be everywhere. (As a sort of physical manifestation of Halloween.) There’s revenge from beyond the grave, kids get eaten, serial killers, monsters and all kinds of fun goodies in this flick.

The thing I loved most about this movie is that while there are other films that take place during Halloween, Trick r’ Treat is the first one I can think of that actually celebrates the holiday. In fact I would say that this is THE definitive Halloween film. In addition to all this the acting is good, the dialogue witty, the direction smart and a wonderfully creepy atmosphere is maintained throughout the films proceedings. (Although the film has a great sense of humor as well.)

I could go on but I really don’t want to ruin any of the surprises for you. If I had to recommend only one movie this year for Halloween it would be this one. It’s a great movie that you can enjoy whether you’re a horror fan or not and the fact that it’s new rather than old helps to make it appealing to all audiences. If you haven’t seen it, GO BUY IT OR RENT IT NOW!

Rating – 8 ½ out of 10

31 Days of Halloween day 7!

C.H.U.D. (1984)

This will be a quick one. . .

Ah the 80’s, back when movie monsters didn’t look like they were rendered in a Playstation 2. The cult classic “C.H.U.D.” features many a monster and no cartoony CGI to be found anywhere. What does C.H.U.D. stand for you ask? Why Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller of course! Duh. Didn’t your mother teach you anything?

A photographer, a cop and a homeless shelter operators’ lives will circumvent when toxic-waste bellow the streets of Manhattan mutates the homeless population into hideous mutants hungry for human flesh! So basically it’s just another standard day in New York City. To give away too much of the plot would spoil some of the surprises in the film, but you’ll get to see mutants eating people left and right, a government conspiracy, 80’s hair and fashion and uh. . .did I mention the mutants yet?

Oh yeah, and John Goodman get eaten by monsters! You don’t see that every day. C.H.U.D. is a cheesy monster movie sure, but it’s a blast to watch with a group of friends late at night. If you haven’t seen it you should really check it out.

Rating – 6 out of 10 CHUD’s.

31 Days of Halloween

Day 6 – The Devil Rides Out

Hay, this is the second film I’ve written about in the past two days and this is my sixth review. And as we know, six is the number of the Devil! Could this mean something??? Well, no actually. That would be silly, just as today’s movie is a bit silly but it’s sure entertaining and so I bring to you Hammer Studio’s "The Devil Rides Out".

Hammer Studio’s churned out one classic horror movie after the other in its day and this film is one of the best. Based on the novel by Dennis Wheatly, The Devil Rides Out takes place in 1930’s London. A group of friends rescues a member of their group plus another from an evil cult. They flee across the countryside and have one supernatural encounter after the other as the cult’s leader Mocata pursues them. Luckily one of the friends, Duc de Richleau played by the legendary Christopher Lee, is an expert on the occult and it will take all of his knowledge and skill to save them.

While the film can be a little bit hammy at times with the way it presents its supernatural elements you have to remember that the movie was made in 1968 by a small studio and plus it’s based on a book from the 1930’s and the film follows it closely. Despite all this, The Devil Rides Out manages to be both a supernatural thriller and a fun adventure movie. The plot moves at a brisk pace and is never dull, jumping from one encounter with the unearthly to the next in rapid succession. Terence Fisher directs the film masterfully as always with well composed shots that make the small space Hammer had in their studio seem gigantic by comparison. The special effects doesn’t hold up quite so well but if viewed in their context as coming from an older film on a low budget this isn’t a problem.

Unsurprisingly, the stand out performer here is Christopher Lee, who’s tall, imposing presence and deep booming voice commands the screen. It’s fun to see Mr. Lee finally play a hero in this film and it’s too bad that it didn’t happen more often. Charles Gray plays the villain Mocata with the appropriate sleaze and nastiness to make it easy to cheer the hero’s on against him.

All in all, The Devil Rides Out is just a fun little horror movie that’s great for late night or rainy Sunday afternoon viewing. Highly recommended.

Rating – 7 out of 10.

31 Days of Halloween day 4 and 5 – Karloff Double Feature!

Day 4 – The Devil Commands (1941)

One of Boris Karloff’s best and yet least known movies; The Devil Commands is another tale of science gone mad. In this film Karloff plays a kindly scientist who looses his wife in a car accident. Karloff, who was experimenting with brain impulses, becomes obsessed with contacting his wife from beyond the grave and he thinks he can do this by harnessing the electrical energy generated by the brain. Ann Revere, who gives an incredibly sinister performance as a phony medium, presses Karloff onward towards the final, horrifying conclusion of his final experiment.

Although it was a low budget film, The Devil Commands status is immediately elevated by the presence of the Legendary Boris Karloff who as always turns in a great performance which is both frightening and sympathetic at the same time. (His specialty.) The real villain of the story is Ann Revere as the Medium whose performance is just dripping with pure evil. The fact that she manages to stand out as a secondary character next to Karloff is a testament to the strength of her performance. Also, in a low budget film often the first thing to suffer is the lighting which certainly isn’t the case here. The Devil Commands is lit beautifully and adds a great deal to the films dark, oppressive atmosphere.

Karloff’s experiments grow more and more blasphemous, merging science and the supernatural until the films amazing climax. The science behind the film is pretty goofy but hay, it’s an old horror movie so what can you do. This is a must see if you’re a Karloff/classic horror fan and if you’re not it’s still a fun, creepy movie regardless.

Rating - 7/10

Day 5 - The Haunted Strangler (1958)



Billed as a come back movie for Karloff, The Haunted Strangler is by far one of the better films he was involved with at the late stage of his carrier and also one of his best performances from that period. Set in Victorian London, Karloff plays a novelist who is researching a serial killer known as The Hillside Strangler who was hanged 20 years ago. After some research Karloff begins to suspect that they hanged the wrong man and that the killer is still at large. He goes to the grave where the killer was buried and digs it up to search for evidence or something like that. Hay, I haven’t seen it for a long time, cut me some slack.

When Karloff’s hand closes about the old scalpel The Strangler used he begins to twist and contort, becoming the crazed strangler! Karloff kills and wakes up with no memory of what he did the night before. As he probes deeper into the mystery of the Hillside Strangler he’ll soon discover that horrible truth behind The Hillside Strangler was that he never really died after all. . .

It’s amazing to watch Karloff’s performance here with the knowledge that he was 70 years old when the movie was filmed. He runs, he leaps, he strangles! Really, the dude has more energy here that I do on any given day. It goes to show you the type of actor Karloff was. He was a man who always gave it his all and did the best job he could regardless of what he film he was in.

No makeup was used for the killer, Karloff just twists his face up (with his dentures out) when he becomes The Strangler and it’s surprisingly effective. Just by means of his body language and movements it’s as though he becomes a completely different character. Unfortunately the rest of the cast is rather forgettable and the film can drag on at times between the action. Still, it’s completely worth the price of admission thanks to Karloff’s performance and the interesting plot. Recommended to any Karloff fan, The Haunted Strangler is perhaps his best performance out of all his “twilight” films up to his swan song, Targets. (1968)

Rating – 5 ½ out of 10.

31 Days to Halloween day 3!

Maniac Cop (1988)



It's Saturday and I have a lot of nothing to do so I'll keep it short.

Maniac Cop has one goofy title, but it's actually a very solid and entertaining movie. New York City was a dangerous place in the 80's, but it gets a whole lot worse when a seemingly superhuman cop begins violently killing people for minor offenses, and sometimes for no reason at all! It's up to rookie cop Jack Forest to put a stop to this, and he's better do it quick because he's the prime suspect!

Ok, let me run some names by you.

Larry Cohen.
Bruce Campbell.
Tom Atkins.
Robert Z'Dar.

If your a horror fan your probably salivating right now but if you don't know what I'm talking about that's fine. Take my word for it, Maniac Cap is one of those movies where the stars aline and everything works great from the script, the great story, the acting and the excellent direction. Plus, there's lots of funny cloths and big 80's hair to laugh at.

Rating – 7 ½ out of 10

31 Days of Halloween Part 2 day 2

One Dark Night (1983)

AKA - Night in the Crypt

Here's an obscure one for ya!

Well to do Julie is trying to get into the sorority known as “The Sisters” but to do so, she has to spend the night in a mausoleum. What she doesn't know is that some of the other girls are planing on sneaking in there also to scare the crap out of her. What they all don't know is that a powerful, evil psychic named Karl Rhamarevich was buried there recently, and his powers are stronger than ever before.

One Dark Night is a gem from the early 80's with passable acting, good direction and great special effects. Movies with “teens” tend to be painfully overwrite and although it gets pretty cheesy at times at least it's good cheese and the script wisely keeps the dialogue from ever getting too silly. The first half of the film drags a little bit at times as events are slowly set up to get everyone to the crypt but once they're in there the film becomes genuinely creepy.

The mausoleum is excellently filmed with long tracking shots through it's dark, empty corridors. The psychic disturbances begin slowly at first; doors close and lock on their own accord, flower pots explode and so on. When things really start to go crazy Rhamarevich actually starts busting open coffins and using the corpses inside are floating weapons! Have you ever seen someone smothered by rotten cadavers? I didn't think so!

One Dark Night is a somewhat rare film but I think it's worth tracking down if you like horror movies or if your having a little Halloween get-together and you want to show something no one has ever seen before. When you see a girl accidentally step on a corpses chest and her foot goes right through it complete with a squishy sound, you'll thank me.

Rating - 6 out of 10

31 Days of Halloween Part 2 – The Revenge of 31 Days of Halloween!

Hello there! Once again it’s October and that means my favorite holiday is fast approaching. 31 days to Halloween! I’m going to carry on the tradition I started last year by providing reviews/summaries for 31 horror movies, one per day, to give you some suggestions on what to watch on Halloween night.

I will review mainstream movies and rare obscure ones. Great films and . . . uh, not so great films. Movies that will scare you and movies that will make you wonder if someone slipped some LSD into your morning coffee. And so without further ado, on with the show!


October 1st - Dracula (1931)

Universal Studio’s 1931 classic, Dracula, ushered in a new era of horror film making, led to the golden age of classic horror and introduced the world to one of the greatest stars the horror genre has ever known, Bela Lugosi. While the movie does have its flaws I think that it’s important to watch it while keeping in mind that no one had seen anything like it before up to that point. To the people who saw it when it initially released this movie was absolutely horrifying.

Originally Dracula was planned to be a lavish, big budget affair, but those plans were scraped due to the death of the legendary Lon Chaney who was originally going to play the count, and the beginning of The Great Depression. Instead they were forced to scale down the production considerably by using the stage play as a blueprint for the film. Tod Browning directed and after considering many actors Bela Lugosi, who was staring in the stage play at the time, was able to secure the part of Dracula after much persuading and taking a smaller paycheck than the other actors.

The basic story is so well known by this point that I don’t think a complete plot summery is necessary so instead some information about the filmmaking. While most fans seem to agree the movies opening is atmospherically spooky, the second half which takes place in London feels static and staged. This is because very little was actually changed from the stage play and scenes were filmed just as they were preformed onstage with very little camera movement.

Some have questioned the quality of Tod Browning’s direction and claim the man responsible for the electrifying first half of the film was his cinematographer Karl Freund, an immigrant from Germany who had been apart of the expressionist film movement there. Looking at some of Freund’s past credits like The Golem and Metropolis it’s easy to see how this is probably true. Still, the second half is not a complete loss, as the film is saved by the amazing performances of Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye.

Very few people think of Dracula as he is depicted in Stroker’s original book; old with pointed ears, a long white mustache and two bushy eyebrows that were almost “meeting over the nose”. When people think of Dracula or he is depicted in the media most people see Bela Lugosi, the definitive screen Dracula. His performance is memorizing from his movements to his slow deliberate line reads, or even just when he’s staring into the camera. He conveys about him an unearthly aura that is both frightening and seductive, one of power and corruption, of hunger and lust. Lugosi would become a household name and while the role would propel him to stardom it would also typecast him for the rest of his life.

Dwight Frye’s Renfield manages to be frightening, pathetic and sympathetic, sometimes all at once and at other times switching from one to the other at a moments notice. When he returns from castle Dracula he’s a raving mad man, obsessed with blood and the coming of his master. While he’s under Dracula’s control occasionally the last bit of humanity within him tries to break free, but always to fruitless results. The scenes where he ascends from the ships hold on The Vesta and the one where he quietly crawls like a spider toward the sill body of a fainted maid, eyes on her throat, are perhaps the most frightening moments of the film. Dwight Frye was a versatile and talented actor, but his performance was so great and the movie was so popular that like Lugosi, he was fated to play similar characters in films like Frankenstein, The Vampire Bat and Dead Men Walk until his untimely death in 1943.

If you haven’t seen Dracula for some time or if you’ve never seen it at all then consider dusting off or renting a copy this Halloween to see where it all started. This is a pivotal movie in film history and as a plus; it’s safe enough to watch with the kids.

Rating – Seven and a half out of ten.