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Posts Tagged ‘Night Of The Living Dead’

Never one to miss a chance to see a classic movie on the big screen, this year I have seen more than ever:

Pandora’s Box (1929) – Seminal Louise Brooks movie, the masterpiece of director G W Pabst.  Screened thanks to the BFI in what they call a “New 2K DCP of the 2009 restoration of Munich Film Museum’s definitive cut, with score by Peer Raben”.  Telling of the rise and fall of desirable and seductive but naive young dancer Lulu (Brooks).  It still stands up as a mesmerising film nearly 90 years on with simple modern storytelling, you soon forget you are watching a silent film and just appreciate it as a film.pandorasbox1

Some Like it Hot (1959) – Screened in a stunning 4K restoration as part of the BFI comedy genius season – Two down on their luck musicians (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) witness the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.  They escape town disguised as women with an all female band bound for the Florida sun, where they intend to skip out on the band.  There is however a complication, Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe).  If there is any such thing as a perfect movie, this is it.  Sixty years later the comedy is still relevant and hilarious.  The performances (including Marilyn Monroe’s) are outstanding, but its Billy Wilder’s sharp script and direction that shine through.  What has long been my favourite film plays even better on the big screen with an audience. Some Like it Hot

Night of the Living Dead (1968) – 50 years ago was year zero for the modern zombie movie.  Just about every zombie movie in the past half century draws influence from George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.  But how does it hold up as a film in its own right?  Shown in a 4K restoration, it was as good as ever, and looked better than ever.  Working as a visceral horror and a allegory of a nation tearing itself apart.  A perfect horror movie. Night of the Living Dead

Halloween (1978) – 40th Anniversary 4K restoration of John Carpenter’s slasher masterpiece.  I probably don’t need to give a plot synopsis, but will for those who are new to this classic: As a child, Michael Myers kills his teenage sister on Halloween night, fifteen years later he escapes and returns to his hometown.  Halloween didn’t invent the slasher movie, but it certainly revolutionised and popularised the genre making it a mainstay of horror throughout the 1980’s.  It has spawned multiple sequels (with another due later this month), a remake, and countless imitators, does it deserve all this?  Hell yes, it is a true horror masterpiece.  Modern audiences may find the deliberate pacing slow, they are wrong, not a second of the 91minute runtime is wasted.  Michael Myers is a blank cipher with little back-story and no discernible motive.  He is a classic movie monster, but one all the more frightening because unlike Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, or the Wolf-Man, he is just a man, he is a real world boogeyman.  The films emotion comes from Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence, but the Steadicam mounted camera is as much a character as any of these people.  If you haven’t seen it, look it out now before seeing the latest sequel. Halloween 1978

The Fog (1980) – The second in a series of John Carpenter movies to receive a 4K restoration.  A small town celebrating its centenary is enveloped by a fog that brings with it a reckoning from the past.  A spooky almost old-fashioned horror that is relatively tame, but enjoyable none the less.  Notable of the first onscreen pairing of Jamie Lee Curtis and her mother Janet Leigh. The Fog

The Evil Dead (1981) – Five young friends unwittingly release and are possessed my daemons while on holiday in a cabin in the woods.  The effects show their budget, the acting isn’t always great and the editing is conspicuous.  None of this stops it being a stone cold classic.  The Evil Dead

Escape From New York (1981) – Another remastered John Carpenter classic.  Made in 1981 and set in the future, 1997 where Manhattan has been turned into a giant maximum-security prison.  Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is sent into the prison to rescue the president after Air Force One is hijacked.  What could have been a forgettable Sci-Fi B-movie is elevated to stone cold classic by the inclusion of the iconic Snake Plissken, and more importantly Kurt Russell’s portrayal of him.  Made in a cynical post-Vietnam war/Watergate American it is strangely and frighteningly relevant today.Escape From New York

Die Hard (1988) – Towards the end of the 1980’s Die Hard rewrote the book on action movies, how has it aged?  The simple answer is very well!  It is made with typical 80’s film stock that is a little grainy and muddy looking (not as bad as 70’s, but not as bright or crisp what came before or after), other than that it is very modern.  If you saw it for the first time many of the story beats may seem a little clichéd, it isn’t, this is the archetype that everything else copied.  A treat to see on the big screen. Die Hard

Audition (1999) – Horror thriller from the prolific director Takashi Miike.  A widower takes an offer from a friend to “audition” girls to find him a new wife.  I hadn’t seen this since watching it at the cinema on its original release, as great as I remember.  What I had forgotten, was how long it took for the horror to begin, and how quickly it became horrific. Audition

Battle Royale (2000) – Set in a near future, Japan to help suppress a problem of rising crime amongst teenagers, a class of students is randomly selected each year and sent to an island, where they are forced to fight to the death.  A modern classic that has been the benchmark for teenage dystopian movies for the past eighteen years.Battle Royale

Martyrs (2008) – Around ten years ago I watched Martyrs on DVD based on multiple recommendations. I understand it had a cinema release but certainly not at any of my local multiplexes (I didn’t visit independent cinemas often back then). My feeling at time was that I thought the film was excellent, but I didn’t want to see it again. Fast forward a decade and one of my local independent cinema’s, the Mockingbird in Birmingham advertised a 10 year anniversary screening. Never one to pass up the opportunity for seeing a classic on the big screen, how could I refuse!  On a second viewing the film is just as powerful and disturbing as before. Whereas first time around I was unsure of what to make of the ending, I now believe it is intentionally left open to interpretation. I have a stronger view on the meaning of the ending but would rather people drew their own conclusions. After all, the meaning is probably as influenced by what the viewer brings to it as what they see on the screen.Martyrs Lucie

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In a particularly meta moment in the oh so meta Scream 2, Randy (Jamie Kennedy) tells us “Sequels suck!” and “By definition alone, sequels are inferior films!”. Classmate Mickey (Timothy Olyphant) disagrees “It’s bullshit generalization. Many sequels have surpassed their originals.”  He suggests T-2, another classmate played by Joshua Jackson thinks “Aliens. Far better than the first.”  While I don’t totally agree, I prefer The Terminator to T-2, and love Alien and Aliens equally, there are however, some horror sequels and second films is series that I prefer to the first:Aliens and T2

Bride of Frankenstein (1935): I love the original, but the sequel has the edge.  Together cinematographer John Mescall and art director Charles D. Hall, director James Whale created Expressionist masterpiece that isn’t just a horror movie, it’s also a social satire and a comedy.  The greatest of the Universal horrors. Bride of Frankenstein

Dawn of the Dead (1978): George A. Romero’s masterpiece came a whole decade after the original film, Night Of The Living Dead. Tom Savini (who also appears in the film) provided the zombie makeup that makes the film so effective.  The allegory of modern consumer society is more and more relevant as time passes.  A film that manages to be both a truly gruesome horror and a clever satire.  Dawn of the Dead

Evil Dead II (1987): Bruce Campbell returns as Ash in Sam Raimi’s sequel to The Evil Dead.  It is essentially more of the same from the first film but more polished, more gory and a hell of a lot funnier. Evil Dead II

Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966): Most fans will tell you the first Hammer Dracula, Horror of Dracula from 1958 is the best.  While a great film and one of the studio’s best, it is a retread of Bram Stoker ‘s original often told story.  Prince of Darkness is an original story, and a really effective one. It lacks  Peter Cushing as Van Helsing (except a prologue recap of the previous film) but Andrew Keir’s Father Sandor is a suitable substitute.  Famously, Christopher Lee doesn’t speak in this film (as the dialogue in the script was so bad), this makes his performance is more chilling.  A true horror that has a feeling of dread from start to finish. Dracula Prince of Darkness

Blade II (2002): Wesley Snipes is perfectly cast as the half human, half vampire “daywalker” vampire hunter.  Predating the MCU, Blade (1998) proved what Marvel movies could be.  It works as both a horror, and an action movie, with suitable amounts of both gore and humour.  How could you make this better?  Hire Guillermo del Toro to direct it!  del Toro brings even more style, but also, as always  he plays with the idea of who the monsters are. blade II

The Devil’s Rejects (2005): Admittedly this one has something of low bar, 2003’s House of 1,000 Corpses wasn’t great, but this second instalment of the (mis)adventures of the Firefly family is a really solid grindhouse inspired gore-fest.  By far the best Rob Zombie directed movie, and the end is fantastic.  A third instalment 3 from Hell is in post production and due out in 2019. The Devil_s Rejects

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016):  Totally different to the original, telling a very different story, and dropping the now tired found footage gimmick.  Most of the film is a claustrophobic three-hander; John Goodman is fantastic, Mary Elizabeth Winstead is even better. 10 Cloverfield Lane

I have only included horror movies, there are plenty of examples from other genres, I have also stuck to examples where I think the sequel is better than the original movie, not merely good sequels.  

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With fourteen screenings, October is my busiest month of the year to date.  Four of the fourteen were reissues of older horror movies (not eligible for my movie of the month). 

Black ’47 – 1847, returning home from fighting for the British Imperial Army a soldier finds Ireland in the grip of the Great Famine.  A series of events set him on revenge mission.  Taking all the tropes of a revenge western and transposing them to Ireland is surprisingly effective.  As you would expect the film doesn’t shy away from song violence’s, what is more surprising is the snippets of uncomfortable history that it manages to incorporate.  Not the widest of releases, but worth searching out.Black '47

A Star is Born – I think we can skip the synopsis, I think everyone knows the story by now.  Lady Gaga is getting all the plaudits for her performance, but it is also a career defining performance from Bradley Cooper.  Coopers direction is also confident and well measured.  Helping the film over so many movies about singers, the songs are good, and the live performances (shot at real festivals) really work.  It’s not without problems: Beyond Gaga, there are almost no female characters, and the final act is a little rushed and as such doesn’t quiet earn its ending.  Not the five star masterpiece some people are claiming, but a really good film.  I look forward to seeing more of Gaga in front of the camera, and Cooper behind it. A Star is Born

The Wife – An author (Jonathan Pryce) and his wife (Glenn Close) travel to Stockholm where the former has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.  As the cracks in their relationship become clear, we learn via flashback how they dot to this point.  While there are (unsurprising)plot revelations along the way, this is more about character than plot.  The smallest of gestures tell a story, and it is an enthralling one largely thanks fantastic performances from Pryce, and particular Close.  How has she not won an Oscar yet?The Wife

The Hate U Give – A black teenage girl lives a double life, she goes to school in an affluent area, but lives in the deprived mainly black neighbourhood.  Her life is turned upside down when she is witness to the fatal shooting of a friend at a traffic stop.  The important story is poorly served by a disjointed plot and a heavy-handed narrative.  On a positive note the acting is pretty good, particularly from Amandla Stenberg in the lead. The Hate U Give

Halloween (1978) – Never one to turn down an opportunity to see a classic on the big screen, I visited my local multiplex for a 40th Anniversary Screening of Halloween.  Blumhouse Productions have an MO, making moderate budget genre movies, some of which breakout and make a shed load of money.  This isn’t a new thing, Blumhouse didn’t invent the concept, 40 years ago one of the best examples was made by a then up and coming director, John Carpenter.  I probably don’t need to give a plot synopsis, but will for those who are new to this classic: As a child, Michael Myers kills his teenage sister on Halloween night, fifteen years later he escapes and returns to his hometown.  Halloween didn’t invent the slasher movie, but it certainly revolutionised and popularised the genre making it a mainstay of horror throughout the 1980’s.  Costing around $300,000, and grossing $70 million (when you adjust for inflation, that’s around, $1.2million and $300million respectably), it is actually more fugal and more profitable than most Blumhouse movies.  It has spawned multiple sequels (with another due later this month), a remake, and countless imitators, does it deserve all this?  Hell yes, it is a true horror masterpiece.  Modern audiences may find the deliberate pacing slow, they are wrong, not a second of the 91minute runtime is wasted.  Michael Myers is a blank cipher with little back-story and no discernible motive.  He is a classic movie monster, but one all the more frightening because unlike Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, or the Wolf-Man, he is just a man, he is a real world boogeyman.  The films emotion comes from Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence, but the Steadicam mounted camera is as much a character as any of these people.  If you haven’t seen it, look it out now before seeing the latest sequel. Halloween 1978

Bad Times at the El Royale – Noir movies are full of down on their luck characters, the El Royale is a down on its luck location, a Hotel half in Nevada, half in California.  As four disparate, and somewhat desperate people find themselves at the titular establishment the story unfolds in carefully orchestrated chapters.  There is a point where you would be forgiven for thinking you are watching sub Tarantino, but then the pieces fall into place and you realise that it is better than anything Quentin Tarantino has made since 2009.  Then it suddenly gets even better.  Try and avoid the trailer. BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYAL

First Man – Spoiler alert, Neil Armstrong makes it to the moon.  Despite what the trailer or the poster tells you, this isn’t the story of how that happened.  Along the way, we do get a whistle-stop tour of the events starting around the time of the Gemini VII.  It is more the story of the man and his emotional journey.  The emotion of the story is kept in check partly by director Damien Chazelle, but mainly by the outstanding reserved performance from Ryan Gosling.  Claire Foy is also outstanding in the small part she is given.  A first rate film, but one I appreciated more than enjoyed, and respected more than loved. First Man

Mandy – Marmite! I’m not sure how well known the expression Marmite is known outside the UK, for those who don’t know, Marmite is a food spread made from yeast extract.  In the 1990’s it ran an advertising campaign based around how you either Love it, or Hate it.  The same is probably going to be true of Mandy.  I am not going to give a synopsis beyond saying it is a revenge thriller.  After seeing the film, the first thing I thought was that was the most Nicolas Cage film I have ever seen.  It therefore came as a surprise, that not only was the part not written for him, but that director Panos Cosmatos wanted him for a different character.  A totally bonkers film that is both a visual treat and a total mindfuck.  It does have some issues though.  For a start its 30 minutes too long.  The pacing is all over the place.  Expect to see this film on best and worst lists for the year. Mandy

Night of the Living Dead (1968) – 50 years ago was year zero for the modern zombie movie.  Just about every zombie movie in the past half century draws influence from George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.  But how does it hold up as a film in its own right?  Shown in a 4K restoration, it was as good as ever, and looked better than ever.  Working as a visceral horror and a allegory of a nation tearing itself apart.  A perfect horror movie. Night of the Living Dead

Halloween – A sequel to the 1978 masterpiece that ignores all the previous sequels, even going as far as debunking some of the things that happened in the other sequels as rumours.  The idea is good, and Jamie Lee Curtis is outstanding.  The story is a little all over the place lacking the brilliant simplicity of the original.  An excellent final act is preceded by a slow fist act and a confused second.  It is however, never boring like many modern horrors.Halloween

Venom – Venom was poorly served in the terrible Spider-Man 3, in a post Deadpool world, this is the chance to make a funny and fun super(anti)hero movie, it fails.  The plot is a little plodding, the action isn’t a patch on anything Marvel has done in the past decade.  It does however have an ace up its sleeve, Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, and Riz Ahmed, all of whom are always worth watching.  A mid credit scene suggests a sequel, with the origin out of the way, hopefully a second film will live up to the promise. Venom

Bohemian Rhapsody – Biography of the band Queen, most notably its legendry front man Freddie Mercury.  It avoids any major controversy as you would expect for a biopic where two of the producers appear as characters in the story (Brian May and Roger Taylor), this doesn’t stop it from being enjoyable.  The acting is good, particularly Rami Malek as Mercury and the recreation of Live Aid is spectacular. BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

The Fog (1980) – The second in a series of John Carpenter movies to receive a 4K restoration.  A small town celebrating its centenary is enveloped by a fog that brings with it a reckoning from the past.  A spooky almost old-fashioned horror that is relatively tame, but enjoyable none the less.  Notable of the first onscreen pairing of Jamie Lee Curtis and her mother Janet Leigh. The Fog

The Evil Dead (1981) – Five young friends unwittingly release and are possessed my daemons while on holiday in a cabin in the woods.  The effects show their budget, the acting isn’t always great and the editing is conspicuous.  None of this stops it being a stone cold classic.   The Evil Dead

While A Star is Born and First man are getting all the plaudits, the one I enjoyed most and my movie of the month is: Bad Times at the El RoyaleBad Times at the El Royale (1)

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I get to see reissues of old movies at the cinema from time to time, but something I haven’t had chance to do for a long time is to see an old movie for the first time at the cinema. Thanks to the Independent Cinema Office I have had the chance to do just that. They describe their Made in Britain season as been “sandwiched between the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics and will give audiences across the country the opportunity to enjoy five restored classic British films on the big screen”. I have already seen four of the movies: Passport to Pimlico (1949), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Hobson’s Choice (1954) and Quatermass and the Pitt (1967) but I had never seen Plague of the Zombies (1966) until last night.

Sir James Forbes (André Morell) receives a letter from former student Dr. Peter Tompson (Brook Williams), now a doctor in Cornwall whose patients are dieing unexpectedly. Together with his daughter Sylvia (Diane Clare), Sir James travels to the aid of his former pupil. They arrive to find another young man has died with no discernable cause and Tompson’s wife Alice Mary (a young Jacqueline Pearce, better know for her later role as Servalan in Blakes 7) acting strangely.

Although the movie lacks any of the Hammer big names it is as full of atmosphere and style as you would expect. It also contains many iconic images that have since become synonymous with the genre. Fitting perfectly between early zombie classics like White Zombie (1932) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and the reinvention of the genre by George A. Romero and Sam Raimi. Interestingly it only predates Night of the Living Dead by two years. Predating both infected zombies and “When there’s no more room in hell….” these are traditional Haitian Voodoo zombies. There isn’t a huge amount of zombie action, but there are a couple of standout scenes at the centre of the movie. The movies treatment of its zombies really cements its place within the genre. It actually contains just as much political subtext as Romero movies, but with typically British restraint it is all a little to subtle for some.

The movie does occasionally suffer from shaky dialogue (and sets) and the final act is a little week in comparison to the rest of the movie but I am prepared to live with this for the rich atmosphere and charm. Possibly more a steppingstone than a milestone in the zombie genre but certainly one worth seeing. Interestingly it was originally shown as a double billing with the first Hammer movie I have Dracula: Prince of Darkness.

I won’t be going to next weeks screening of The Man Who Fell to Earth clashes with the England v Ukraine football. I’m not sure about Hobson’s Choice the week after but will certainly be going to see one of my favourite Hammer movies Quatermass & The Pit on 3rd July.

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Although the 50’s and 60’s are full of years with one, two or even three great movies, only three years had the required five to me in contention. They are:

1959: North by Northwest, Some Like It Hot, Rio Bravo, Anatomy of a Murder, Suddenly, Last Summer

1960: The Apartment, Psycho, Spartacus, The Magnificent Seven, La Dolce Vita

1968: 2001: A Space Odyssey , Once Upon a Time in the West, Night of the Living Dead, Bullitt, Where Eagles Dare

Check back tomorrow for the 70’s.

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Having just re-watched the underrated Land of the Dead (2005) I thought it would be a good time to take another look at the genre in particular what makes a zombie movie.

Early zombie movies concentrated on zombie masters and voodoo rituals: In White Zombie (1932): Béla (Dracula) Lugosi plays a Voodoo master who is employed by plantation owner Charles Beaumont in order to lure the woman he loves Madeleine Short (Madge Bellamy) away from her fiancé Neil Parker (John Harron). Lugosi’s character known only as ‘Murder’ turns Madeleine into a zombie using magic and the power of his mind. Things never go to plan when you employ an evil Voodoo master and it soon transpires he has his own plans for Madeleine. I walked with a Zombie (1943): Director Jacques Tourneur is probably best know for the brilliant original version of Cat People from 1942, he followed it up a year later with I walked with a Zombie an eerie and atmospheric mystery thriller that is dreamlike and often poetic in its approach to the genre. It is the story of a Canadian nurse, Betsy Connell (Frances Dee) who is sent to a small West Indian island to tend for a young comatose woman. She soon uncovers the voodoo that is practiced on the island.

Those who have a narrow idea of what constitutes a zombie tend to forget that the now accepted idea of flesh eating walking dead was actually invented by George A Romero in Night Of The Living Dead (1968): Zombie movies had died off (terrible pun intended!) until George A Romero reinvented, revolutionized and reanimated (the bad puns just keep coming, sorry) the genre. Romero’s ultra low budget movie is about a widespread outbreak of flesh eating zombies. The reason the film works so well is that it is more claustrophobic and personal; it does this by concentrating on a small group of survivors. Using TV and radio broadcasts to show what is going on away from their personal struggle it is as if we are one on them, only seeing what they see of the outside world. But the film is far more important than that because it set the rules for the modern zombie. They are literally the walking dead, they have little brain activity and “live” on instinct, their only aim to feed in turn creating more of their number as the victims die and are reanimated as zombies. The un-dead are slow moving and shuffle along making it seemingly easy to escape an aspect of their character that has caused much derision more recently. The film was in its day considered to contain graphic violence; this manifests itself more as gore than actual violence, something that found its way into other horror sub genres in the subsequent twenty years. Moving on from the Vietnam references of the first film the second and best of Romero’s ‘Dead’ series Dawn Of The Dead (1978) is at times a satire about consumerism making full use of its shopping mall setting. The movie follows all the same rules as the first film including one that seems to exist to this day, the best was to destroy a zombie is severe trauma to the head. Whether it be a cricket bat (Shaun of the Dead) or a bullet (most modern zombie movies). The idea of shutting oneself away from the problems of the outside world has relevance outside the plot as do so many of the other themes explored like race, greed and selfishness. Some of the themes explored in each of the five films in the series so far have direct correlations to the time they were made. This second film made in the late 70’s has more of a sense of hope and optimism than the first and most recent of the series.

The new bread of zombie are created by a man made virus the zombies are fast angry and violent, the best example of this is probably 28 Days Later (2002): The new zombies are compelled as much by rage as any need to feed. Directed my Danny Boyle and written by author Alex Garland in Their second collaboration. It was garlands first story written directly for the screen and is a brilliant piece of filmmaking that has that combines action, horror, drama and thriller but retains the personal story of the Romero films. It spawned the inferior but not bad sequel 28 Weeks Later and a third film, the imaginatively titled 28 Months later is rumoured to be in the early stages of development. Will there be a 28 Years later? The photography is notably different to a Hollywood film giving it a real feel of something that little bit different. Scenes of a deserted London are haunting and brilliantly executed. Resident Evil (2002) was made and released around the same time as 28 Days later. Resident Evil is based on the popular video game series of the same name. The film has been dismissed as similar to other video game spin-offs like Tomb Rader, although not as good as the other films I have mentioned it still as some merit within the genre. Playing out as more of an action film it follows one main character throughout, Alice (Milla Jovovich) in the way that a computer game does. Using Amnesia as a plot device an element of mystery is included. The cleverest thing about the film is that the narrative is a collection of set pieces that end abruptly and move on to the next when a goal is achieved, much like in a video game. The zombies are similar in to those in 28 Days later, they where created by a man made virus and exhibit more strength and speed than seen in traditional zombie films, an element essential for the action. The film has had three sequels Apocalypse and Extinction and Afterlife, Resident Evil: Retribution is set for release next year.

The Spanish horror film [•REC] (2007) uses the increasingly popular found footage idea. REC follows a television reporter, Ángela Vidal (Manuela Velasco) and her cameraman, Pablo (Pablo Rosso) who are shadowing a Barcelona fire crew, they get trapped inside a building of infected people following what appeared to be a routine callout. Making full use of the filming technique the movie is full of both the gore and the scares a horror movie needs. The cause of the outbreak seems to have a foot in two camps, the zombies are clearly the result of an infection but the latter stages of the film introduces a religious element as we discover the owner of one of the apartments was an agent of the Vatican who was researching the virus responsible for demonic possession. Putting all this aside, for me it is the best zombie movie since Dawn Of The Dead.

These movies represent three or possibly four different types of zombie movie, for a completely different spin on the genre take a look at director Ryuhei Kitamura’s seminal Japanese action/horror film Versus (2000). For zombies that can run but are otherwise follow the Romero rules see the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. There has been much debate around The Evil Dead trilogy (1981, 1987, 1992) and if the demonic possession in these movies constitutes zombies, whether they are zombie movies or not is irrelevant they are just great movies. Comedy horror is a notoriously difficult combination to pull of, there are two zombie comedies that do it perfectly: Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Zombieland (2009). The main reason they work is simple, they stick to the basic ideas (rules for want of a better word) of the genre, this and they are perfectly cast and painfully funny. One final film to look out for Night of the Comet (1984). This is an 80’s teen/horror/comedy that works well as a parody of the cheesier side of low budget horror. It doesn’t have anything new or original to say and won’t change the world but it is good fun.

So where do you stand on the zombie debate; what are you favourite zombie movies, do you like your zombies fast or slow and are the infected zombies?

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