Zombie Squad!

The Dead Next Door (1989)

Director- J.R. Bookwalter

Starring- Pete Ferry, Michael Grossi, Robert Kokai

Years after zombie infestation, a government agency called the "Zombie Squad" is out patrolling the region, exterminating zombies and and collecting un-exterminated ones for medical experimentation in hopes of finding a cure.

Raimi (Ferry), and his crew must find the lab of Dr. Bow, the doctor said to have inadvertantly started the infestation with his formula. Their mission is made more urgent when Mercer (Grossi) is bitten and infected. Dr. Moulsson (Bogdan Pecic, who couldn't be bothered to take off his cap for the role) accompanies them, caring more about the formula than the people infected.

Along the way, the crew runs afoul of a religious cult bent on keeping the zombies alive and believing them to be a sign of the coming apocalypse. The cult, led by Reverend Jones (Kokai) consists of run-of-the-mill cult psychos, as well as "brainwashed" kidnapping victims, including Dr. Bow's own daughter.

Moulsson finds the formula, and once it is concocted, he promptly injects the unconcious Mercer with it, not knowing what effect it will have. Mercer is soon after kidnapped by Rev. Jones, and the crew tracks him to his compound.

In saving Mercer all Hell breaks loose with gunshots and fanatics rushing soldiers. Rev. Jones flees to loose his hoard of zombies, getting himself killed in the process. Mercer turns into a zombie, but the formula reaction causes him to retain his human thought, a ghastly addition to his zombie urges.

The zombie infestation seems to be winning out by the end, and with the help of the formula, a new type of zombie evolves, and one of my favorite endings plays out, but with a great humorous twist.

Acting was bad, effects were cheap but well-thought-out. The story went along great--in fact, the story kept this movie alive in spite of the dismal budget. Also, the constant name-references to horror greats like John Carpenter, Tom Savini, and Sam Raimi (Bruce Campbell even did a couple voice overs!) was fitting. I was surprised there was no Jackson or Romero, however.

Rating: 3.5/5 Bonedaddies.

"Head" Case

The Head (1959)

Director- Victor Trivas

Starring- Horst Frank, Karin Kernke, Michel Simon

Doctor Abel (Simon) discovers a serum to keep the head alive after the body dies, but finds he needs a heart transplant before being able to put it to use. His mad assistant, Dr. Ood (Frank) decapitates him when he learns the transplant isn't taking and reanimates the doctor's head in hopes that he can obtain the formula for the serum. He then lures a beautiful exotic dancer away from her unhappy life, kills her, and uses her body as Frankensteinien replacement for a hunchbacked woman who had been seeing Dr. Abel when he was alive.

Dr. Ood, infatuated with the woman, tries to rape her after being confronted with what he had done, is tracked by police, and jumps out a window.

The sets were designed by Herman Warm (who did the sets for Dr. Caligari), which explains the dark and forboding atmosphere of the movie (even in the doctor's office). The effort put into the story far surpasses the acting ability, but overall the movie wasn't half bad.

The "Serum Z" concept was pretty silly. It's understandable to want to make head reanimation explainable, but honestly Shelly explained it better in a 19th Century Victorian novel. They may have done better to keep with the "Frankenstein" concept.

Rating: 3.5/5 Bonedadies.

This Movie is a Gay-Bash Itself

The Gay Bed and Breakfast of Terror (2007)
Director- Jaymes Thompson
Starring- Sean Abley, Lisa Block-Wieser, Georgia Jean

Some gay couples enroute to some convention get holed up in a B&B run by a god-fearing crazy woman and her seemingly simpleton daughter. We soon find out the daughter has a little lesbian in her, which her mother tries to squash, scream and beat out of her every chance she gets, and things take a gruesome turn as bodies start turning up.

This movie isn't worth much of my time. I like low-budget flicks that make you forget money had anything to do with them due to ingenuity of the director & crew. This one constantly reminded me how cheap it was, mainly by showing me how forced the actors were in their roles.

There are a couple of funny "twists" regarding the daughter and her upbringing, as well as spurned gay lovers finding happiness in a hetero/transvestite relationship.

The ending ain't half bad, though the acting makes it not particularily good, either.
Rating: 2/5 Bonedaddies.

Another Friday the 13th, This One Not So Bad

Friday the 13th (2009)
Director- Marcus Nispel
Starring- Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Derek Mears

Years after the original slayings at Camp Crystal Lak,e, five teens explore the area, looking for a rumored marijuana crop growing wild, hoping to cash in. That night, after some gratuitous sexual play, Jason Voorhees (Mears) stalks them. One by one, they fall prey as he mercilessly (and creatively slaughters all but one.

Fast forward six months later. Clay (Padalecki) is searching for his sister, Jenna (Panabaker), who was one of the five from that night. He has a run in with a group of rich kids, led by Trent (Travis Van Winkle in an utterly convincing role), on their way to his parents' vacation home for a raucous weekend party. Trent's girlfriend feels sorry for Clay, and eventually agrees to help him look for his sister.

This might lead to a love interest. but that darn maniacal slasher is on the loose!
Keep in mind, this is a reimagining of the original. What's the difference? A remake is virtually a scene-for-scene reproduction, updated to a current genre. A reimagining takes an existing origin and throws a new story into it as though it was the first. Jason starts off with only a cloth bandage covering his face. We find out he was into hockey as a kid from little tidbits around his room. When he sees the hockey mask for the first time, we think, of course he gravitates toward that, it stirs up a memory from his childhood, and it hides his "ugliness".

I can't help but compare this a little to Rob Zombie's reimagining of Halloween from 2007. Is this movie good? Yes. But is it rob Zombie good? No. Zombie set the bar pretty high for making a strong horror movie that just sticks with you long after seeing it, and Nispel's reimagining of the Voorhees legend doesn't quiiiiite measure up to that. Regardless, it is still an excellent slasher flick. It's not very difficult to predict who gets killed, but it's harder to figure out how they get killed. Jason proves himself more human in this movie by actually running after his prey, as well as going into a silent rage every once ina while rather than acting stoic. He still never talks, so that has a pretty good effect altogether.

The ending is classic Firday the 13th, but still felt like it belonged more than any other ending that could have been dreamed up.

Rating: 4 Bonedaddies.

Not My Kind of Vacation Spot

Isle of the Dead (1945)
Director- Mark Robson
Starring- Borlis Karloff, Ellen Drew, Marc Cramer


Balkan War, 1912. General Pherides (Karloff), agrees to show Oliver (Cramer), a colleague, his wife's grave that happens to be located near their current battlefield. Finding the grave disturbed, the general demands to know whow's responsible. He finds out from a local woman that the townspeople did it out of a superstitious fear of vorvolaka (vampire) attacks, a fear spawned by the plague killing off large portions of the island. Initially highly skeptical of the vorvolaka story, the general gets himself sucked into the superstition, and becomes highly suspicious of a caretaker of an older woman. The older woman has a fainting disease which resembles death, accompanied by a then-logical fear of premature burial. She of course tells no one but a french doctor who soon falls victim to the plague.

Predictably the woman faints, everyone thinks she's dead, she wakes up in a coffin, goes nuts and takes a knife to the superstitious women who got Pherides worked, then Pherides himself.

This movie was great on so many levels. I'll try to cover them quickly.
First, Karloff as a hardened general (who sends on of his own friends off to be executed for negligence!), excellent casting there. Second, the whole science v. superstition debate is alive and well in this movie, and in the end, septicemic plague wins the blame. It was a little depressing, however, to see the archaeologist character opting for prayer to Hermes over medical observation to deal with the plague.

Rating: This movie gets a solid 5/5 Bonedaddies for playing out like a horror flick and the monster turning out to be disease and human reactions to it.