Teenage Zombies, 1959

 

Four wholesome, all-American teens go for a boat ride out to a remote island for a picnic lunch. While there they encounter a strange woman and a crew of glossy-eyed, drugged-out looking workers. Running off, they discover that their boat is missing and are forced to confront the mysterious woman.

Trouble, as trouble will, ensues, as the woman in question turns out to be a scientist and part of a larger, international organization with a fairly nefarious agenda in mind. 

Actual zombie action is very minimal - One worker, Ivan, and for a brief moment, a couple of girls. Oh yeah, also, a gorilla. Yes. A gorilla.  

    Props for Ivan as the zombified manservant for creepiness, though. The others workers aren’t shown during the movie aside from the initial shot, although mentioned and the threat of mass ‘zombism’ is present and a pivotal plot point.

As Teenage Zombies was pre-Romero, the zombies are of the voodoo variety, although not brought on by voodoo but a nerve gas. Also, the effects on the inflicted appear to be temporary and reversible with an antidote.

The ‘acting’ is amateurish but enthusiastic, with lines delivered similar to a Leave It To Beaver scene. The whole movie plays out like a live-action Scooby Doo, minus the dog, and actual scares are about as common as a Halloween episode of Dobie Gillis, (And I acknowledge NOBOY is going to catch that reference!)

 

Going through the Zombie Movie Rubric is NOT a good thing for Teenage Zombies! An almost zero Zombie presence, coupla’ nickels-budget, stereotypical teens, and effects so bad that I can’t even use the term ‘special,’ (I mean, I have seen more convincing looking gorilla costumes in the Spirit Halloween store!) All adds up to a pretty lousy score for this feature - 0.88 out of a possible 4. This earns it a definite ‘Avoid’ if looking for a zombie movie.

In fact, I feel a little bad reviewing this as a zombie movie. As an entry into the assorted 50s drive-in features, it would still garner luke-warm   “meh” reactions I am sure. 

There is the movie trailer on YouTube, and that is enough. TEENAGE ZOMBIES  

Zombie Games, 2020

  It’s 2021 and the Corona Virus has mutated. People are dying only to turn into zombies and attack people. U.S. President Donald Trump proposes a solution - His underground bunker, ‘Little Washington,’ can hold 250,000 people, so he creates a ‘skills-based’ competition to see who can join him in there for safety, while the army nukes the country. 

Oh, and produced, directed, and starring Linnea Quigley!

I know! Right!?! A nice original premise with a promise of something interesting. 

        Yeah. That’s the bait. The switch: This turd. The idea in the synopsis above is the only good thing about this movie.

First, the zombies: Scenes of the undead were clearly computer generated and their inconsistencies imply that they were copied from other sources. Video game zombies were more realistic looking 15 years ago! Plus the undead only really appear in the exposition "News Reel" portion at the start of the movie.

That's right! There are no zombies in the games!!!

Speaking of the games - There were only 6 contestants. Yes. SIX! They are released into wooded area where a knife, a gun, and a bottle of water are stashed. They must survive and kill the other contestants to win a place of safety.

Of course, all of the contestants are unlikeable and deserving of their fates, Ms. Quigley among them. 

        Their scenes are all shown through shaky, nauseating, personal body cams, or too-distant drone footage. And to make the drone footage more realistic, the much too loud and irritating drone noise is audible almost constantly.

To also appear like a TV game show, many scenes are show in only a fraction of the screen, with random, unexplained graphics or lit boxes shown alongside, making an already difficult to watch film actually more difficult!

The Trump footage was from actual press conferences until he described the zombie mutation. At this point, static partially concealed a superimposed mouth, while a poor imitation of him was dubbed in with the dialog. Another laugh from a movie NOT trying to be funny.

Oh, and P.S., if you are a fan of Donald Trump, prepare to dislike this even more, he is not portrayed here heroically.

So, from the lack of zombies, crappy CGI graphics, bad acting, no logic, unpleasant characters, uneven pacing, undeveloped plot, and the most cringe-inducing game-show host ever,  I must admit, I disliked this. A lot! It was not even fun to watch. But my wife wouldn’t let me turn it off, though. She was punishing me for making her watch this, and we were in it to the end!

But using the ZMR for a less personal rating, Zombie Games earned itself a generous 0.77 out of a possible score of 4. This gets itself an “Avoid At All Costs” recommendation.

    This deserves to be reiterated: Avoid this movie! Avert, bypass, circumvent, dodge, eschew, keep away from, refrain from, shirk, shun, steer clear of, and try to resist the temptation of watching it just to see how bad it could possibly be. Bad.

    If you wanna see Linnea Quigley in a Zombie movie, go watch ‘Return Of The Living Dead’ again.

This YouTube trailer is MORE than enough of this flick. ZOMBIE GAMES

Zombie Brigade, 1986

         A rural Australian Outback town has plans to develop a Japanese-funded ‘Robot Man' theme park. Only problem - It’s on a Vietnam War Memorial Cemetery. No biggie! Just get rid of the whole thing before the investors can see it!

I mean, what could POSSIBLY go wrong!?!

So, after a very awkward ‘meet & greet’ with the locals and the backers, a small gathering is planned to commemorate the deal. As the back-country, outback planning committee of ‘Lizard Valley’ and the slick, urbane, Japanese investor celebrate and scheme to impress/take advantage of each other, dead, or rather ‘undead’ soldiers are emerging from the new destroyed war monument seeking revenge… And human flesh!

After a long night, (actually VERY brief, cinematically speaking!) of the undead ravaging, chasing, and biting townsfolk to death, some survivors gather together to figure out what is happening, (and provide the audience with some exposition!!!)

Apparently, during the war, the Vietnamese soldiers, out-gunned, out-teched, and out-financed by the Yanks, turned towards their own form of ‘chemical warfare,’  a sort of ‘living dead’ serum, that turned soldiers into, well, the living dead. The soldiers were sealed up in the cemetery and there is some mention of ‘inert gas’ and more, but it is so fleeting that any sense really depends on the viewers inference.

As the ‘day after’ progresses, the townsfolk all assume the undead will return at nightfall. (I call them 'undead' and not zombies, because their status as such remains unclear. They have fangs and fear daylight, and have been killed by wooden stakes through the heart, but are not intelligent or verbal, and move as lumbering ghouls.

(There is, however, a great scene where a priest attempts to repel said ghouls with a crucifix… That did NOT go how he thought it’d go, I dare say!!!)

Furthermore, it is learned that the government has mined all of the exits out of town in an effort of containment. 

    Also, Jimmy and Yoshi begin the absolutely worst romantic flirting ever.

(Well, they WERE warned!)

Eventually, a terrible plan is arrived at - to resurrect OTHER dead soldiers to combat the first group using Jimmy’s Aboriginal Uncle Charlie’s “Black Fella” magic.

And then, THEN, things get weird.

So, now you've got the undead soldiers raised by the destruction of the monument, and the undead “White Fellas” raised by the Uncle Charlie’s Dreamtime Magic, (Now That sound’s like a great Prog/Psych band name right???) Well, all of these recently resurrected undead soldiers, they uh, well, they team up! Yup. Shake hands and welcome each other, and INSTEAD of doing battle, they decide to burn and raze the town. They then use carts and metal detectors to to plot a way out of the town and through its government-installed land mines to remove the coffins of the dead. Somehow, not too surprisingly, the remaining living survivors are kind’ve okay with it.    Hey, who I am I to judge, right?

    Okay, let’s tally this turkey up! 

    Nothing all too original, here, with its weird and inconsistent zomb…, uh, I mean, ‘undead,’ and absolutely terrible special effects, (let’s just call them ‘effects,' m’kay?) 

    And the few and far between action shot being filmed at night made nothing easy to watch, especially with this ‘pocket-change’ budget.

On the plus side, some of the characters were entertaining, and the Australian Outback made for a great setting. Fun accents, and quirky, small-town humor keeps this from being a total pooch.

But when held up against the Zombie Movie Rubric, Zombie Brigade earned itself nothing more than a 0.88 out of a possible 4.0. Sadly, this does NOT earn a recommendation!

I also found this rather enthusiastic write-up!

    Finally, Here is a YouTube Trailer for the film. See for yourself: ZOMBIE BRIGADE 

And what would a Zombie Movie be without a musical interlude - Here's The Sons of Gums (?) with Yoshi for an impromptu jam sesh! "An Offer I Can't Refuse"

Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis, (2005)

   

    Part 4 in the “Living Dead” series features yet another unlikely group of young friends that are just out goofing around when the same ol’ stuff starts hitting its respective fans.

    

     One of the teens dumps his dirt bike and is taken away in an ambulance. Instead of going to the hospital, however, he is taken to Hybratech, the big corporation that runs the town and owns all of the businesses. And Hybratech, of course, has a research facility with need of humans for experimentation.

    So, his six buddies: a computer genius, a slutty gymnast, a pistol-packing Latino, a nerd girl, the moody orphan boy and Hybratech security girl, decide to go all Scooby Doo and rescue their pal.

   Fortunately for them, this multimillion dollar scientific research facility only has the two guards: The highschool girl and a moron. The six teens, (and “Pyro,” the even younger brother of the moody orphan,) briefly succeed in their rescue, but also unleash an army of zombies.

   This tissue-thin story is very slow to get going, with too much emphasis on the characters and leaving the plot to just unfold with a whim. It is also littered with unlikeable (and poorly overacted,) characters, who make horrible and stupid decisions, over and over.

   On the undead front, the zombies are inconsistent: from walker-types, to runners, to speaking types (and talking smack,)  to even fully-armed, heavily weaponized cyborg types that resemble ‘The Borg’ from Star Trek: The Next Generation. All of these assorted styles of living dead, however, are easily dispatched. A couple even dropped with one or two body shots. One with a broken neck! This is a far, far cry from the all but invincible Living Dead from the first movie!

   And I get that the filmmakers wanted to capture elements from the original film: eclectic group of teens, loud rock music as a backdrop during zombie fight scenes, (even Peter Coyote got dragged in for a role!) but instead of seeming reminiscent of that movie, it came of as contrived and predictable.

   Obviously, I was not a fan of this film. So, I used the Zombie Movie Rubric to grade it objectively. And on the nine points of originality, characters, SPFX, zombies, outbreak, pacing, acting, targeted audience and film quality, Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis scored a 1.66 out of a possible 4 points. 

   But, really, those are just numbers. It is difficult to remember that a film has good quality to its production when you are watching a total stinker. And it was. The 1.66 score equals an emphatic “avoid” rating. 

     There is a trailer from YouTube that makes the movie seem a LOT better that it actually is! Enjoy. You can view it here: 

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD: NECROPOLIS 

Zombies: The Beginning, (2007)

Also known as ‘Bruno Mattei’s Zombies: The Beginning.’

An absolutely brilliant concept - Take the basic story and script of the movie ‘Aliens,’ but switch out aliens for zombies! 

A no-brainer success formula, right? Well…

Subtract acting skills, depth of characters, plausibility and consistency, along with any form of budget or production value and you are a little closer to the mark.

Technically, a sequel to ‘Island of the Living Dead,’ (itself a hodgepodge of zombies, demons, vampires, and ghosts on another island,)  Zombies: The Beginning starts immediately where that one left off, with lead starlet, Yvet Yzon, adrift on a lifeboat about to be rescued, à la Aliens.

Fresh off of 'Island of the Dead!'

From there, the similarities are numerous and blatant, almost embarrassingly so, to the point where one must assume that this film was directed towards those who had never seen Ridley Scott’s outer-space action/horror! 

But all this aside, This just really is not good. The acting is amateurish at its most convincing, and the overall feel of the sound and setting is reminiscent of a 1970s soap opera. 

The strangest twist, however, was the forced mother/queen alien equivalent for the undead. This took the shape of a sentient and talking disembodied brain who hoovered unborn babies from their captive mothers with foil covered dryer hose-like appendages to create these ridiculous looking hybrid “zombabies.”

This is an weird, unpleasant and unfulfilling film. When held up for scrutiny to my Zombie Movie Rubric, ‘Zombies: The Beginning’ got itself an extremely generous score of 0.625. This typically translates to a ‘do not spend money on, do not spend time on, and if you are in the company of anyone talking about it, leave the room.’ 

As such, this review serves more as a warning against indulging one’s curiosity concerning this film on impulse, (like I did!!!) Because it does have a really cool cover image on the DVD case!

Deceptively cool, right?

Good ol’ Youtube has a version of the trailer for you to attempt to sit through, if you have two and a half minutes that you don’t mind throwing away forever! 

Good luck! You were warned! 

ZOMBIES: THE BEGINNING (Trailer)