The Undying Zombie Thread

[Seamaster]

Thought we deserved a zombie thread. We will see if it has any legs.

I'm unable to provide a working link right now, but to kick off the thread, visit youtube and check out Chainsaw Maid. There are three parts, but the original episode is the best.

[Iago]

[ADOR]

[Iago]

[East]

The world would be a far better place if we gave 80's metal artists shotguns and free reign to kill off todays so called artists in a contest like manner each one being worth a certain amount of points based on how annoying they are. Reality tv at its finest...

[Seamaster]

That's what Survivor could have been from the get-go.

[ADOR]

That's what Survivor could have been from the get-go.

Zombie survivor, I like it.

[Iago]

True story: years ago, and looking at the dates it would have been in 1979 when I was 12, I saw a commercial on TV for a movie that had music that kind of stuck in my head. I would not say that it freaked me out, but it was very eerie and ominious and as can happen, I kept hearing that music, even long after I had forgotten the images in the commercial. I could hum it for people and asked what it was from, but no one who I asked knew. It was not until literally decades later, probably in the late Nineties that I saw Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 for the first time and the theme music was obviously what I had remembered. Interestingly, still not once scene or image in the movie reminded me of anything that I saw in the trailer, but that music sure stuck in my head. Listening to it nowadays it is not really anything special, certainly not in the calibre of John Carpenter's Seventies work or the Dario Argento Goblin scores of the era, but it must have something if it was able to get under the skin of a twelve year old in that fashion:

[Seamaster]

I picked up The Dead on Blu-ray. It's worth getting and watching. I will say no more in case someone has intentions of watching.

Some songs are like that. I'm not a particular fan of Cannibal Holocaust, but the intro music has always struck me as eerie, given the context of what follows.

[Iago]

I had a similar situation, this time visual, with a commercial for the original Phantasm. I must have seen it on TV, and it included the image from the dream sequence where Michael is on the slab with the Tall Man standing behind him, and hands come out of the ground around him and grab him. That image stuck with me even though I did not remember where it came from, and a good ten years later when I finally saw the movie for the first time, as soon as I saw that shot I knew it was what I had seen as a child.

I kept waiting for The Dead to keep sliding down the price scale at Target, but I waited too long and they dropped it from their set. I will have to either order it or wait for a Best Buy trip.

[Seamaster]

I picked mine up from Best Buy. It wasn't on sale. I think it cost me $20 or even $25. It's not the best zombie movie you will ever see, and it eschews the silliness that often goes along with zombie flicks, but overall I thought it well done. My biggest criticism is the set up and opening for the film. You will know what I mean right away when you watch it.

[Iago]

I think that they alluded to issues with the opening in one of the reviews that I read. Other than that, the acting and some repetitive scenes were the only other major beefs. But many of the reviews of the disc were pretty sympathetic, and they got me interested in the film before we had even discussed it:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/53396/dead-the/

[Seamaster]

The acting isn't terrible. And I was able to overlook much of it because these are relatively unknown actors. Yes, you will have seen some before, but these aren't blockbuster names. It made for a fresh viewing.

The zombies are just a little bit different from what we've seen lately. Almost more like the zombies from White Zombie. I was okay with that.

[Iago]

That reminds me: I asked Bill Hunt at The Digital Bits if he had heard anything about the Val Lewton boxed set making its way to Blu, and he had not, but he was going to keep his eyes open for it. Carrefour in I Walked with a Zombie may well be the greatest zombie of all time, and he never even attacks anyone, let alone eats them! (I know, the eating people thing did not really enter the genre until George Romero, and technically that makes all of his zombies and those that followed ghouls, not zombies, but you know what I mean.) The Universal boxed set really got me hankering to re-watch all of the Val Lewton RKO films, especially Zombie, which is one of my all-time favorite horror films -- even if it really is a horror film in name only, as Lewton himself described it as Jane Eyre set in the West Indies; but it is astonishingly atmospheric, even by today's standards!

[Seamaster]

Atmosphere makes a movie and ups the overall tension. It's the difference between a fun zombie film and a true horror. That is actually one area in which The Dead shines -- it has atmosphere, although not necessarily in the true chilling sense. It's more one of despair.

[ADOR]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360623124106&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

I see stuff like this on eBay doesn't die. Maybe they are secretly a best seller?

[East]

At one point I had about 50 similarly spec'd systems in my basement minus the voodoo video cards, Trust me they are not worth $50 let alone 1k. I probably still have enough misc around to stick 4 or 5 of them together.

Damn now you went and reminded me about the asus p2b in the closet.

[Seamaster]

Business opportunity, East: That's four to five grand in sales you're passing up!

[Iago]

A zombie in the basement is worth two bucks in the bush?


O.K., or something like that . . .

[East]

1.<insert power supply here> 2.<insert optical drive here>

3.<misc cabling>

4.<insert voodoo video card 56k modem and legacy sb16 isa sound card here>

5.???

6.profit?

Oh and yeah thats a pentium 1 micron pc case, More vintage then most of these so called vintage systems on ebay. That reminds me i still have that gateway baby at pizza box system i picked up a month or 2 back down there. Which is halfway appealing to somebody who wants an old system because while it is AT architecture it uses ps/2 peripherals hence baby at.

[Seamaster]

Brains?!

[Iago]

"More," in this case, it would seem.

[Iago]

Better?

[Seamaster]

Better.

[Iago]

Better yet?





Among horror directors, Lucio Fulci was certifiably insane. In a good way, mind you.

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