OKAY, NAZI MOVIES HERE WE GO BUT... OH HERE'S A NEW (TO ME) ZOMBIE MOVIE, WAIT IT'S ABOUT WHAT? AGAIN? STILL? BUT IT WILL BE GOOD, RIGHT? NO? IT'S (GULP) A UK FILM? NO? BUT IT STILL HAS TWO TITLES? THE SECOND TITLE IS BETTER THAN THE WHOLE MOVIE? I CAN DESCRIBE THE BEST PART WITHOUT WORKING ON IT? 'KAY...

Dead Within aka What Remains (2014)

Currently streaming on Netflix, here's a warning for those considering watching this sloooooow piece of nothing with minimal effects or acting or story or...

The plot straight out of the IMDb: Six months after the outbreak, a man and woman have survived by isolating themselves in a remote cabin. Starved for resources, they must confront the horrors that threaten them from outside and from within.

Ba dum dum. That's it. Here's the best part and you can thank me (or curse me) for saving you precious time:

You're welcome.

                        

HOW ABOUT A ZOMBIE MOVIE? NO? HOW ABOUT TWO ZOMBIE MOVIES? NO? WELL TOUGH - YOU'RE GETTING THREE ZOMBIE MOVIES - WHADDYA GOT TO SAY ABOUT THAT? PART THREE...

Cockneys vs Zombies (2013) UK

Well, faithful readers you've gotten through two of the three zombie movies that I recently viewed. We've had our teen flick, we've had our so-called adult movie. Now it's time for the senior set. Now I had to do a little looking before I started this review because I am the first one to admit that I am geographically ignorant and I never have even considered what the word 'Cockney' meant before.







So to be fair, I looked it up. I knew from watching this movie that it had something to do with living in the East End of London. But I didn't know the whats and whys. And I didn't know why there was a distinction. Now here in the States, I know different sections of the Country are known for their different dialects such as Southern accents, New York accents, etc. 

But as for England, my main frame of reference (and you may laugh if you want to) is the proper British accent of Stewie Griffin and Sir Patrick Stewart (yes, that's right, I'm putting together a cartoon baby with a distinguished actor), and the Cockney accents are the ones I've heard from watching sitcoms on BBC.

That sounds terrible. I know, which is why I looked it up. Basically, the word Cockney can be associated with geographical location, social interactions, and linguistic associations. As far as the area of London goes, it is the East end and while it covers many districts, it is traditionally a residential area which has experienced a growth of industry. In other words, the East Enders are known as a hard-working people.

As far as dialect goes, I think we've all heard both the so-called proper British accents, as opposed to Cockney accents. Those who speak with Cockney accents are more likely to use a particular type of slang. It is said that some of that slang originates from Yiddish words, others can be combinations of words. 

I did learn one word of slang I'd never heard used before, because it's peppered all through this movie, and that is the word Muppet. Were not talking Kermit the Frog or Cookie Monster, but apparently in Cockney slang a Muppet is a person who consistently does stupid things.

Okay, enough lessons for today. Our movie is another British zombie film comedy, which centers on a group of young Cockneys who work to rescue a group of elderly people from danger as a zombie apocalypse overtakes Eastern London. They give a quick back story to their ZA: a 17th-century graveyard is discovered, ordered sealed by King Charles II. As workers break it open, they are greeted by ravenous zombies who bite them, and off we go.

We have brothers Terry and Andy who are desperate because their grandfather is about to lose his retirement home. Apparently the whole area is being demolished in order to develop expensive properties. The only way the brothers can figure to raise enough money quickly is to do what their grandfather used to do when he was young and a gangster - rob a bank. Unfortunately, Terry and Andy don't have it all together. They do gather a team which includes their cousin Katy, friend  Davey, and Mickey who is their source of weaponry.

Even if you're a zombie you're on one team...

They have a sub subplot going on which gets things a little complicated and confusing. The developers who are planning to demolish the center to make their new buildings have a boss who is planning to embezzle all the money and take off running. He apparently has a partner on the inside; a woman who works at the bank.




Okay, this is a little too much to try to stuff into a zombie comedy. We have the seniors story, the development's embezzlement story, and the brothers story. It makes things hard to follow; not because it is too difficult, but because there is simply too much going on at once to keep track of the story progression.

...or the other.

Terry and Andy and their gang go to rob the bank expecting a modest payoff. But when they grab the money and run, taking the woman that was part of the embezzlement plan with them, and who thinks that this is the boss' way of cleaning out the bank, the would-be robbers are shocked to find that they are staring at $2.5 million.




The movie, then cuts away and goes back to the retirement home. Interestingly, when the zombies attack, it's the employees that end up getting eaten, since the senior citizens seem to have much better survival skills.

Of course, it helps that these are 'Romero' zombies which means that even the most feeble among them can use their walkers and get away clean since even THEY move faster than these zombies do. The senior citizens are not going to go down without a fight. They grab anything they can find whether it be a lamp a cane or just anything heavy and they swing away. It's interesting that the staff, who were much younger, were the first to die, and hardly put up any kind of fight, and yet here we have senior citizens who are beating the crap out of the zombies.

So the zombie apocalypse, at least for East London, is in full swing. Already things are crashed, smashed, wrecked, dead, chewed on, etc. The boys in their van are now trying to get back to their grandfather but have to go through all these obstacles. At the same time, the senior citizens seem to be doing all right for themselves. I don't believe they've lost a single person yet.

Since I'm always such a picky person when it comes to accuracy, continuity, etc. I have to point out one little boo-boo: Everything and everyone is in ruins, on fire, or dead. But, the light rail is still running. You think they would at least have halted filming until it went by instead of having it go through their shot. I just thought that was kind of funny. 

They did have one scene that was a little daring. Very few zombie movies will approach the subject of what to do in the case of a zombie baby. Off the top of my head right now. I can only think about three movies and one of those I can't remember the title of but the two that did was George Romero's Day of the Dead, and Peter Jackson's Braindead a.k.a. Dead Alive. 

The third movie was throw away and I can't remember the title, but I know the mother had the baby before she died so they thought it would be fine until… If I remember right, they drop-kicked that sucker. Here we have a zombie mother pushing a pram as they call them in England. I believe. The treatment of this zombie baby, because of course it is one, was the same; it's drop-kicked into oblivion.

I also found it interesting that the difference between the group of young bank robbers and the group of senior citizens in the senior center is that the young ones could not stop bickering among themselves and so several were killed because they weren't paying attention. The senior citizens worked well together and as I said, I don't believe a single one of them has been killed as of yet.

The most violent one of the young ones which would be Mickey (they give his excuse as he was a veteran who was wounded in the head and now has a steel plate), the one with a huge arsenal. After he is bitten (like I said, among the young ones several die because they do not pay attention) and has died, the remaining ones of the group raid his arsenal and arm themselves to the teeth.

One of the major problems I had with this movie besides having too much going on in a simple, or what was supposed to be simple, zombie comedy, was the CGI work. When are they going to learn that if something explodes and a spray of blood, but none of it hits the ground or the people standing right there that it is faker than any cartoon? 




In the rare cases of gore in this movie, that was a major problem. In other instances where they could have shown better gore, they actually performed the deeds (for example, cutting off the head), off camera. That is some major cheating. It's not the only movie to do this. In fact, the first zombie movie of the three I've reviewed today, Dead Before Dawn, when a zemon was run over repeatedly, that was not shown. At most, what we got to see was a severed leg. Major cheating.

Since most of London is pretty much gone, and obviously the money is no longer an issue, survival becomes the main topic of the movie. The grandfather in the senior center is still the smartest guy in the movie. If any of them live. It will be because of him.

As has happened in several zombie movies, the main objective when the old people get together with the failed bank robbers is to get to a boat, assuming that they can find an island or somewhere else where zombies will not be. As these movies usually step into the land of incredible coincidences, they find a boat ready to go right away. All board the boat and they prepared to move away from the dock, when they discover that no one has bothered to unchain the boat. 

Now someone must sacrifice themselves by going back on land and releasing the chain. The grandfather of the failed bank robbers, the most useful person in the movie, volunteers. He brings an automatic weapon with him because he is not stupid, and one of his grandsons decides to join him. They spray the oncoming zombies with countless rounds as they release the chain and somehow, because this movie is going to have a happy ending even if it kills us, they both somehow manage to get back on the boat.

Our final scene is the remaining young ones and all the seniors from the retirement home. Now where they go, and if they are safe is left open. However, the grandfather makes his final statement, which is that they will take back East London for themselves. I believe him.

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A GORY ZOMBIE MOVIE THAT'S REALLY REALLY FUNNY AND REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY GORY - REALLY

Braindead aka Dead Alive (1992) New Zealand

Long before I started this blog I watched a strange but hilarious movie on IFC called Braindead. It was so obviously fake and funny that the guts, body parts and blood (which was the color of pink yogurt with a bit of raspberries) that it just made me laugh my, umm, guts out. Later, when on one of the many TWD sites, someone asked me if I'd heard of Dead Alive. Nope. Of course I had no idea they'd changed the title for America for whatever reason they feel the need to screw with what doesn't need fixed. But when it was described to me, I had that sense of deja vu and thought wow, I KNOW I've seen something like that.

Of course I had. And, of course, I could never find it again, until recently I watched it online (thank you movie streaming services). And I still laughed. Now this is MY kind of humor, it may not be yours so be warned - this movie was once called the goriest movie ever made. Of course that was 1992 so it may have been topped since then. BUT THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO CGI HERE! IT'S FANTASTIC! A flop when it first appeared, it quickly became a cult classic when its Director, Peter Jackson, did a little trilogy called Lord Of The Rings.

The movie, set in 1957 for some reason, begins its fun with the capture and smuggling into New Zealand a Sumatran Rat-Monkey, supposedly a hybrid between a large rat and a tree monkey. It's fierce and it's pissed, and during the explorer's escape from the natives, it reaches through the cage and bites him on the arm. His guides, seeing the bite, know instantly what that means - out comes the machete. Off goes his arm. Then they see a scratch on his other upper arm - off it goes at the shoulder. Then they see the scratch on his forehead... But money making people doing what they do, the remaining thieves take the monkey to the plane and off it goes to a zoo in New Zealand.

Then we meet mama's boy Lionel. He's a shy and whipped man but one day at the market he meets Paquita. She is determined to date him as it was predicted in the cards. He takes her on a date to the zoo - not knowing his mother (Elizabeth Moody, whose last role was in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring as the character Lobelia Sackville-Baggins) secretly has followed him. Hiding in the bushes by the monkey cages she, of course, gets bitten by the nasty rat-monkey and subsequently takes great pleasure in squashing his head (a good stop motion movie nasty you probably miss in this age of CGI) under her heel.

Lionel abandons Paquita to care for his mum at home. The bite festers quickly and by morning she's pretty ug... well, actually she was ugly to begin with, now she's just worse. He wants her to stay in bed but they have company. Funny stuff as she tries to look 'presentable' and he ends up using glue to try to put her peeling face skin back in place. Ick. But funny.

The table scene is probably the most famous and infamous of the whole movie. We have Lionel and his mum with a visiting couple eating a regular meal - with mum using somewhat less than civil table manners. The man is oblivious, the look on his wife's face - perfect. When the custard is served... uh, I think I'll stop there. Not because it wasn't one of the grossest/funniest scenes of zombie movies ever filmed, but because if you're eating or have eaten recently you might experience some, uh, discomfort.

He calls the nurse but she tells him that his mother is dead. His mother revives - even nastier than before and kills the nurse. But people think she's dead so he gets a large supplies of an anesthetic and tries to keep her undead corpse down - looking even worse after the embalming - to get through the funeral and subsequent burial. He doesn't really succeed and already she's been killing people. 

He tries to dig her up but is attacked by a stereotypical 50's street gang (lots of hair grease and leather) and would have been in pieces if the local priest wasn't well versed in kung fu (he kicks butt for the Lord) until his mother bursts from the grave and kills all of them. Somehow Lionel (he must be a lot stronger than he looks) gets them back to his house and keeps them in the basement under sedation.

But there's always a fly in the guts and blood - in the form of his mother's brother, Uncle Les. He discovers what he thinks is Lionel's penchant for mass murder and uses it to blackmail him to give up the house and inheritance. Uncle Les invites a houseful of people to party (and this is a big house) and the massive bloodshed is about to begin.

Lionel, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, had meant to shoot the bodies full of poison to end the madness - instead he uses some kind of - growth agent. All the bodies he buries in the basement shoot out of there (including a baby born to two particularly randy zombies) and the smorgasbord begins.

How to describe this? What made this so funny to me the first (and second) time was that somewhere in this gelatinous gooey practically knee deep scene in a set that must have taken months to clean afterward, they somehow must have run out of red dye, or jello, or whatever the hell they were making the mess out of and things got decidedly pinkish. The more blood and guts gushing all over everything, the pinker it got.


So we get some endless kung fu fighting - err, I mean zombie fighting as eventually everyone except Lionel, Paquita and Uncle Les become zombies. The zombie baby gets quite a bit of air time (that's kind of a pun, it gets kicked around a lot and seems to be able to jump great heights) and the melee' continues.


Speaking of Lionel's mother - remember the growth agent? Well apparently his mother got the mega dose (or because she is patient zero) because she has become this twelve foot high gross looking - thing that bursts from the earth just as Uncle Les has shut himself in the basement. Again, this is not CGI'd so the mechanics of this thing was pretty impressive. She grabs Les and literally pulls his head and spine out of his body - he is now a zombie that can't go anywhere.


Lionel makes it outside where he gets his trusty lawn mower (we're talking ultra cheap with one dull whirring blade) and proceeds to make limbs, torsos and heads spread their now even more pinkish gore all over the foyer of the house (where most of the gore is contained - still must have been a hell of a cleanup though) as that miracle blade went through skin, muscle, bone, even skulls. 


But even if the blade is a miracle, it still only has a limited gas supply and runs out, leaving Lionel to make a hasty exit. Lionel makes it up to the attic. There he finds that his mother had been lying to him all his life - he had thought his father drowned to save him - what really happened is his father had been caught with a girlfriend in the bathtub, both murdered by his mother and the girlfriend's body put in the attic. Lionel is a mama's boy no more.


So after some more wince-worthy slime and guts, a final showdown between Lionel and his mum and their escape, the house catches fire, the mother falls into it and Lionel and Paquita walk away as firetrucks arrive - happy and free. And slimy. Very, very slimy.