Night of the Living Dead.

The Internet Movie Database describes this film as “a group of people hide from bloodthirsty zombies in a farmhouse”.  Seems like a fairly simple premise, and it is.  The film never actually calls them zombies.  They're ghouls, or something... Either way, this simple idea picked up steam, and has become the gold standard for zombie films.  It re-defined a genre, so much so, that “purists” will dismiss more traditional zombie films as “not a real zombie movie” even when they pre-date Romero’s classic.  Anyways, nothing can be said about the film that hasn’t already been said, so let’s just let Starkwell and Lovelock enjoy it, and say goofy meaningless shit.  What a perfect film to be the three hundredth film to make its way to Zombie Hall.

[...]

[Nerdlinger John complains about visiting his father’s grave on behalf of his old mom.]

Starkwell: So, John’s a huge dick?

[John continues to complain.  He sees a dude wandering aimlessly around the graveyard.]

Lovelock: Oh God, John better die.  Hard.

Starkwell: Die hard?

Lovelock: Welcome to the party.

[John tells a story about how he used to scare her as a kid, and then, he delivers the famous, “they’re coming to get you Barbra”.]

Starkwell: Even as a kid he was a dick?

Lovelock: Once a dick always a dick.

[Zombie Hinzman kills John.]

Lovelock: Immediately giving us what we want!

[...]

Barbra makes her getaway and Lovelock and Starkwell CHEER HER ON.  She finds the farmhouse and begins to explore the inside as she hides from Zombie Hinzman.  The phone? Dead.  The music? Stressful.  The Atmosphere?  Perfect.  The zombies? Multiplying.

[...]

[Barbra finds a dead body, and meets Ben.]

Lovelock: Dude, sweet cardigan.

[Ben takes down some zombies with a tire iron.]

Starkwell: Cool, collected, stylish.

Lovelock: The ultimate hero.

Starkwell: Although, he’s awfully sweaty.  Maybe he should think about taking off that sweet cardigan.

Lovelock: You take that back!

[...]

How could Romero get it so right on the first try?  The zombies are fucking perfect.  There’s a touch of “Last Man on Earth” with a sprinkle of “Plague of the Zombies”, but seriously, there was nothing else quite like it at the time (from what I read anyways).

[...]

Lovelock: Is it just me, or is Barbra kind of phoning it in?  LIFT UP A FUCKING HAMMER.

Starkwell: She’s in shock.

Lovelock: WHAT A FUCKING BABY.  Multi-tasking man extraordinaire, A.K.A. Ben, is telling stories, boarding up the house and rocking a cardigan.

[Cardigan is off.]

Lovelock: Aw mannnnn…

[...]

Barbra starts telling her story about John and FREAKS OUT, Ben is all “bitch calm down” basically.  Eventually he punches her in the face and Lovelock played air guitar.

[...]

[Ben listens to news report.]

Lovelock: I hope the reporter says it may be due to “wacky tabacky”.

[...]

The zombies seem to hate fire and are afraid of flames, which sparked a conversation between Lovelock and Starkwell as to why so-called zombie “purists” always get hung up on the “running versus walking” issue, but never mention the whole “fear of flames” thing… Further proof that people should just shut up and open their minds.

[...]

[News report mentions that victims of the ‘murderers’ have been partially devoured.]

Lovelock: There it is.  The invention of a genre.

Starkwell: People must have been freaking out.

Lovelock: I wish I could go back in time and have not seen all of the post-Romero films and see this movie with a clear head and totally shit my pants forever.

[Don’t we all…  Well except for the pants shitting.]

[...]

[Ben figures out that you have to shoot them in the head.]

Lovelock: There it is.

Starkwell: But again, people hold on to that one, but not the flames thing?  Strange.

[...]

Barbra and Ben meet Harry and Tom.  Harry decides that he wants to stay down in the cellar, Tom wants to stay upstairs.  They also meet up with Judy, Helen and Tom’s sick daughter, but, basically none of their opinions, nor Barbra’s really matters. They just do as their husbands say, essentially.

[...]

Lovelock: So the ladies are basically useless?

Starkwell: Seriously, Tom isn’t even counting them as people… “The three of us”…

Lovelock: You skirts ain’t worth a damn in a crisis.

Starkwell: They certainly aren’t helping their cause by sitting around not doing anything.

[...]

Judy ends up downstairs with Helen and Harry’s sick kid, while the rest sit around upstairs arguing about this and that.  Harry is easily the biggest piece of shit in the Universe.  Harry’s wife Helen finally speaks up, at least, and shits on her husband, but just as she is asking if she can do anything to help, Ben and Harry totally speak over her, interrupt her and have their own conversation, fully ignoring her and continuing to make all ladies feel and be useless.

[...]

[News report informs them that the killers are UNDEAD!]

Lovelock: I’m so happy.  I feel like I’m watching how life was created.

Starkwell: More like UN-life.

[...]

After the long news report explaining to us, the viewers, just what in the Hell is going on, Ben hatches a plan to get out of the house and take the truck to get to a rescue station.

[...]

[Tom convinces Judy that leaving is the right thing to do.]

Lovelock: Took him long enough.

[Tom tells Judy that she is of no use at all.]

Starkwell: Wait what?  Is that really what he said? Harsh.

[It seems that the ladies are just there to look pretty and smile.]

[...]

[Tom and Judy go get the truck, truck catches fire, Judy’s jacket gets caught, Tom tries to help her, truck blows up, they blow up.]

Starkwell: Of course, it's her fault.

Lovelock: That's why you just can't trust women with anything... apparently...

Starkwell: Wasn’t this when feminism or women's lib or whatever was getting started and going strong and whatnot?

Lovelock: Well, technically, she did burn her bra.

[...]

Ben runs back to the house, Harry does little to help him out, so Ben, obviously, beats the shit out of him.  Lovelock and Starkwell celebrate with a high five.  Then we see some serious flesh eating and it’s honestly still pretty fucked up and shocking.  They celebrated again, but this time with a series of roundhouse kicks.

[...]

[The kid becomes zombie, since she was infected by THE BITE.]

Lovelock: So this really did start it all…

Starkwell: But, again, why does no one care about the flamophobia angle?

[The brain of the ghoul has been activated by the radiation, destroy the brain, destroy the ghoul.]

Starkwell: But don’t worry about the fire thing?  No one will remember that one?  WHAT THE FUCK?

Lovelock: Please drop it.  Forever.  Starting… NOW.

[...]

Hell starts breaking loose.  Ben shoots Harry with his gun and Harry ends up in the cellar with his daughter who promptly starts eating him.  Then she kills her mom with a shovel.  And eats her.  Starkwell and Lovelock are sitting on the absolute edge of their seats.  No sounds coming from them, except the occasional nervous fart from Lovelock.  Barbra finally wakes the fuck up and starts helping, but it is WAY too little too late, as she immediately encounters her zombie brother Johnny who grabs her and, I assume, rips her apart and eats her with all of his ghoul friends.

[...]

[Ben goes down to the cellar and ices zombie Harry and Helen.  But then he is SWARMED…  And yet he MAKES IT!]

Lovelock: He’s still pretty calm and collected, but I can’t help but wish he’d put his cardigan back on.

[...]

Morning eventually comes, and a bunch of local militia, redneck weekend warriors and National Guard seem to have things under control.  They come upon the farmhouse and as Ben slowly exits to signal that he is still alive, they, rather casually, exterminate him with a shot right between the eyes.  Just another one for the fire.  Seriously, this film deserves all of the praise that it gets.  Nearly fifty years old, and it can still shock, surprise and delight.

[...]

Lovelock: If he'd been wearing his cardigan, I bet they wouldn't have shot him.

The Legend of Bloody Jack.

Seemingly known for his editing work on Dr. Phil and Oprah, as well as his directorial entries in the "THUMB" series of film parodies, this… aw fuck it.  This movie is probably going to suck.  Plus it was produced by "The Asylum".  Have fun, dudes.

[...]

[Descendent of “Bloody Jack” reads from some book and brings him back to life.  Bloody Jack kills this descendent dude.]

Lovelock: And that’s why I don’t resurrect my serial killer ancestors.

Starkwell: Yeah that’s why.  Wait.  What?

[...]

While it may have only taken me a couple of seconds to explain what has happened so far, I should mention that this horribly paced sack of boredom took ten minutes to get there, utilizing plenty of terrible acting, shit dialogue and amateur-ish special effects.  After all of that, we get to the present day (I didn’t realize the other thing was a flashback), and we get a group of horny college kids (young adults?) partying in the Alaskan wilderness… ?

[...]

[Immediate sex scene with the worst music ever.]

Lovelock: Such… a… long scene… WHY?!?!

Starkwell: Dude needs to pad his runtime somehow.

Lovelock: Also, he wants to have boobs in his movie I guess.

[...]

Starkwell couldn’t do it.  He just left during the HORRIBLE existential conversation about whatever. Shit’s lame.  I don’t remember exactly which 'existential' conversation he left during.  It felt like there were four hundred million of them.

[...]

Lovelock: Why do young adults in these movies just sit around making out in front of each other?  Are there really people like that?

[...]

At least it didn’t take much longer for it to get going, and Bloody Jack starts killing people.  On a side note, there seems to be a huge age gap between the young adults.  Seriously, one of the girls looks forty.  So far the movie has been mostly bad dialogue, boobs and HORRIBLE FUCKING MUSIC.

[...]

[Bloody Jack spies on couple doing it.  Doesn’t do any killing.]

Lovelock: Bloody Jack… come on.

[The next scene includes… wait for it… more sexy talk.]

[...]

Lovelock fell asleep. I was making applesauce, so I didn’t bother waking him up.  I think there was a scene where Bloody Jack chopped off a dude’s wang.  Also, it cuts from day to night, back to day, immediately back to night.  Then I realized, it’s actually an attempt at “day for night” shots.  They are the worst “day for night” shots that I have ever seen.  What a dumb fucking movie.  Eventually it ends with the main guy shooting a fireball out of his hand and blowing up a car that Bloody Jack was in.  But then TWIST, the whole thing was just a story being told by one of the guys as they sit around drinking.  But then TWIST again, Bloody Jack shows up and kills them all.  So the whole movie was just one guy's storytelling, and then what really happened took about two minutes.  Well at least no one survived.

[...]

[Lovelock wakes up.]

Lovelock: Oh it’s done?  Good nap.

Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering.

I think at this point there are eight of these films.  That puts this one smack dab in the middle of the series, and right at the beginning of Naomi Watts career.  CLEARLY a high point.  This one is more "Village of the Damned" than really a "Children of the Corn" thing in that regular kids get sick and go homicidal.  The film starts off with a woman's nightmare about a kid going all possessed zombie style and slashing her with one of those scythe thingies.  After the credits, we see an insanely young Naomi Watts driving into town, heading back home to visit her family and help with her crazy mom.  Her name is Grace.

[...]

[Farmer Joe takes water out of a well, that appears to have a zombie kid in the bottom.]

Starkwell: The well doesn't look that deep, can't he see that undead blue dude?

[He drinks from his bucket, oh no, it's a bunch of bugs!]

Lovelock: At this point, he's either the victim of some mystical magic, or this is all very Magoovian.

Starkwell: You're not doing the Magoo thing again.

[Zombie kid rises out of the well, kills the farmer, say he's "come for the children".]

Lovelock: Seems like a missed opportunity on the farmer's part to be all "but I'm not a kiddddd…".

Starkwell: Well, I think the zombie kid realizes that.

Lovelock: Unless he's blind.

Starkwell: Don't...

Lovelock: MAGOO-STYLE.

[...]

Looks like the zombie preacher kid is about to infect all the kids in town with the evil spirit.  Looks like Grace's sister and brother have a hot ass fever.  Looks like some shit's about to go down.

[...]

[It wasn't enough that Preacher Kid killed the farmer, he chopped his head off, impaled him on a cross of some kind, and now sets him on fire.]

Starkwell: He's taking his time with that farmer.

[The kids all FLIP THE FUCK OUT simultaneously, fever, convulsion, and then, they seem to go back to normal... or at least they SEEM normal.]

Lovelock: Well, that wasn't so bad.  Is the movie over yet?

[...]

[The kids kill their first victim.]

Starkwell: Did they really have to kill the only black woman in town first?

Lovelock: Kids are racist.

[The Sheriff suspects the husband, IMMEDIATELY and arrests him.]

Lovelock: Racist town I guess.

[...]

[Sheriff follows kid into cornfield, dies.]

Lovelock: That's why I never follow weird kids into a cornfield. At night.

Starkwell: Seems like an obvious thing to avoid doing.

[...]

Then there's a scary thing that happens and Grace wakes up… it was only a dream.  Then something scary happens.  But then she wakes up… it was another dream.  Within a dream.  Right…  It has now become clear that the kids are being possessed by the evil kids from, what I assume, is the original story / book / movie / thing.

[...]

[Crazy twin kids kill doctor.]

Lovelock: I already find twins terrifying enough without them being homicidal possessed demon kids.

Starkwell: Agreed.

[...]

The story moves quickly enough, though predictably.

[...]

[Girl talking to Grace drops a reference to cinematic classic "The Exorcist".]

Lovelock: Why do movies feel the need to do that?

Starkwell: I never know man.

[...]

After the typical "the two random oldest women in town tell the the story of the preacher boy" scene and a few more deaths, we find out that Grace's sister Maragaret is actually her daughter!

[...]

[TELEKINESIS! Flying scythe! Into woman's face!]

Lovelock: Preacher boy IS Darth Vader.

Starkwell: I hate you.

Lovelock: Wait so is her brother also her kid?  If not then her crazy mom had a kid at roughly the same time as her.  What the hell.

[...]

All the zombie kids gather in a barn and start the ceremony where they intend on transferring Preacher Boy's soul into Margaret's body.  Seems like it worked, since Margaret's body went into a bath of blood and Preacher Kid popped out… so…

[...]

[Grace fights Preacher Kid.]

Lovelock: She is totally pulling off that shotgun.

Starkwell: Are you smitten?  You seem pretty smitten.

[...]

Eventually she sprays Preacher Kid with mercury laced water and he melts.  The logic as to why that worked was flawed, at best, and the fact that her daughter wakes up after drowning in blood for ten minutes makes even less sense.  Oh well.

[...]

Starkwell: See, I'd buy it more if she just magically woke up… but the fact that Naomi Watts did CPR on her and THAT woke her up… seems FUCKING DUMB.

[...]

After the movie ended, Lovelock realized that one of the main kids grew up to be on the hit television show "Glee" and was mad at himself for missing potential jokes throughout.

[...]

Lovelock: There were probably like seven good moments to whip out a "Don't Stop Believin'" reference.

Starkwell: Missed opportunities.

Infected.

You got to hand it to people that don’t bother to find a name for their film that hasn’t already been used.  Hand them a trophy for laziness.  "Infected" might be the most generic name ever.  Anyway, this one somehow has Michael Madsen in it, and looks terrible.  It starts fairly quickly, with a narrator talking about how the Earth has gone to shit, and then cuts to Michael Madsen and some other people hauled up in a cabin in the woods, fighting off zombies.

[...]

[Terrible effects, overbearing shitty music, and HORRIFYING over acting from Madsen.]

Lovelock: How?

Starkwell: Dude needs to eat, I guess.

[The sound mixing is hard to sit with.]

Starkwell: It sounds like the sound was recorded on an old tape recorder and then played back through a phone.

[...]

Anyways, then it says “TWO HOURS EARLIER”, so now I suppose we are going to be treated with the boring story of how they got to that point.  Sometimes a good actor like Madsen can lend credibility to a shitty film, but instead, he just helps everyone else look EVEN WORSE.  Madsen isn’t the only recognizable character actor in here.  William Forsythe is in this one too and is wearing a terrible wig.  Thinking about how much money this thing might have cost to make, is just depressing.  It doesn’t LOOK cheap, it just FEELS fucking cheap.

[...]

Lovelock: This is painful.

[...]

Two characters that we haven’t seen before are out in the woods… one’s a nerd, the other a… prostitute?  And they… hump in the woods?

[...]

Starkwell: Why do these movies always think they need to shows boobies?

Lovelock: Some people will overlook a lot when there are boobies.

Starkwell: You?

Lovelock: No.  Those weren’t even really good boobies anyways.  Maybe for good boobies.

[...]

The conversation went on about boobies for a while and then they both got up and left.  Watching it in fast forward, it seems like the zombies show up around the thirty minute mark, and by the hour mark, we are back to where we were before it said “TWO HOURS EARLIER”.  Anyways, it ends on a downer.  Hooray!  It’s certainly not the worst, but still SO FAR AWAY from being any good.  There’s a whole end part with black and white zombies and the dudes building a vehicle and like weapons and shit, and it’s all just so fucking played.  Runtime ninety minutes, feels like infinity.

Wake Wood.

This is apparently the story of some kid dying by vicious dog attack and being re-animated by their parents thanks to, like, witchcraft or something… apparently they never saw “Pet Sematary” and thought it would all just work out.  Since this is a horror movie, I can assume that they were wrong.  Lucky for Starrkwell and Lovelock.

[...]

[Parents driving, flashback playing of their daughter’s death.  It’s pretty gruesome.]

Lovelock: I don’t think this movie is going to be a hilarious romp in the woods.

Starkwell: Why would you have thought it would be a 'hilarious romp'?

Lovelock: The law of averages?

Starkwell: That doesn’t apply when every movie you watch is about some sort of zombie.

[...]

So the couple has moved somewhere new, obviously in an attempt to move on.  I don’t think it is working.   It’s all pretty intense. After their car breaks down, they wander into the woods and stumble upon their friend’s house.

[...]

[Wife goes ‘round back, stumbles upon a pagan ceremony, involving a dead animal and blood being poured all over someone.]

Starkwell: Uhhh…

Lovelock: With friends like these, who needs friends?

[...]

It’s a strange town that they have moved to.  It seems like everyone is in on the whole “let’s bring our loved ones back from the dead for three days”.  The wife, Louise, figures it out, and decides she wants to bring back her Alice for three days.  She convinces the husband, Patrick. Now, Witchdoctor Dude tells them that he can only do it if she has been less than a year.  They decide to lie (I assume it has been more than a year).

[...]

[They lie to Witchdoctor, it has DEFINITELY been longer than a year.]

Starkwell: Right... that’s smart.  WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Lovelock: To be fair, Witchdoctor didn’t warn them what would happen if it’s been longer than one year.

[...]

It’s taking a while to get going.

[...]

[They dig up their daughter to get some piece of her.]

Lovelock: At some point, ONE OF THEM must start thinking, "are we sure about this?"

[LITERALLY a piece of her... the dude cuts off a finger with some scissors.]

Starkwell: Da fuck?

Lovelock: He’s really going for it.  But again... "are we sure about this?"

[...]

The ritual is pretty gross.  They crush some dude’s dead body, and dissect him, smash his face, shove a dead girl’s finger down his throat, burn him, crack open the burnt flesh cocoon… etc.  It’s a pretty long affair.  We’re half way through the film, and only just now has the girl come back to life.

[...]

Starkwell: Resurrection ain’t pretty.

Lovelock:  They’re not leaving her much time to kill everybody.  Come on, movie…. Let’s get this show on the road.

[Patrick and Louis play with Alice, laugh and giggle.]

Lovelock: BOOOOOoooooRING!

[...]

While driving, Patrick takes his eyes off the road and runs over a dog.  He takes him home and stitches him up.

[...]

[They plan on keeping the dog, naming him Howie.]

Lovelock: Isn’t that cuuuuuute…

Starkwell: I agree.

Lovelock: I was being sarcastic.  I’m SOOOO bored.

Starkwell: They’re developing the story, guy.

Lovelock: They need to develop some fucking action.  Maybe the dog could like, go all Cujo or something.

[...]

[Patrick and Louise put Alice to bed, and then go and hump.]

Lovelock: Because nothing sets the mood like fiery pagan rituals, dissecting dead dudes, bloody rebirths and stitching up a half-dead dog.  Oh also, putting your zombie daughter to bed.

[...]

Alice starts acting funny, Lovelock’s looking pretty STOKED.  Or confused… I can’t tell.  The woman whose husband’s body they used to bring Alice back is hanging out with Alice and figures out that something is UP.

[...]

[Patrick and Louise decide to “take their chances” and leave Wake Wood.]

Lovelock: Let me get this straight, they’ve already lied about it being less than a year, now they’re leaving the city limits?

Starkwell: These people are dumb.

Lovelock: Witchdoctor BROUGHT YOUR DAUGHTER BACK TO LIFE.  Don’t you think maybe you should listen to him and his rules?

Starkwell: I hate these people.

Lovelock: I hope Alice eats them.

[The townsfolk come to see them and tell them if they send her back now, all is not lost.  They refuse.]

Starkwell: Oh for fuck’s sake!

Lovelock: THEY ARE GIVING YOU AN OUT.  Take it!  These people, man.

[...]

Lovelock is angry about the people being so dumb, but I think his temper is just so short, because we’ve got less than half an hour left, and Alice still hasn’t offed anyone.  Also, why would Patrick go to work during one of his three days with his daughter?

[...]

[Louise is apparently pregnant, somehow?  Anyways, Alice finally starts killing people.]

Starkwell: You’re not happy?

Lovelock: I guess.

[Too little too late?  Lovelock doesn’t generally have the patience for films that try and slowly build tension.]

[...]

So yeah, Louise lures her daughter outside the city limits and she dies.  And the townsfolk bury her.  But… TWIST, Alice reaches up out of the ground and takes Louise to… Hell, I assume.

[...]

[Patrick uses a hair off of a brush to bring Louise back.]

Starkwell: Dude, you suck.

Lovelock: Agreed.

[TWIST, she’s nine months pregnant and Patrick wants to C-Section the baby out.]

Lovelock: Nope.  No.  No.

Starkwell: So the afterlife is just... another physical place where you continue to live and develop your baby?

Lovelock: Nope.  No.  No.

[...]

And then, in a final kick to our collective crotch, Patrick looks at the camera, breaking the fourth wall.  That’s seven twists too many, after ninety minutes of dreadful inaction.

Harold's Going Stiff.

In an age when everyone is doing zombies, and no one is trying to mix it up, it’s nice to see someone mixing it up.  Now, that being said, it may end up being a rotten mixture, but at least it won’t be as unoriginal as most.  The movie’s tagline of “the nicest zombie you’ll ever meet” isn’t exactly whetting Lovelock’s appetite for destruction and mayhem.

[...]

[Three zombie hunters, basically vigilantes, but very unlikely vigilantes, talk about their exploits killing zombies and then they kill a zombie.]

Starkwell: I don’t think that zombie was even trying to attack them.  Or anybody.

Lovelock: I have a feeling this is going to be a different one.

Starkwell: Pretty funny so far.

[...]

After the three dudes very slowly bludgeon the zombie with bats and blunt beating objects, we cut to Harold, making himself some breakfast.  The film is partially filmed in documentary style.  We hear about Harold, and how he was the original “zombie”, which in this case seems to be little more than a living guy with rigor mortis.  Apparently this ‘Onset Rigor Disease’ or ‘O.R.D.’ as they call it, progresses into different stages and they become more traditionally zombie-like.

[...]

[Doctor explains the three stages of ‘O.R.D.’.]

Lovelock: Step one, stiffness, step two, mental breakdown, step three, rabidity, step four LOVELOCK SHALL BE ENTERTAINED!

Starkwell: Sounds like a plan.

[...]

Once rabid, the zombies seem to walk around a bit like Frankenstein’s monster.  Clearly Starkwell and Lovelock are into it, because they aren’t saying a whole lot, but their eyes seem glued to the screen.  The comedy is subtle and dark, but SPOT ON for the most part.  The scenes with the three ridiculous vigilantes are particularly funny.  There a lot of random sexual innuendos, between the talk of STIFFNESS and the way the nurse ‘treats’ Harold, and the crispy sausage that seems to have caused ‘O.R.D.’… They’re also poking fun at old age, particularly in men, since they are the only sex affected by the disorder… for the most part, it’s just fucking weird.  And sad.  Sometimes funny.

[...]

[One of the vigilantes goes into a cave to capture a zombie, gets bitten.]

Lovelock: IT BEGINS!!!!

Starkwell: This movie kind of does it all.

[And at only seventy-five minutes it doesn’t waste much time.  Although the bite turns out to do nothing except freak the little vigilante out.]

Starkwell: I guess it's more of a joking nod to the whole zombie bite thing that usually transpires.

Lovelock: So, it does not begin, basically, is what you're telling me.

[...]

The most random running gag is that Harold’s nurse needs to bring toilet paper with her everywhere that she goes because she sometimes needs to have emergency bathroom breaks in the bushes because of her IBS.  Pretty odd.

[...]

[We see what is basically a nursing home for the 'O.R.D.' sufferers.]

Starkwell: Are they making a statement on how we treat our old people or?

[Clearly they are making a statement on how we treat our old people.  The roles are somewhat reversed though, since in this case it’s an old man putting his son in a home.]

Lovelock: If so, then, well… Ricky Gervais’ “Derek” is a lot more… warm.

[They seem to be getting uncomfortable.]

[...]

Then it very suddenly shifts from a dramatic scene to horror, then right back to comedy.  What a ride.  Oh wait, back to drama.  I think I saw Lovelock crying when Harold started feeling better but then started getting much worse again.  The movie does start to drag a little near the end, but it’s all put together so well that, honestly, Lovelock and Starkwell can forgive them for that.  The heartbreaking conclusion, on the other hand, they are not quite ready to forgive.  It’s like they had forgotten that zombie films don’t generally have happy endings.

Black Magic 2.

Look, this movie has Lo Lieh in it, and zombies.  Need I say more?  After the obvious "but I didn't see the first one, won't I be lost?" joke, Starkwell and Lovelock sit, ready.  Let’s do this.

[...]

[Girls, doing laundry in a river, strip down and go swimming naked.]

Starkwell: That was quick…

Lovelock: We have a new contender for the "soonest boobies" award.

[Insanely fake crocodile eats one of the girls, slowly swims away and has rocks thrown at it by the villagers.]

Lovelock: There are, no words.

[Old Witchdoctor uses a grappling hook, a live chicken and a chant to catch the crocodile, then he cuts his stomach open and retrieves the girl’s bracelet.]

Starkwell: So… case closed?

[Funky music and opening credits.]

Lovelock: These could be the ending credits and it would already have been more fun than a lot of movies.

[Seriously the music is amazing.  They have a scene at a club and the drums were CLEARLY sampled once by the Beastie Boys.]

[...]

Then Lo Lieh takes a girl into his dungeon, strips her down and pulls a nail out of her skull and she immediately ages seventy years and drops dead.  Maybe at some point, we’ll find out why.

[...]

[Cut to a hospital full of infected patients.]

Starkwell: Did the doctor say it was from Black Magic?

Lovelock: I don’t know, but that’s why I don’t go to hospitals.

Starkwell: Right.

[Upon Lovelock’s request, I changed the audio dub to the English version.  The Australian accents are welcome.]

[...]

Lo Lieh seems to be a witchdoctor of some kind.  He just hung a bloody dead animal outside some girl’s house and now is back in his basement doing Black Magic type stuff, pouring blood on what looks like a female figurine made out of old croissant dough.

[...]

[The doctors read about Black Magic, and read about how drinking breast milk keeps a man young?]

Starkwell: Why?

Lovelock: Lo Lieh loves him some tits.

[...]

Using his Black Magic, Lo Lieh summons the girl from the neighboring mansion (one of the doctors' wives) to his basement.  He explains to her that he requires breast milk.

[...]

[Apparently she needs to eat some special oil made from her hair and she’ll produce breast milk.]

Starkwell: Why doesn’t he just cast his zombie spell on pregnant women?

Lovelock: Where’s the skill in that?

Starkwell: I didn’t realize he was being scored on creativity.

[Turns out the hair he needs is pubes, and so Lo Lieh shaves off her bush.]

Starkwell: Jesus Christ dude.

[After making an oil from her pubes and feeding it to her, there is a drawn out sex scene in the bedroom, featuring more suckling then anyone is really comfortable seeing.]

Lovelock: What. The. Fuck.

[...]

The only thing keeping them both here at this point is the promise at how potentially wacky this might get.  But they can’t help but notice we have seen far more nipples than zombies OR kung-fu.  This movie is very quickly pissing all of its potential out the window.

[...]

[The girl wakes up pregnant, with some sort of monster baby, and the doctors immediately operate and take it out.]

Starkwell: That might be the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen.

Lovelock: And you once went into the bathroom after I forgot to flush after a huge dump after eating lots of Tex-Mex... so that's saying a lot.

[...]

[Apparently Lo Lieh sells his spells to locals.]

Lovelock: Will there be a hero in this movie or… ?

Starkwell: The doctors?

Lovelock: I ain’t buying that shit for a second.

[...]

Honestly, so far the movie is much more about perverts, rapists and breast milk than it is zombies, black magic or kung-fu.  The doctors have started investigating.  They go to the graveyard to dig up a body they believe was victim of BLACK MAGIC.

[...]

[They perform an autopsy on the body and expose a bunch of worms and maggots.]

Lovelock: Did he once again say “it must be Black Magic”?

[The two doctors agree to use one of their wives as bait.]

Starkwell: Horrifying.

Lovelock: It was her idea… she’s asking for it.

[...]

[The spell works and Doctor One takes Doctor Two’s wife to a hotel room and fondles her.]

Starkwell: Careful what you wish for.

[Cut immediately to Lo Lieh sucking a tit, which then starts smoking, melting, and oozing pus.]

Lovelock: I know that I didn’t wish for that.

[...]

It’s hard to keep up, shit’s moving so fast.  But at the same time, nothing is happening.  Lo Lieh stays young by sucking breast milk, impregnating women with demon babies, and eventually melting them dead.  Then, as Doctor Two fights with his possessed wife, a random old man dressed in white, who we ave not yet seen up until this point (or maybe that was the guy who performed the stomach surgery on the crocodile), beats her with a dead cat, throws it on her and then cuts open her back and lets out a bunch of green worms.

[...]

[Old White Wizard has a psychic battle with Lo Lieh.  From miles (?) away.]

Starkwell: Did Lo Lieh just put a nail through his own cheek?

[White Wizard loses.  Dies.]

Lovelock: That character didn’t last long.

[Before dying, White Wizard ripped out his own eyes, gave them to Doctor Two and told him he must eat the eyes, in order to have wise eyes.]

Starkwell: I give up.

Lovelock: I’d cook them first.  Maybe in like a white wine sauce… he was the White Wizard, after all.

[...]

Anyways, nothing could prepare Starkwell or Lovelock for BLUE SCREEN Cable Car Fight between Doctor Two and Lo Lieh.  Describing it would never do it justice, so I won’t even try.  But let me just say, it was magical.  Black magical, if you will.

[...]

[Zombie Doctor One and his Zombie wife attack Doctor Two.  He pulls the nails out of their heads and melts them.]

Lovelock: Well, so much for saving them.

[Three zombies in robes break into Doctor Two’s wife’s room, grab her by her ankles, spread her legs straight open and begin to feast (?) on her crotch (?) .  Lo Lieh watches.]

Starkwell: Yep.  That just happened.

[...]

Then Doctor Two starts throwing voodoo dolls into a fire, and we are treated to a bunch of flaming zombies falling down stairs and off of balconies and whatnot.  And then, in like a minute, Doctor Two burns down Lo Lieh’s house, his wife cuts Lo Lieh’s arm off, Lo Lieh melts at the sight of some magic amulet that the doctor had and the movie ends.  Good luck forgetting that one.

BURT MALONE LETTERS: The Walking Dead.

Burt Malone sent me this letter a while ago regarding the television show.  I think it was right before season three hit the air… but I’m not sure.  Unlike some that he sends me via email, he hand wrote this one and slid it under my door.  So I don’t really have a date attached to it.  No matter when EXACTLY he wrote it, it still makes sense now, even if it is a little curmudgeonly.  Take it away, Burt.

[...]

AMC’s “The Walking Dead” is amazing.  Boom.  I said it.  Look, it does nothing to reinvent the wheel, but it takes the classic Romero-ish dead story and runs with it in an epic miniseries-that-goes-on-forever style (while maintaining a classic, much appreciated, “zombies DON’T run” philosophy, and avoiding having bullshit sympathetic “Bub”-like pet zombies).  The acting is great, the directing, the writing… characters are developed that you GENUINELY care for and root for.

Okay. 

I won’t go into any more detail about what I love about the show and why it is so great.  Does it stray from the source material?  Of course.  But seriously, who gives a shit?  It has become its own thing at this point, separate from the comic.  It’s like comparing UK “The Office” with the long running American version.  One came first, but both had Gervais’ name attached.  The US follow-up started with a rough copy of the original for a pilot, then went off in its own direction.  Guess what?  Both were awesome.

The problem I have with this ‘hit’ show has absolutely nothing to do with the show itself.  No sir.  The bone I have to pick dates back to, at this point, probably at least as far back as the release of “Zombieland”.  It started around then, and “The Walking Dead” has made it much much worse.  I’m talking, of course, about  zombie fever.  Everyone and anyone suddenly claiming to LOOOooOOOVE zombie films.

Ugh.

I mean, now there are apps to make your face be a zombie face.  And Halloween costumes.  And zombie 5Ks, and bumper stickers that say dumb shit like “I HART BRAINZ” and shit and ALL THAT SHIT.

Everyone in the universe is playing “Plants Vs. Zombies” on their phones and taking a break from watching their favorite show (likely about surgically altered housewives that aren’t even married but somehow call themselves housewives) to watch “The Walking Dead”?  What?

Sample Facebook post or Twitter post or whatever you kids use these days:

“ZOMG Teh Walking Ded 2nite! Cant wait ^_^ !!11011!!!”

Sorry.  Where was I?  Yeah.

And zombies are in COMMERCIALS now.  Honestly, advertising is the place that jokes and ideas go to DIE.

What’s worse is that now people go all faux connoisseurs and will be all “THAT’S NOT A ZOMBIE MOVIE” about movies that TOTALLY FUCKING ARE zombie movies.  They just don’t realize that zombies don’t all bite and eat flesh, they’re not all slow or fast, they’re not even always contagious, and they certainly don’t all require head shots or require brains to survive.  Shit, some don’t even die, ever.  Throw your made-up rule book out the window and get an education.  Watch something from forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, or hell, even eighty years ago.

Some of these people would watch “White Zombie” and say it’s not a zombie movie.  It’s called “White Zombie”.  Yeah, it's a fucking zombie movie.

“What’s your favorite zombie movie?”

“Definitely ‘Zombieland’ because it was like, the first zombie movie. It's like the original.”

“GAAAaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh-”

And then Burt’s brain explodes.

Ok, fine.  I know.  I’m being a snob.  I realize that the popularity of films like “Zombieland” and shows like “The Walking Dead” will only lead to more zombie films, which should make me happy right?  Like when a band you love gets huge and suddenly lots more people listen to them right?  Now they can make albums forever.

Wrong.  Sort of.  It's complicated.

When zombies are suddenly big time money makers?  That’s what leads to the past few years having about five or six different zombie films with the word ‘stripper’ in the title.  “The Asylum” has made at least five zombie mockbusters in the last year or so (SciFi originals?  Oxymoron.), and probably have countless more in production.  I mean, there was a bidding war between Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio over who could fuck up Max Brooks’ “World War Z” more.  That’s insane.

(Spoiler alert: Brad Pitt won and fans of the book lost.)

Not to mention that nowadays, any jackass with an iMac Nintendo Pac-Man video game can piece together a turd and put it up on the Youtube.  So, like every art form in this age of information, it’s easy to just put it out there, but hard for it to actually stand out from the pack.  The pack of pure shit.

Why do you think the only films Lovelock and Starkwell call unwatchable were made in the last ten years?

But, I guess that’s what Lovelock and Starkwell are here for.  Sifting through all of the garbage, all of the cookie-cutter zombie waste, all of the mockbusters big and small, to find the genuine gems, worth more than just their weight in about-to-be thrown out the window DVDs.

I do believe that there are still great zombie films waiting to be made.  And I’m sure that they’ll come around when we least expect them to, like true love or when you accidentally tag yourself in the nuts.  That’s what happened with “The Walking Dead”.  I never expected to see a zombie TV Show.  Once it was starting up, I never expected it to be any good.  And I certainly never expected it to get this kind of attention and acclaim.

So, everyone, resist the urge to be one of those assholes that hate “The Walking Dead” just BECAUSE it’s popular.  The show rules and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

That’s it.  Now I think I’ll go hibernate until next season.

[...]

Even when he likes these things, his letters have so much anger injected into them.  I can only hope he doesn’t ever write me about a movie or show he hates.  I can’t help but feel it will come with a flaming bag of dog droppings.