BURT MALONE LETTERS: Zombies STILL all over the small screen...

People like Malone have been 'binge watching' before there was a term for it, and no surprise, he has been devouring all things zombie that the idiot box has to offer.  So here we go in another edition of "Malone takes on TV Zombies".

[...]

Hey asshead.

Since you just copy paste my letters like the lazy buffoon that you are, I'm going to structure this letter a little more like the rest of your dumb posts where you chronicle the moronic banter of those two tools.

[...]

I'm going to interrupt this, actually to say... HARSH.

[...]

Most people probably come here for Malone anyways.  So give the people what they want.  Alright. So I've been combing the depths of Netflix for more TV Shows with zombies that I have checked out yet.  My search came up, to my surprise, with some totally adequate and competent television.

iZombie, from 2015, is into its third season at this point, and I have to say, maybe it's because I went in with a super low bar, but this thing delivers.  Funny, for the most part, when it tries to be, and a cast of actors that I actually want to keep watching.  Characters that I want to root for!  Look, some of it is a bit lame, and not ALL of the jokes land, but the story and hook to the show is original enough to keep me engaged, and I ended up wanting to go back for more.  Three out of four!

Moving along.  I finally got around to watching Ash vs. Evil Dead.  Bruce Campbell dusts off the old Ash role and slaps it on like a nice comfy old pair of jeans.  Ash seems to be a bigger asshole than I remember... but maybe it's just been that long since I've seen the original movies.  Honestly, seeing him reprise the role, and for an ongoing, well produced, well written TV show... I mean, it give me a bigger joy boner than seeing Ford do Han again.  And believe me, that was a big boner.  Speaking of big boner, damn, Ash is a huge dick.  Three out of four as well.

At some point I knew I'd get to one I didn't like so much.  this brings me to The Returned... an A&E (?) production that is the fourth (?) re-ash of the same story.  I know the French one "Les Revenants" was based off a French movie, so this is the second or third level in of "based on based on based on" or something.  Not a bad show. But how about just doing one that hasn't already been done.  Lump this one in with Spiderman and Batman in the "I DON'T WANT ANOTHER VERSION WHO EVEN GIVES A SHIT IF ITS GOOD" category.  Two out of four.

My journey through Netflix, thankfully ended on a high note.  The Glitch is fucking cool.  It does bear some similarities to the above mentioned re-hash of a re-hash, but it is its own thing entirely.  I won't spoil anything, but it is well written, well acted, and at times, creepy as you want it to be.  FOUR ON FOUR.

There.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Love, Malone.

[...]

Great.  Now I have more stuff to add to my list of things I want to watch but probably never will have time to.  See you on the other side.

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve waited this long to show SUCH a classic film to Lovelock and Starkwell.  But then again, I waited three hundred movies before showing them “Night of the Living Dead”.  The DVD starts with a strange talking head shot of the director rambling on about the films many titles and telling us that he hopes we have a bad time watching it.  And then the film starts IMMEDIATELY, no menu.  Starkwell and Lovelock had better be ready.

[...]

[Dude closes up his art gallery and takes of for the holidays on his motorcycle.]

Starkwell: Might be the coolest looking guy ever.

[Actor’s name… RAY LOVELOCK!]

Lovelock: Maybe I’m related!

Starkwell: He’s running an art gallery, not a fart gallery.

Lovelock: Nailed it.

[...]

Cool dude George travels through the city and, for whatever reason, the director decides to show a naked woman streaking though the city streets.  Eventually George makes it out of the city and hits the beautiful countryside.  George stops for gas, and a Redhead backs her car onto his bike.  Busts it up, and now he’s screwed. So then George tells Redhead “you’ll drive me where I need to go, and I’ll drive”.  Clearly he’s a man of action… he just goes for it.

[...]

[George RELUCTANTLY agrees to take Redhead to her sister’s before heading to Windermere.  With her car.]

Lovelock: Jeez George, don’t trouble yourself.

Starkwell: He’s pretty much kidnapped her at this point.

[...]

They end up at a creepy farm.  This is after we hear over the radio that agricultural experiments are going on around here.  George sees the scientists with their experimental pesticide machine and tells them that they’re polluting the Earth and whatnot.  The idea of experimental pesticides bringing back the dead is, frankly, pretty ahead of its time.  Back at the car, the lonely Redhead sees a zombie and FREAKS OUT.  As the zombie chases her, Lovelock FREAKS OUT, plays air guitar and then does a handstand while Starkwell cheers.

[...]

[Redhead’s sister is batshit crazy and lives with a creepy photographer.]

Lovelock: Eurotrash.

Starkwell: He’s taking photos of the waterfall at night?

[Redhead sister is readying her arm for heroine when she is attacked by a beardy zombie.]

Lovelock: Wow, just looking at the syringe is making her TRIP BALLS.

Starkwell: Nah dude, that ain't no trip, that’s a real zombie.

Lovelock: EXCELLENT.

[She leads the zombie to her photographer husband.  The zombie immediately bludgeons the husband in the head with a rock, and kills him.]

Lovelock: This turning out to be a real crappy day for George.

Starkwell: I’d argue that it’s a worse day for the photographer.

Lovelock: Best wife ever.

[...]

The cops aren’t letting George leave.  They also suspect that the sister, Katie, killed her husband, after they found her heroine stash.  All in all, the dialogue and acting aren’t bad.  George is pretty kick ass.  Rather than getting too uppity about getting to Windermere as planned, he decides to SOLVE THE MURDER MYSTERY with Redhead.

[...]

Lovelock: George is on the case!

Starkwell: I love that it’s her car, but George is the one that now drives every time.

Lovelock: She backed into his motorcycle.  Personally, I’d have her ride in the trunk.

[...]

[At the hospital, the newborn babies are being born with an almost HOMICIDAL RAGE.]

Lovelock: There’s no special effects there.  That’s a straight up zombie baby for real.

[Apparently the experimental pesticide makes pests go crazy and kill each other.]

Starkwell: Good God.  This movie rules.

[...]

Redhead and George continue to investigate what REALLY happened to Katie’s husband.  Redhead is convinced that a recently deceased homeless man committed the crime, George intends on setting her straight by going to the homeless man’s grave.  So… they go to the cemetery.

[...]

[George and Redhead are attacked by zombies.]

Lovelock: That’s why when the dead walk the earth, I never go to the cemetery.

Starkwell: The zombie groans are fucking terrifying.

[...]

George figures it all out.  The radiation from the experiment brought the dead back, because the nervous system goes on living after death.  And the zombies can revive other corpses with human blood, transmitting it like a virus.  I don’t know HOW he figured all that out, but he did.

[...]

[Zombies kill cop in the cemetery.  They eat his guts.]

Lovelock: This movie really has it all.  And I feel like every movie should have a guts eating scene.

Starkwell: Not sure if that type of scene can really fit in any movie.

Lovelock: Name me a movie.

Starkwell: “Million Dollar Baby”.

Lovelock: Are you kidding me?  Imagine if they all started eating her after she goes down in the ring?  Way better.

[...]

Meanwhile George tries to get the scientists to stop their experiments and Redhead goes back to her sister’s farm, only to be attacked, of course, by zombie photographer.  I belive her arm gets bitten.  She goes a bit bonkers.

[...]

[She drives up the street and gets out of her car.]

Starkwell: Why would she get out of her car?

Lovelock: Who knows.  This is the girl that backed into a motorcycle at a gas station.

[...]

The cops still aren’t convinced that there are zombies.  They still think George is the killer.  George very easily escapes police custody and rushes back to find Redhead.  Turns out she went to the hospital, which is where the morgue is, which is where the dead bodies are, which is where the zombies are now.  And so, everyone ends up at the hospital.  And now she is a zombie.

[...]

[Zombies tear open the lady receptionist's shirt, tear her breast clean off and then gut her.]

Starkwell: What is with the Spaniards and their insistence on stabbing/ripping/biting breasts in film?

Lovelock: Why mess with a good formula?

Starkwell: Wait what?

[...]

Then the cops show up at the hospital RIGHT as George finishes setting fire to all the zombies.  So they don’t see any zombies.  So they think he just massacred everyone.  So they kill George.  The film ends with the cop going home only to find ZOMBIE GEORGE!  Then zombie George strangles the cop and kills him.  It is a fucking bananas ending, terrifically depressing, and deeply satisfying, all at the same time.  But wait, where exactly is the Manchester Morgue?  Also, I guess he never made it to Windermere.

Night of the Comet.

Halley’s Comet caused quite the commotion for a while, and, rightfully so, because comets are pretty hardcore.  But perhaps the best thing it did was spawn a whole counterculture of comet enthusiasts (it didn’t, but we can pretend it did… maybe it did).  Might even be what led to movies like the early eighties zombie comedy starring hilariously eighties clichés (who knows if there is any connection… I don’t, nor do I really care, I just needed to introduce this lesser known gem).

[...]

[We are introduced to main character Regina who works at a trashy theater and FULLY OWNS at video games.  She’s playing an arcade instead of doing her job.]

Starkwell: Every man’s fantasy.

[Regina notices someone took the sixth spot in the top ten, so it’s not ENTIRELY made up of her initials.  Who is ‘DMK’?]

Lovelock: I’m in love.

[Regina calls her little sister Samantha and then talks to her step mother and tells her to FUCK OFF basically.]

[...]

So then, after Samantha fights with her step mom, she goes to her room.  Regina, on the other hand, is busy banging her boyfriend in the projector room at the cinema.  Everyone else is busy watching the comet, which seems to be making the sky turn red.

[...]

[Samantha wakes up to find no one else around except for dust piles and people’s clothing.]

Lovelock: I made my family disappear?

Starkwell: I guess…

Lovelock: I MADE MY FAMILY DISAPPEAR.

[...]

Regina and boyfriend wake up, boyfriend goes out to find his buddy, and is clubbed and killed with a wrench by what looks to be a homeless zombie.  Then he goes after Regina, but she defends herself and drives off on a motorcycle.

[...]

Starkwell: It’s actually pretty amazing that they managed to get shots of her driving in downtown L.A. looking THAT deserted…

[Regina gets home, finds Samantha and tries to explain the situation to her.  She is dressed as a cheerleader, for some reason.]

Lovelock: A cheerleader and a video game nerd who loves movies… they REALLY knew their target audience.

[...]

When they can’t reach anyone on the phone, they realize that the radio is still broadcasting, so they head to the station to find people.  Turns out that the DJ is just a recording, and they end up meeting Hector instead.  Hector explains to them that there are ZOMBIES going around killing people, eating cats and et cetera.  Regina figures out that everyone that has survived spent the night inside some kind of steel cage.  Sam had the tool shed (?), she had the projector booth, and Hector had the back of his truck.

[...]

Starkwell:  So people either turned to dust, or are zombies and slowly turning to dust?

Lovelock: That’s why I sleep in a steel coffin.

Starkwell: Yeah, that’s why…. Wait… WHAT?!?!?

[Some kind of military facility is monitoring them at the radio station.]

Lovelock: Oh also… GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY!

Starkwell: What does that have to do with sleeping in a steel coffin?

Lovelock: Shut up you face.

[...]

Hector and Regina get pretty chummy pretty quickly, especially since her boyfriend Larry JUST FUCKING DIED.  And she JUST met Hector like two hours ago. They're practically singing "Endless Love".

[...]

[Zombie kid runs after Hector.]

Starkwell: So, there are people who think “28 Days Later” started the whole running zombie thing.

Lovelock: Most people in the know think that it was “Return”…

Starkwell: Fair enough, but here we are a full year before “Return” and this kid is acting EXACTLY like the little girl at the beginning of the “Dawn” remake.

Lovelock: Nerd.

Starkwell: But you were just… Aw fuck you.

[...]

[The girls go on a shopping spree in downtown L.A…and a bizarre 'NOT Cyndi Lauper' version of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” is playing.]

Lovelock: I mean, it sounds close… but… it’s definitely a bit off.

[Hooligans watch them on the surveillance cameras, and then go after them.]

[...]

The hooligans just seem to want to kill them, not interested in the more expected capture-and-rape scenario, which is often popular in these types of movies.  This leads to a discussion between Lovelock and Starkwell about how the film is actually quite wholesome and yet still radically entertaining.  No gratuitous tits and ass, no sex scenes, no needless gore… and yet it is still completely holding their attention.  That’s quite an accomplishment, ESPECIALLY for an eighties film.

[...]

[Hooligan plays Russian Roulette with Sam and Regina, until a group of military researchers come to their rescue.]

Lovelock: What was with that hooligan’s face?  He was grotesque.

Starkwell: Wait how did they know where to find Sam and Regina?

Lovelock: They heard them on the radio station… but… yeah I don’t know.

[...]

The hooligan was grotesque because he was turning all zombie.  He must have been exposed.  The military research team seems intent on doing research on Sam, Regina and Hector.  The Female Doctor injects Sam with something.  Lovelock and Starkwell do not trust them. AT ALL.

[...]

[Wait, the injection KILLED her.]

Lovelock: Are you serious?!?!?!?

[They want to wait for Hector to kill him too.  Then Female Doctor pulls out her piece and kills the other doctor.]

Starkwell: What exactly is her plan?

Lovelock: So Sam is coming back… right?  RIGHT?

[...]

Then the Female Doctor goes back to the radio station, waits for Hector, and then injects herself and dies.  Lovelock is still confused and still waiting for Sam to come back.  Hector reads the note that the doctor left, then goes to save Regina.  TWIST Sam is alive and in Hector's trunk.  The Female Doctor just knocked her out.  I guess she was a good guy.  Or gal.  Lovelock cheers, cries a little and then plays air guitar to the rad synth soundtrack playing as Hector and Sam plan to BUST… Regina… out!!!!  They get out, they blow up a car full of bad dudes, and then get away.  Then it rains and washes away the virus?

[...]

[There’s another dude survivor and he picks up Samantha in his cool car and they drive off into the sunset… license plate reads ‘DMK’!]

Lovelock: So wait, EVERYONE ELSE IS DEAD?  Bitchin’!

Starkwell: Really?

Lovelock: DMK! Dis Movie Kills!

[...]

Cheesy eighties pop plays over the soundtrack and you can’t help but fall in love.  Starkwell and Lovelock dance and cheer.  This is the most wholesome zombie movie I’ve ever seen.  Totally gore-free, it accomplishes ten times what most do.  A real classic, that is, quite honestly, fun for the whole family.

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.

Black Sunday.

Bava is a legend.  And this movie, about an undead witch (played by Barbara Steele) coming back to do bad shit, was a damn good one from what I can gather.  The movie starts with Barbara Steele being executed for being a witch, and as they hammer a devil mask to her face and kill her, she tells them that she will return, armed with the power of Satan to KILL THEM ALL.  So, this ain’t no fake witch.  She’s a straight up evil woman.

[...]

Starkwell: Music in movies was so much damn better back then.

[...]

Bava’s a real pro, and it shows IMMEDIATELY.  The production is fantastic.  The cinematography looks genius, and the sets look absolutely mystical and terrifying.

[...]

Lovelock: So much fog!  How did they do that?

Starkwell: By actually caring about how the movie looks.  Something modern day film makers should learn.

[...]

[Two main characters, doctors, ask their carriage driver to take a shortcut through the HAUNTED WOODS.]

Starkwell: Pretty dumb for a couple of "doctors".

Lovelock: Rational science is about to FAIL YOU!  GHOSTS ARE REAL!

Starkwell: Wait… you mean in this movie, or… ?

[...]

Then the two doctors go into a crypt that they stumble upon, and therein find the Witch’s Tomb.  While fighting with a seriously awesome looking fake bat, the doctor breaks the cross that sits above the witch’s tomb.  Then he takes off her mask.  Then he accidentally feeds her a couple of drops of blood after cutting his hand on the glass.

[...]

[The Princess appears to them, and she has two big fucking dogs with her.]

Starkwell: How did the doctor manage to do THREE accidental things that could potentially lead to the re-animation of the satanic witch?

Lovelock: Blind luck?

Starkwell: Doctor Whateverhisfuckingnameis?  More like Mr. Magoo.

[...]

[The younger of the two doctors is clearly smitten with the princess.]

Starkwell: Quite possibly the two dumbest doctors in the history of medicine.

Lovelock: Mr. Magoo and his sidekick, Boner MD.

[...]

The shots of the witch corpse are utterly horrifying, crawling with worms, maggots and oozing black tar of some kind.  It’s both effective, and creepy as balls.  So Barbara Steele plays the present day Princess, living at the mansion with her brother and father.  I assume this also means that she is a descendent of the witch from the beginning of the film.

[...]

[Young girl goes through the woods to get to the barn to milk the cow.]

Lovelock: Talk about a shitty mom.  Sending her daughter out, in a storm, through the creepy woods, NEXT TO A CEMETERY, to milk a cow.  In the middle of the night.  Who keeps their cow there?

Starkwell: Those shots following the girl through the woods are amazing.  I’m actually kind of scared.

Lovelock: That’s because you’re a fucking pussy.

[Creepy Witch Corpse starts talking, telling dead people to “RISE”.]

Lovelock: Well, shit, now I’m scared.

[...]

Then a devil-masked zombie rises from the grave, and Lovelock and Starkwell high-fived and started doing roundhouse kicks and playing air guitar.  It’s amazing that they didn’t break anything.  I should add that the zombie has a shirt with a shiny winged dragon on it.

[...]

[Dr. Magoo follows zombie dude into the crypt, where he then witnesses the witch RISE.]

Starkwell: There he goes, blindly following again!  Good ol’ Magoo!

Lovelock: Maybe she’s going to grant him three wishes for freeing her?

Starkwell: You’re thinking of a genie, and no, I don’t think that’s about to happen.

Lovelock: You ain’t never had a friend like me.

[Dr. Magoo makes out with the corpse, dies and becomes a zombie.  The witch, however, is fully awake now, and continues to order around her zombie horde (currently consisting of two zombies).]

Starkwell: A whole new world.

Lovelock: Don’t you dare close your eyes.

[...]

The plan seems to be to get the witch into the Princess body, and then she can be all alive and sexy again.  Walk around, kill people, get revenge, etc.  Later that afternoon, Dr. Boner finally wakes up from his hangover and realizes that Dr. Magoo is gone, and goes off to find him at the castle.

[...]

[Princess Katia faints into Dr. Boner’s arms and he carries her to his room, staring at her breasts, pretty much the whole time.]

Starkwell: Boner MD certainly is handsy.

Lovelock: Can you blame him?  Barabara Steele is stunning.

[...]

Zombie Magoo botches an attempt to kidnap Katia for the Witch, and it only further drives her into the arms of Boner MD, much to his delight I’m sure.  Anyways, Boner and the Prince and the Priest continue to investigate and get to the bottom of what is happening.  After a few choice deaths, an exorcism, some zombie on zombie action, and an incredible burning corpse scene, Katia is brought before the witch.

[...]

[Shiny Dragon Shirt Zombie tears her shirt off.]

Starkwell: Did the witch really need for her undergarment to be exposed to complete the ritual?

Lovelock: Probably not.  Bava likely just wanted to see them boobies shake.

[...]

Well, Boner shows up just in the knick of time to save Katia from the witch, but he fails to really do anything, because he sees the witch and she looks at him with her captivating eyes, and he goes all "boner" and just sits there spellbound.  And Katia looks dead.  Thankfully, a mob of townspeople show up and set the witch on fire and Katia comes back and immediately makes out with Boner MD like crazy.  Fucking awesome.

Plan 9 From Outer Space.

People can say all that they want that this is the WORST film ever made.  But if that really were the case, it would have simply been forgotten long ago, like so many films that are far and wide much worse than this delightfully bad stroke of genius.  Starkwell and Lovelock have been itching to see this one, and I figured it was as good a time as any to introduce them to Ed Wood and his piece de resistance.  After navigating the INSANELY shitty and confusing DVD menu, I eventually think I get the movie started, but then realize that it’s a preview… for the movie I am about to watch.

[...]

[CRISWELL PREDICTS… a news program?]

Starkwell: So Ed Wood invented found footage films?

Lovelock: I don’t know but this credit sequence is totally fucking LIGHTNING.

[...]

Too much has been written about this film and the infamous director for me to dive too deep into the details, but suffice to say, as the story begins to unfold, they are pleasantly confused.

[...]

[People gather at a funeral, grave diggers start digging the grave.]

Lovelock: Lugosi got old.  That makes me sad.  I wish he could have lived forever.

Starkwell: Wait, that voice is a narrator?  I thought it was someone reading the eulogy…

[...]

I can’t explain how much the ‘cockpit of an airplane’ set made them laugh.  And then the flying saucer shot took it over the top and Lovelock shot milk out of his nose.

[...]

[Vampira comes out all zombie-like and does jazz fingers.]

Lovelock: Who was that screaming?

Starkwell: In the movie?  Not sure.  In this room?  Me.

Lovelock: Scared?

Starkwell: Something like that.

[...]

At least Ed Wood understood that without a narrator explaining EVERYTHING, no one could possibly ever understand what in the Hell is going on.  But Vampira is Lugosi’s undead wife, and Lugosi just died.  I don’t know why she killed the grave diggers, but I assume they were the ones who screamed just before.

[...]

[UFO flies by and knocks everyone over.]

Lovelock: “Places everyone, places!!!  One… two… three… JUMP AWKWARDLY DOWN INTO THE GRASS!”

Starkwell: Why didn’t Tor Johnson fall over?

Lovelock: He’s too fat?

[Then Zombie Lugosi and Vampira jazz finger and cape him to death and Lovelock did a jumpkick.]

[...]

Then flying saucers are seen flying over Hollywood, and they show it for five or so minutes.  They repeat “sauces seen over [blank]” about a hundred times, and they keep showing people reading the same headline.  In case it wasn’t clear enough, the narrator is REALLY pounding it into our heads that SAUCERS WERE SEEN OVER BLABLABLA.

[...]

Lovelock: I’m not sure, did anyone else notice the saucers?

[Repetitive stock footage of army things firing stuff.]

Starkwell: I think they did, and it’s certainly taken them a long time to try and hit them.

[Then the saucers get away.]

Lovelock: Good job STOCK FOOTAGE soldiers…

[...]

Sometime after this, we get to see the aliens!  They’re just humans in shiny clothes.  Then one of the alien actors reads from a script that he holds in his hand.

[...]

Lovelock: Why would the head alien have the symbol of an axe on his shirt?

Starkwell: I don’t know, but the mother ship looks like a huge breast.

Lovelock: Well, it IS the mother ship…

[...]

There’s a pilot guy (and his wife) that the story seems to be focused on, and Lugosi shows up to kill her while he is away flying after the saucers.  Actually, I don’t think it’s actually Lugosi, I think it’s a guy covering his face with a cape trying to look like Lugosi, since Lugosi died a couple of years before this film was made, BUT, it’s the Lugosi CHARACTER that is in fact chasing her into the cemetery.

[...]

[Tor Johnson RISES from the grave.]

Lovelock: Worst movie ever MY ASS, did you see that fucking rise from the grave scene?  SWEET SASSY MOLASSEY!

Starkwell: Yeah but…

[Lovelock wasn’t listening, he was too busy playing air guitar.]

[...]

Then the girl is rescued from the side of the road by a cowboy in a Cadillac with the BIGGEST ASS I have ever seen.  Lovelock actually paused it to marvel at just how tight his jeans were.

[...]

Starkwell: I love how obvious it is that Vampira, Tor Johnson and Lugosi were clearly never filmed at the same time, since all the shots of them are of them alone, and seem randomly placed and totally fucking schizophrenic.

[Cut to a shot of Vampira and Tor zombie walking side by side.]

Lovelock: Ed Wood ONE, Starkwell ZERO.

Starkwell: Whatever dude.  That single shot of Lugosi was in the daytime, and now it’s night again IMMEDIATELY.

Lovelock:  Face it, you just suck dude.  You’re the worst and this movie is the best.

[...]

Starkwell: Someone should tell that Detective not to use his loaded pistol like a pointing stick.

[...]

Meanwhile in the Pentagon, stuff happens, and Lovelock and Starkwell continue laughing at this movie.

[...]

[Zombie Tor Johnson turns on the aliens, starts to choke one of them.]

Lovelock: Wait… how was he on the spaceship?

Starkwell: How did throwing the gun on the floor stop him in his tracks?

[So many questions, so few answers.]

Lovelock: The head alien guy is ALWAYS clearly reading off of something.

[...]

I lost track of the plot, or the Plan 9, if you will.  But when Lugosi comes after the whole gang of characters that appear to be having a potluck dinner, laughter was had by all, especially when the Detective stood up, and somehow his chair FLEW, and I mean FLEW, off the set.  It was magical.

[...]

[Detective unloads his gun on Lugosi.]

Lovelock: Why is everyone else just standing there?  Isn’t that guy in army?

[Some kind of electro signal drops Lugosi like a fly and he turns into a pile of bones.]

Starkwell: Um.

[...]

We still are pretty unclear on the Plan.  What is it?  Why is it the ninth?

[...]

[Tor kills a guy by… swinging his arms near them?]

Lovelock: Did the wind of his swing just blow up his head or?

Starkwell: Maybe he just died of a heart attack at the exact time that Tor swung his arms.

Lovelock: Sounds far-fetched.

Starkwell: Seriously?

[...]

Then they find a flying saucer that, when on the ground appears to be rectangular, and basically a house.

[...]

Lovelock: Man, those aliens ROCK that velvet.

[...]

[Alien says “all of you on Earth are idiots”.]

Lovelock: Awesome.  Dude is AWESOME.

[The alien explains that humans are super self destructive and that soon they will develop SOLAR RAY BOMBS that will explode the Universe.]

Lovelock: Stupid men and their stupid minds, STUPID STUPID STUPID.

[...]

Then it gets really crazy, where the aliens refer to God.   Honestly, I feel like maybe the aliens are good guys at this point.  Screw the Earthlings.  After some explosions and some flaming flying saucers, we cut back to the narrator, who we haven’t heard from in a while, and he says that all of this was true OR WAS IT?  What a wild ride.

Juan of the Dead.

I will be the first to admit that parodying the name “Dawn of the Dead” to create “Shaun of the Dead” was fairly clever.  But adding a Spanish flare to it with “Juan of the Dead” seems, well, less clever, less original.  But let’s not let that take away from the potential here.  They are clearly letting the audience know that it should be, once again, a ZOMEDY, but that there is an equal nod to both Romero-esque films as much as there is to the newer classics like “Shaun”.  Now that I say it like that, the title fucking rules.  Starkwell and Lovelock are a typically hard sell on Zombie Comedies.  They have to really work and have good character and story.  Let’s see how they fare here.

[...]

[Two Cuban slackers out for a leisurely fish, they talk about fleeing Cuba, and end up with a convict zombie on their line, they harpoon his head.]

Starkwell: Solid intro, good music, funny dialogue… off to a solid start.

Lovelock: …

[Lovelock was silently weeping at the POTENTIAL in front of him.]

[...]

Juan and his sidekick seem to be real pieces of work.  The comedy is right on target.  Juan tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter but is shot down.  Similarities to this film’s British counterpart are subtle, but kind of present.  Nonetheless, this film is one hundred percent its own thing, and totally insane, so far.  The zombie outbreak has already begun.

[...]

[Juan goes to see his neighbor the old lay, and her husband is a zombie, he attacks Juan… so Lazaro and his son come to help and they accidentally harpoon both the old woman and the old man zombie.  Then they keep stabbing and maiming the old man in an attempt to get him to stop attacking.  Eventually… HEAD SHOT.]

Starkwell: Even these screwballs have learned faster than most do in these situations.

Lovelock: I love how indifferent they are about everything.  That’s really something to aspire to.

[...]

The action and mayhem gets crazier and funnier.  Sure, this is not re-inventing anything, but it’s doing the same old same old in a very refreshing and cool way, enough to make you forget that you’ve basically seen this film a thousand times.  Granted, you’ve never seen it in communist Cuba.

[...]

Lovelock: Do the zombies run, or do the zombies not run?

Starkwell: All this good stuff and you’re concerning yourself with that?

Lovelock: That is a top priority.  I’m looking for consistency here.

Starkwell: How about good writing, acting, directing, pacing… ?

Lovelock: DO THEY RUN OR DON’T THEY!??!?!?!

[...]

One thing is certain… the zombies look great, in that old-school sort of way.  No big computer crap going on here.

[...]

[Girl gets pulled into the water by a zombie, is dragged around like the girl at the beginning of “Jaws”.]

Starkwell: Ok… DUDE.  Zombies walking on the ocean floor?  “World War Z” THE BOOK style?  You have to get excited about that.

Lovelock: …

[Clearly excited, Lovelock peed a little and had to run to the washroom.]

[...]

Juan, Lazaro and his son, California, start a ‘Ghostbusters’ style business, to kill zombies.  Lovelock did a jumpkick and farted simultaneously.  Starkwell liked the whole ‘capitalist adventure inside of a falling communist empire’ thing.  Lovelock was all “shut up nerd” and did another jump kick as Juan and friends recruit some locals to join their business.  Then they make a joke about how no one can explain why some are slow and some are fast.  Lovelock was so excited he started giggling uncontrollably.

[...]

[Zombie kill / training montage with FUNKY music.]

Lovelock: THIS IS HOW IT’S DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!

[...]

Sometime after this, they stopped talking, mostly, and just sat there enjoying every second of the film.

[...]

Starkwell: We may have spoken too soon about the effects… that last shit was CGI and that looked horrendous.

Lovelock: I can forgive… I’m having too much fun to be angry.

[...]

Definitely light on actual story at this point, but that’s hardly a big deal, since the comedy and dialogue are great and the characters are very well developed.  The movie understands that a good zombie film ain’t about zombies.

[...]

[Juan and his Dead Busters are caught by some kind of military.]

Starkwell: Why did they make them take their clothes off?

Lovelock: I think we’re about to find out.

Starkwell: Still… that’s a lot of almost full frontal male…

Lovelock: So… much… dude ass…

Starkwell: Too much?

Lovelock: It's ALWAYS too much.

[...]

All through out there are nods to some classics.  There was a definite “Evil Dead 2” scene and the Father Jones character at the end was straight from “Dead Alive” even claiming he wants to “kick ass for the lord”.  Subtle enough that only a big fan will catch it, and it doesn’t come off as cheesy. Lovelock cried when Lazaro ALMOST died.  Turns out he wasn’t bitten after all and Lovelock and Starkwell HIGH FIVED! Hard.

[...]

[Juan and Lazaro go to Havana center and decide it is time for a standoff.]

Lovelock: No… why?  Don’t…  Wait is he using nuchuks?

Starkwell: They’ll never make it.

Lovelock: They made it.

[...]

In the end, Juan decides to stay behind, as his daughter and friends set sail for Miami, because, he loves Cuba.  It’s all pretty ball crushing, and Lovelock started crying again.  Lovelock and Starkwell mostly just sang this thing’s praises all throughout.  Honestly, “Juan of the Dead” is a modern classic, the best of its kind in a very very long time, probably since its British father "Shaun".