Zombie Holocaust.

This DVD doesn’t even have a menu.  When I put it in for Starkwell and Lovelock to watch it just automatically stopped after the FBI Warning.  Maybe it was a sign to abort the mission, but for some reason, I pressed play again.  This is going to be a rough one.  Lovleock asked “It’s 1980, and Ian McCulloch is in it… how bad can it be?”  Just wait, Lovelock.  Just wait.

[...]

[Girl strips.]

Starkwell: Holy shit, who matches their furniture with their lampshade, bedspread and wallpaper?

Lovelock: The same women that walk around in a bra and panties while tending to their fridge full of raw meat.

[...]

[Hospital worker tries to take a bite out of a dead guy’s heart, gets caught, jumps out window.]

Lovelock: I don’t think that’s what those people had in mind when they donated their bodies to science.

Starkwell: The arm flew off the dummy when it hit the ground, and yet, when they showed the dead character after, his arm was still attached.

Lovelock: Dude, mannequins aren’t cheap.  That was the best take they had.

[...]

For a while, Lovelock and Starkwell weren’t really paying any attention.  They perked up a little when McCulloch was on screen, but mostly they were amazed at the amount of random shots there were of New York City.  At one point, Starkwell blurted out, “yeah, we get it, you’re in New York.”  Soon, the director upgraded to STOCK FOOTAGE of a random tropical island, which could have been lifted from any other number of zombie movies from the era.  Lovelock noticed that their car changed from one shot to the other.

[...]

[Naked Girl finds Maggoty Head in her bed.]

Lovelock: That’s why you should always wear pants to bed.

Starkwell: Yeah, that’s why.

[...]

[Cannibal Tribe randomly show up and eat kid.]

Starkwell: They’re standing right next to them, why would McCulloch need those enormous binoculars?

Lovelock: Probably for the same reason that the reporter girl’s camera keeps changing colors.

Starkwell: Not bad.

Lovelock: Probably for the same reason that the hardcore Black dude wears a pink scarf and carries a machete ALL THE TIME.

Starkwell: Better.

Lovelock: Probably for the same reason that the Cannibals use shiny red silk ribbons to lasso people in for the kill/eat.

Starkwell: That’s the one.

[...]

The excessive gore doesn’t seem to be enough to win even Lovelock over.  Somewhere well past the halfway point, we eventually see some zombies.  They just sort of stand there looking gross.  Still no sign of a holocaust.  Still no sign of a plot.

[...]

[They all sit around drinking cans of soda pop.]

Starkwell: Where did they get the soda?  And is that a box of ‘Special K’ in the bag?

[...]

[BOAT MOTOR CHARGED INTO ZOMBIFACE.]

Lovelock: I think we definitely just hit the film’s high point.

Starkwell: They should have just ended it right after motor-kill.

Lovelock: From now on, whenever someone runs a boat’s motor into someone’s face, we’ll say that they got McCulloched.

Starkwell: Probably won’t come up that often, especially since we’ll never watch this one again.

[...]

Reporter girl became a zombie with bad teeth, but then they ripped her scalp off, and suddenly she was on the Doctor’s autopsy table wearing a bloody bald cap and her teeth and face were back to normal.  Starkwell gave up and went to bed.  Lovelock kept watching, hoping that McCulloch would find another working motor on an abandoned boat.  He never did.  The Blonde girl did get naked, though.  Again.

[...]

[Blonde girl’s naked body gets flowers painted on it.]

Lovelock: It looks just like her wallpaper from the beginning.  I think that must mean something.

Starkwell: It means this movie sucks.

Lovelock: I thought you went to bed.

Starkwell: I wanted to make sure that you threw the movie out the window after it’s over.

[...]

The movie ends, and they weren’t really sure what happened.  Well, at least the blonde girl found some clothes.

Day of the Dead 2: Contagium.

Nothing says exploitation like calling yourself a sequel to movie that you had nothing to do with.  To exploit the Romero title even further, the DVD opens with a preview for the original Day of the Dead.  Thanks Anchor Bay.  The movie hasn’t even started yet, and I already hate it.  On top of that, it took two people to direct it.  Wow.  Starkwell and Lovelock still care to give it a chance, so here we are.

[...]

[Flashback to the sixties, hospital in the midst of zombie outbreak.]

Starkwell: That is the worst Russian I’ve ever heard.

Lovelock: I don’t think they had sneakers like that in the sixties.

Starkwell: The acting is awful.

Lovelock: Maybe that’s how people really were back then.

[...]

Although they made fun, a lot, they did notice that there was a fair amount of killing going on.  But then a narrator started waxing philosophical and Starkwell shot milk out of his nose.

[...]

[The inmates find the Thermos.]

Starkwell: So, apparently a Thermos can sit for forty years on the ground in a "ravine" and look exactly the same, except for a little dirt on it.

Lovelock: Well, yeah, they’re magic after all.  They keep the hot stuff hot and the cold stuff cold.

[...]

As we get introduced to the different characters Starkwell and Lovelock agree that the film makers are trying way too hard to make the characters diverse.  The doctor seems cool enough though.

[...]

[Thermos opens, thing falls out.]

Lovelock: Is that a tampon?

Starkwell: Something tells me that we’ll never get an explanation.

[...]

[Attendant shuts lights off to the women’s cells.]

Starkwell: You can see the camera crew in the reflection!

Lovelock: They looked excited, that must have been a really good take for them.

[...]

[Doctor writes email.]

Starkwell: Why would he dictate the email out loud, while typing it?

Lovelock: So we can know what he is writing, DUH!

Starkwell: Yeah but... aw never mind.

[...] 

[Tampon shoots glowing stuff, gives them all coughs, eventually glowing things touch their foreheads.]

Lovelock: That’s why I never keep a tampon found in a forty year old Thermos.

Starkwell: There would definitely be more than just that one reason.

[...]

As the movie pushed forward and the main characters started turning and looking all gross, Starkwell couldn’t help but notice how often the extras in the movie would look at the camera.  Lovelock felt that there was at least three too many barf gags.  I missed the next half hour of their conversation, because I fell asleep.  It might have been from boredom or from the fact that Lovelock and Starkwell kept on repeating “Tonight, we sleep.”  I think I heard Starkwell mentioning at one point that, at the very least it was “admirable that the film makers haven’t resorted to showing random boobies just for sake.”   The movie focuses a lot on character development and story, which can be the recipe for a good zombie film, if the movie is well written.  Can you guess if this one is?

[...]

Lovelock: GET ON WITH IT ALREADY!

[I woke up.  Still, nothing is happening.]

[...]

[More philosophical narration.]

Starkwell: Seriously, this is embarrassing.

Lovelock: On the bright side I’m pretty sure they’re all going to die.

[...]

[Random bearded fat guy tells them whats going on.]

Lovelock: The story of the Tampon?

Starkwell: That’s the second worst Russian accent I’ve ever heard.

Lovelock: If he knows what’s going on, why would Beardy McFatass go there?

[Beardy McFatass is eaten.]

Lovelock: That’s why I never hang around people I know are about to turn into flesh-eating zombies.

Starkwell: Yeah, that's why.

Lovelock: I prefer mindless zombies to ones that hobble around making bad jokes and giggling like little school children.

Starkwell: Why would anyone think a zombie baby is a good idea?  It’s not, it’s the worst.

Lovelock: Dead Alive.

Starkwell: Ok, why would anyone OTHER than Peter Jackson think that they can pull it off?

[...]

There was one good scene, where the super zombie, that pretty much looks like a guy covered in bloody shit, has his limbs ripped off.  Starkwell said “finally”, Lovelock said “too little, too late.”

[...]

[Zombies eating people outside.]

Starkwell: I think they just went to the mall and asked who wanted to be in their shitty movie.

Lovelock: They probably got paid in hot dogs.

Starkwell: They got ripped off.

Lovelock: Who?

Strakwell: Everyone.  Especially us.

Lovelock: I was going to say that their performances were probably more worth a Tootsie Roll, or one of those bags of peanuts you get on an airplane.

Starkwell: I usually take the blue chips.

[...]

A low budget piece of shit like this can sometimes get away with calling itself a zombie movie if it has enough zombie action, or a good story, or good acting, or good dialogue.  Although there was a fair amount of gore (albeit poorly realized), this one does not have enough of any of those things, and what action it does have, takes far too long to arrive.  It’s also well over an hour and a half, which is an absolute eternity for this sort of movie.  It certainly does not have anything to make it worthy of the “Day of the Dead” moniker.  In conclusion, fuck you, "Day of the Dead 2: Contagium”.