Pop Punk Zombies.

Starkwell and Lovelock hate this kind of shit.

[...]

[Film starts. Some dudes hang out in a graveyard waiting for zombies.  One guy has his eye ripped out, and then the other guy hands the zombie a guitar and says “I love zombies”.  And the worst ‘punk’ song ever starts playing.]

Lovelock: …

Starkwell: So, this is one of those movies where all of the actors are just so psyched to be in their friend’s shitty movie that they smile in every scene all of the time?

Lovelock: …

[...]

They lasted about ten more minutes, if that, and walk out.  I should mention, the main character has a hilarious bowl cut.  The end.  Sometimes, even after they leave, I fast forward through the rest of the film, just to see what happens.  This time, I didn’t.

Black Swarm.

A ‘made-for-tv’ movie starring Robert Englund?  What could go wrong?  Answer: a lot.  The director’s last name is ‘Winning’, which is ironic since I feel that Starkwell and Lovelock will be losing an hour and a half that they won’t ever get back.  The good news is, it was filmed in and around Lovelock and Starkwell’s hometown.  The bad news is, the last movie they watched that was filmed there was “Zombie Nightmare”… so… yeah… sentimental geography ALONE can’t hold up a movie.

[...]

[Exterminator guy sets fire to a wasps’ nest with his blow torch and it blows up.]

Lovelock: Why is he so afraid of computer generated wasps?

Starkwell: Were we supposed to be able to read what that newspaper headline said?

Lovelock: Did the Exterminator die?

[...]

So we are introduced to some woman named Jane who is moving with her daughter from the Big City to rural Black Stone, where she grew up.  I guess Jane and Exterminator have a history together.  The story unfolds relatively quickly, and we see people acting zombie-ish, and they all seem to have big sting marks on their heads.

[...]

[Robert Englund has a conversation with Jane’s daughter, turns out he’s the town bee-keeper.]

Starkwell: A couple of things here.  Number one, the town doesn’t look very rural.  If it’s not a rural town, then, well actually, regardless… number two, what the fuck town has a bee keeper?  Number three, what does the bee keeper have to do with magic wasps? 

Lovelock: ALl that matters is that, if there WERE a bee-keeper in most towns, you know they'd hang around a local convenience store blowing a dog whistle and handing out peaches to little girls.

Starkwell: Ugh.  It’s gonna be a long night.

[The dog whistle never plays a role of any kind.  I have no idea why it's there at all.]

[...]

Turns out that Exterminator had a twin brother who died.  That twin brother was Jane’s husband.  So there’s your history.  Also, I think that’s what those flashing headlines at the beginning were.  Oh also, there’s this old blind woman that knows them all.

[...]

[Squatter breaks into Blind Woman’s garage, looks into a hole in the wall, and then is stung to death by super wasps.]

Lovelock: That’s why I never look into holes in walls.

Starkwell: Yeah, that’s why.

Lovelock: ESPECIALLY when I’m breaking and entering.

Starkwell: What?

Lovelock: Plus I'd hate to end up in a "Porky's" type of situation.

[...]

[Dead Squatter comes back to life, strangles morgue guy.]

Lovelock: Ah yes… “STRANGLING!  When you don’t have the budget for cooler looking deaths!”

[...]

Exterminator works with some kind of Science Girl that they brought in to investigate.  I don’t know who “THEY” is, or why they knew to bring her in.  I should also mention that the film moves slow enough to have gotten at least two “BORING!”s out of Lovelock, and several yawns from Starkwell.  They seem more interested in trying to see if they recognize any locations than they are in following the story.

[...]

[Englund lives in a camper that is parked right next to Blind Lady’s house.  Apparently there is a trap door inside the camper that takes him into his secret BEE lab.]

Starkwell: He’s right there on a busy residential road… how would he have been able to… and without running into anyone else’s basement… or pipes… or wires… or… FUUuuuuUUUUCK you.

Lovelock: Not to mention, he’s a bee keeper, not a wasp keeper…

[...]

Anyways, shortly after Young Daughter sees Englund leave his camper, she decides to break into it, she immediately finds the secret lab, and then has fun (?) making funny faces at the killer wasps.  It’s actually even dumber than it sounds.  I think Lovelock said “man, I can’t wait for you to be dead”.  Then it cuts to a shot of a street sign that reads “Elm St.”  Robert Englund.  Elm Street.  Get it?  Starkwell told the movie to “fuck you” again and left.  Right after he left, there was a scene where a zombie priest shot killer wasps out of his mouth (somehow).  So yeah, you could say he left just in the nick of time.

[...]

Lovelock: How did they suddenly get into a corn field?  They were just in the Blind Woman’s suburban freakin’ house.  DUMB.

[...]

Lovelock: No one says out loud what they are typing as they type it.  It never happens.

[...]

Lovelock: Wait… she was married to a guy who died, and now she’s going after sexy complications with her dead husband’s twin brother?  Not cool.

Starkwell: Well, at least the daughter can just pretend that her dad is still alive.

Lovelock: You’re back?

Starkwell: Forgot my glasses.  Peace.

[…]

It turns out that Science Woman is working for the government, and this is like, a government plan to create a super wasp weapon, or like, super wasp soldiers.  Robert Englund is actually a good guy in this… which makes references to Elm Street even more stupid.  We fast forward through the remaining half hour of the film.  It doesn’t look like a whole lot happened.  Then there were some helicopters and a really shitty looking CGI ‘splosion, and Englund gets dead.  The wasps survive.  I think.  Starkwell said it best when he told this movie to "fuck you".

Alien Dead.

Writer director Fred Olen Ray made several low to no budget trips into quasi-zombie territory, but this was his earliest.  I haven’t heard a whole lot about it other than the fact that it takes place in Florida and that it’s short.  So… yeah.  Starkwell and Lovelock are sure to find more to say about it, and I will be more than happy to fill you in on the highlights.  The DVD is the 25th anniversary edition, if that means anything at all.  Were there any other editions?

[...]

[Dude types an article on typewriter reads it as he is writing.]

Starkwell: Does he have to read it as slowly as he writes it?

Lovelock: The movie is already so short… they probably had to find ways to stretch some scenes out.

[...]

It cuts to two people talking on a boat in the bayou looking for gators.  The “southern” accent on the female character sounds ultraforced, and the delivery of the dialogue is actually bad enough to become hilarious.  It takes talent to deliver a performance this bad.  It’s so bad that it has a surreal quality to it, and Lovelock and Starkwell are actually upset that she dies within the first minute.  I'm sure there will be more, and given the bad overdubs, that voice might even come back, even if it's visually a different actress.  It’s abundantly clear that all of the trademarks of old backyard horror films will be present: ugly-as-sin lead actors, horrible set design, bad sound mixing, incoherent dialogue and plot, and, of course, awkward cuts.  Lovelock added, “also, fantastic mustaches”.

[...]

[Zombie attacks girl?]

Starkwell: Wait… what killed her?

Lovelock: It looks as though the shock of being touched by a zombie made blood come out of her mouth… and, I guess, subsequently die.

[...]

[We meet another “southern” girl named Shawna Petunia or some shit.]

Starkwell: Is she saying my “Peppy” or my “Pappy”?

Lovelock: I don’t know… she sounds drunk.

[...]

Neither Lovelock nor Starkwell know what the Hell is going on, but still continue to laugh at the acting.  A few times, actors screwed up their lines.  I guess these were the best takes that they had.

[...]

[Reporter guy stays over at Moron Girl’s house, and her Old Man who can’t read has a theory that giant possums are eating the alligators and people.]

Lovelock: I would never eat anything that these people cook.

[Turns out, they served him possum.]

Lovelock: And that’s why.

Starkwell: Yeah, that’s why.  Actually that is why.

[...]

At this point, Starkwell started theorizing that perhaps this was actually a porno that had had all of the sex scenes edited out of it.  And the budget stripped away.

[...]

[Zombie attacks another girl?]

Starkwell: So apparently these “zombies” grab women, lick their necks, grope their breasts and then the women die from bloody mouth?

[Reporter and Shawna Petunia start making out.]

Starkwell: Did she just say her big dream is to “I don't know, maybe one day eat a hamburger”?

Lovelock: Clearly she’s already comfortable with wiener.

Starkwell: Dream big.

[...]

Anyways, they find a dead body and call the cops, and then it awkwardly cuts midway through one of the Reporter’s sentences.  “I’m going to go down there and-" CUT.  Well done.  Anyways, eventually we get more zombie attacks. A dog walks up to dead dude’s torso, licks his exposed intestines, and then a zombie drives pitch fork through old woman and it makes NO SOUND.  The woman makes NO SOUND.  I’ll tell you who made very loud laughing sounds: Lovelock and Starkwell.

[...]

[Once again the Reporter and Dingbat are interrupted right before they do sex.  This time, on a boat.]

Starkwell: Bitch, take it as a sign.

Lovelock: Those are the third lamest looking lake based zombies I’ve ever seen.

[...]

[Two hicks go fishing, a zombie grabs one out of the boat.]

Starkwell: You think the zombie groped him too?

Lovelock: Beggars can’t be choosers.

Starkwell: What?

[...]

Then for absolutely no reason, other than to show tits, I assume, a girl goes swimming topless in… the swamp?

[...]

Lovelock: Who goes swimming topless in the swamp?  In gator country? Alone?

Starkwell: Dead people.

[Policeman sees her car parked, goes to check on her, and instead ends up going Peeping Tom on her from the bushes.  This lasts a minute or two.]

Lovelock: Stay classy officer.

[Zombie pulls her underwater… I think.]

Starkwell: Good thing the officer left right before she died.  Just a quick peak and… GOOD LUCK NOT DYING.

[...]

NOTHING IS FUCKING HAPPENING.  But, Lovelock and Starkwell are having a lot of fun making fun of absolutely everything, from the actors, to the music, to the dialogue, to the directing, editing, location, seriously, everything.  There’s a scene where a girl stabs a zombie in the face with an afro pick and green stuff oozes out of his face, then he dies slowly over the course of next two or three minutes.  ON SCREEN.  Then she ends up dying anyway, IN SLOW MOTION while the other zombies pretend to eat her.

[...]

Lovelock: If the film maker’s goal was to make me slowly descend into madness, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

[Then Lovelock started crying and ran away with his hands over his face.]

[...]

Right after Lovelock left, they finally explained that all of this was caused by a meteorite.  They “showed” it, but honestly, Starkwell only knew that’s what the random flash of light was supposed to be because one of the characters actually said “to think, all of this is caused by a meteorite.”  Starkwell subsequently said "meteorite?  I though that was someone lighting a single firework in their backyard..."

[...]

[Another half naked girl swims in swamp, gets eaten.]

Starkwell: If you liked the underwater shots from “Zombie Lake” you’ll love “Alien Dead”.   I didn’t, so I don’t.  Also, CLEARLY that one actor playing that zombie is just using this scene as an excuse to hold her wet tank top boob.

Lovelock: Do you blame him?

[Oh yeah, Lovelock came back.]

[...]

Then the characters talk to each other for five minutes and explain the whole story.  Good thing too, because Lovelock missed the last time a character explained what was happening out loud.  The zombie mayhem continues as the surviving morons bunker down in some cabin.  The movie definitely has a certain je-ne-sais-quoi… that allows it to be fun, regardless of how much of an absolute piece of shit that it is.  Reporter and Shawna Hotpants end up out on the lake TOTALLY dead, and it ends on a freeze frame of a zombie.

[...]

Lovelock: EVERY MOVIE should end on a freeze frame of a zombie popping out of the water.

Starkwell: Not sure every movie could make that work.

Lovelock: Whatever dude, it’s just like when Skeletor came out of the water.

Starkwell: That’s not the first time you’ve referenced that.

[...]

I’m sure it won’t be the last either.

Beneath the Surface.

For so long, budget films would go the horror root.  This is generally because sometimes the cheapness actually enhances the overall experience.  Within that lower budget realm, there is also an alarmingly large number of zombie films, especially in recent years.  Occasionally there’s an indie film that tries to do something a little different, give the zombie idea a little spin.  This can sometimes work really well, or, more often, fall on its ass.  Let’s see where Blake Reigle’s “Beneath the Surface” ends up. 

[...]

[The two main characters are apparently planning to dig up a course.]

Lovelock: It’s nice to see a movie about high school kids where the actors actually look the right age.

Starkwell: I guess… but, when it sounds like it was written by high school kids, and looks like it was shot on a camera they got for Christmas 2004… it's all a little less nice.

[...]

They’re poking fun at it, but regardless of the no-budgetness of it, it already is slightly more compelling than most of what comes out of a studios like “Full Moon” or “The Asylum”.  But OUTSIDE of the two main characters… all of the actors are pure garbage.  Starkwell feels that they make the dialogue sound worse than it actually is.  But no, seriously, the acting is horrifying.  It sounds like they are reading the lines for the first time without having any sense of the character or the story.  AT ALL. Those are Starkwell’s words.  I’m paraphrasing.

[...]

[“Dude falling in love with girl” montage, between main character, Ethan, and his lady friend, Kayla.]

Starkwell: SOOooooo… unnecessarily long…

Lovelock: What was with that fucking shot of that fucking guy with a pacifier in his mouth dancing for a million fucking years?

[The troops are getting restless.]

[...]

The “jock” character vowed to cover Kayla in his SEX SAUCE tonight.  And then, Starkwell bailed.  Very quickly.  Lovelock is sticking around because he’s pretty sure that most of these chumps are going to die.  Unfortunately the first death was Kayla, who overdosed, and it happened at the tale end of a very uncomfortable date rape sequence.

[...]

Lovelock: It’s fairly obvious that all of the “adults” in this movie are actually related to the people in this movie. Either that or they’re robots.  It’s the only way to explain how horrible they ALL ARE.

[...]

[We are thirty minutes in, and nothing has happened, outside of the whole Kayla death.]

Lovelock: TAKE FOREVER!

[...]

They finally cut back to the two main dudes robbing Kayla from her grave and doing some kind of voodoo shit on her to try and wake her up from the dead.  The next morning, she actually wakes up, and Ethan’s reaction is, how did Lovelock put it? ...“The worst acting, maybe ever.”  After saying that he went to go take a dump and said “DON’T PAUSE IT.”  I didn’t… I actually fast forwarded a lot, to avoid staring at this confusing mess for too much longer.

[...]

[Twenty minutes of  Ethan and his buddy trying to make zombie Kayla act normal.]

Lovelock: This movie has no business being longer than ten minutes.

Lovelock: [Imitating Starkwell] This movie has no business being longer than NO minutes.

Lovelock: [As himself again] Nice.

[...]

[Music video of some band.]

Lovelock: Right… because the movie already TOTALLY had no filler AT ALL.

[Lovelock then dry heaved.]

[...]

[Kayla is suddenly under a spell, where she becomes, basically a ninja, and is off to kill the person who wronged her.]

Lovelock: So… basically, it’s “The Crow” without the action, the good directing, dialogue, the good actors, the good soundtrack, the budget, the ET CETERA FOREVER!

[...]

Anyways, she finds the dude that killed her, and shoves an exacto knife down his throat and slashed him up with a machete.  It was actually fairly gruesome and effective.  Lovelock just said “TOO LITTLE TOO LATE” got up and left.  I tried to tell him that there were ten minutes left but he was long gone.  He missed, in the last ten minutes, about five million different twists that happened at the end.  None of them made sense.  Having nothing happen for so long, and then bombarding the viewer with a whole shitload of shit, seems shitty. Oh by the way, to answer the question I asked at the beginning... THE TOILET.  That's where "Beneath the Surface" ends up.  FLUSH.

The Dead Next Door.

Apparently this movie took years to complete.  That’s what happens when you have no budget and try to tackle a story as grand as the one put forward in JR Bookwalter’s “Dead Next Door”.  Shot in Ohio through the majority of the ‘80s, this one saw its completion and release in ’89, and may or may not have lived up to everyone’s hopes.  Let’s at least find out what Starkwell and Lovelock think of it.  Apparently Bookwalter followed this with a movie called “Robot Ninja” where a scientist helps a comic-book artist to become the superhero he has created in order to battle a vicious gang of rapists.  So yeah.

[...]

[Zombie tried to rent "Dawn of the Dead"]

Lovelock: Sweet VHS boxes.

Starkwell: I think this is going to be one nutty ride.

[...]

[Zombie apocalypse montage.]

Starkwell: Why would they bother showing a zombie using the telephone for that long?

Lovelock: The same reason that they mostly cast people with mullets.

[...]

We get introduced to some Zombie Squad members, some pretty sweet gore and some of the worst acting in the history of people.  But, as Lovelock noted, “somehow it works.”

[...]

[Binocular shot.]

Starkwell: If you’re going to use construction paper to create that effect, you could at least make smooth cuts.

Lovelock: You ever try to cut perfect circles with scissors?  It’s impossible.

[...]

Lovelock: I think I’ve seen this movie before.  It was called “Ghostbusters.”

Starkwell: Are you basing that entirely on the Squad Car?

Lovelock: Maybe.

[...]

The overdubbing is funny.  Starkwell mentioned that it gives it that “campy Bruno Mattei feel.”  In order to save the world, they have to find some guy’s research lab in Akron, Ohio, the scientific center of the world, apparently.

[...]

[Reverend Sunglasses and his Church of Bad Haircuts keep zombies in a pen, and feed them humans.]

Lovelock: There’s something weird about this Reverend…

Starkwell: He runs a cult, sacrifices people, and feeds them to the zombies.

Lovelock: That’s not it.

Starkwell: It’s not?

Lovelock: No, I know!  It’s his fashion sense.  Who wears a khaki shirt and khaki pants?  What is he, a zookeeper?  And why is he always wearing those old lady Terminator sunglasses?

[...]

Not much was happening after this.  Starkwell and Lovelock made a half dozen comments about Commander Mullet and his braid.  There was a random hippy guy talking about “'Nam flashbacks” right before a grenade blew him up.  Trust me, it sounds better than it is.  Then the Zombie Squad guy grenaded a tree so he could drive through it and Starkwell walked out.  The rest is just stuff that Lovelock muttered to himself.

[...]

Lovelock: Worst graffiti ever.  “The Master Dude!”  What does that even mean?

[...]

Lovelock: Reverend Sunglasses looks like Gilbert Godfrey, but sounds like an asshole.

[...]

Lovelock: STARKWELL!  YOU’RE MISSING A MELTING ZOMBIE! MELTING!

[...]

Lovelock: You’re going down Doctor Trucker Hat.

[...]

Lovelock: Why would you open that door? Oh snap, zombie hands!  Guitar solo!

[...]

Lovelock: I think that cage is made of paper.

[...]

I don’t think Lovelock appreciated the twist ending, since he just stood up and said “Dumb.”  He liked the gore effects overall, but Bookwalter definitely bit off more than he could chew, and the result is a patchy film that lacks cohesion.  Impressive nonetheless.  Lovelock gives him credit for trying.  Starkwell was glad he bailed when he did.  The songs that play during the ending credits are totally insane.  And I thought only Burt Reynolds movies had awesome theme songs.