Film: Mortuary
Director: Tobe Hooper
Reviewed by: Doc Zombie



From the creator of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Mortuary is a zombie...scratch that...slasher....scratch that....wait, what is this movie?

Jonathan, his younger sister and his mother move to a new town and into an old mortuary where his mother intends to renovate and start a new business. Out in the front yard there's a grave yard. The house is in shambles and overall a creepy place. All in all a nice set up for a typical horror film.

Soon Jonathan learns from residents of the town that the house has a terrible history. The land is supposedly cursed. Nothing grows there or lives there. Cattle that once roamed the land would suddenly die and disappear. The family that owned the land for generations soon ended in a bloody demise. The last of the Fowlers apparently abused and kept their deformed child of 8 in one of the tombs. 10 years later the parents of this child was found with their heads "bashed in". The child has been missing ever since. So now we have a nice set up for a psychopathic murderer i.e. Jason Vorhees, Leatherface.

What comes next is a mix between the parasitic zombies of, say, the awesome zom flick Slither and that of a Friday the 13th movie. The zombies look decent and the FX are passable.

Tons of inconsistencies and just plain bad writing destroys what probably couldn't have been saved in the first place. The last 20 minutes of the film erases everything that made some sort of sense that came before it. Also, Tobe Hooper should've went out on a limb and focused on the zombies and left the psychopath out of it all together. I'm mean, geez, might as well throw in a vampire and Bigfoot. This is a waste of time...and, ultimately, I've gotta give Mortuary one blood drop.

Review: Bubba Ho-Tep

Film: Bubba Ho-Tep
Director: Don Coscarelli
Reviewed by: Rom Servo




Bubba Ho-Tep is set in present day east Texas at a rest home in a town called Muddy Creek. Actually, on this one...ive got to just cut to the chase because its so hillarious to say it all at once. Undercover Elvis and Black JFK battle it out with an egytian mummy who has been nocturnally invading the rest home to suck peoples souls out of their ass holes. Yes. Sebastian Haff (Bruce Campbell), as senile elvis impersonator, and Black Jack Kennedy vs. Bubba Ho-Tep!




This writing from this film is full of great quotes but i'll only list a few:
-"They dyed me this color...all over!! Can you think of a better way to hide the truth?"
-"Now this top line translates into, "Pharoah gobbles donkey goobers," and the bottom line, "Cleopatra does the nasty."
-"Look, man, do I look like an ichthyologist to you? Big damn bugs, all right The size of my fist. The size of a peanut butter and banana sandwich."

An interesting aspect of this film is that the way its written and delivered, one half of the viewers beliefs is that our main character is a senile elvis impersonator with a rediculous claim to be "the king". The other half desires, out of love of Campbells character, to subscribe to his convincing flashbacks of his life forfitted to the intensity of fame.

The editing is great with flash-montages somewhat remenicent of "Hot Fuzz" or "Snatch". The acting and cast is great what with Bruce Campbell in the mix. Pretty much no gore here, but the makeup turned Bruce into a senile Elvis... so mad props there. And the writing was well done in that i feel as though it was written specifically for the actors playing the actuall parts. The comedy of the film found itself in a new realm with these characters and i thought it was acurately played and ginuinely silly. I give Bubba Ho-Tep three blood drops.

Review: The Stink of Flesh

Film: The Stink of Flesh
Director: Scott Phillips
Reviewed by: Doc Zombie




I like the idea of being a survivor of a zombie outbreak and running into other survivors who...umm...have a different lifestyle that yours.

You see our hero, Matool, runs into a married couple, Nathan & Dexy. Dexy likes to have sex with other men while Nathan likes to watch. Dexy's sister, Sassy, likes to take part in these sexual escapades as well (she's the designated whipper) . Well, as you can imagine during a zombie apocolypse, men who are alive are hard to come by. So when Matool stumbles into Nathan & Dexy's lives you can imagine the excitement. Matool is a bit weirded out by the situation he's just found himself in yet he seems to dig the prospects of having lots of sex with Nathan's wife.

Anyway, throw in an orgy of other survivors and, let's not forget, some zombies and you've got yourself an interesting story.

However, the dialog and acting are pretty atrocious. This could've easily been a "serious" movie (when it comes to zombies and the apocalypse, how could you not be serious?). But the characters come off as silly for the most part.

And the Sassy character was a bit too much. You see she has two siblings. There's our sexual "goddess" Dexy and then there's Dorothy. Dorothy is a demonic looking mutated face attached to Sassy's abdomen. uh. yeah. it's dumb.

Overall, The Stink of Flesh is a unique and good idea and it's not a complete waste of time. Have a few beers while watching this one and then when your done imagine what you'd do in the situation that was just presented to you. The idea of it alone is just creepy as hell. I give The Stink of Flesh 3 blood drops.

Review: The Zombie Diaries

Film: The Zombie Diaries
Director: Michael Bartlet, Kevin Gates
Reviewed by: Doc Zombie

I read all kinds of good stuff about this film before i got it. I read that there was gonna be hordes of zombies like on the cover. Well, don't let the poster above fool you (as a lot of these indie horror flicks do sometime). You won't see London burning while thousands of zombies come lurching out....This story actually takes place in the suburbs of London and follows three groups of survivors of a zombie plague.

This British indie film is one of those "modern" zombie flicks shot from a first person point of view, i.e. a documentarian or a news camera man. Surprisingly enough this film was in production around the same time Romero was doing Diary of the Dead (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0848557/). So I wouldn't exactly call this a rip off. (But I gotta wonder if Romero knew about the Spanish rabid zombie flick, [Rec] (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1038988/), which was released a few months before Diary).

Anyway, for an indie film, this flick was awesome. It was believable and gruesome with a focus on the lives of the survivors. Definately worth your time. But, geez, as with most of these POV movies, i wanted to yell at the dude holding the camera! Geezus, put down that damn camera and fight! help! do something besides holding that dang camera!!! you freaking idiot!!

Anyway you'll see the camera get passed along from group to group in this film which is a nice touch....

My only grip was that the abrupt ending left me wanting more.....

Review: The Abandoned

Film: The Abandoned
Director: Nacho Cerda (The Machinist)
Reviewed By: Rom Servo

Set in present day Russia The Abandoned is the story of an american woman who returns in search of her true life story. She inherits the house where she was born and returns to salvage lost memories of her past. She meets up with her twin brother that she never knew existed and, apparently, their undead/tortured soul/zombie equivalents. When attacked, these tortured soul equivalents instantaneously reflect their inflicted wound onto the real them...rendering them ,well, unattackable. Eventually they start to figure out whats going on and, after a breif trip into the 70's, seemingly resolve the tragic conflict only to have a few more twists unravel.




So, in this film there is an obvious circular theme. Throughout there seem to be a few time warps and glitches in chronology. Like many other circular movies, the plot rises all the way to the very end avoiding any closure to the conflict. However, in this particular script that theme just doesn't work because in the actual storyline, there is in fact closure because the antagonist gets thier revenge and acomplishes all that the story is based around to begin with. Ultimately, most of the circularity is unexplainable and out of context. I wouldnt even call it circular, its more like a figure-eight with a couple peices taken out...never really forming any kind of plausible "restart".
The makeup and gore were great, the acting was great, the problem here lies within the writing, It seemed like there were either too many cooks in the kitchen, or the writer wanted to make a complicated movie that made you "think" but couldn't quite put their own peices together properly. Without coherent plot progression, the makeup and acting are at a tragic loss. They obviously spent alot of time and money making this movie, but it seems that no one ever stopped and said, "wait...uh...this part here cant possibly work because we already said this...".
All in all, reguardless of the quality aspects of this film, i give The Abandoned 1 blood drop.

Review: Dead and Breakfast

Film: Dead and Breakfast
Director: Matthew Leutwyler ("Creepshow 4")
Reviewed by: Rom Servo

Released in 2004, Dead and Breakfast is a hillarious zombie/gore film with a hint of old western storytellin'. The story of six friends on a road trip takes a dreadful turn when they discover they are lost because the driver has been counting road kill so he can pray for them individually. They stop in the town of Lovelock where they stumble upon our backwoods musical narrator(Zach Selwyn). They find their way to a bed and breakfast occupied by a sassy frenchman and a buddhist monk(David Carradine). The monk guards a box containing an evil spirit which is released accidentally and begins progressively posessing each member of this quiet little community. Intermittantly throughout the film the narrator offers omniscient insight to the story via whitty country ditties, and zombie jokes.



The makeup and gore are great, the script is awesome, the casting and acting styles were entirely appropriate, and the soundtrack is definately something to have on your shelf right next to the movie. Its hillarious, with great acting and gore with a badass soundtrack. Overall for its genre, i give Dead and Breakfast 5 blood drops.