Update/Zombie Diaries Review

We haven't had a meeting for quite some time. As was stated in the first post, we started Zombie Club because every female we knew was involved in a book club. Well, apparently the book club isn't meeting too often these days, so we haven't met for Zombie Club, either. We really need to just watch a zombie movie anyway, regardless if there is a book club that night or not.

In related news, I watched Zombie Diaries by myself the other night. Here is what the cover looks like.

Now I want you to picture in your head what kind of movie this will be.
Your response is probably, "An awesome movie!"
Your response would be wrong.
Nothing on that cover even comes close to happening. Never is there a scene even remotely that cool.
Now, I knew this going into the movie. Scotty had already seen and had warned me that it wasn't very good. So I went into it knowing full well that the cover is completely misleading...and that is how everyone should go into watching this movie.

It actually was not a terrible movie. The concept was that there were three different groups filming their experiences with a hand-held video camera. The footage was shaky, but that was to make it more real. Not a terrible concept. However, there were large portions of the movie that involved lots of running and shooting at night. The camera was showing the ground as they ran...and you really couldn't see any zombies at all. I suppose that's realistic; if you're the guy filming all this stuff, chances are you're not great with guns, so you'd be turning and running. The problem is that you didn't really see too many zombies at all.

A couple of the scenes were pretty unrealistic. One group that we followed consisted of two men (one with a gun, the other with the camera) and a woman. They were heading into town to get food, but they were being cautious, as there figured to be zombies there. The man with the gun mentioned how they didn't have too much ammo, so they had to conserve the bullets that they had. That's cool. I get that. But, when a single zombie comes stumbling towards them, he waits until it's within smashing distance, then shoots it in the head. If there's only one zombie and you're running out of bullets, you don't shoot that thing; you bash its head with whatever is close to you (say, the butt of the rifle that you have in your hand).

The end was pretty bad, too. I can see the message they were trying to convey, but they did it in such a terrible way that it had absolutely no impact. Also, it was a really stupid message.

There was a moment that made me jump. I don't want to ruin it for you, but the first zombie sighting was a bit startling. That was really the high point of the movie.

It's not a terrible movie, just don't go into it thinking that there are going to be massive explosions and an awesome guy walking into zombie town with a shotgun and a 9mm. If you're wanting to watch a movie like this that is actually a good movie, watch Diary of the Dead. It's a much better movie in so many ways.

The Dead Pit

A couple of weeks ago, we had our first meeting of Zombie Club in a couple of months. The playoffs were in full swing, but there wasn't a game on Sunday night. Thus, Zombie Club.
We watched The Dead Pit, a movie we were extremely excited about. After the debacle that was Zombie Holocaust, we wanted to watch a movie with some actual zombies in it. This movie stated that, not only were there zombies, but that we would be cheering for these zombies by the end of the movie. What could go wrong?

As it turns out, a lot could go wrong. And it did. Were there zombies? Yes...but they didn't show up until one hour and six minutes into the movie, leaving plenty of time for a terrific story, filled with intrigue, gripping dialogue, and a doctor with red eyes and a gunshot wound to his forehead.


Okay...so the doctor with the red eyes was the only thing present. There was a story, it was just a terrible one. It had to do with a scantily clad girl with amnesia and daddy issues in a mental institution. She befriended an explosives expert who tried really hard to sound like Sean Connery. Sometimes he succeeded, sometimes he didn't. He was one of the most entertaining parts of the movie.

There was a dream sequence that showed the girl running around in her underwear and a mid-riff, looking like an extra in a bad 80s hair rock video ("Motorin'! What's your price for flight?"). She proceeded to get tied up and sprayed with a fire hose until her shirt disintegrated. The nurse who was doing these terrible things to her (was it Nurse Ratchet? I couldn't tell) laughed manically the entire time. At the very end of the dream sequence, the water began to take a part of her face off. They didn't show much of that, which was disappointing (it should be noted that this was the part of the movie that the pizza guy showed up).

The rest of the movie went on and on until the zombies showed up. Unfortunately, they didn't do much. We never actually saw them eating anyone...it was just kind of assumed that they killed people, even if we didn't get to see them. There was a lot of blood, and some dead bodies scattered around, but you never saw the live bodies become dead, and you never see the blood leave their body. It happens off-screen somewhere. There better be some fantastic deleted scenes running around somewhere.

These zombies proceeded to sit around the mental institution and study/play with the brains that they had somehow acquired. They kind of reminded me of The Thinker...only there's a lot of them, they have bloody brains in their hands, and they're undead. Also, they're treating the brains as though they were water-weanies. "Whoa...it's so slippery. I can keep moving my hands, and it just keep sliding through them...like a snake or something. I would much rather do this than try to eat someone."

So what killed these ridiculous excuses for zombies? Destroying the brain or removing the head? Of course not. That would be ridiculous.

It's holy water. That's right...throw some holy water on these zombies, and they will melt.

Just because it's a dumb way to kill a zombie doesn't mean it didn't look awesome.

And how did they find this out? Oh...because a crazy nun just so happened to throw some holy water on a zombie. No one said it had to make sense.

I won't tell you how the movie ended, but it involved a water tower and the explosives expert doing his thing.

And no, it wasn't as cool as that sounds.

This movie wasn't even fun-bad. It was just bad.

It did bring up an interesting bit of discussion though. Cris asked if zombies liked to eat brains or if they just liked to eat people in general. I believe that zombies don't necessarily go after the brain. Since they're non-thinking undead beings, they don't really process any information. They eat living humans and are completely indiscriminate about what parts they eat. Cris, on the other hand, believes that zombies may be drawn to humans brains, and enjoy that above mere flesh.
"The Zombie Survival" guide doesn't mention whether or not zombies are drawn to brains. Nevertheless, it is a view that is held by a lot of people and shows up in a number of movies. There is research that supports both sides of this argument.
What do you think? Give us a shout in the comments and let us know your take on the matter.

Zombie Club Update/Zombi 2

We haven't given up on Zombie Club. In fact, Cris has bought a ton of great movies that we're really excited about watching. But the girls have decided to have their book club only on Sunday nights. With it being football season and all, we have been a little preoccupied on Sunday nights. So it's looking like Zombie Club is on hiatus until football season is over.
We did, however, watch a movie that was never talked about. So let's do that here.

We watched "Zombi 2" at our second meeting. This movie cover just says "Zombie", so allow me to explain that.
"Zombi" was the Italian version of "Dawn of the Dead". So, when "Zombi 2" was released in America, it was just referred to as "Zombie", seeing as how our "Zombi" was "Dawn of the Dead". Does that make sense?

Like I said, we watched this movie at our second meeting. We had heard good things about it, but we didn't know what to expect. There were two scenes in particular that we had heard about. One of them was a zombie fighting a shark, while the other one was a woman getting a wood splinter in her eye.
Neither of them disappointed.
The zombie/shark fight scene was a little slow, but it was about what you would expect. An underwater zombie slowly grappling a shark, repeatedly trying to bite it (I think the shark was bit, but there was no blood, so it was tough to tell). Chad had questions about how a zombie was able to "survive" underwater. We consulted "The Zombie Survival Guide" and found a section on respiration, which states:
"The lungs of the undead continue to function in that they draw air into and expel it from the body. This function ccounts for a zombie's signature moan. What the lungs and body chemistry fail to accomplish, however, is to extract oxygen and remove carbon dioxide. Given that Solanum obviate the need for both of thee functions, the entire human respiratory system is obsolete in the body of a ghoul. This explains how the living dead can 'walk underwater' or survive in environments lethal to humans. Their brains, as noted earlier, are oxygen-independent." (pg 12)

The other scene, the one with the woman getting a sliver in her eye, was pretty fantastic. It was slow. It was gruesome. It (somehow) took off half of her head. And it started like this:


The movie started kind of slow, but, once it got going, it was actually really good. The special effects left quite a bit to be desired (especially the Molotov cocktail fight at the end), but it was still extremely enjoyable to watch.

Highly recommended.

Zombie Sighting

This picture was taken at Chad and Molly's wedding. Check out the short kid on the right. It's a good thing Scotty bashed in his head with a chair seconds after this picture was taken...otherwise, the reception would've been remembered less for all the fun and more for the zombie apocalypse that it no doubt would've started.


Thanks Scott.

Zombie Holocaust

So, if you saw a movie that was called Zombie Holocaust, what would you expect? I can tell you what we expected. Zombies. Lots of zombies. Most likely, a bunch of zombies that were taking over the world. But, mainly, we just wanted a lot of zombies.
What did we get? Not a single zombie. That's right...not one. Look at the title again. Zombie Holocaust. Look at that picture? Does it look like a zombie? Yeah...kind of. Guess what it is. It's some sort of man who has had his face mutilated and his brain switched out with another person. All of this was done by a mad scientist.
But those aren't the only evils in the movie. Zombies? No...of course not. That would be ridiculous. There are some cannibals, though.
"Undead cannibals?"
Nope...just cannibals.
Somewhere in all this garbage were two of the slowest fight scenes I have ever seen, a borderline attractive brunette reporter who got scalped (one of the zombie-looking creations was wearing the top of her head as a wig), a scary blond woman who got naked for no reason in particular (including a scene when she was completely naked in front of the cannibals, yet still found it necessary to strut and pose), a British-ish guy who scratched his chest all the time (with absolutely no explanation for it at all), and some other guy who got his chest ripped open, his entrails eaten, and his eyes literally ripped out of his head and eaten by cannibals.
(Actually, that part was pretty cool.)
There was a pretty cool scene involving a creature and a motorboat.

That fight ended exactly like we thought it would.

It was a terrible movie. Granted, there were a couple of kind of cool moments, but it didn't make up for the fact that the rest of the movie was ridiculously boring. And it certainly didn't make up for the fact that we sat through a movie called Zombie Holocaust that featured the same amount of zombies that Mona Lisa Smile had...zero.
A lot of the set was taken from Zombi 2 (which we watched at our last Zombie Club), so it was kind of funny to be able to pick out different buildings, settings, vehicles, and even some stock footage from Zombi 2.
And all of this without mentioning that the ending was terrible and confusing. In fact, I still don't know exactly what happened. Do you want to know a secret? I don't even care what happened or how it happened.


Oh yeah...there were also waaaaay too many naked guys.

No 3D Extravaganza This Time

It is with great regret that I must inform the ZC that I have been unable to locate a copy of NOTLD in 3D. They have the 2D version at Best Buy (it's even called "Night of the Living Dead 3D: 2D Version) but that would be pointless. The 3D one is on Amazon, but I would not be able to get it before the next meeting. I was looking at the reviews, and they seem to slam the movie and the 3D quality of the movie. I might be having second thoughts about this one. After all, there's always "Zombie Holocaust".

Alias'

I also used an Alias, I think "Dusty" is the foolish one. When is Zombie Club Sunday? Is it around 7:30 again or are they having book club at a different time?