Sugar Hill

It's been a while since I've updated this blog, but it doesn't mean I've stopped watching zombie movies.

This movie was ranked #24 in the list of Best Zombie Movies of all time in Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide by Glenn Kay.  It was described as "The Shaft of zombie flicks, effectively combining a blaxploitation crime plotline with traditional zombie lore" (Kay, 303).  That short sentence describes this movie perfectly.

The movie follows Diana "Sugar" Hill (played by Marki Bey).  Early in the movie, her boyfriend (a club owner) is killed by the local mob (headed by the nefarious Morgan).  Sugar goes to Mama Maitresse, a local voodoo woman, to help her get her revenge on Morgan and his crew.  They go to see Baron Zamedi, the Lord of the Dead, to help her in her quest for revenge.  He raises an army of the undead.  With her army behind her, Sugar Hill kills her way through the local mob, which eventually leads her to Morgan.

Baron Zamebi loves to kill

The zombies in this movie are not of the flesh eating variety.  Rather, it takes its cue from the zombies of voodoo lore.  These zombies are not out for flesh; these zombies exist only to follow the wishes of their zombie master.  They don't kill by attacking and biting; they attack by whatever means the zombie master wishes.  In one instance, they kill by chopping up a man with swords, eventually decapitating him.  In another, they throw a man into a pen of hungry pigs.

The look of the zombies is pretty cool.  They have silver eyes which reflect the light to a fairly creepy effect.  They walk around covered in cobwebs.

The acting wasn't great (Marki Bey, in particular, varied from very good to incredibly wooden), but it was good enough.  The plot worked off a pretty standard revenge story, but it worked very well.  The zombies looked great, and the scenery was terrific.  I loved Baron Zamebi...he would show up at random times during the movie, and, when he did, you knew the zombies would be attacking soon.

This isn't your standard zombie movie, but I really liked it.  One of the better zombie movies I've seen in a while.  If you're looking for something kind of different from your standard zombie movie, check this one out.

Marki Bey demands that you watch this movie

Colin

Once again, it has been a while since we've had zombie club.  But, just because we haven't officially met for a while doesn't mean I have to stop watching zombie movies.
I have been looking forward to this one for a while.  A considerable buzz has been building for this movie ever since it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival.  These two things always came up when this movie was reviewed:
1. The movie was told from the perspective of a zombie.
2. It was made for $70.

It's difficult not to mention those things, so let's get them out of the way.  The movie follows a single zombie (Colin).  We see him become a zombie, and we follow his shambling zombie self through zombie-infested London.  Where most zombie movies follow the survivors, this one follows a single zombie, trying to navigate through these strange streets that he once knew so well.  On his journey, he encounters a number of stereotypes in the zombie movie genre: the twisted survivor with a dark secret, a band of zombie hunters, the family member who wanted to try to save him (and the family member who wanted to kill him), people running and fighting for their lives, and some who have accepted their fates.  The only difference is that we're seeing it from the other side.  We know Colin, and now we're following him as a zombie.  These zombie hunters appear to be terrible people in this movie...but put them in a Romero movie and they look like heroes.
I can't say that I was necessarily cheering for Colin, but I did feel a certain attachment to him.  This isn't a faceless zombie, hell-bent on eating human flesh.  This is Colin, a victim of circumstance.  We see what he sees.  He eats human flesh, not because he's a demon, but because he has no other choice.  It is now in his nature.  Furthermore, it shows what we could become.  If Colin - a nice guy with a good life - could become a zombie, so can we.  It wasn't his choice, just like it wouldn't be ours.
Throughout the movie, we see Colin recognize different objects and places from his "past life".  This was reminiscent of Day of the Dead, when Bub was able to remember things from his living days.  It didn't seem to apply to everything (he didn't recognize his sister or mother at all), but it did occur from time to time.

The movie was made for $70, which is pretty impressive.  Sure, you can tell that it did not take a lot of money to make this movie.  Still, for how much it costs, it looks pretty good.  The lighting is a bit off, and there are times when the sound left something to be desired, but, for the most part, they did a great job.  The zombies looked pretty good, and there were some pretty terrific looking death scenes.  The acting was pretty good, too.  All in all, they did great with what they had.

Overall, I really liked the movie.  There were times when it seemed like it was running a bit long, and there were long periods where not much happened.  But the goal of this movie was not to be action-packed; the goal of this movie was to see zombies from a different angle...for us to identify with zombies in a way that we may not have been able to before.  The filmmaker (Marc Price) was building a mood throughout the movie...even in those times when it seemed like nothing was happening.  Those times further helped us to bond with Colin...to see the world through his eyes.  By the end of the movie, I didn't mind those slow moments.
Loved the ending.  I don't want to give anything away, but it was somehow sweet and heartbreaking.

I highly recommend this movie...but know what it is going in.  It's a zombie movie, but it's not your standard zombie movie.  You can also tell that it was made on a low budget, but that's easy enough to get past.  Once you get caught up in the story, you won't really care what the budget was.

Watch this trailer and check out the website

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Fido

This was the first Zombie Club which we consulted The Book. We were not having the best of luck with zombie movies, so we decided to try it out. I tracked down a number of highly rated movies. When it came time to decide on a movie, we chose Fido. Take a look at that cover...it's just asking to be watched.
Fido starts with this instructional video:

Here's the set-up: the earth passed through a radioactive cloud, leading to the entire population being infected with a virus. What kind of virus? Why, a virus that will reanimate the dead, of course!
A zombie war broke out, and nearly wiped out the world. The living finally beat back the undead (although all zombies were not wiped out). ZomCom was formed, and fences were built to hold the zombies out of areas where humans were living, leaving large portions of the world where zombies roamed free.
ZomCom found a way to use these zombies for the good of mankind. They developed a collar to put on zombies. Through this, the zombie could be controlled, and could be used for household tasks. A family purchases a zombie through ZomCom, that zombie is outfitted with a collar, sent to the family, and provides them with any number of household services.

Lawn mowing, for instance

It is with this that the movie begins. It is set in the 50s, which gives the movie a great look and feel to it.
The story follows the Robinson family; Bill (father), Helen (mother) and Timmy (son). Bill is a distant and disconnected husband and father, preferring to spend his time golfing rather than spending time with his family. Every Sunday, he takes his family on a "Sunday drive", where they go to the funerals of strangers. Bill takes pictures, while Helen and Timmy stand around awkwardly. As near as I can tell, this is the only thing Bill enjoys doing with his family.
Helen doesn't seem to enjoy Bill, and takes every opportunity to push his buttons, at one point proclaiming, "Bill, get your own funeral. Timmy and I are going zombie."
Timmy is a young, scrawny boy who is often picked on in class (especially by two brothers who believe themselves to be zombie hunters). He has no friends.
The Robinson's get a zombie because Helen doesn't want them to be the only family on the block without one. Also, the new neighbor is the new head of security at ZomCom, and they need to impress him.
At first, Timmy doesn't like their zombie. But, after the zombie protects him from the school bullies, Timmy takes a liking to him, and names him Fido. Fido quickly becomes Timmy's best friend.

Fido's collar stops working for a short period, and he bites Timmy's neighbor, an old woman that Timmy never really cared for. She bites someone else, and a small zombie outbreak occurs. Timmy kills the old woman and buries her, hoping that he or Fido will not be implicated.
Timmy goes to his neighbor, Mr. Theopolis (played by the great Tim Blake Nelson), a former ZomCom employee, who is able to fix Fido's collar. Fido goes back to being a docile zombie, and he and Timmy continue their friendship. Even Helen begins to like Fido.

I don't want to give away too much of the movie, so I'll stop with the plot rundown here.

For a zombie movie, it is extremely lighthearted, and it borrows heavily from Lassie (even including a scene where Fido shows up alone in the house while Helen asks him, "Where's Timmy, boy? Is he hurt?").
There really isn't much gore, but that's not really what the movie was going for. It's a good story with likable characters, good dialogue, and a fantastic look. Overall, it was a very enjoyable movie. Extremely well done, and highly recommended.

Zombie movie book...you have served us well. Let's hope this continues.

Here's the trailer:

Dead Snow

I read about this movie in a magazine. I'm always up for a promising zombie movie...and the prospect of Nazi zombies was one that I would not miss. So I tracked it down and watched it last night.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The movie starts out a little slow, but I suppose most zombie movies do. There has to be some sort of set up. This one followed some med school students on Easter break. They decided to vacation at a cabin in the mountains. Do some skiing, go for snowmobile rides, play Twister, pretend to suffocate each other with pillows, have sex in an outhouse, etc. You know...it's what all the kids are doing these days.
An old guy shows up and tells them of the dangers of the mountains...namely, the hordes of undead Nazis.
Eventually, the Nazis show up and wreak havoc among these stranded rich kids. Blood and intestines flow like wine. People are ripped apart, houses are set on fire, and an undead Nazi's innards are used as a rope.
A little over an hour into the movie, the surviving members somehow stop being scared out of their minds and start fighting back. And oh, what a fight it is. Chainsaws, hammers, feet, machine guns, and (I'm pretty sure) a bird are all used against the Nazis. It's gory and funny and a little unnerving, all at the same time.
Here is part of the battle. It's my favorite scene of the movie. Make sure you watch it with the sound on, because the music makes this scene incredible.



See.

As you can probably tell from that clip, this isn't your standard zombie movie. Destroying the brain or removing the head isn't the only way to kill them. They can be killed in pretty much the same way as any ordinary human...like slicing open their stomach with a chainsaw and watching their intestines fall to the ground. John Rambo killed a man in a similar fashion (only with a handmade machete instead of a chainsaw...because that's how Rambo rolls).
They're fast, they're intelligent, and they're strong. None of these fits the standard zombie profile. But they are undead, and that has to count for something.

Overall, it's an extremely solid movie. Once you get past the character introductions, it really is a fantastic movie. And it's not that the intros are bad...it's just that the rest of it is so good.

Highly recommended. It's worth your time to check it out.

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.