Well today I looked at Return of the Living Dead and just like every other time I have seen this movie I laughed my butt off. It has an awesomely crude sense of humor that lasted through the first three films in the series to make them instantly classic. This is THE movie that made us think of zombies when someone says "brains". They explain this because brains somehow ease the pain of dying. ROTLD covers a variety of hot topics from gangs to military conspiracy theories.
While it may not be the first zomedy it did break new grounds in some ways. It got the chance to play on nearly every stereotype for the living dead that people could come up with and make the zombies seem near invincible. It changed them from being slow, brainless, creachers that only munch on arms to being intelligent, crafty, bloodthirsty killers that could move as fast as their stage in decomposing would allow. Fresh bodies could run and old bodies could shamble slowly along.
It was a moment that holds a special place in my heart as funny and shocking when the zombies showed just how crafty they can be. When the paramedics or cops would come they would use the radio after they ate them to call in backup and bring more brains for their midnight snack. We have never seen behavior like this in other big name zombie movies outside of this series. They could think, talk, plot and more. Perfect killing machines as far as zombies go.
Don't mind the language but this movie also consisted of several "oh shit!" moments where there would be one person in the theater saying "no, don't do it!". The moment the tank is shown in the movie is our first moment, we get a feeling that something will go terribly wrong and they don't dissapoint in any way. Even when they start trying to get rid of the first body we get one of these moments as they turn on the fire and then we see the smoke going into they sky. All the way to the big finish of the movie which I won't tell you, so go watch it and find out.
Like many zombie movies, this one goes in phases. Things are peaceful and its another boring day, someone does something stupid and then "the shit hits the fan". It goes from one living corpse to a few more and it builds up fast to being a hoard of hundreds of brain hungry zombies. At no time do we feel that ROTLD drags on because they keep some sort of humorous event or bloody mess happening at many points in the movie.
This is a great addition to any zombie fans collection and I highly reccomend it for a night of pizza and drinks with friends. Go watch it and have a blast. There's no video this week simply cause this one is not open to public domain. So go do netflix or something to see it or just buy it, its well worth several viewings over time with friends.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
They're coming to get you Barbara
If I say the name of the movie I can almost guarantee that most of you know what it is. Night of the Living Dead has been the most referred to zombie movie of all time. It changed the way we look at zombies and it formed the genre as a whole. Voodoo zombies quickly became a thing of the past and the new flesh eating zombie became the face of the word.
The funny thing about us calling them zombies when we refer to this movie is that George A. Romero himself never said the word even once throughout the entire movie. He thought of them as something much simpler. Dead humans that came back to life. They were people family and friends, and they were real people first and foremost. The word zombie just seems to make people think of nameless savage walking dead creatures with no identities that randomly kill whatever is in front of them for the fun or whatever else the reason. But Romero looked at them as being real people who had loved ones that cared for them and that they were forced into this new life of eating purely because of instinct.
Now getting to the actual movie. Yes we will actually talk about the movie itself eventually during its review. Surprise surprise! :) I will be talking mostly about the characters and the situations and how they relate to reality rather than fantasy.
The first thing we see is that they are far away from any large civilized area. There would be a house every now and then I can safely assume, but there are no large towns for a good distance and no help could come to them if they were in need. So the first message I saw when I just start up the movie is simple yet clear. They are alone. Call me evil but whenever I see that in a movie I get really happy and cheerful because I know something very bad will happen to everyone there. I get the same feeling from the Friday the 13'th movies.
What we may call cheesy acting actually comes across as very accurate if we were in the same situation. Who among us wouldn't be mentally crushed if we saw a close family member die and the killer running for us. At the beginning we see what happens to her brother and how it affects her through the movie. She can't even put together any rational thoughts after it happened because it's something she never imagined could go wrong.
What we have here is a very down to earth telling of a disaster. And they tell it very effectively. The people are scared, there is an unstoppable force that takes them by surprise, and they deal with it the best they can. I wont say the end of the movie because I have it sitting at the bottom of today's blog.
What about the blood? Well it is of course a zombie movie and what would it be without blood. You are in luck because for a black and white movie this is a true blue gore fest. The woman sitting on top of the stairs with her face eaten away, the little girl stabbing her mother with a shovel, and even the feast after the explosion. It even does well by today's standards for blood in a movie. It was black and white so it may not scare people but it was ahead of its time still.
From this movie we got Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, and pretty much every Of The Dead movie since then. After Night of the Living Dead most zombie movies have been of a similar structure and plot.
It's a great movie, and this has been a long and drawn out review since I am watching it as I type.
Being a movie that is now open to public domain, I can post up Night of the Living Dead on here for you to enjoy. You can even watch it from youtube! If you love zombies and have not seen it then I strongly suggest you put aside an hour and a half and do so. Its a great movie for zombie lovers and you will not be disappointed.
The funny thing about us calling them zombies when we refer to this movie is that George A. Romero himself never said the word even once throughout the entire movie. He thought of them as something much simpler. Dead humans that came back to life. They were people family and friends, and they were real people first and foremost. The word zombie just seems to make people think of nameless savage walking dead creatures with no identities that randomly kill whatever is in front of them for the fun or whatever else the reason. But Romero looked at them as being real people who had loved ones that cared for them and that they were forced into this new life of eating purely because of instinct.
Now getting to the actual movie. Yes we will actually talk about the movie itself eventually during its review. Surprise surprise! :) I will be talking mostly about the characters and the situations and how they relate to reality rather than fantasy.
The first thing we see is that they are far away from any large civilized area. There would be a house every now and then I can safely assume, but there are no large towns for a good distance and no help could come to them if they were in need. So the first message I saw when I just start up the movie is simple yet clear. They are alone. Call me evil but whenever I see that in a movie I get really happy and cheerful because I know something very bad will happen to everyone there. I get the same feeling from the Friday the 13'th movies.
What we may call cheesy acting actually comes across as very accurate if we were in the same situation. Who among us wouldn't be mentally crushed if we saw a close family member die and the killer running for us. At the beginning we see what happens to her brother and how it affects her through the movie. She can't even put together any rational thoughts after it happened because it's something she never imagined could go wrong.
What we have here is a very down to earth telling of a disaster. And they tell it very effectively. The people are scared, there is an unstoppable force that takes them by surprise, and they deal with it the best they can. I wont say the end of the movie because I have it sitting at the bottom of today's blog.
What about the blood? Well it is of course a zombie movie and what would it be without blood. You are in luck because for a black and white movie this is a true blue gore fest. The woman sitting on top of the stairs with her face eaten away, the little girl stabbing her mother with a shovel, and even the feast after the explosion. It even does well by today's standards for blood in a movie. It was black and white so it may not scare people but it was ahead of its time still.
From this movie we got Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, and pretty much every Of The Dead movie since then. After Night of the Living Dead most zombie movies have been of a similar structure and plot.
It's a great movie, and this has been a long and drawn out review since I am watching it as I type.
Being a movie that is now open to public domain, I can post up Night of the Living Dead on here for you to enjoy. You can even watch it from youtube! If you love zombies and have not seen it then I strongly suggest you put aside an hour and a half and do so. Its a great movie for zombie lovers and you will not be disappointed.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Night of the Living Blog?
No I am not going to munch on your brains or feast upon your insides. But I will talk about someone who will. Zombies, that's right, zombies. This is the start of what I hope will intrigue and entertain you over time by showing you the names of many great movies, games and books out there that deal with the exploits of the living dead.
They range from Frankenstein all the way to the much newer Zombieland in movies. They are talked about in several countries as fact and fiction. From voodoo ritual zombies in South America(as seen in white zombie) all the way to what we know today as the common flesh craving virus zombie(as seen in Dawn of the Dead).
We will laugh(at others expense of course), and we will cry(when our favorite zombies are killed, poor bub), and most of all we will have fun.
I'm gonna try to post up a new blog every Saturday at an undetermined time. sometime on Saturday though for sure if I'm home. If not I'll just post and say when I will be posting.
Thanks and remember, shoot em in the head.
They range from Frankenstein all the way to the much newer Zombieland in movies. They are talked about in several countries as fact and fiction. From voodoo ritual zombies in South America(as seen in white zombie) all the way to what we know today as the common flesh craving virus zombie(as seen in Dawn of the Dead).
We will laugh(at others expense of course), and we will cry(when our favorite zombies are killed, poor bub), and most of all we will have fun.
I'm gonna try to post up a new blog every Saturday at an undetermined time. sometime on Saturday though for sure if I'm home. If not I'll just post and say when I will be posting.
Thanks and remember, shoot em in the head.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
