Day of the Dead

14. Day of the Dead, 1985

George A. Romero is just a genius when it comes to zombie flicks.

It is his tradition to focus on the people rather than the actual zombies, the struggle of being confined to an underground bunker stuffed with a few military men and a trio of scientists. The development of the characters is great, my favorites were the guy who everyone called Dr. Frankenstein and Sarah (the main lady).

The opening scene is pretty damn impressive, takes by surprise and gets you right into the movie. The special effects and the gore once again are awesome (Savini, of course!), it doesn’t give you too much throughout the movie, but the final act is just a flesh eating fest.
I have always loved the idea of having the living dead remember things subconsciously, in this film that is major development in the plot. Here may be better handled the social satire and also takes a little touch into ethics and religion.

Unlike the two Romero films I talked about in the past days, I had not seen this movie before, so it got me pretty hooked from the beginning.

If you haven’t seen it be sure to check it out, if you don’t ‘Bub’ will get sad and lose his shit.

P.S. Gorillaz had a bit of this movie remixed in the song “M1 A1” from their 2001 album, also the song “Hip Albatross”, features a clip of John’s (Terry Alexander) dialogue.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

12. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, 1986

The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a true masterpiece of horror, it looks gritty and outdated and that helps a lot, it gets you from the beginning and the tension just builds and builds until the final chase scene. The realistic low-budget tone gets on your nerves pretty quickly, its something you can imagine yourself seeing in real life, it makes you feel uncomfortable and almost dirty. I remember the first time I watched it, it was stuck in my mind for several days. So fucking awesome.

The sequel… is nothing like that. It’s surreal, over the top and just fucking weird.

Funny as hell but it doesn’t feel like it’s connected to the first film.
Leatherface just seems less threatening here, more stupid and just keeps dancing around with the chainsaw, doesn’t do much for me. Also the ‘good guy’ of the movie is as mentally unbalanced as the bad guys. It made me actually say out loud “what the fuck?!’ a couple of times. Bill Moseley is in this movie, and his character reminds me of David Cross, maybe that’s just me being weird, but yeah.

Not even the special effects ‘maestro del gore’ Tom Savini can help this movie…not even Goo Goo Muck by The Cramps.

If you look at it like a comedy and leave your brain out you’ll enjoy it a lot more than if you try to piece it together with the previous film.



P.S. Have you ever noticed that the poster is a spoof on The Breakfast Club?

Dawn of the Dead

11. Dawn of the Dead, 1978

So tonight I wanted to watch something a bit more gory than the last few movies I’ve been watching… well here’s the early work of effects man extraordinaire Tom Savini who also acts in the film.

This is a bloody fun film, the mall setting makes wonderful scenarios and tools for the zombie killings and the humor of the movie. The same setting may be interpreted as social satire comparing mall shopper to zombies, but to me it is just a fun horror/gore flick (I’m not that deep when it comes to horror, sorry).

I love how red the blood is! Supposedly, Savini was unhappy with how the blood photographed; to him it looked too bright and fluorescent. Romero felt it was perfect for the film’s comic book style and decided to keep it like that, the fake blood was a mixture of food coloring, peanut butter and cane sugar syrup.

If you haven’t seen it or if you just saw the remake, you’re missing out.