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OK, when I put this DVD in, it started playing previews. As annoying DVDs are want to do. Second one of these though? OK, we've got a crow here, then we have a tire. The tire just kinda rights itself, spins to "look" at the crow through the hole, and uh... causes the crow to explode. With it's mind I guess. Then we just cut to the title, Rubber. Is... is this seriously your movie? Evil psychic tires blowing things up with their mind? This didn't look like low budget cheese either, it had production values. I may have to look into this further. There was also one for The Oxford Murders which is probably a terrible movie but the trailer was like, the best accidental send-up of the thriller genre I've ever seen. The movie I'm actually about to watch though is Survival of the Dead. Because my refusal to watch zombie movies has an exception made for George Romero movies, even when I don't hear they were ever released until they come out on DVD and get horrible reviews.
... Uh. What the hell? OK, so the previews just ended, right? And now I'm staring at a static split screen with army dudes on the left, a severed zombie hand on the right, "PICK A SIDE" in the middle, with the two halves labeled "The Living" and "The Dead" with little game-like silver tokens above them depicting a gun and a hand. Seriously, what am I looking at? Is this like, theatrical release versus director's cut? Is this some insane avant garde choose your own adventure sorta thing where I can watch the whole movie from one of two perspectives? Are we just being weird about labeling the extras menu? Seriously, I'm baffled. Let's see what happens when I go with The Dead.
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OK... EITHER choice gives me a more standard DVD menu... with the other's little token rotating down in the corner. The Dead menu's is way better though. Better music too. I guess I'm just going to have to watch it, then go back and check the other and see what the heck the deal is here. Anyway, woo! Optional intro from the director! I love those! Wacky gag thing with him trying to introduce it and being generally waylaid by his all-zombie crew. Eh, kinda cute. Anyway, actual movie time. We're going with the perspective of some national guard types. The main character is explaining the premise for uh... formality's sake really? I don't think anyone is ever going to watch this who isn't a diehard fan of the series.
OK, there is some point to it. We're discussing how zombies get to be such a problem, pointing out that, yeah, it's not zombie bites that make you a zombie. It's dying, period, from anything, and zombies being around is going to cause a lot of deaths not just from the actual zombies (which really aren't THAT much of a factor) so much as, you know, societal breakdown, and suicide. That and pointing out that shooting your zombified friends and family is pretty hard to do emotionally. Anyway, interestingly enough, our narrator next observes that he and his friends were actually in Diary of the Dead, which, of course, exists in canon. They uh... kinda hold up that party and steal supplies from'em. They feel bad about having done it at least.
Now we're cutting over to our more proper Hatfields vs. McCoy's setup. On some island somewhere, we have a bunch of irish dudes having a longstanding family feud, with these two clans being about all there is population wise, and basically they have a serious disagreement on how to handle zombies. One group is of the hardline mindset that if you are a zombie or will shortly become one, you get shot in the head, period. The other group prefers to chain their zombies up on the off chance that, you know, the Lurch for the Cure bears fruit some day. Refreshingly, the save the zombies camp actually wins out when they collectively discover some cute little zombie kids chained up in their bedroom. Pro-kill leader is set adrift, banished from... wait, plum island? That's where this is set? Dude that's like, here. If I were in slightly better shape I could swim to it. Also if it wasn't, you know, a biological weapons testing ground. Rather than the home for feuding Irish immigrants we have here.
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Anyway, back with the national guard dudes. Here they discover some rednecks who have been decapitating zombies and mounting their heads on poles, which, you know, is amusing because he whole decapitating a zombie to kill'em thing isn't technically canon. Just that a severed zombie head isn't really a threat. Anyway, the main character is seriously not down with that. I mean, if you wanna kill a zombie, OK, shoot'em in the head. Torturing zombies and mutilating their bodies though, that's just sick. So... we end up killing the rednecks, picking up some punk kid, and stealing the rednecks' fairly sweet ride. Also, I have to say, this is a great example of the difference between doing cheesy horror right and wrong. Remember what I was saying about Galaxy of Terror last week? Where I couldn't keep the characters straight because they're so darn indistinct? OK, here we have 4 army dudes. Literally, as soon as each one first appears, we get a nice little hook for each one to keep them straight. Here's the main character. He's principled as heck. Here's Snarky. He's snarky and has a laptop. Here's Spanish dude, he's failishly suave and also a tad snarky. He reminds me a bit of Diefledermaus' expy from the live action Tick actually. Or just Diefledermaus really. Here's our token girl. She's proudly gay and self-confident. Oh, and here's our punk kid. He... actually reminds me an awful lot of Sharkey. Which is to say, Scott Sharkey, one of my favorite random internet weirdos.
OK, so, Kill the Zombies leader has an ad for Plum Island up on youtube, because he's kind of a bitter jerk and wants to lure suckers to his seaside temporary shelter. So.... now we've got Killers Leader and our National Guard party kinda having a bit of a fight, in an area full of zombies and various fun defenses. Really, we've just kinda got this nice long montage here of creative zombie kills played for laughs. Honestly this whole movie has an odd sort of vibe going on. We're absolutely not going for horror, we're not going for comedy per se either though. It's just kinda... relaxed. I mean, there's plenty of violence, but we're never making a big deal of it. It's just, hey, times are tough, sometimes you need to do some killing, usually of zombies. I mean, this is kinda like the general atmosphere of... I don't know. Big Trouble in Little China maybe? Or Beverly Hills Cop? I actually kinda like it but these special effects are way too CGI for me. I thought George Romero was a supporter of the whole practical effects revival, what gives?
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Anyway, yeah, fishing pole, fire extinguisher, a bit of a scare where Diefledermaus has to go swimming, is attacked by waterlogged zombies, and escapes by biting one's finger off. He think's it's pretty funny, but other people are kinda concerned. I mean, if a zombie bites you, that gets pretty seriously infected, you die, you become a zombie. That goes for proper zombies and lame STD zombies alike. Do you turn into a zombie if you ingest their blood though? I mean, clearly you do with the STD zombies, but with proper ones? Kind of a gray area. In any case, yeah, these dudes and Kill'em Leader survive all the wacky shenanigans, get a boat, head back to the island. We're actually time skipping pretty frequently so by the time we show up, we're far enough down the timeline to have some pretty clear Bub-ification. Which... OK yeah, that's not a term anyone else ever uses. Here's the deal. When you first die, you sit there for a little bit, then get up and you're all raaraugh stumbling around eating dudes. After a while though, particularly if there's no dudes around to eat, you very gradually start falling back into acting like a normal living human. I mean, dumb as a post, sure, but you'll go to work and stumble around there for a while. Like, here's a zombie mailman (chained up for safety reasons) just kinda repeatedly taking a letter from a mailbox, staggering to the end of his leash, turning around, putting it back in. That's Bub-ification. Named for Bub. The tame zombie in which it was clearly exemplified in Day of the Dead. Who's pretty much the only thing that movie had going for it besides real good special effects.
Anyway, turns out the No Kill folks have revised their policy some. They're still generally pro-zombie, but they're going case by case. If you do a cute trick and are generally showing promise of acting more alive in the future, maybe not trying to eat people so much, cool, we'll keep an eye on you. Just keep going all bitey though and you get put down. Kill'em Leader is kinda coming around too. Mainly since his daughter died shortly after he left, but is still galloping all over the place on the back of her horse. OK. Zombie equestrianism is cool. I think this girl might end up being this movie's Amish Farmer for me. Oh and Snarky was shot by pragmatic rednecks, and, yeah, Diefledermaus ain't lookin' so hot. Not really like OH NO HE'S BECOMING A ZOMBIE! Just, you know, sick. He's being a big ol' drama queen about it, just have some soup and lie down a bit. Or have Lesbian shoot you. Big baby. You so weren't becoming a zombie. Oh and now she's getting kidnapped by the local redneecks, and our main character's feeling woozy froma gunshot he took when they first arrived here so with Kill-Leader reuniting with his old faction, Sharkey is now on his own getting water from the river. Oh hey, zombie housewife. Anyway yeah, seriously, I'm digging equestrian zombie. Sadly though, the rednecks just lassoed her off. So now she's just a zombie who'd LIKE TO be riding a horse.
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Now here's our main character having a bit of a weird dream of equestrian zombie trying to tell him to wake up. Weird. Oh. Turns out Sharkey actually ran into her non-dead twin sister. Man, having an undead twin has to suck. I mean, you don't get to switch identities, at least not convincingly. The whole psychic link thing isn't going to do much for you. Plus, yeesh, talk about having to face your own mortality. Anyway, yeah, standoff time. We've got the locals armed with... zombies (they're like, chained to the ends of poles) holding Lesbian hostage when the Pro-Kill/National Guard team arrives. Anyway, this is.... this is a bad plan. The No Kill faction is trying to get zombies to eat, you know, anything other than people, right? So the figure, hey, Equestrian zombie seems pretty civil, and she likes horses. Think maybe she'd be willing to eat them rather than people? First off, I don't follow their logic. Second, uh... horses can jump fences. So... isn't it more likely that she'll just mount up, like you know she can do, hop the fence, and cause violent chaos?
Oh. Well at least we have the class to make us wait on the answer. Here's her twin and Sharkey hanging out in the woods, talking about Sharkey's hidden millions of dollars. I uh... yeah, maybe should have mentioned that. The rednecks had a giant cash wad hidden in a safe in their ride, and Sharkey has the key. Kinda his insurance policy he used to get into the party. Anyway, Sharkey, being Sharkey, seems to be set on stealing someone's girlfriend, and inciting mass chaos in a crowd. Oh hey. So... not zombie twin just decided to be stupid and respond to zombie twin's look of recognition, so, she got bit on the hand. Well... really, that isn't a big deal. You're pretty ciilized here. Disinfect the wound. If you really feel paranoid, lop half her arm off and cauterize it. She'll be fine. There's precedent. But apparently it's chaos time. Someone gets shot, he's a bitter jerk, he lets all the chained up zombies loose out of spite, someone gets his intestines pulled out because TRADITION DEMANDS, and now we're back t another wacky death montage. Oh, and the leaders are still arguing their respective philosophies. No Kill Leader is all OK, say I'm right and I won't shoot you. Kill Leader, for the sake of civility, says "OK, horrible carnage not withstanding? Sure, fine, you're right. Then gets shot anyway. Jerk. He shoots him back, also right. Here's the crazy thing though! Turns out he actually WAS right! Zombie Equestrian really did decide to take a bit out of horsey's throat! Your crazy moon logic proved true No Kill leader, and I owe you an apology. Before Non-Zombie Twin has a chance to tell everyone about her amazing zombie domestication realization though, her dad shoots her in the head to keep her from becoming a zombie... before finally dying of his gunshot wound. So... we leave on confirmation that yeah, while they're REALLY slow to come around to the idea, zombies will totally eat a horse... but it's not really a food thing it's a habit thing so I don't know how much that really helps you. Then of course I'll final image, after a brief speech from the main character about being blinded by tribalism, is of zombified Kill and No Kill leaders facing off in a field, exhibiting their Bub-ified behavior- firing unloaded guns at each other.
So... yeah. Not really sure "People are seriously way too politically antagonistic these days!" is really up there with racism and rampant consumerism and military jingoism as in need of the zombie metaphor. Overall though, while... yeah. It's hard to argue that this WASN'T easily the worst... wait, "Blank of the Dead? That's officially the film company name lately? That's great. Anyway as I was saying, it's the worst, but it still isn't BAD. Kinda cute, kinda wacky, doesn't really have anything to add to the series, but it's not ruining anything either. Honestly, it kinda feels like this wasn't really a movie. This was just like, the pilot for the TV Series of the Dead, you know? Or if you want to be more civil about it "George got screwed out of his money on Night and he's kinda poor now, so can we make it up to him by sitting through a pointless cash-in or two?" Seriously though, that choose a side bit? That was just weird. Apparently it's just a title screen selection/reinforcement of he overall message of uh... Republicans and Democrats both suck.
