This is perhaps one of the worst reviews I could give. I put this DVD in my player, watched the trailer, and popped the disc back out. The preview looked so-so, but being a zombie film my think is to watch it still — because if I only watched the well-made Z-films then I’d only have about a dozen reviews and all of them would be on my Favourites List. The issue that I had with Cemetery Man was that it was subtitled and did not have a language over-dub option, and at the time I didn’t have time to watch a film that required me to read (I usually work on something while I watch a film at home, usually my laptop). I’ve been told that an over-dub version followed the 1994 release a few years later — so I may try to get my hands on that and give this film another go. Still, IMDB indicates that this film had a $4-million budget (which is not just low but it is LOW) and grossed $253,969 at the US box-office ….. so how much of a film am I missing here really?!?
Tag Archives: zombies
Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz (2013)
Right up front, I want to be abundantly clear about Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz, I rate this film Red Blood.
As far as I’m concerned Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz does not deserve the honor of a review or a comment on my webpage. HOWEVER, I bought a copy, I’ve seen it, and I’m fairly thorough …. and I’ll share my opinion for other film fans of a genre so they know to avoid this terrible addition to an otherwise great series.
Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz = AVOID
So there are a few things that happen in HolloWood that really stink up art, films, creative ideas …. and I mean stink up like the scrapings from the dog park at the end of a July weekend. One of them is excessive creative liberties …. “I paid for the license on this story, and now regardless of whatever that story is I can do what I want — and I do!” Another one is the thought that world federation wrestlers, extreme fighters, or ultimate weight lifters can act …. instead of putting them out to pasture once they’ve body-slammed their brains out or whatever, someone tries putting them into film. Sometimes that works — a great example would be Dwayne Johnson — not only did we get lucky there, we got a real gift. Usually what’s done is they put them in high-action/low-story roles, and because there’s a bunch of action it must be a good film. WRONG!
This film takes the setting of Outpost and tries to give the back-story — the origins of the machine and the experiments — and strings along a battle-royal with some Russian Special Forces soldiers who come off more as resistance fighters and ultimately does nothing to establish the subtitle of the ‘Rise of the Spetsnaz‘.
The opportunity for a quality, meaningful, story-establishing prequel to Outpost (2008) was entirely missed with Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz. As my understanding goes, there was more money wasted on Rise of the Spetsnaz than there was spent on making Outpost: Black Sun (2012). Black Sun is in my mind a superior film to Rise of the Spetsnaz. Black Sun derivatives from the character of the original 2008 film but stays enough within the universe. Rise of the Spetnaz just took the setting and did whatever it wanted for the sake of making some meatheads an acting career. In Black Sun the world is being threatened by the machine and the un-dead phase-shifting Nazi super soldiers, and had the money that was thrown away in making Rise of the Spetsnazbeen put to Black Sun it could have delivered this world-threat development better.
I now own the 2008, 2012, and 2013 Outpost films. I’m glad to have seen all three to know all the ground covered with the original idea, but had I known what was done with Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz I wouldn’t have paid ten cents for a copy.
Links
- BagpiperDon’s list of Zombie Films To Avoid
- Rotten Tom
- IMDB
- Wikipedia
Outpost: Black Sun (2012)
The short writing about Outpost: Black Sun is this …. at one time I had a longer writing …. it’s relative to that time that I thought I didn’t need to back-up my hard drive. Lesson learned; now I back-up like a mad-man.
More or less to say, Outpost: Black Sun is the Yellow Puss-rated additional film that should have been made to compliment the original 2008 Outpost.
The story for Outpost: Black Sun works; you get to revisit the dangerous location found in the original film and yet go further in. The phase-shifting zombie-Nazis are now more of a threat — in this case, to the whole world! There are some creative liberties I could have done without. The sad thing is that this film has less money behind it (or at least to my understanding) than Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz and did far more to carry the story line. Had only the wasted Rise of the Spetsnaz money been put to this film, then Black Sun could have been even better. If you liked the original Outpost, see Outpost: Black Sun — skip seeing Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz.
Links
- IMDB
- Wikipedia
- Catherine Steadman at IMDb
Outpost (2008)
Outpost was my first exposure to the concept of zombie-Nazis. I found a copy on DVD at a liquidator store for $3. Figuring that it was going to be a roach, I was just too amused at the combination of zombies and Nazis, and had to get it. What I found out that it was a fantastic film!
Outpost is rated Green Ooze and is one of BagpiperDon’s Favourite Zombie Movies.
Oh, and if you get really opinionated about Outpost, you can debate as to whether or not the Nazis are zombies, phase-shifting zombies, or humans transformed into ghosts. Regardless, in this humble Highland bagpiper’s z-film opinion, this flick kicks ass!
Links
- Die Glocke AKA The Bell on Wikipedia
- Outpost ‘Behind The Scenes’ Featurette
- Outpost official page movie on Facebook
- Outpost (2008) – IMDB, Wikipedia, and Rotten Tomatoes
- Outpost: Black Sun – the pretty-darn-good 2012 direct-to-DVD sequel
- Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz – the garbage 2013 prequel that Should Not have been made
Billy Elliot (2000)
At first blush Billy Elliot appears to be about a boy in Northern England who trades his boxing gloves for ballet toe-shoes, and is otherwise absolutely grossly devoid of zombies. However, I am fairly sure the sick grandmother charactre is in the beginning stages of turning into an undead person. I predict that the film “Billy Elliot 2 – The Years Between” will be made. Billy Elliot 2 will reveal the zombie outbreak, teen-Billy’s epic trials of battle and survival, and rebuilding of society where we rejoin Billy at the end of film 1 having freed himself from his zombie-apocalypse PTSD through ballet. Oh yeah … mark my words, Billy Elliot 2 will be made … any day now … I’m sure of it.
I rate the zombie film Billy Elliot as Green Ooze!
Links
American Zombie (2007)
American Zombie is a mocumentary* suggesting that the reanimated dead live among us — from wild or low functioning zombies all the way to high functioning zombies who can pass for being human**. It’s amusing, a lot of subtle humor that sometimes you have to be paying attention and think for (God help us if we have to actually think!) — it could very well be a film that was shot right before some sort of mass zombie outbreak and consequent attack. This film, however, I feel would bore the life out of a non-Z-film-fan, but would be a good chuckle to fans of zombie genre.
* Mocumentary – a fictitious documentary
** Which could help to explain a few of the people I’ve met, particularly in the work-place and management.
In any case — American Zombie — Yellow Puss.
Links
IMDb
Wikipedia
Rotten Tomatoes28 Weeks Later (2007)
When I saw that 28 Days Later was getting a part-2, I was beyond excited! Only a few years earlier I saw the original on DVD, and with this addition I could exercise my fandom with everyone else … then life happened and I found myself too busy and too broke to catch 28 Weeks Later in theaters.
Now viewing this this film 364 weeks (that’d be 7 years) after the release, I’m finding myself … well, I wouldn’t say that 28WL is a warm-over of 28DL, but I’m finding it bothersome that as many images and details along with elements of Jim and Saleena’s journey were drawn from 28DL. One could argue that someone had 1/2 to 2/3rds of the concept necessary for a part-2 flick and the rest of the script was filler from the original. When you watched Batman Begins, Dark Knight, and Dark Knight Rises, did you notice the identical components between the films? I did, and I made an Excel file tracking them — it’s unbelievable — the 3 films largely work off the same scenes, stunts, etc. When it comes to 28DL and 28WL I am seriously considering making a similar file — it might predict what will bee seen in 28 Years Later.
I liked that the film was set in the after-math of a zombie out-break — I’ve seen films where a population of survivors are holding out, but not during the reconstruction of a society. Overall it isn’t that this film left me wanting more, it left me wanting at least a little better. Without giving a spoiler I will say this for the film, it has a happy ending.
BagpiperDon’s Rating — Green Ooze nearing-Yellow Puss
Links
A NOTE ABOUT THE “28 Days/Weeks Later” SERIES from BagpiperDon (06September2014)
Sometimes hind-sight sneaks up and stabs you in the back like a grumpy UFO ninja pirate. In this case, I have been holding an inner-debate for the past few weeks as to whether I should include the 28D/WLater series in my inventory. Why?
Simple … I’m not 100% convinced that these are zombie films.
In the 28-series the threat is from rage infected people and my impression is that these people become dead and continue to be animated as a result of the infection; further they are never shown as dead who are reanimated by the virus. Like the films Quarantine and Carriers, the 28D/WL-series are infection films, not zombie films. So why have I left them in my review? For that matter, why are the Evil Dead and Army Of Darkness films in my review, too?
Again, the answer is ‘Simple‘ . . .
I like them, and this is my webpage — I can do what I want.
Maybe as zombie-film fans we need to question, though, “Do zombies have to be dead?” In VooDoo zombieism commonly is about a person who is controlled under the spell of another and during that time they are mindless, but they are not dead. The zombie genre is largely not defined, so perhaps there is room for an infection of some sort to make living people zombies. In other words, so long as people are mindless and functioning, they can be zombies … now zombieism can include office workers, managers, politicians, die-hard pot-heads, and sleep-deprived parents with newborns.
That said …
If you dislike my “It’s my webpage and I can do what I want” attitude, trust me, it’s better than having a grumpy UFO ninja pirate sneak up and stab you in the back … particularly when they have bad breath.
28 Days Later (2002)
I came to own a copy of 28 Days Later by accident and I couldn’t be happier! My rating for this film is Green Ooze and it can be found on my list of BagpiperDon’s Favourite Zombie Movies.
While I won’t give away the ending to a film — and, in this case, I won’t give you the exact beginning either — but the film really starts when Jim, a bike-messenger, wakes up from a coma in an abandoned Emergency Room. He has to figure out the enigma of where everyone is, and what happened 28 days earlier after he got hit by a car in London. Zombie
This was my first introduction to Cillian Murphy and I’ve come to love his work. This was also my first introduction to Naomie Harris — who I’ve come to love … her work. You also get to see the work of the fabulous Brendan Gleeson. All together directed by Danny Boyle , 28 Days Later goes for your throat, your heart, and chases you down dark alleys of humanity. Zombie
This was the first time I saw fast moving zombies, and for me that really CRANKS UP the threat level — the shambling thing never really did it for me. Apparently the shamble-vrs-fast thing is a debate among zombie fans — and I can see both sides of it, but after seeing fast I think I know what side of the fence I fall on…
I’ve heard that the part-2 film “28 Weeks Later” is a warm-over of the original film, but I still want to see it. There is also a graphic novel or two out there that further tell the story which I’d like to get my hands and eyes on — so the next time you’re wondering what to get BagpiperDon for his birthday, Xmas, celebration of next album release, etc … now you know. Zombie
Links
- IMDB
- Wikipedia
- Further proof that 28 Days Later is AWESOME — here’s the review at RottenTomatoes.com
Hard Rock Zombies (1985)
I like bad film… but not this bad. Hard Rock Zombies is rated dark Red Blood and is the film that inspired me to start my list of Zombie Films Avoid.
I picked up a copy of Hard Rock Zombies a handful of years back while in a liquidation store for maybe $5. It was on a DVD that had 3 zombie films — Night of the Living Dead, Hard Rock Zombies, and another title I can’t remember right now. Out of the three films, this one is such a POS that I think the other two films each cost half of the total price and HRZ was thrown in for free — because this is the only way the folks who produced this film could get anyone to take a copy home.
Watching this film I get the impression that the producers and crew and the whole lot behind the film normally produce and shoot 1980s porn films. In this case they got together outside of their usual work to do something different, or maybe they were trying to get a foothold in another part of the film industry other than porn.
The audio is bad, the songs are bad, the love affair between the lead-singer of the band and the local girl who seems underage clearly verges on having a pedophile element … maybe the only good thing about this is the outrageousness that someone thought to have a zombie film that included Hitler and Nazis.
BOTTOM LINE
Do Not Waste Your Time With This Film
I like bad film but this was so much of a train-wreck that I could only stand to watch it in 10-15 minute intervals. It’s not one of those “It’s so bad it’s good” things — NO — it’s just outright BAD!
Links
- IMDB
- Rotten Tomatoes
- HRZ reviewed at SomeThingAwful.com
Day of the Dead (2008)
This Day Of The Dead remake of George A. Romero’s original 1985 film could be a called a cross between 28 Days Later and the 2009 version of The Crazies. From the start the action ramps up, and 30 minutes in it stays constant — intense gore-fest. The zombies are high speed, a bit super-human, and the humans consist of recognizable actors beginning their careers — all with no gratuitous displays of possibly-future-famous-breasts (they’re nice, but it just gets old in zombie films). This piece showed me a few new things to z-films, and the story-line didn’t particularly take any leaps, however I did have a few beefs…
I thought it odd that upon the point an infected human turns into a zombie that they instantly fester sores and rotted skin.
I might be okay with the zombies having slightly super-human strength, but a Spiderman-like ability to stick to walls/ceilings was a over the top — if they’re going to do that, I would have preferred to see that they had the strength to dig their fingers in and hold-on.
Toward the end two survivors who where military broke into a civilian firearms store — there are a few problems with this…..
Usually gun stores are highly secure, you don’t just push the door open
I would have preferred that the film made the weapons realistic. Civilian versions of military style weapons are only available in semi-automatic, not full-auto (semi-auto: you pull the trigger and the gun fires once, commonly &/or intentionally incorrectly called an ‘assault weapon’ / full-auto: the weapon continues to fire as long as you hold the trigger AKA a machine gun).
Whatever its strengths or weaknesses, I rate the remake of Day Of The Dead as Green Ooze and it was formerly on my Top 10 list.
Links
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSjJZCiQN-M