the jaded viewer

Zombie Hunters: City of the Dead (TV Series)

Zombie Hunters: City of the Dead (TV Series) (2008)

Directed by Patrick Davaney

The zombie-mania thats been plaguing America is a hit or miss thing. For every Rec there is a Diary of the Dead. For every 28 Days Later, there is a Automaton Transfusion.

But now its infected the independent world of cinema and the horror community.

After touring Chiller, I stumbled upon a booth of geared up soldiers ready to blow up shit. And they were offering something I've never heard of.

A zombie TV show.

Well that's new. A NYC production, they gave their sales pitch. We discussed the POV horror I hate so much and they laid out what they were all about. Hmmm. So I forked over some cash and bought myself a DVD of the first 4 episodes of Zombie Hunters - City of the Dead.

I support the indie horror scene. I was once a zombie on a low budget short film in college. You gotta give props to people willing to take a risk and make something they hope horror-lings will appreciate.

Well it's got heart.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

ZOMBIE HUNTERS is a show of modern horror. It details the lives of Billy Cassidy and his group of friends and family, all trying to survive the re-awakening of the dead in New York City.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

The first feeling I got when watching ZH was like watching a living adaptation of a chapter in Max Brook's World War Z which is one of the best books about zombies...EVAR!!

World War Z told different stories of people's experience during the Zombie War. Each perspective gave you a view of what it was like and how people survived.

ZH, if somehow was jigsawed into WWZ was an interesting take on how New Yorkers would handle such a situation. Would we all take up arms and go all militia? Would we wait for the government to send troops to save us. Or would we make our house or apartment a fortress and build a fuckin moat?

Episode 1

The pilot was a quick intro to the main characters. Billy Cassidy our main anti-hero and his 2 friends Bates and Denworth. With the help of 2 doctors they save a couple who seem to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Episode 2

2 of our ZHs have to save a girl lost in the woods. Solid entrails eating and gratuitous headshots.

Episode 3

We get an intro to how the 2 doctors joined the team as they are attacked in a hospital.

Episode 4

The ZH's try to buy guns from a survivalist militia group and shit hits the fan.

The zombies are your generic, slow moving, very fuckin dumb, oozing guts, very pale zombies (fuck frenetic zombies!). Lots of moody music and trash metal are met with quick surreal shots that go for tone and atmosphere. Think lots of darkness and 60 watt lighting.

As low budget as ZH's is, it tries to give you that sense of dread of living in a world where the dead have come back to life. They hunt the dead in abandoned buildings, backwoods and dark streets. The suspense is littered but sometimes it dragged way too long.

The 3 main actors were all solid and gave decent performances. It was like talking to your friends at a BBQ but with zombies. A few cameo performances were outright horrible ranging from the distressed couple to a mom worrying about her daughter. Total spazzing wooden acting and outright reading your line performances, I could only wince.

But it's the zombie violence that bulks up Zombie Hunters. Back to the basics, Savini style, very minimal CGI gore and splatter. Headshots galore, finger flesh eating, intestine munching and white wall blood splatter.

It's that effort that makes up for the shortcomings of ZH.

And that's where the heart comes in. Zombie Hunters is ambitious, splicing in a TV newscast every episode complete with news anchors and "on the street" interviews which I found very entertaining.

The scope and landscape they wanted to accomplish may have been over ambitious but they pushed and pushed to make a horror TV show they wanted to make. And that's pure heart. A heart covered with blood, intestines and guts.

You gotta love it.



Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)

Headshots galore
Finger flesh eating
Intestine munching
Beheadings
Lots of zombie annihilation

Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)

Nada

WTF moment

2 doctors fucking up a zombie

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

A few of the episodes are on YouTube. There have been worse low budget zombie epics than Zombie Hunters. There have also been better efforts.

This falls somewhere in the middle. If you still haven't gotten your fill of Romero, check it out.

Rating:

The Trailer





Tags:
Zombie Hunters, Zombie Hunters - City of the Dead , american horror splatter gore , zombies, george romero, zombie tv show, indie horror, gore

Labels: george romeo, indepentent horror, zombie hunters, zombie hunters city of the dead, zombie hunters review, zombie tv show, zombies

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

What do Dean Cain, Brooke Burns and Meatloaf have in common?

Well they were all in the same horror movie together. A movie called Urban Decay.

And it seems this movie is becoming a Hollywood B-flick urban legend of shit hitting the fan.

The movie from what I can gather at the IMDB message boards will probably never see the light of day as it seems the producers never paid the Teamsters and any of the actors and production crew. The producers ran off with the fuckin money.

That's just messed up.

The disgruntled crew want everybody to boycott the movie, but that shouldn't be hard if it never gets released.

So all we're left with is some sort of badly written plot by some screenwriting waiter and a goofy trailer of what could have been.

Plot-o-rama (yay Wikipedia)

Cab driver Stan slams into a homeless man, who gets up and walks away, leaving behind a scarf covered with writhing maggots. Obsessed with the mystery, Stan hunts the ragtag figure through the city, discovering a trail of mangled, half-eaten victims, and an urban legend : Pusshead was a sewer worker who came back from an uncharted tunnel changed into something both living and dead. Parents warn their children that the shuffling zombie will get them if they stay out on the streets too late... But as the body count rises, Stan finds that the legend is alive and well... hungry.

We could have actually seen a homeless zombie killing Brooke Burns (who would have taken her place as co-host of Hole in the Wall?)

Check out the trailer






Tags:
Urban Decay , american horror , Urban Decay trailer , dean cain, brooke burns naked, gratuitous nudity, meatloaf, zombies, horror movies 2008, zombies urban legend,

Labels: b movies, b-movie, Brooke Burns, Dean Cain, homeless zombies, horror movies 2008, Meatloaf, Urban Decay, Urban Decay trailer, zombies

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Perusing the trailers on other horror sites is part of the deal when running the jaded viewer. I only post trailers I find interesting.

So you won't see trailers for Saw V or some other Hollywood crap.

What you will see is the promotional teaser trailers for Gorehound Canned Film's Worst Case Scenario. Seems like the $$$ they we're getting from our pussy American companies fell thru, but I think they're now geared up and ready to go.

Yay for our Euro splatter counterparts across the pond.

The plot is making us gorehounds salivate....

This horror movie centers on the common friction between neighboring countries. It's a global phenomenon, and even in peaceful Western Europe you will find old grudges. If you dig deep enough.

In the final of the World Championship soccer games Holland and Germany are going to war. An American on a personal quest antagonizes a group of hooligans that chase him to a North Sea island. There awaits an opponent in a league of its own.

Aquatic Nazi Ghoul Zombies.

Nuff said.

Actually, that's not all. We get some awesome promo trailers!

Check both of them out below.

Promo Trailer #1





Promo Trailer #2







Tags:
worst case scenario, worst case scenario promo trailer , aquatic nazi ghouls , nazi zombies, gratuitous nudity, german zombies, 2008 horror movies, top 10 horror movies of 2009,horror movie 2008, zombies,

Labels: aquatic nazi ghouls, german zombies, nazi zombies, worst case scenario, worst case scenario trailer, zombies

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Everybody has seen Lucio Fulci's Zombi. It's a cult classic. I can watch this film over and over again. From the opening scene of a empty boat drifting in the New York harbor with chubby zombie to the quirky characters who make there way to the mysterious island of Matool, it's the penultimate classic of zombie zen.

So at last I've dedicated this list to maestro Fulci and below are the jaded viewer's top 5 scenes in Zombi.

Frak you! On to the list!

5.)"Moshing Zombies"

Why it kicks ass: This is the pseudo ending as it's our heroes and heroine vs zombies. I call them moshing zombies because they've all decided to clump up and "mosh" as they try to enter. The Zombi theme is in full effect and we get penty 'o headshots. Zombies are on fire are always hilarious.

And without a doubt....could you put a bullet in the brain of your now zombie friend?



4.) "Zombies walk over Brooklyn Bridge"

Why it kicks ass: It's the last scene. The radio broadcast is ominous and freaky. And there walking over the fuckin bridge and shit's about to hit the fan for all New Yorkers. Everybody run to the Bronx. Good Times.



3.) "Conquistador Zombie rises" (1:27-2:32)

Why it kicks ass: I call this zombie "conquistador zombie", just because I think he was a conquistador. Fuck...he's on the cover of the box so he'd have to be on the list. Best part is the woman's reaction as she waits for whats seems like 20 minutes for the zombie to rise from his grave (which seems to be like 1 foot deep) and get bitten in a bloody gore-ific neck trauma. Poor zombie dude was "alive" for like 3 minutes then gets hs brain split in 2. Poor conquistador zombie.



2.) "Zombie vs Shark"

Why it kicks ass: One of the 2 famous scenes from Zombi 2. You'll never see a zombie vs a shark ever again......right? Zombi theme kicks ass and this scene is like 500 minutes long. And there's no definitive winner!



1.) "Ocular Trauma"

Why it kicks ass: The setup is hot. Blonde babe finishes taking a shower, hears groaning, then zombies attack. As she gets pulled into the wooden splinter, you think we'd cut away like some shitty Hollywood PG-13 gutter trash flick but WE DON'T. We see the eye go right on through. We see the eye with the splinter in it and we see the eye get ripped apart. Beautiful ocular trauma. An eye gouging for the ages. Beautiful....I'm going to cry.






Tags:
zombi 2, top 5 scenes in zombi 2 zombie , lucio fulci , zombie vs shark, jadedviewer, , zombie ocular trauma, zombie eye gouging, gore splatter new york,

Labels: eye gouging, lucio fulci, moshing zombies, ocular trauma, top 5 scenes in lucio fulci's zombi 2, top 5 scenes in zombi 2, zombi 2, zombi 2 ending, zombie vs shark, zombies

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

There are a lot of zombie movies that have come out of late.

Diary of the Dead, Day of the Dead remake, Automaton Tranfusion, American Zombie, blah blah blah.

It's like a zombie movie is being made every minute of every day. Some are just crappy and some are darn tootin pretty good.

But below are 5 zombie movies that you probably never heard of. (OK maybe some of you have, but I know for a fact, you've forgotten). They are all from different countries which give their take on the zombie sub genre.

Thnks to YouTube, you can check out the trailers and decide if you want to go into the zombie vault and check out these flicks.

On to the list!

5.) Shatter Dead (1994)

Prognosis: Really bad amateurish zombie flick with some decent splatter and gore.



4.) Junk (aka Shiryo-gari) (2000)

Prognosis: Zombie movie from Japan thats part Reservoir Dogs part Dawn of the Dead. It's pretty over the top and filled with gore-tastic splatter.



3.) Plaga Zombie: Zona Mutante (2001)

Prognosis: Low budget zombie movie from Argentina thats part Evil Dead and filled with decapitations and green oozing blood. Like Brain Dead but in Spanish.



2.) The Dead Next Door (1988)

Prognosis: Rare American zombie film about a government zombie squad in Akron, Ohio. Lots of Savini-ish gore and very 80s in that Return of the Living Dead sorta way.



1.) Dellamorte Dellamore (aka Cemetary Man) (1994)

Prognosis: Italian zombie movie from horror director Michele Soavi starring Rupert Everett and a very naked Anna Falchi. An undertaker gets the job of killing zombies when they come back to life. This is actually an awesome flick, Guillermo del Toro-ish but with lots of crosses through the head. Good times.







Tags:
zombies, top 5 zombie movies you've never heard of , shatter dead , junk zombies, plaga zombie zona mutante, the dead next door, cematary man, dellamorte dellamore, top zombie movies, diary of the dead,

Labels: cematary man, dellamorte dellamore, junk, plaga zombie zona mutante, shatter dead, the dead next door, top 5 zombie movies you've never heard of, zombies

Posted by the jaded viewer at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Automaton Transfusion

Automaton Transfusion (2006)

Directed by Steven C. Miller

I've been watching way too many zombie films.

I really should step away from the genre for a while. But with the Day of the Dead remake out as well as Zombie Strippers, I decided to view Automaton Transfusion.

Well that wasn't a good idea.

Straight out of the Dimension Extreme label, and hyped on the dvd cover as "One of the best zombie films in decades" by Bloody Disgusting, I figured it was worth a try.

The thing about Steven Miller's $30,000 indie horror flick, is that its a $30k flick. And it's got fast moving zombies which I absolutely hate.

So those 2 things just doomed this from the beginning.

Plot-o-matic tell us that 3 high school friends, Chris, Scott and Tim are heading to the city to see a rock band when their town in Florida goes all Romero. Zombies are rampant (no explanation for this at all until the end - which begs the question why tell us the plot at the end of the FRAKIN movie?).

The zombies are on the move attacking the residents of Whatever City, USA. The gore and splatter are top, over the top and beyond infinity awesome. A scene where a girl's jaw is ripped apart is gorely, brilliantly executed and a scene of ocular trauma is a great homage to Master Fulci.

There is an Evil Dead moment which climaxes the movie and the end blatantly boasts a To Be Continued establishing a most definite sequel.

Most of these moments and scenes are well done for an amateur film school production. With a bigger budget I see this crew doing some good things.

But alas, for Automaton Transfusion, the lack of good acting, any suspenseful scenes of mass zombies and gun shots that look like over zealous paintballs rounds make it MST3K worthy.

Even at 80 minutes, its still too long.

Kudos to the effort but I've seen countless zombie movies do what AT does. And unless you put zombies in some new location I've never seen before, it's been there, done that.

I really really need to stop watching zombie movies.

Rating:

Tags:
Automaton Transfusion, Automaton Transfusion review , day of the dead remake , fast moving zombies, zombies, , independent horror, florida, horror zombies 2008,

Labels: automaton transfusion, automaton transfusion review, fast moving zombies, indepentent horror, zombies

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:25 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

American Zombie

American Zombie (2007)

Directed by Grace Lee

Tired of zombies yet?

Well with the soon to be released Day of the Dead remake on the horizon, this little mockumentary takes the ease off of the gore, splatter, rapid gunfire Romero-topia we've all gotten use to.

Plot-o-matic tell us that real life documenary filmmakers Grace Lee and John Solomon (playing themselves) decide to make a documentary on zombies.

It seems zombies or "revenants" have become a growing populace in Los Angeles but are suffering the pitfalls of any fringe group in our society. They all are trying to live normal lives but they are discriminated, shunned and mocked.

The "ha ha" moment comes in the different types of zombies. Feral, low-functioning and high-functioning. The virus that creates the living dead is spread through bites and the documentary explores 4 distinct zombies, their lives and concludes with a visit to the annual Live Dead festival.

Got all that?

American Zombie is like playing Ro-Sham-Bo (aka Rock, S, Paper).

Let's dig further shall we using this analogy.




Rock

American Zombie rocks in the way of humor. And the humor pours out of the 4 main zombies we follow throughout the flick. Ivan, the zombie slacker, Judy the Asian zombie, cat loving, lonely vegan, Joel the militant, zombie activist and Lisa the string art void, florist.

Spinal Tap-ish and even Michael Moore-ish with its oozing sarcasm, the zombie jokes are a plenty like in a scene as Solomon seaches for "human flesh" in each subject's fridge. All the zombies are unique and quirky with personalities that are outright nuts. They all could be non zombies and it still would be hypnotic to watch.

Ivan the 7-11 slacker undead dude has a girlfriend with a zombie fetish (I mean even famous convicts have groupies right?). Judy's obssessive scrapbooking hobby and Joel's Zombie Advocacy Group are right on in the world of the Guiness Book of the Weird.


The satire is SMACK in your face. Obviously, Lee is telling us zombies represent any minority in America whose been shunned, downtrodded (is that a word?) and forgotten. All minorities have rights and want to be treated as equal even if your rotting away and have maggot infested wounds. It's different to see this done with the undead and thats why it rocked.

Scissors

It's a cut above any zombie movie that uses zombies as a metaphor (ahem Mr. Romero). The conclusion at the Live Dead festival and it's "shocking" twist was well Nostradamused by me 10 minutes into the movie. However, American Zombie tried to figure out what it wanted to be scene after scene. Comedy, Moore-ish seriousness or horror. In the end, it went the serious-horror route.

Paper

The paper analogy comes in the blankness of it all. A pseudo documentary can accomplish satire and be funny all at the same time. The ending was blank of satire and turned into a cliched horror of the dead ending. The engine started running but by the conclusion, American Zombie ran out of gas.

So where was I going with this?

Oh yeah. American Zombie is a great flick, with some scattered flaws and good amount of laughs.
Just like Ro-Sham-Bo, I didn't know what was going to be thrown. Rock? Paper? Scissors?

I thought it was going to be rock.

Paper....definitely paper.

Nah, it's gonna be scissors for sure.

You tell me.

Rating:

Tags:
american zombie, american zombie review , day of the dead remake , george romero, zombie documentary satire, , zombie advocacy group, grace lee, horror zombies 2008,

Labels: american zombie, american zombie review, day of the dead, grace lee, mockumentary, revenants, romero, roshambo, zombie advocacy group, zombies

Posted by the jaded viewer at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Ryuhei Kitamura first burst into the horror radar scene with his ultimate zombie/yakuza movie Versus. His popularity soared with Azumi and he finally got on the Hollywood scene by directing the last Godzilla film: Gojira: Final Wars.

Now, he's teamed up with Clive Barker to bring us Midnight Meat Train, a horror movie where a New York photographer hunts down a serial killer in the subways of NYC.

The trailer looks like a bad J-Horror movie but if 2 people can pull off a soon to be cult favorite it's Barker and Kitamura.

Check out the trailer for Midnight Meat Train.

Labels: azumi, clive barker, godzilla, gojira final wars, midnight meat train trailer, ryuhei kitamura, versus, yakuza, zombies

Posted by the jaded viewer at 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Diary of the Dead

Diary of the Dead (2008)
Directed by George A. Romero

Cloverfield with Zombies.

Oh George. Where were you trying to go with this one?

Suffice it to say, I didn't enjoy DOTD. The overall film didn't give me a happy like Land of the Dead where George with his all star cast and special effect zombie gore was like a good meal.

Here are my gripes in no particular order.

1.) 1st person perspective/multiple camera shooting type movies

I'm beginning to hate this film device with a passion. Cloverfield did it and it made me sick. Here the film is edited together from shot footage and for a zombie movie, this just doesn't work. The threat of zombies is seeing them in large masses. That's scary shit. They may be slow but in huge numbers your going to shit in your pants. The movie doesn't need this FPS type device to make it work. George could have made it without this crap and it would have been way better

2.) These characters suck and the acting was horrible

NYU-film school hipsters are worse than NYU hipsters being chased by a monster.

These characters are very badly written.

Jason (the director guy): Yo, you really gotta film everything? Seriously? I mean put the fuckin camera down and help your friends before they get eaten

Debra (the survival girl): She is a spitting image of Eliza Dushku. So annoying with her "I need to save my family" crap. I really wanted her brains eaten.....slowly.

Tony (a dude): ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Tracy (hot Texan girl): She barely got naked.

Mary (victim girl): The "where's the religion" perspective

Maxwell (the snotty drunk teacher): ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. He can shoot arrows really well.
Mummy guy, other director guy, etc.

I wanted all of these characters to die. All of them. I hated all of them.
They were actually worse than the Cloverfield hipsters.
That says a fuckin lot.

3.) Missing: Gore Gore Splatter Gore

A couple of good gore moments. Sickle through the face. Gunshots to the head are always good. Arrow through the head. Acid through the brain. And that was it?

George, we know you don't fail us with the gore and splatter. It's what we love your movies for. But where was it here? I hate this CGI zombie kill gore. It just doesn't look real. We need Savini (I can't believe I wrote that). We need good ole fashion blood pumps and pig intestines.

That was a monumental failure in this movie. Without gore and splatter and blood, it's not a zombie movie.

Where were the scenes of zombies just munching and lunching? I paid $11 to see that shit.

Finally............

4.) The satire doesn't need to be explained to me through a voiceover

Horror fans are smart. We appreciate satire in our horror.

We got it. We didn't need it explained to us.

Night was about the plight of blacks in America, Dawn was a crack at consumerism, Day was a reflection on the corruption of power and Land was about classism and how through the most dire of circumstances the status quo somehow remains the same.

Diary is of course about how technology and media separate ourselves from reality and the world we live in.

George, we didn't need Debra telling this us in monologue voiceover. We didn't need those scenes explaining to us that he's shooting the film but not taking part in it.

We get it. You kind of made me mad and assumed I wouldn't get it.

But that didn't save the movie.

Only George would do an homage to his own Night of the Living Dead in Diary.

Diary at the end of the day is perceived as a zombie movie with a gimmick. Romero is of course the creator and he can take his zombie-verse anywhere he wants to.

I just think he took a wrong turn on this one.

Rating:

Tags:
horror movie review, George A Romero Diary of the Dead , american horror splatter gore , zombies, george romero, hipsters dying, romero satire diary of the dead, gore

Labels: american horror, diary of the dead, first person, george romeo, gore, hipsters dying, satire, splatter, zombies

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post