"Argento's Dracula 3D" (2012) d/ Dario Argento

Whether you call it Woptober or Italo-ween (we transcend all petty labels here), it looks as though we're wrapping up another successful one tonight with an Argento review, and his three dimensional take on the most infamous vampire of all, in Dracula 3-D, his 2012 effort. I shouldn't have to tell you by now that you won't be enjoying Suspiria or Tenebre level Argento when you sit down to watch this one, and expecting as much from it is naivete' on the viewer's part, and I'd like to think the vast majority of my subscribers are above such "fresh out of the package" thought processes. Though nobody with functional eyes will mistake it for top shelf Dario, the fact remains: even his shlockiest mediocrity is still heads and tails over seventy-five percent of the scareless copycat dreck that pollutes today's horror scene.


Here's a majestic pair of real D's you wanna see in RealD 3D.
After an ill-advised fling on Walpurgis Night, at the foot of the Carpathians, next to a village called Passo Borgo (Borgo Pass? Carpathian mountains? Walpurgis Night? Why not just have sex in Crystal Lake on Friday the 13th, ferchrissakes, you idiotic peasants), busty Tania (Miriam Giovanelli) is dispatched by an animate shadow in the night. Meanwhile, a librarian named Jonathan Harker (Unax Ugalde) arrives in the village on business dealings with a resident nobleman named Count Dracula (Thomas Kretschmann) after briefly visiting Lucy (Asia Argento), the mayor's daughter and best friend to his wife, Mina (Marta Gastini). At the castle, he's greeted by Tania (aren't you dead?), who unsuccessfully tries to seduce him into a quick bite, but Drac rolls in like ants at a picnic and steals the vampiric vixen's vital fluids out from under her pretty little undead nose. Jonathan survives the fanging, if only long enough to attempt an escape, which might have worked if the Count couldn't metamorphosize into a fucking wolf. Just sayin'.


"Arrrgh! You Tom and Jerry-ed me!!!"
Of course, while Mina is in the village visiting Lucy, her best friend falls prey to the ancient blood-sipper, leading the concerned wife to pay a call to Dracula's stony digs to inquire about her husband. At the castle, she finds herself under the influence of the vampire, who has orchestrated the eerie events thus far, just to get close to Mina, who's a dead ringer for a centuries old flame he's never forgotten. Around this time, Van Helsing (Rutger fucking Hauer!) makes the scene, familiar with the tell-tale signs of rampant blood drinkery, and preparing to go knuckle up with his pale nemesis once and for all. While he's putting an end to Tania at Drac's pad, the Count pays the villagers a visit, paying them all back with violent death for renegging on the pact they had struck with him. I'm pretty sure you've got an idea how this story wraps up, more or less, and even if you don't, you're still gonna have to score a copy to find out for yourselves. Happy Halloween!


I'm familiar with Northern and Southern Mantis styles, but Transylvanian Mantis?
Like most of his modern era efforts, at least as far back as Opera (1987), Argento's work is uneven here in delivering the vampiric goods; slowly paced, handicapped by embarrassing cgi effects, and a pedestrian script that's mostly unfaithful to Bram Stoker's famous novel, though his obvious visual tributes to previous genre masters like Bava and Margheriti (and more so, Hammer movies of the fifties and sixties as evidenced by the costumes, locations, beautiful women, bountiful breasts, and fake blood),  are not wasted on your humble critic-at-large. It still pains me to a certain degree to declare a movie by the "Italian Hitchcock" a middling interpretation of the immortal horror classic, having been such a huge fan of his work most of my life. In Draculean measurement, it falls somewhere around the Frank Langella and Jack Palance versions, well behind Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi, and Klaus Kinski, but miles above Gary Oldman's take, in my honest opinion. It still boggles my mind how anybody digs that one, I left the theater well pissed afterwards. As for this one, give it a look for yourselves...


This is Dracula's polite way of telling you that your head sucks.

"Demoni 2" (1986) d/ Lamberto Bava

Remember how much fun you had the first time you saw Lamberto Bava's schizophrenic cult classic, Demons(1985)? Well, Team Dario wasted little time in banging out a sequel, hoping to cash in on the international success of their original effort, and that's almost never a good sign, right out of the gate. Sure, there's contagion-spreading demoniac mayhem at every juncture, as crafted by the maestro Stivaletti, and fan favorite Bobby Rhodes returns in an almost identical capacity, and Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni lends her inimitably adorable pouty persona as teenaged catalyst to the on-screen madness, but the results fall well short of the first film's vigor in the end. Still, you could do a lot worse...


"Fix this earring for me, I'm gonna do the Molly Ringwald all goddamned night!"
Sally(Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni) ducks out of her Sweet 16 birthday party only to get caught up watching a documentary on television about that big outbreak of demons a few years back, you remember that, don't you? A group of amateur thrill-seekers scales the high security wall of 'the forbidden zone', where the contagion had been contained, but, after stumbling upon a frozen demon corpse while inside, the investigators unwittingly reanimate the homely fellow, who takes it upon himself to kill the lot of them and dramatically break out of the television screen, infecting Sally, who's too startled to resist, in the process. Naturally, she spreads the evil to her party guests through her fingernails, letting them know that the 'floppily dancing  around her high rise apartment to The Smiths and Peter Murphy' segment of her get together has officially ended.


"She watched that documentary on television in a highrise apartment building, GET IT?!!?" barks Tony th-errr, I mean, Hank the Personal Trainer (Bobby Rhodes).
The newly-transformed demons spill out of the young girl's apartment, rushing to infect the entire populace of the building after a collective bleed burns through the floor Alien(1979)-style and knocks out the power, leaving salvation this time around to George (David Knight) and his pregnant spouse, Hannah ( Nancy Brilli), as they join with Bobby the Pimp's identical twin, Hank (Bobby Rhodes), who's been pumping iron in the building's gym and also quite adept at battling back the belligerent baddies.Little boys turn into bloodthirsty demons, hell, even family dogs transform into demons here. An embarrassing winged imp puppet with visible strings  terrorizes the expectant mother-to-be. A little girl (Asia Argento, in her debut) watches helplessly as her father is swarmed by demons as the struggle moves to the parking garage. George and Hannah decide to make their way to the roof, finally infiltrating the mysterious self-sufficient television station that started the epidemic, but demonic Sally does her best to stop the couple from escaping. She fails and eats half-blinded impalement death. Hannah gives birth. The baby isn't a demon. Is it finally all over? Of course not.


They grow up right before your eyes, don't they?
Lino Salemme ( the unforgettable coke-snorting 'Ripper' from the original ) makes a nice cameo here, playing a security guard this time around, and Virginia Bryant is on board as a classy call girl. The soundtrack is handled by Simon Boswell, with a few memorable cuts, but for me, the Simonetti metal score of the original wins out, hands down. Michele Soavi's La Chiesa (1989), originally intended as a second Demons sequel, would follow, and Bava would helm the made-for-tv The Ogre in 1988, which would be known as Demons III: The Ogre stateside, and even Umberto Lenzi's Black Demons(1991) was released as Demons III in several countries. This entry earns itself two wops, a flawed but enjoyable effort.


"Don't post that one to FB, you missed our collective sideways peace signs and duckfaces!"

"La terza madre"(2007)d/Dario Argento

It's horribly trendy these days to begrudgingly dismiss the post-Opera(1987) films of Dario Argento, and, sadly, in many instances I wouldn't argue against it, as the maestro of the genre, the 'Italian Hitchcock' himself, who has seen the highest highs the medium can reach while achieving legendary status, hit a streak of mediocrity for the first time in his career with lackluster offerings like Trauma(1993), Phantom of the Opera(1998), and Il cartaio(2004).Rest assured, folks, Dario's coda in the 'three mothers' trilogy, some twenty years in the making and multiple re-writes later, does not qualify as one of those.Instead, watching 'Madre' had the opposite effect on me, much like running into an old flame after decades have passed, and though she might not look or feel the same, you still experience fleeting moments of bliss the same way you used to way back when, making the brief liason worth your while.Dario's lens moves as fluidly as ever, like a living entity, in framing some of the most vulgar imagery he's endeavored to visualize yet(as gleefully fabricated by FX wiz Sergio Stivaletti); on-screen infanticides, asphyxiation with one's own entrails, and butcher cleaver face-hackings all outlandishly transpire in the oft-delirious, witch-laden narrative.His provocatively beautiful daughter, Asia purveys strength and weakness as a lead who suddenly finds herself orbited by primordial evil, supported, in part, by genre icons like Udo Kier, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, and Daria Nicolodi, as well as the less-familiar faces of Israeli actress Moran Atias, as Mater Lachrymarum, and late Japanese director, Jun Ichikawa, in a cameo.The visuals are suitably complimented by an effectively bombastic score from Claudio Simonetti, of Goblin/Daemonia fame, laced with familiarly spooky yesteryear riffs juxtaposed against an evolving, progressive staff.It's safe to venture that the maestro's disdain for three-line reviews could never extend to my realm.Forwards into the spoiler-ridden synopsis, I say.

Coralina deve sempre soffrire molto.Sfortunata ragazza!
After unearthing the coffin of a 19th century church official and uncovering a mysterious ornately decorated urn, padlocked and chained shut with metal crosses in the process, the clergy quickly ship the urn off to the Museum of Ancient Art in Rome, with growing fear that it may contain the effects of Mater Lachrymarum(Moran Atias), or 'The Mother of Tears', the last surviving member of an ancient trio of legendarily diabolical witches known as 'The Three Mothers'.Giselle(Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni), the assistant curator, soon finds that it does, indeed, whereupon breaking the wax seal and removing effigies of the witches and a ceremonial garb from the vessel, she's immediately set upon by the powerful witch's shadowy demonic cohorts, who punch her fronts out, and disembowel her, strangling her with her own innards(!), to the disbelief and horror of Sarah Mandy(Asia Argento), an American student studying art restoration that's been seeing the curator, Michael(Adam James).The terrified girl is ultimately aided in escaping from Lachrymarum's patrolling baboon familiar by a disembodied female voice that unlocks the exits to the darkened building.Once the artifacts are in the witch's possession, her negative influence affects all in her wake as witches from all over the world flamboyantly gather for a coming celebration, with random people suddenly compelled to beat, rape, and murder each other in the streets.While Michael's subsequent investigation gets his son kidnapped by the cultists, who remind the curator about the ancient 'silentium' vow taken by the architect who constructed the three witches' domains in separate locations, by writing the Latin warning in the boy's blood on the headboard of his bed.Meanwhile, Sarah has dodged inquisitive detectives and spying spellcasters in befriending Marta(Valeria Cavalli), a white witch who was friends with the girl's mother, Elisa(Daria Nicolodi), a powerful white witch herself, killed with her husband in a car crash caused by Mater Suspiriorum years earlier, who's been materializing before her daughter to help her realize her own powers in this dire hour for all of humanity, a new age of magic.

"Accccckkk!!Zumwahn hass sliced open my ssssroat and now ze blutt is cumming aut!"
Lachrymarum erupts in a hateful blast of violence as the two women pool their psychic abilities to hone in on the frequently naked witch's Achilles heel, using sway over one of Padre Johannes'(Udo Kier) assistants to cause her to suddenly hack his face into shredded wheat with a meat cleaver then bissecting her own throat with the same bladed deathdealer, before the exorcist can give the women a tome explaining the witch's backstory.Her horned goons then bust in at Marta's, slaying the host and her sapphic roommate in particularly brutal and horrid fashion, sending Sarah into the waiting arms of Michael, who's been rendered a zombified puppet for the witch's black-hearted gain.This earns him a full-body dousal with kerosene and subsequent immolation-by-fire at the hands of his former lover, getting dragged off of this plane of existence, kicking and screaming, by Elisa, in a final act of assistance towards her daughter.Sarah seeks out and finds succor in Guglielmo De Witt(Philippe Leroy), a cautious old alchemist who unexpectedly paralyzes the girl to determine her magical alignment(at ease, you MMORPG dorks) before giving her a copy of 'The Three Mothers' to ascertain the whereabouts of Lachrymarum's secret lair: a voluminous dilapidated mansion that she descends upon with one of the detectives who'd been hunting her since her door slammed-head kill of one the final Mater's disciples on a train, earlier on.Inside one of the catacombs, the badge gets captured and chained up right next to De Witt and his assistant, both also hostage to the witch, who manages to capture Sarah, for good measure, as the alchemist's assistant turns his toes up after having had his arm lopped off.Lachrymarum orders her cannibalistic followers to eat the young woman(!), but she manages to snag the ancient witch's tunic on a spear, chucking it into a nearby fire, leaving the spellcaster, naked and screaming, to be impaled on a stalactite chunk in the ensuing earthquake that swallows the witch and her minions.Sarah and the detective trod through corpse-filled water to the surface, where they're both overcome by laughter at the horror they've both endured.

Asia, sei davvero una festa per i miei occhi.
I've watched the movie four times to date, making sure I was staunch in my feelings about it, which have fluctuated a bit from viewing to viewing, to be honest with you.The first time you experience the campy over-the-top finale, it probably won't sit well with you, until you've had the opportunity to drink it all in a few times, which the film does easily stand up to.I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that it becomes regarded as one of Argento's minor classics in years to come, and certainly one of the better recent offerings from Italy I've seen.I can now look forward to his upcoming take on Bram Stoker's Dracula in 3D with deserved excitement.Dario's unexpectedly chaotic vision may not be the destination you'd envisioned for the trilogy, but it's a wild and enjoyably welcome one, none-the-less, full of brutal gore, artistic flair, tumultuous turns, and campy performances from long-time favorites.On more than one occasion I found myself enveloped by vapors of deja vu that emanated from the screen and transported me back to the eighties and memories of glorious art-splatter from one of my all-time favorites, a true master artist.Three Wops.Bello vederti di nuovo, Dario.

Cherry street Friday nights, you couldn't beat 'em.

"La Chiesa"(1989)d/Michele Soavi

Ah,the lazy,crazy,hazy days of summer are upon us at last,droogies.Hook me up a comfy lounge chair,some grilled animal flesh,an AMP Big Rig,a fat quarter of Iraqi sativa,and some cigarettes,poolside with a bevvy of buxom brunettes in micro-bikinis to fan me down and pop grapes into my yap,and I'll meet you back here at the end of August.I had planned on kicking off the month of July here at the Wop sometime yesterday,but let's face it...I was far too twisted to attempt to type even one word for most of the day,all of the evening,and even most of the morning today.Ernest Hemingway,Keith Moon,Syd Barrett...bunch of Marys.Also,I've rethought my official stance on the "duck face phenomenon" currently sweeping teh interwebs,and come up with the following lone exception to the rule:Only acceptable if it's being made by Dai Green,and directed towards me.'At's more of a smoochy,kissy face than a mallard mouth,anyway,no?Go ahead and accuse me of bias,you think you'd be the first??Hahaha.Onwards.
Tonight we examine the film that was to be the second sequel to Lamberto Bava's Demoni(1985),produced by Dario Argento,and directed by Michele Soavi,with creature and gore set pieces served up by the maestro,Sergio Stivaletti,and a game cast that includes a pre-sultry teenaged Asia Aregento,Giovanni Lombardo Radice,Barbara Cupisti,Tomas Arana,an atmospheric,creepy score by Keith Emerson and Phillip Glass,with tracks by Goblin,and a screenplay collaborated on by Soavi,Argento,Dardano Sacchetti,Lamberto Bava,Franco Ferrini,and Fabrizio Bava.Soavi had grown tired of what he refers to as "Pizza Schlock" and strived to move beyond fare of this type here,and succeeds on several levels,in my opinion,displaying a visual flair that rivals Argento at his best,taking a serious approach on a series that unflinchingly threw the kitchen sink at the viewer prior to this entry with varying success,although there's still a whole helluva lot going on here,with several frames-in-tribute and excellent period and modern sequences adeptly handled by Argento's protégé,as expected.Released internationally as "The Church",tonight's film surpasses either of Bava's first two chapters,and stands on its own as a superlative slice of Italian genre from the eighties.

"We're looking to party heartily with young chicks bearing the stigmata...you in,baby?"
In medieval Italy,the Teutonic Knights stumble upon a little village of peasants,and acting on the word of an accuser,slay the men,women,children,and livestock(!)on the spot because one of the girls(Cupisti)bears the stigmata,or Devil's mark on her foot.A mass grave is dug for the victims of the religious purge,then sealed with a massive cross.Moving to modern day Italy,we see that an enormous gothic cathedral has been built on the cursed spot,where Evan(Arana) is beginning his job as librarian.Here,he meets Lisa(also Cupisti),who is restoring sections of the church's fading frescoes,and before you can say,In nomine Patris et fillii et Spiritus Sancti,they're grinding naughty bits together.Lisa discovers an ancient,yellowing scroll after breaking through a crumbling basement wall,which leads Evan to believe something is buried underneath the cathedral,upon translating the parchment.By dislodging the figure of a goat with eight eyes from the basement floor,he unwittingly unleashes demons upon the parishoners and clergy alike,and all Hell begins to break loose.The sacristan,whose hands are usually full with his teenaged daughter Lotte(Argento) sneaking out through secret passages to smoke cigarettes and boogie at local discotheques,becomes convinced he is really the Angel of Death(!),and accordingly runs himself through on a jackhammer(!!),triggering an ancient alchemist-built mechanism that seals off the lone exit to the cathedral,trapping the unleashed evil inside.

Whatever they're combining to form,it ain't Voltron,that's for sure.
There's a throng of victi,errr,people who find themselves on the wrong end of the massive sealed door,ranging from an elderly hip-talking elderly woman and her miserable mate,to an entire wedding fashion shoot,to a pair of motorcyclists,and everything in between,and the possessions and inventive deaths fly fast and furious from here on out with chaotic regularity.Lisa is visited at home by the Goat of Mendes himself,and after the old woman drags her husband up to the belltower,she severs his head and rings the bell with it(!),spouting groovy one-liners the whole way,the bikers dig their way down to a subway tunnel,and the female biker's face is pulverized against the windshield of an oncoming train like flaky oatmeal(!!),possessed schoolchildren prey upon their nearsighted teacher and each other,the main fashion model imagines she has aged prematurely and claws her own face to shreds(!!!).Amidst the madness Ol' Scratch has dreamed up for these unlucky bastards,there's a Satanic ceremony taking place in the basement,where Lisa is being offered to the dark lord and master himself,and a huge writhing orgy of people forming a horned monstrosity rises from the cracked cement below.Father Gus(Hugh Quarshie) enlists Lotte to help him escape the doomed structure through the secret passages in the church's catacombs.In the end the church collapses upon itself with only the sacristan's daughter surviving the modern day purge.She visits the site to place flowers in memory of her parents when some of the stone falls away to reveal a passage beneath.She looks down into the darkness and smiles.

I think Soavi likes Boris Vallejo.A lot.
Soavi,who shows up here as an uncredited policeman in black leather gloves(a tribute to Argento's gialli), would follow this up with La Setta(1990),which we'll be scrutinizing here very shortly,and Dellamorte,Dellamore(1994),arguably the greatest zombie film(and one of the greatest horror films) ever made,in my opinion.Quarshie went on to work in Highlander(1986) and Nightbreed(1990) before moving on to recurring UK telly work.Arana would also do Soavi's Setta the following year,as well as Last Temptation of Christ,Ridley Scott's Gladiator,and others.Cupisti worked on Fulci's Lo Squartatore di New York(1982)and Argento's Opera(1987),while Argento's daughter would go on to a fruitful acting career in all sorts of genres,most importantly,scoring a lead in George A. Romero's Land of the Dead in 2004,which we'll also be covering here soon.All in all,a solid effort from one of my favorite directors,with enough gore,chills,and solid performances to keep you glued to your favorite chair for a hundred or so minutes.I really can't wait to see what Soavi brings to the table next.This entry writhingly rises from the depths of the cathedral,with a three wopped goat leading the charge in the fight for immortal souls.Check it out!

"Pssst,Asia!Yeah,down here.We're giving out free vulva tattoos,you want one?"

"Land of the Dead"(2004)d/George A. Romero

Phew,it's hot enough to fry Mumia on the sidewalk out there today,kiddies.Too hot to do anything but sit in front of the fan in a wifebeater and drawers,praying for a quick and merciful death while looking at the garish nudes your collective mothers filled my inbox with overnight.If my face doesn't melt a la Raiders of the Lost Ark in the process,ole Dub'll try and sweat out a decent review for you little fuckers,by hook or crook.Facciamo cosi'!
I missed out on today's entry on its theatrical run,bogged down at the time with domestic stuffs,and I think it worked out for the best that way.Though I've never sit through the theatrical cut of the film,I had heard nothing but complaints and disappointment from my boys who'd braved the ten dollar cover and six dollar jujubes to bear witness to the long awaited cinematic return of Romero to his flesh-gnawing undead stomping grounds only to get expurgated goods.I waited for the uncut dvd release,and truthfully,I'm glad I did.I can't stand the way studios tend to edit the nuts out of a movie,especially one that relies as heavily on cazzies as Romero vehicles usually do.With the ehhh Zack Snyder Dawn remake and Edgar Wright's brilliant Shaun of the Dead paving the way for George's horrific homecoming,he obviously spent a good deal of time deciding which angle he was gona shamble in from this time around.With 1968's Night,and 1978's Dawn,the horror came from seeing your loved ones transform into a shuffling pile of rotting instinct,eager to eat the shit outta you if you were stupid enough to get surrounded by them.With tonight's entry,he's further blurred the battle lines of the zombie apocalypse,with human beings becoming more instinctual,and zombies gaining a degree of intelligence,and even moreso,humanity.So who deserves to inherit the earth when all is said and done,you ask?Who,indeed.

Asia slinking around in a fishnet body stocking.You'd have to be dead not to dig that shit.
With the world immersed in a zombie pandemic,the city of Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania is disharmoniously divided into the haves,who live luxuriously worry-free in Fiddler's Green,a high rise overseen by Paul Kaufman(Hopper),and the have-nots,who subsist on the city streets just inside the military barricade and the three rivers that separate them from the flesh-eating ghouls.Kaufman has built a huge armored tactical vehicle called "Dead Reckoning" that his soldiers use on recon missions into zombie-occupied areas to gather necessary supplies,and occasionally luxury items for the chairman and his board members.On such a mission,Riley Denbo(Simon Baker)notices that the zombies seem to be communicating amongst themselves,and the "sky flower" fireworks the vehicle emits into the air don't seem to be mesmerizing the ghouls in quite the same way as they once did.Denbo and his scarrified sidekick,Charlie(Robert Joy),plan to retire from duty,taking a car and driving into the Canadian wilderness,away from the militaristic madness and zombies altogether.When Riley discovers his car is missing from the garage that was housing it,the two men are forced to infiltrate the city's seedy vice district for answers.Inside,they save a hooker named Slack(Argento),from being fed to two zombies in a cage,a punishment handed down by Kaufman for her involvement with an Irish dissenter named Mulligan,kill the midget named Chihuahua responsible for his car's theft,and eventually,get arrested by Kaufman's men.Elsewhere,Cholo(John Leguizamo),one of the Dead Reckoning team,has been planning on retiring from duty as well,aspiring to score himself a choice apartment in Fiddler's Green amongst the haves,but the pipedream is promptly pissed upon by Kaufman,who instead tries to have him killed.Cholo gathers some insurgents and steals the tactical vehicle,aiming its missiles at the high rise for ransom money.The chairman,not one to negotiate with terrorists(sound familiar?),gives Denbo and company a reprieve from jail instead,and hires them to retrieve Dead Reckoning in exchange for their car and absolution from future duty.

Oi,Simon,you've got some rot on you.
Meanwhile,a black zombie gas station attendant(Eugene Clark)has gathered an army of walking corpses to descend on the city in retaliation for the troops slaughter of zombies on their supply runs.Through rudimentary communication skills and example,he teaches his fellow zombies to arm themselves,and they discover that,being dead,they can simply sink to the riverbottom and walk across into the populated area.The melee that ensues finds the less fortunate city dwellers trapped inside the electrified fences,with most citizens becoming easy prey for the attacking zombies.Denbo convinces Cholo to surrender Dead Reckoning to him,with the latter taking one of his crew in a car and calling it a day instead.Cholo is bitten during their journey,and returns to Fiddler's Green,as a lone zombie,just in time to catch Kaufman trying to flee the high rise with an attache full of cash.The zombie gas station attendant who has also descended upon the parking garage,punches out one of the chairman's limo windows and pours gas into the vehicle.As Kaufman realizes his bullets are ineffective against his former employee,he is grabbed by the vengeful zombie and bitten,just as "Big Daddy" returns to roll a flaming cannister into the gas-soaked limousine,which explodes,destroying tyrant and zombie both.Denbo and company use Dead Reckoning's missile capability to save the lives of a small group of citizens led by Mulligan who are cornered by zombies,and as they prepare to drive off towards the north,Pretty Boy(Joanne Boland),the vehicle's driver catches Big Daddy and his zombies lumbering off in her sights,but Dnebo advises her not to fire,as they're only looking for a place to go,afterall.Dead Reckoning drives off into the night,firing the last of its ineffectual fireworks into the sky,signalling the beginning of their journey towards liberation.

Intelligent zombies prolly wouldn't go swimmin' with their clothes on.Sayin'.
Look for undead cameos from FX wizard Greg Nicotero,whose work here is stellar and gruesome as always,Tom Savini reprising his Chopper character from Dawn of the Dead,Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright and star Simon Pegg,among others.
Sure there's the usual dose of Romero's social commentary within the frames here,but to put a political spin in either direction on the film is downright negligent,despite some of the obvious satirical characterizations the director has fleshed out here.I've read some left-leaning pukes wrongfully draw parallels between the Big Daddy character and Che Guevara,a straw-grab so wincingly retarded it sears my brain.Sure,they're both dead,but the similarities end there,friends.The lead zombie had compassion for his fellow zombies,and nobly rose up against his living opressors to ensure survival of his kind,whereas Che was simply a power-hungry crap crook who frequently murdered his own people,driven by his own personal greed,before he was graciously wiped off the planet,ironically,to be forever remembered as a cheap t-shirt design worn by idiots worldwide.In your humble N's honest opinion,there never really was much difference between the living victims or their dead attackers in the first place,and in the end,all anybody really wants is to keep on keepin' on,and I think that's probably the only relevant message anybody should take away from tonight's entry.Let it be,droogies.It'll all make itself apparent by the time the smoke clears.Or not.Every day above ground is a good day,whether you're breathing,or aimlessly stumbling around looking for an arm to bite.As usual,Romero scores big at the Wop,which is no surprise by now,with three solid wops on the rating scale.See it!

"Zombies...they freak me out,man." R.I.P.,Hop.