R.I.P. William "Chilly Billy" Cardille

                                12/10/28 - 07/21/16

"Martin" (1977) d/ George A. Romero

One of my favorite modern vampire movies, hands down. For anyone interested in seeing George A. at his most powerful and effective as a filmmaker, they should probably cue tonight's review up first. Boasting of an outstanding script full of tumult and irony strengthened by top shelf performances by a cast led by Romero regular, John Amplas, who really shows his formidable dramatic reach here, and solid support from Christine Forrest (who would later become Mrs. Romero) as his symapathetic cousin and Lincoln Maazel as his hardline uncle, Martin would also mark the very first collaboration between George and sovereign Splatter King Tom Savini, whose gore has never looked more wicked, adding to the already gritty authenticity of the low budgeted film's western Pennsylvania locations. Every shot is meticulously framed throughout the brisk ninety-five minute running time , edited down from the original lost two hour and forty-five minute print, entirely in black and white. And just when I think the film can't get any better, there's the final reel...

If the real thing don't do the trick, Martin (John Amplas) better make up something quick, gonna burn into the wick, awwww, Tateh Cuda (Lincoln Maazel)! 
On an overnight train, we meet Martin (Amplas) as he subdues a young woman with a syringe full of sedatives,before opening her wrists with a razor blade, and feasting upon her lifeblood until she's dead. Martin is convinced he's a vampire that is dependent on the red stuff for sustenance, and his old school Lithuanian uncle, Barracud- uhh, err... Tateh Cuda (Maazel), who's awaiting his arrival at the train platform in Pittsburgh, is convinced he is, too. So much so, in fact, that he sets bell traps and hangs garlic all over the homestead where Martin will be residing, forbidding him any discourse with his cousin Christina (Forrest) and warning him that if he preys upon any Braddock residents, he'll go Peter Cushing on his ass and drive a stake through his heart. He teases the superstitious old man's safeguards against him with a cape and phony plastic fangs, telling him: "There's no real magic...ever." A man of his convictions, Cuda still isn't buying it.


"Don't kill yourself, baby, I got you the Leif Garrett tickets afterall..."
Martin gets a job delivering groceries from Cuda's butcher shop and develops a friendship with a frustrated  customer named Mrs. Santini (Elayne Nadeau) after she unsuccessfully tries to seduce him. His bloodlust eventually bests him in the end, and he travels to the city in search of new victims. After stalking a woman at the supermarket that he believes to be alone, he breaks in to discover she's entertaining a lover in bed, and is forced to drug the adulterous couple; feeding on the man, and raping the woman while she's unconscious before slipping away undetected. This leads to Martin phoning in to a local talk radio DJ as 'The Count' and confessing his crimes to the glee of the show's listeners. Trying to resist his psychological blood urge, he enters into a physical relationship with Santini, but another Pittsburgh hunt turns sour when he targets a couple of stumblebums, narrowly escaping the law, by ducking into a drug shack. Back home, Christina moves in with her boyfriend (Savini!) when Cuda's persistent harassment of Martin with crucifixes and prayers become too much for her to bear. Meanwhile, Martin visits his lover only to discover she has committed suicide by slashing her wrists with a razor in the bathtub. Cuda assumes that his nephew is responsible, and pounds a wooden stake into the sleeping man's heart, burying him in the backyard afterwards, where we finally see him, tending the garden as the credits roll to the sounds of radio listeners calling into the station, curious as to whatever happened to 'The Count'...


"I missed an episode of 'Baggy Pants and The Nitwits' and there's no point in going on now."
Fans of 80's synth pop duo, Soft Cell, will remember the group's tribute to this one on their 1983 Art of Falling Apart release. Next up for Romero would be 1978's legendary Dawn of the Dead, where Amplas, the film's casting director, would get shot off a rooftop as a Puerto Rican ("Jesus Christ! There's a thousand pigs!") in the memorable opening sequence, also playing a biker and zombie along the way. He'd later work in Romero's Knightriders (1979), Creepshow(1982), and Day of the Dead (1985), as well as Bloodeaters (1980) and John Russo's Midnight (1981). On the scale, four beedubs oughta cover the undeniable magnificence of tonight's review, one that comes with my highest recommendation. A true genre classic.


Eating Stake-Him's for breakfast can really exact a toll on one's heart.

"Day of the Dead"(1985)d/George A. Romero

I have to admit that I'm a little perplexed at the fact that we've never covered tonight's review here at the Wop, remembering how thoroughly amped I was the first time I caught it, with a couple of buddies in my old man's '79 Impala on a double-bill with C.H.U.D.(1984) at the legendary West Side Drive-In that night in 1985.Having been a hardcore Romero-ite for something like eight years up to that point, I was salivating like Pavlov's dog at the concept of a wrap to his wildly successful zombie trilogy(remember when it was merely a 'trilogy', folks?), and thus, denying Chevy-entry to any backseat-inclined brawds that might have had amorous designs on this momentous event.They'd have to wait patiently for a less pivotal double feature, like Gremlins/Ghoulies the following weekend(keep your eyes peeled for that particular ripper of a yarn in future posts), if they expected to get busted out by the kid himself, on the spacious bucket seats of his father's schooner-on-wheels.Gore guru Tom Savini provides the finger-chompin', gut-splayin', Saturn Award-winning splatter effects(his first coming on 'DOTD') that splash across the screen in bloody spurts between Romero's ambitiously scripted mouth offs and philosophical whimsy that make up the film's dialogue, in attempt to shed some light on communication breakdown and the ensuing anarchy born out of it, perhaps.Forced to scale back his original epic vision when the budget was bissected to three and a half million from seven, Romero's Day also faced a limited theatrical run in the States and opened to mixed reviews before grossing nearly thirty million dollars on the international market and earning lucrative bank in video sales across the globe since.Make no mistakes, this is classic horror we're looking upon...

"Whoa! Shouldn'ta dropped both those blotters before lunch..."
Sarah(Lori Cardille) awakens from a nightmare in the day of the dead, as the only female in a subterranean enclave of scientists and military hopelessly surrounded on all sides by ravenous zombies in the Everglades as they desperately race towards a cure for the zombification process and search the east coast for any potential survivors in a helicopter, as helmed by John(Terry Alexander), a self-centered patois-spitting pilot and his partner, McDermott, a brandy-swilling radio expert.Also along for the ride is Sarah's romantic interest, Miguel(Tony DiLeo, Jr.), a girly soldier in the throes of a mental breakdown.Touching down in Ft Meyers only turns up a shambling army of the undead, and a perturbed alligator.Underground, things aren't much sexier, as Major Cooper has just passed on, leaving the impatient skeptic Rhodes(Joe Pilato) in charge of the operation, which is rapidly dissolving into insults and threats when the head scientist, Dr. Logan(Richard Liberty), whom they affectionately refer to as "Frankenstein", fails to show any discernible progress in his experiments with zombie subjects, haphazardly rounded up on a regular basis by Rhodes' men from the surrounding mines.Sarah holds faith that a cure or reversal of the zombification process can be discovered, while Logan sees learned behavior modification for the pus-fucks as the only feasible option, with his star pupil being a zombie named Bub(Sherman Howard), who displays excellent manners for Frankenstein's company, indeed.The reanimated corpse clumsily shaves his dead skin with a razor, goes through the motions of reading a copy of Stephen King Salem's Lot, and even salutes Rhodes, who's disgusted by the whole display, to say the least.

...and a special cameo appearance by Mickey Roarke.
The problem is, Frankenstein's been secretly rewarding Bub's good behavior with a bucketful of soldier meat-treats, which earns him a short, controlled machine gun burst to the belly and a trip to meet his maker.Miguel gets himself bitten on the arm during one round up, managing to get one of Rhodes' men's throats torn out in the process, but Sarah quickly amputates the infected arm, cauterizing the stump with a torch, as Rhodes and co. make the scene at John and McDermott's place just outside the complex, demanding revenge for the increasing number of dead comrades, and resulting in an intense standoff between all parties involved.In the melee Rhodes wastes Fisher(John Amplas) and locks McDermott and Sarah inside one of the zombie corrals, demanding that John flies he and his soldiers off to safety, while an unhinged Miguel sneaks off to let all the zombies surrounding the complex in, getting dined on for his troubles.Meanwhile, Bub has broken free of his restraints, and shambled upon Logan's dead body, causing the ghoul to groan out loud in a burst of emotion, before picking up a gun and setting off on a course of...revenge?John manages to snag a pair of six guns in knocking Rhodes and one of his men unconscious, and he makes off into the darkened mine passages to search for Sarah and McDermott.Quickly trapped by approaching zombies, Rhodes sells his men out while trying to escape himself, and they're rended limb from limb by the rotting hordes, while the commander's path is blocked by a bitter Bub who shows some serious marksmanship for a dead guy in plugging Rhodes with several rounds before he's set upon by the horde who tear him apart."Choke on 'em!" he spits, watching as his innards are pulled out by the hungry ghouls.After Sarah has a repeat nightmare in the race to the chopper, she awakens on a beach where John and his soused buddy are relaxedly fishing from the shore.She crosses another date off on a makeshift calendar...

"Hold still!Do you want that eyelash outta there or not?!!?"
Look for fellow FX men Taso Stavrakis and Greg Nicotero among the military ranks here, both suffering fittingly horrible on-camera deaths at the hands of their pal, Savini, here.What keeps Day outta the running for the title of Romero's apex zombie opus, for me, is the number of irksome personalities amongst the survivors, especially Miguel, and to a lesser degree, the fake Jamaican, John and his comical dipsomaniacal pal, McDermott.Lengthy discourse from the characters as the story progresses doesn't gain them any advocate in me, I'm patiently waiting for the effeminate hispanic to get chowed upon by zombies by the time Dr. Tongue famously shambles in front of Romero's lens in the opening credits, and bummed knowing that the other two make it okay in the end.Don't get me wrong, I highly dug the characters of Sarah, Logan, Fisher, and Rhodes, especially, it was just a strange experience hating on any of George's roles, a first, really, as much as I ended up doing over the years and repeated viewings.And as much personality and realism the zombies and gore effects here exude, I think Day still could have used more of both in the end for that final boost into legend.Still, it remains one of my favorite zombie movies of the era, with much nostalgia enshrouding it's every aspect for me, and for that, it earns a well-deserved three Wop score on the scale; a must-see for every horror fan.

Rhodes(Joe Pilato) gets treated like the Minnesota Vikings did, on any given Sunday last season.

"Scream Greats Volume One:Tom Savini, Master of Horror Effects"(1986)d/Damon Santostefano

If you happened to be watching a movie during the late seventies/early eighties where one of the characters dies violently on camera, chances are, this guy had a hand in making it happen.Despite the occasional chaffing I administer to Pittsburgh's groundbreaking gore effects wizard, Tom Savini, he'll always be one of my adolescent heroes of elephantine proportions.One need only throw classics like Dawn of the Dead(1978), Friday the 13th(1979), or Martin(1976) into the dvd player to see why an aficionado of genre cinema such as I would hold the former Vietnam combat photographer in such high regard.To a gruesome little kid like I used to be(insert the heartiest of snickers here), Savini's attachment to a film project is all it would take to guarantee my seeing it multiple times.Other kids watched Herbie go Bananas or Boba Fett's misfiring rocket pack as it sent him plummetting into the waiting yap of the Sarlacc.Me, I was queued up for Maniac!(1980), and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way."GOTTA see this one, Dad, SAVINI did the effects!", and my father'd shake his head the way fathers often do, drop a few of his trademark wisecracks, and take me to the movies, god bless him.
So when Paramount released tonight's entry on VHS, a documentary about Terrible Tommy that features discourse from director George A. Romero, "Uncle" Bob Martin, the original editor of Fangoria magazine(which effectively replaced Famous Monsters of Filmland as my most important read), and a gaggle of other cult personalities that includes a pre-KNB Greg Nicotero, it automatically became my next purchase, hands down.The fact that we're still waiting for an official dvd release, Blu-ray or otherwise, is a glaring umbrage on the final scorecard of humanity.Let's travel back to the days of yesteryear then, shall we, to when the face of modern horror sported an unapologetically boisterous porn-stache...

I rock the party that rocks the body, Tom rocks the party that rocks the (half)body.
Over a montage of cinematic wounds he's created, Tom Savini likens himself to an assassin, who packs up his bag of tools, travels to another city, and kills people for a living.I'll buy that analogy.We watch Savini drop from the upper level of the Monroeville Mall for a dramatic DOTD stunt/death scene that receives applause from the crew.George A. says Tom doesn't flinch in always going for it.Actor Taso Stavrakis sums him up as simply, fun.Greg Nicotero relates Tom's love for spraying fellow crew members with a soaker full of stage blood to the camera.Nancy Savini, Tom's wife, divulges that her husband loves to scare people."Uncle" Bob Martin says that he's more than a makeup man, he's a personality.Clips from The Burning, Creepshow, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, and Dawn of the Dead are shown as Romero explains that you wouldn't understand why people laugh at such graphic violence unless you're into it, yourself.Savini cites Hitchcock and DePalma as influences upon his work, while we see the similarity between the unmasking of Jason Voorhees and the unmasking of Lon Chaney, Sr.'s Phantom of the Opera.We learn that Chaney, Sr. was Savini's first inspiration for a career in makeup as he walks past the Plaza Theater(with his own Day of the Dead on the marquee) and, as a twelve year old formerly lazy Italian kid, saw Man of a Thousand Faces in the very same theater, later being the only white kid shining shoes(Billy Batts:"Now go home and get your fucking shine box!") in Bloomfield in order to buy makeup supplies.He mentions that his son's name is Lon, in tribute to the silent film star.His brilliant work on Romero's Martin is discussed(and wrongfully named as his introduction into special effects in film:Ormsby's Deranged and Clark's Deathdream pre-date George's vampire opus), including the razor blade cuts and stake-through-the-heart finale.Next, he discusses weapons over sequences from The Prowler, including the machete throat-slitting, and head impalement.He admits that "...It's a sick business."

Greg Nicotero, fearful of tarantulas, but not the Flowbee, apparently.Oh, the eighties...
Ned Eisenberg relates his collaboration with the effects master on 1981's The Burning.Savini tells that teenaged actors were spun on the idea of being served up as gory death scenes in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter which segues into stories of his work on the 1979 original, his designs for Jason, and the Final Chapter updated makeup.The bloody and violent stage shows of 1800's influential Grand Guignol are discussed.The parallels between splatter movies and real life horror are also touched upon.Tom and company administer bloody squib shots to Nancy, much to the glee of the neighborhood kids, who are all watching.Tom and Greg discuss their gut-chomping work on Day of the Dead(including the headless brain zombie, the disembodied Greg-head zombie, and the shovel-split head effects), and Savini shows off some latex intestines.Savini remarks that his nightmares involve having glue in his armpits and on the backs of his knees(!).Poor Joe Pilato's time around rotting animal entrails for his graphic death scene is also spoken upon.Bob Martin tells of Savini's strong rapport with horror movie fans, who hold him in higher regards than any of the other makeup men of the day(Dick Smith, Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, etc.), symbolizing "a fan who made it", as Tom gives the ten cent tour of the mountains of glorious horror/sci-fi stuff all over his house.E.G. Marshall's cockroachy death in Creepshow is recalled.Nicotero talks about his fear of tarantulas, and how Tom bought him one, just because!Savini discusses his time in Vietnam, and how photographing the horrors that he saw actually helped him put a face on death when it came to his work later on.Infant daughter Mia does a stunt for the cameras.Tom's own body of stunt work is touched upon, while he hangs from gravity boots.He fences with Stavrakis, and his acting, specifically in Romero's Knightriders is discussed.He displays a puppet he created for Tales From the Darkside, prophetically claiming, "one day computers will do all this stuff!"(how right you were, TS)and that should all of his creations and people he's killed in movies one day seek revenge, he'll be ready for them...

Congrats, Uncle Bob, your very first Wopsploitation© screencap.
Rather than drone on as per usual about what Savini's done after being the focus of tonight's entry, I'll instead direct you to his official website here, where you can score all the very latest in photos, journals, videos, complete filmography, and even Android apps dealing with the Italian horror icon from the greatest state in the country(Oh yes, it is).Tonight's review is indeed hard to come by these days, but well worth the hunt, even if you only snag a fuzzy vhs boot until we're finally served up the long overdue special edition dvd someday.It's a time capsule of everything that was choice about horror movies in the eighties(and the premier mag that covered 'em) that guarantees to satisfy.On the scale it scores a perfect four wops, and comes with my highest recommendation.Find it!

Ground control to Major Tom: Take your blood capsules and put your grav boots on.

"Survival of the Dead"(2009)d/George A. Romero

Spreading faster over the land these days than any meat-gobbling zombie epidemic,is the notion that the great horror directors of the golden age of splatter have all taken up residence over on Suck Blvd,where the rent is cheap,and Rob Zombie's your next-door neighbor.George A's no exception either.In fact,after squeezing out this latest cinematic turtle head to again cash in on his once mighty Living Dead saga,he may have secured himself a whole city block of rowhouses on said sorry street.I tried to avoid all outside influence before finally sitting down to this,the sixth installment in the series,to keep the empty fanboy praise and the snobbish skeptical dismissal out of any review I would do on the film,and afterwards,there's very little chance of me praising Romero for this shit-brick,believe me.The one positive I can pull out of this production,is that nearly every single aspect of the film blows.That's not an easy achievement for someone who once drew praise from critics and moviegoers alike for his masterful grasp of genre filmmaking.I'd categorize the main characters as cartoonish,except that's insulting to the average graphic novel.In 1968 having a black male protagonist was a brilliant move.In 2009,a hispanic lesbian soldier(named...wait for it....yeah,that's right."Tomboy".) just seems,I dunno,obvious and forced.What's next,George,a one-legged Serbian transsexual with a cleft palate(named Транссексуалац обогаљен perhaps?)?The special makeup effects,surprisingly produced in part by maestro Greg Nicotero,have taken a healthy stumble backwards,with more than one occasion where the end of a zombie makeup and the fleshy beginning of an actor is clearly visible,and the cgi headshots are not only plentiful,but downright embarrassing.WTF as interwebs-savvy peeps might type here,indeed.Poetically,the estimated four million dollar budget hasn't been CLOSE to paid for at the box office as the time of writing,grossing an anemic hundred grand in limited release.And then there's the half-assed story itself...

Back to The Drew Carey Show,from whence ye came!
It would seem,the band of rogue soldiers led by "Nicotine"(Alan Van Sprang) that jacked the makeshift Winnebago film crew from Diary of the Dead is still surviving the ongoing zombie plague that grips the world,with some new stereoty...uhh,characters along for the ride,like "Tomboy"(Athena Karkanis),Francisco(Stefano Colacitti),and Kenny(Eric Woolfe),deserting their posts and fending for themselves amidst the shuffling flesh-eating chaos.Meanwhile,off the coast of Delaware,on Plum Island,there's an Irish version of the Hatfield/McCoy feud going on between the two families that call the island home.See,there's the Muldoons,led by patriarch Seamus(Richard Fitzpatrick),who live by the word of the Good Book,and they think that loved ones,whether reanimated and hungry for guts or not,should be preserved at all costs.Then there's the O'Flynns,captained by Patrick(Kenneth Welsh),who puts down zombies on sight,and with a posse,patrols the island for walking stiffs with a posse,until a showdown between the two men and an intervention by Patrick's daughter Janet(Kathleen Munroe),who has open contempt for his stubbornness,gets he and his followers exiled off the island.The soldiers team up with "Boy",who finds an advertisement for Plum Island made by Patrick O'Flynn through an internet connection on a laptop,and after deciding to check it out,find themselves hemmed in by zombies and in an ambush firefight at the dock with O'Flynn and his followers.Francisco swims out to a ferry,being attacked by sunken ghouls along the way,biting one of their fingers off(swallowing infected zombie blood in the process)and securing the vessel for his group.Patrick's followers are all dispatched by zombies,leaving him no choice but to stow away on the ferry with the soldiers.Sound ridiculous?There's more.

"Sure and begorrah,ye'd best not be giving me one of yer hickeys,Molly!",protests Feargal.
On the isle,the group discovers that Muldoon has set up an ambush for arriving strangers,only allowing the undead visitors to remain in existence,and shooting the live ones.The bastards kill Kenny(sorry.)and wing Nicotine,before Patty sets off to round up remaining members of his family and have it out with the rival Celt,who's chained zombies up all over the place,forcing the corpses to lifelessly repeat actions they'd remembered from life,i.e. mailman zombie delivering the mail over and over again,woodchopping zombie flaccidly flailing at the same hunk of wood with an axe over and over again...you get the point,kiddies.We then see Patrick's daughter,a zombie,riding a horse freely all over the island,only it's not Janet,it's her dead twin sister,Jane.Uhhhh,yeah.This nonsense all leads to a final showdown between the soldiers and O'Flynn and Muldoon,with corralled zombies,who the good christian was trying to teach to eat meat other than human,escaping and chowing down on random unlucky bastards in both sides.Jane recognizes her live sister,who extends her hand in friendship,which the zombie matter-of-factly bites.Ah,sibling rivalry.Janet then sees her sister take down her horse and bite a chunk out of it,but before she can tell her father that Muldoon's experiment was a success,he shoots her,mistaking her for Janet.O'Flynn and Muldoon shoot each other and die.The remaining soldiers decide to leave the island,not exactly the paradise they had originally hoped for.Meanwhile,zombies have followed the dead O'Flynn girl's lead,and eat the horse she attacked.Then the O'Flynn and Muldoon zombies shuffle up to each other on a hill,drawing empty guns upon one another and pulling the triggers.Really.

Precious few moments of this kinda thing going on here,sad to report.
I'm not happy about having to post this review at all,droogies,believe me.It's never easy for the emperor to thumbs down one of his long-time comfort directors,but these days,more and more of those guys seem to be in cruise control lately,with little or no regard for the hardcore fans who put them there.I know,personally,rather than endure ninety more minutes of horseshit,I'll sooner turn to one of the newer genre talents(Vogel,Palumbo,Aja) for entertainment.Maybe if these guys realize their core audience isn't nearly as brainless as the quivering piles of flesh shambling in front of their lens,they'll actually put forth an effort which may result in an honest-to-goodness good movie again.Or maybe they're satisfied being the punchline for the latest round of movie jokes.I'd hope that's not the case,'cuz I'm a creative and very vocal motherfucker with a witty streak longer than "Death in Venice".In closing,I wouldn't wish this fuckin' mutt of a movie on the simplest of horror fans,who,despite having balls-taste in movies,would still hate everything about this.With zombies being this year's horror dead horse,maybe it's finally time to put one in the head of this whole franchise,then chuck it on the woodpile and let it burn before the putrefying stench gets too strong to enjoy the classics that came before it.One wop.

The zombie wrote the prompter cards AND the screenplay too,didn't she,George.

"The Crazies"(2010)d/Breck Eisner

I believe I went on record somewhere saying that,if Hollywood feels the need to cram an assload of rehashed retread remakes down our throats,they should at least remake films that would benefit from an update,and I'm pretty sure I cited George A. Romero's minor classic,The Crazies,as an example.Feel free to go back and scour the archives if you wanna.Of course,I enjoy the original just fine,but an actual budget certainly wouldn't have hurt it.So when I heard that Crazies was on the upcoming remake list,I actually wasn't sickened to my stomach for once by the news.With a competent director,a good cast,some impressive effects,a solid screenplay,a reimagining could have boosted the film's stock right into classic ground.As per usual,I wasn't that enthused,but remained cautiously optimistic while avoiding the big horror sites usual advance dicksucking and carefully calculated pimping for the studio,as that sort of stuff alone can turn me off of a film.If I want to see something,all the cookie cutter trailers that give away the whole plot in two minutes for the airheads in the audience and contrived teasers in the world aren't gonna intensify that for me.When positive reviews started returning on tonight's entry,I had my faithful and trusty roommate score us a copy for screening purposes,and the wheels were set in motion.
It's not a terrible movie,which is some sort of hollow victory for remakes,but it certainly isn't good,either.Eisner does a real paint-by-the-numbers job in the director's chair,fumbling every opportunity to rise above the original away like a wet bar of soap,instead embracing mediocrity like a twenty-five dollar head queen on tenth ave and forty sixth back in 1988.Script?Pretty pungent,absolutely zero backstory on any of the characters prior to getting dosed with Trixie whatsoever,and with the time they conserved by cutting to the chase,they manage to inject very little.The titular crazies really never go all that crazy.It's almost like the films makers must be mentally retarded,and upon watching the 1973 version,only managed to pull one idea from it."Pitchfork!That'll be really scary!"Because besides that particular scene,there's not a whole helluva lot really going on.Like the mongoloids responsible for the Black Christmas remake..."Eyeball!Pretty crystal unicorn!"Unless someone can prove me wrong,that's my prognosis and I'm sticking to it.

Ah, bravo Figaro!Bravo, bravissimo!Fortunatissimo per verità!
The sheriff(Olyphant) of Ogden Marsh,Iowa,"the friendliest place on earth"(I always thought that was Honey Pot,Pa.Either way,you gotta admit,it's a great name for a town.),has got his hands full.He's got a pregnant she-doctor(Mitchell) for a wife,it's the first day of spring,and the town's inhabitants have begun to show signs of infection by the Trixie virus,a government-born biological weapon accidentally unleashed on the populace after a plane goes down in a marsh that empties into a tributary that supplies the town's water aptly named for sewer worker Ed Norton's wife.I'm kidding about the last part.A shotgun-brandishing town drunk wanders onto the local baseball diamond,only to eat sheriff-inflicted,bullet-laden death after a very mild-pazzo off.Then a local farmer takes it upon himself to lock his wife and son in a closet as he douses his digs in gasoline and burns 'em to the ground while he cuts the grass,whistling.Some bufords hunting out of season discover the bloated,gaseous remains of a parachuting soldier in the bottoms,leading the lawman and his trusty deputy(Joe Anderson)to discover the wreckage of a massive government plane submerged in their swamp.With the government's chocolate in Ogden Marsh's peanut butter,the military is swift upon the scene to quarantine the infected,relocate the healthy,and generally push decent people around like they were ninety-eight lb beach weaklings.Meanwhile,back at the corpse house,the sheriff discovers the mortician has gone perma-crackers himself,sewing the eyes and mouths shut of living folks,and attacking him with a bone saw,nearly making him a her in the process(a bit Jackie Chan-esque here,I thought).

If Radha leans this way,she's got a clear view of the Beatles leaving the plane.
While in an insolation tent,strapped to a gurney,Judy,who's been split from her husband for a mistaken pregnancy fever,awakes to a military camp overtaken by the infected loons,one of which has a propensity for skewering people strapped down to gurneys with a pitchfork.Just before he can run the incapacitated medical practitioner,or her assistant,Becca(Danielle Panabaker),who happens to be strapped down herself,a few loons down,David and Russell show up on the scene and blow him to high heaven.The four then sneak their way through the decimated,burning city towards David's old cruiser up on blocks in his garage,stopping to watch Becca's boyfriend and his mother eat military lead and get fried like city chickens with a flame thrower.Once they get the sedan roadworthy,they duck into a car wash to avoid a military chopper,and encounter a cadre of kill-crazy cunts there,with Becca eating a violent hose-lynching in the process.And then there were three,and one of those,Russell,is showing subtle early signs of infection,so in true "take one for the team" fashion,gets himself blown away by soldiers so that David and his wife can escape.The two make their way to an abandoned truck stop where they make the grisly discovery that the troops have also been wiping out the healthy townspeople in a clean sweep,and after battling with some more nutjobs,they barely escape in an eighteen wheeler before the entire town of Ogden Marsh is leveled with a nuke.They walk towards Cedar Rapids where a satellite camera picks them up,with "initiate containment protocol" flashing on the screen.The end,or the cue for a direct-to-video sequel with neither of these actors featured?I'll let you be the judge.

No,you didn't leave your barbituates on my passenger seat.Fuck off,Bruce Dern.
Eisner,ironically,has three more higher profile remakes in the works,to the tune of Escape From New York,Cronenberg's The Brood,and Flash Gordon.I can only shake my head and shrug it off as a direct result of a Hollywood board meeting of talentless cretins high on psilocybin mushrooms,saying things like..."Dude,what's a good movie?""Uhhh,that Escape one with Stuntman Mike as the eyepatch dude with the rad gun...""Totally,brah!Let's remake that fucker..."Just wait til our giallo screenplay falls into the right pair of hands.Patience.Radha we've seen earlier in genre fare such as 2007's Rogue and Silent Hill a year before.Joe Anderson some of you will remember from Carter Smith's very weird The Ruins(2008).The lovely Panabaker saw some screen action in the Friday the 13th remake.There's also one brief cameo to note.While exploring the lifeless shell of the town,a woman rides by the sheriff on a bicycle,singing.This is none other than Lynn Lowry,star of the original,I Drink Your Blood,and various other seventies classics.Pretty nice touch,I gotta say,and exactly how a cameo should be handled.Too little,too late.On the ratings scale the new Crazies merits a single wop,and a 'script for mild anti-psychotics.

Looks like Jason Statham with a glue-on porn stache and some sort of veiny braille tree situation on his grillage.

"Night of the Living Dead Reanimated"(2009)d/Mike Schneider

Let's get the stupid question outta the way first.You've all seen George A. Romero's 1968 cult classic,Night of the Living Dead before,right?I'm pretty sure there are some Triconympha trying on wigs in the intestine of a termite somewhere that have seen one or more incarnations of it by now.And I'm pretty sure I saw a Shamatari Indian on a NatGeo special give his best,"They're coming to get you,Barbara..." in primitive clicks,snorts,and whistles sometime.Or maybe I was just high,but you get the point.It's pretty much a universal fact that said movie is one of the greatest horror movies of all-time,yes?The only people that would deny the above statement would also bludgeon Santa Claus into a coma tent with a blackjack in front of a crowd of eight year old children.They're no-goodskis,milk-breathed teat-suckers,and we don't like 'em around these parts.There's been a lot of vacuous negative wind billowing about on the interwebs about tonight's review,and frankly,it bums me out.When you get nearly 150 different artists to work on a single project,in a wide range of mediums,styles, and processes,each artist's interpretation of the movie will out in his or her respective work.Some of which,happen to be funny,which has apparently offended the praise police,who have brought forth two stone tablets of horror movie commandments,one of which readeth,"Thou shalt find NO humour in thine horror classics."Excuse me,is what I'll interject with,as made popular in the late seventies by a certain comedian in bunny ears that picked at a banjo a piece from time to time.Though I found many scenes appropriately chilling,I also found lots of humour in the movie,being of a twisted sense myself.As much as I may come off like one,kids,I'm no horror snob,believe me.Before we begin,a tip of my cabbie to Wild Eye's producing partner,Rob Hauschild,for setting me up with the screener for tonight's review.Whenever you want one of your films reviewed,or somebody roughed the eff up,you come and see me.

Bill Hinzman as the Cemetery Zombie,or Fred Lincoln after a weekend bender at Plato's Retreat?You decide.
After a spirited introduction by horror host,Count Gore De Vol,that harkens back to the glory days of Zacherle and Dr. Shock,the viewer is treated to a wildly original reimagining of the black and white shocker,as artists and animators from all over the globe put their own personal spin on each classic scene in whatever medium they choose.The results are often dazzling,making for a highly enjoyable new artistic joyride in a favorite old cinematic muscle car.Some of the art is truly spectacular and very moving to behold,and coupled with the original soundtrack,succeeds on all levels;in both homage to and as a stand alone,fresh creative collaborative effort.It's all here,from the title sequence with Johnny and Barbara paying their respects at the cemetery,right through to the zombies on the woodpile end titles.Each scene is a mash up of several different artist's interpretations,sometimes shot for shot recreation,which really hits a nostalgic nerve for an old horror-head like this guy over here.Seeing Bill Hinzman as a stop motion animated Mego doll shambling towards the old Pennsylvania farmhouse brought me back to my parents' kitchen,where I had a vcr haphazardly hooked to a thirteen inch black and white television from the sixties,with the forty dollar Media vhs popped in on a rainy Saturday night,the first experience I had with the groundbreaking,historic scene way back when.And it retains its effectiveness here,proving that these artists loved the subject matter just as much as horror buffs like you or I,and its plain to see.

"During the next Soul Train commercial break,that clicker is mine",plots Cooper.
Of course,some sequences were weaker than others for me,such as the inclusion of Ren and Stimpy-esque cartoons,although the Mr. Cooper mouse slapfighting(his face,especially) with the cat zombies through the barricaded window shot was pretty choice,and the news broadcast being delivered by sock puppets lost its momentary appeal to me in less time than that.Mr. and Mrs. Cooper bickering back and forth as Barbie dolls in the cellar also wasn't a big favourite of mine,either,truth be told.That said,none of my least favourite personal scenes truly detracts from the overall feel of the production,though they may set it back a bit,at times.Instead,it gives the air of the movie as a patchwork thank you card from all the original's most creative fans towards one of their most beloved works,and that's not half bad,when you think about it,is it?The classic downer ending is brilliantly juxtaposed against beautiful artwork and magnificent caricatures of the cast,recapturing the unsettling ironic vibe you experienced when first watching the original.Not the same type of screening you get with the 1968 film,but something excitingly new and different.If that's what the filmmakers were aiming for,success is surely theirs.The Emperor approves.

Cooper gets his just desserts,just becoming his daughter's dessert.
In closing,I fully recommend that all woprophiles out there get their mitts on a copy of tonight's entry.You can do so by going right to the source for screening dates,or snag a copy on Amazon.If Night means as much to you,as it means to me,and more importantly,to the people involved in the production itself,you'll do well to see it.Anything else I could say in my current altered state would be overkill,really.Great job,guys,four wops.

Two big thumbs,way the fuck up.

"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.

"Dawn of the Dead"(1978)d/George A. Romero

If you climbed to the top of Gangkhar Puensum in Bhutan,and shouted to the heavens,"Who is the American King of the Living Dead?",not only would you be a motherfucking pioneer,as no one's ever climbed to the peak as of this writing,but chances are,you'd hear an echo return,"George Andrew!"The glory of the modern age lies in the fact that you really wouldn't have to go to such extremes to find that out,you can simply ask anybody who digs horror movies,and they'll gladly tell you.Also,it's hardly debatable as to which of the Cuban/Lithuanian(not Italian,but eh,close enough) Pennsylvania native's rottingly reanimated repertoir is his gut munching greatest of all.I can still remember dragging my poor old man off to the American Theater back in '78 to bear witness to Romero's latest entrail-pulling,groaning grey faced shamble-o-thon,which left him in a permanent state of pants-shitting fear any time zombies come up(or rise,if you will).Georgie boy had just scored big with critics the year before with his excellent vampiric venture,"Martin",and had been working on his follow up to "Night of the Living Dead"(1968) since 1974,and after nailing down Dario Argento to finance the project,he traveled to Rome where he wrote the script.After visiting the Monroeville Mall years earlier with a friend who joked that a person could survive there in an emergency,he had found the centerpiece of his latest chapter in his ongoing zombie saga.Every time I travel to the western end of the state,I try to make a stop at the mall,time permitting,and shuffle around a bit outside,though I've never actually been inside the damned place!One of these days,dammit,one of these days.
Tonight's entry rates as yet another in a goodly stretch of heavy hitters,at or near the top of anybody who's anybody's top horror films,and films in general,in many cases.Makeup maestro Tom Savini creates classic on-screen carnage that maintains its effectiveness to this day,does some nifty stuntwork,and even memorably appears as one of the pillaging party of Pagans in the film.Make no mistakes,droogs,this is Savini at his very best.Armed with a trademark script full of satirical barbs towards the consumer mentality and society itself,Savini's horrendous handiwork,a killer soundtrack featuring Goblin(Romero uses three of their pieces in his cut,Argento uses their work much more extensively in his),and strong performances from Gaylen Ross,David Emge,Ken Foree,and Scott Reiniger in the leads,Dawn assaults the viewer with action,comedy,drama,and terror from the opening sequence and doesn't let up until DeWolfe Library's Gonk plays out over the end credits.

The SWAT teams strain to restrain Willie,whose ghetto disdain causes it to rain brains.
There's considerably less room in Hell,as the world is in the midst of a pandemic which causes the unburied dead to reanimate and eat the flesh of the living.In the midst of a chaotic television broadcast at WGON in Philadelphia,Stephen(Emge) suggests to his girlfriend Francine(Ross),a station news tech,that they escape in his traffic helicopter to safer periphery in the Canadian woods somewhere.Meanwhile Stephen's friend Roger(Reiniger),a SWAT member,has his hands full in an apartment complex full of immigrants who've ignored the state of martial law,refusing to turn over the bodies of their recently dead to authorities,instead storing them in the basement,where they've reanimated.During a meltdown from a member of Roger's unit,where he guns down immigrants and zombies in a xenophobic rampage before being taken down himself,Roger meets up with Peter(Foree),a SWAT member from another unit,and invites him along on the planned chopper escape with his friends.A one legged Latin priest points them to the basement,where they find a cache of living corpses,and the two soldiers clear them out with a flurry of well-placed bullets to the head.The four rendezvous at the pier,and after a momentary square off with some policemen(one of which,Joe Pilato,would return in the third chapter,1985's "Day of the Dead" as Capt. Rhodes,a different character entirely!)with similar escape plans,take off for friendlier climes.As they fly over rural Pennsylvania,they witness the National Guard and local rednecks treating the zombie hunt like weekend sport over beer.During a pitstop at an abandoned airfield for gas,they are attacked by zombies,and while Stephen panics and with his awful marksmanship,nearly kills Peter,who has his hands full with two zombie children,Roger,a dead shot,dispatches the undead threat,and the group again takes flight.

Insert obligatory off color "black dudes n' neck bones" joke here.
During their flight,they notice a large multi level indoor mall surrounded by zombies,and after landing the chopper on the roof,decide to go inside to pick up supplies,when Peter suggests that they hold up there for a while.Peter and Roger hotwire abandoned tractor trailers and park them at the mall entrances to block zombies outside from entrance,but Roger's reckless abandon gets him bitten in the process.Once the entrances are secured,the four load up on guns and ammunition and do a sweeping killing spree of all the zombies inside,storing the dead bodies in a meat locker.Roger,now infected with the zombie virus,enjoys his last few days shopping,and playing video games at the arcade,barely coherent from the morphine injections his friends are administering him.He finally dies and reanimates,with Peter carrying out his last wish,stopping him with a bullet to the head.The three remaining survivors enjoy the spoils of their enormous hideout,building a full apartment on the executive level above the stores,but soon find themselves prisoners to the very safety they sought in the first place.While Stephen is teaching his now-pregnant girlfriend to fly the chopper,they are noticed by a professional army of bikers who have survived on the street.Peter tells "Fly Boy",if they lock up the stores and retreat to the upper level,the bikers will never know they were there.The bikers easily break into the mall bringing hundreds of zombies in with them, and begin to pillage the stores,spurring Fly Boy,who is blind with greed,to begin shooting at them.He is winged by one of the bikers,and while retreating to the elevator,is feasted upon by zombies.Peter snipes several of the bikers,and the zombies descend upon the wounded scumbags,and tear them asunder.Peter retreats to the apartment and waits for Stephen's zombie with Francine,knowing his memory will lead a slew of ghouls up to their digs with him.He tells Francine to leave in the chopper by herself,as he prefers to die where he is,disenchanted with it all.After dispatching Fly Boy,he points a gun to his own head,but before he commits suicide,he has a change of heart,shooting zombies and fighting his way up to the roof before the girl has fully taken off,and climbs aboard,barely escaping.With a nearly empty gas tank the two depart into the sky,leaving the mall to its undead denizens.

Reanimated Roger(Scott Reiniger)or Stooges frontman Iggy Pop on an opium binge?You decide.
Romero would follow his 50 million dollar megahit up with Knightriders(1981) and Creepshow(1982) before tackling the third(and what was to be the final)chapter of his zombie opus,Day of the Dead,in 1985.Five years later he would re-write and earn an executive producer credit on a remake of his "Night of the Living Dead",directed by Tom Savini.In 2005,he directed the fourth chapter,"Land of the Dead",and has since followed with the luke warm "Diary of the Dead",and most recently,"Survival of the Dead".Foree has enjoyed a long career in genre films and television,scoring roles in "The Wanderers","Knightriders","Death Spa","Leatherface:Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3",and more recently,in Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects" and "Halloween" remake.Emge was most recently seen in 1990's "Basket Case 2" and 1992's "Hellmaster",although you can usually find him on the horror convention circuit.Reiniger would show up in a cameo(as did Foree)in Zack Snyder's 2004 (so-so)remake of "Dawn of the Dead".Ross's last genre work would come in 1983's "Madman", under the pseudonym "Alexis Dubin",though there's a store with her name in the Dawn remake.Savini,who was awarded a Saturn Award for Best Makeup Effects in tonight's entry,remains busy acting and directing,as always,allegedly announced to return to direct special effects in the upcoming sequel/remake Friday the 13th Part Two.Oughta be interesting,to say the very least.Tonight's entry remains one of the greatest horror movies of all-time,and is thusly awarded four wops,the highest possible scale rating."Could be nuculah!"

Fly Boy(David Emge)searches for his promotional giveaway bag of hard candy.

"Diary of the Dead"(2007)d/George A. Romero

Let me start off by saying that I think it's great to see Romero back in action,directing genre films.The guy's a legend,and a great director of our time.Anyone who doubts it,needs to check out "Martin"(1976) and/or "Dawn of the Dead"(1978) before opening their scrapplehole.Truthfully,I wasn't too amped awaiting Romero's latest venture into zombieland,although I was one of the guys who loved "Land of the Dead"(2006)(since I waited patiently for the director's cut,and totally avoided the neutered theatrical release).I just thought another zombie flick from Romero was tantamount to beating the proverbial dead horse with an aluminum tee ball bat.Then,as the release grew nearer,I sat through ham-fisted zombie crapfests like "Flight of the Living Dead" and "Night of the Living Dead in 3D" and came to a realization.If zombies were going to enjoy a resurgence in the cinema,it may as well be Georgie in the director's chair.Afterall,who knows zombies better than him?

Zombie or average Pennsylvanian,hard to tell.
A group of students who orignally set out to make a low budget horror movie find themselves thrust into what seems to be a zombie epidemic.What follows is a video record of what happens to them as they struggle to reach loved ones,and ultimately,survive the gut-chomping onslaught of the living dead.Through a variety of cameras,cell phone cams,security cameras,and news footage,their finished product is a documenary called "The Death of Death",they document their trip from Pittsburgh to Scranton(!),and finally to the state capital,Harrisburg to drop off friends.Besides the fact that a road trip from Western Pa to Scranton,then back to Harrisburg(for college kids that base their lives in the informational age of the internet and YouTube,you'd think they could have MapQuested their journey more efficiently?)makes very little sense,they have plenty of reanimated cadavers looking to feast upon their living flesh along the way.

That's what you get for going to Scranton.
Besides the ample amounts of social commentary you'd expect in a Romero flick,there are a few tributes to his earlier entries for those who pay attention to such things,and even a cameo from the man himself,as a cop trying to cover up the outbreak at a press conference.The characters themselves,although decent representatives of this generation,aren't exactly people who I'd be sympathetic with,but then I'm not exactly the easiest guy to get along with,so I'm told anyways...The gore is sparsely distributed this time around,and the zombies themselves dress the background for most of the running time,focus being the protagonists' bickering among each other,and fighting to get their footage on the net(!) before they all become ghoul buffet.We've got the obligatory militaristic black survivors with the cache of weaponry and stockpiled goods(explains the innercity riots we get here every so often,doesn't it?Just prepping for the zombie epidemic,officer...)and the moral issues of offing your family member-turned-zombie,but it just feels like leftovers at this point in the game.

Take this intervenous pole and call me in the morning.
So it isn't the flesh-eating ghoul epic of our time,but it stands as a totally watchable and enjoyable piece of genre cinema.FX master Greg Nicotero may use CGI as a crutch a bit too much this time around,but he still manages to create some original pieces of grue for the viewer.The video camera as a seperate inanimate character was interesting enough,if not a popular twist these days,thanks to films like "Cloverfield",but there are some jumpy tense moments and a good deal of atmosphere throughout.I'll always enjoy whatever Romero serves me up,and this flick was no exception.I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that he takes on something else the next time around.The zombie well is pretty dry these days,for ANYBODY.That said,I'm giving Diary:

Pout,baby,pout!I'm not believing you wanting to eat me here...