"Zombiethon" (1986) d/ Ken Dixon

Much coveted of late among handle bar-mustachioed genre collectors of the day are the vhs releases from Wizard Video, often packaged in oversized cardboard boxes with eye-grabbing art. Back in the early to mid-eighties, when I was very much obsessed with such things myself, Wizard, as run by B-movie staple Charles Band, was certainly among my favorite companies, my small box copy of Fulci's Zombi (1979) was among my first purchases, as was my big box H.G. Lewis' 2,000 Maniacs! (1964), which was released under the Force label (File Under Useless Info: pre-dating the big box Continental release, which had a gory screenshot instead of the original poster art that Force chose). Thirty years later, I sat down to a later Wizard release, in tonight's review, Zombiethon, a compilation of genre clips much like the company's others, The Best of Sex and Violence (1981) and Filmgore (1983), that I'd last seen thirty years ago as an impulse rental at one of my local video store haunts, drawn in... by the big box and the excellent art. What else?


You don't find roses growing on stocks of clover, so think it over.
After watching a grown woman in a schoolgirl outfit being chased by a low budget zombie into the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles, she finds herself surrounded by a low budget zombie audience, intent on watching splattery highlights from zombie movies that just so happened to be available for purchase, in most cases, on Wizard Video. It all starts off promisingly enough, with Fulci's Zombi (1979) providing neck-bitten cops, zombie v. tiger shark, Olga Karlatos' eye v. wooden splinter, and Auretta Gay's toothy tracheotomy at the mouth of the wormy eyed poster zombie highlights. It's mostly downhill from there. A robotic-looking cyborg zombie harasses a sunbather and then Jean Rollin's dreadfully inept Zombie Lake (1980) is next, and many underwater full crotch shots of aquatic tarts about to be fatally dunked by green-skinned nazis follow. If you weren't goose stepped to sleep by the last clips, Jess Franco's amateurish Oasis of the Zombies (1982) also provides some nazi zombies, rotten for all the wrong reasons.


"I was turned to steel in the great magnetic field when I traveled time for the future of mankind, y'know..."
Next to enter the living dead-packed theater on Wilshire Boulevard for a linking segment are a young woman and her small daughter, after which Riccardo Fredda's Fear aka Follia omicida (1981) serves up some nightmarish giallo weirdness and precious little zombie action. Fake bats, fake spiders, a chainsaw, perhaps, but not a whole helluva lot of zombies. Things don't improve from there, with Chevalier's Dr.Orloff's Invisible Monster aka/ The Invisible Dead (1970) as the next film to be featured. Was that a fucking invisible gorilla I just saw? Franco is again represented, with scenes from his 1973 effort, A Virgin Among the Living Dead, a notoriously incoherent mess, further butchered by cuts, where he appears in a supporting role, roaming the halls and spouting nonsense to a severed chicken head. After more corny rubber-masked zombie gags at the theater, it seems only fitting that the unfulfilling compilation wraps up with excerpts from Ted V. Mikels' Astro Zombies (1968), a movie that  neither John Carradine's three thousand dollar contribution nor Tura Satana's bountiful bobblers could save.


Take a coffin, built for two, add a girl and a ghoul, that's a game for me and you now!
I'd already seen or owned all but one of the movies featured in Zombiethon by the time I'd seen it (more historical minutiae: I screened it with 1986's David DeCoteau's Dreamaniac as a double bill, as they'd both turned up on the shelves the same day) so my enthusiasm for the production was terse at best, to begin with. In the end, it lasted slightly longer than my attention span after throwing their Atari release of Halloween into the ol' wood grain 2600 console when I was fourteen. Thirty years later in the era of dvd and Blu-ray, I'm no longer excited by the lure of Wizard's catalog (certainly not replacing them on vhs for a hundred a pop, either), but that doesn't stop me from occasionally biting on Charles Band's disc releases, as a trip down Nostalgia Road, to a time when that huge box full of lurid imagery actually did mean the world to me. On the scale, one Wop sounds about right.


I sit and wonder, why oh, why you left me, oh Sandy...

"The Dead"(2010)d/The Ford Brothers

Let the record show that tonight, another matchless evening of proto-metal, high grade disorientation smoke, and new horror flicks for the kid over here, I stand partially corrected about a movie sub-genre for probably the first time since Leonard Nimoy first fell in love with ugly polyester blazers and turtlenecks.Partially, I say, because despite going into the Ford 's foray into flesh-eating ghouls-on-film blind, and still zombie dyspepsic from Romero's last impecunious harvesting off an already depleted reanimated teat, with expectations lower than Prince Randian's ballbag, the British siblings still managed to deliver a pretty standard zed word effort that offers nothing particularly innovative about the subject, and yet somehow entertained the hell outta me, just the same.The filmmakers display solid technical prowess in soaking their frame with atmosphere and dread while showcasing the savage beauty of the dark continent of Africa, where voodoo, zombies, and the like seem right at home, though they wisely choose to avoid ever hanging the living dead plague within on the black arts, or any other hastily slung together expository roots, knowing full well that genius often lies in simplicity.Partially, I say, because despite such a pleasant suprise as 'The Dead' turned out be, I stand adamantly behind my prior assessment that the cinematic zombie needs reinterment for a period of no less than a decade or two(you guys can also hold off until after I'm unanimated myself, too, I won't complain, really.), unless we're talking about a movie like this...

Jam goes on the toast, not the chest.It isn't Vicks' Vapor Rub, ferchrissakes.
Lt. Brian Murphy(Rob Freeman) is a U.S. military engineer looking to reunite with his family, aboard the last evac flight out of an African continent that has become overrun with re-animated, flesh-eating corpses.When it fails to take off properly, the plane is forced to crash land just off the coast, with Murphy being one of two uninjured survivors in a mad scramble for the cover of the treeline as a beachload of ghouls shamblingly converge upon them, while an immobilized remnant is devoured alive.It's soon apparent that travelling on foot across the scorching plains is a near impossibility; though the silent zombies shuffle along aimlessly baby step by baby step, they are relentless in their pursuit of human food, which can be set upon by a magnitude of white-eyed flesh-eaters in a moment's time, as Murphy learns, getting himself surrounded, and ultimately saved by Sgt. Dembele(Prince David Osei), an African soldier who has absconded from his unit to rescue his wife and young son from a nearby village, only to find the aftermath of a bloodbath: his wife, dying, has been partially eaten by the zombies and his son has hitched a ride aboard a military transport headed north.Murphy and Dembele agree to travel together to the northern base in a hastily repaired Jeep, increasing their infinitessimal chances of survival with numbers.

"Medical aid? We're here for the free Philadelphia Yankees t-shirts."
The odds progressively stack on top of the unlikely duo, sacrificing much of their canteen water to keep the rickety radiator from overheating, and ultimately barrelling breakneck into a shuffling corpse along the way, leaving them no choice but to make the rest of the perilous journey on foot amidst a silent, growing army that's seemingly only moments away from wherever they choose to rest and collect themselves.After a lengthy, expository stay at a proud village determined to battle back the mortifying menaces, Murphy is forced to go it alone when Dembele gets himself bitten, chewed, and swallowed by a roving pack of ghouls one night, when neither man manages to awaken to the makeshift tin can/string/rock zombie alert they've set up around the encampment.Murphy close calls his way through miles of treacherous terrain, often packed with patrols of pustulent zombies that he's forced to hide in ditches and up trees from, dodging a gory demise one last time when soldiers from the nearby base give some surrounding shamblers a lead lunch.Murphy is united with Dembele's son and gives his father's pendant to him before they turn to face the approaching shadow of a zombie horde in the African sun.Credits.
 
"I found the problem!My femur is puncturing the gas tank..."
Apart from directing commericals and appearing in Pervirella(2002) as  the Statue of Liberty(!), Howard J. has also directed Mainline Run(1994) and 2000's Distant Shadow, while Jon served as cinematographer on both productions.Freeman, who portrayed Ryan's son in Saving Private Ryan(1998), also appeared on shows like X-Files and Millenium, while scoring another genre credit in the made-for-tv Pumpkinhead:Blood Feud(2007).Osei also turns in an effective performance here as Sgt. Dembele, and I look forward to seeing him in more things in the future.I like that the Fords' zombies move like the classic Romero variant rather than the Boyle sprinting variety, but more closely resemble an update on Fulci's, circa Paura nella città dei morti viventi(1980), to me.That the tension remains thicker than a lung fulla Sour Diesel throughout a slow zombie production at this stage of the supersaturated living dead ballgame is just one more tribute to the filmmakers' blatant abilities, and let's not forget they did it without relying on a silly titular prefix like "Continent of..." or some such shit, eh.I hope one or both of them choose to remain in the genre game for at least a few more movies, though it's apparent they're destined for bigger things in the industry, for sure.One or two KNB-style zombie chowdowns away from perfection, methinks.Still, it rates :
 
If you let this chap with the Farrah smile shamble into your personal space, you're a Ghana...errr, goner.Sorry.
 

"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.

"La Noche del terror ciego"(1971)d/Amando de Ossorio

When George Romero breathed reanimated life into the zombie sub-genre in the late sixties, he paved the way for directors like Spaniard Amando de Ossorio, who put his own personal flair into 1971's 'La Noche del terror ciego', or 'Tombs of the Blind Dead' as it was known internationally, the first of a popular horror quadrilogy centered around a fictional hooded vampiric mummified version of the Knights Templar, a real life Western Christian military order active during the crusades that was disbanded by Pope Clement V in 1312(On a side note, Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay was arrested among his French Templar brothers on Friday the 13th in 1307, and formally charged with witchcraft, homosexuality, financial corruption, among other things, giving rise for some, to the date's long-standing superstitious status, though the eyeless blood-drinking immortal-thing was strictly de Ossorio.).Tonight's review is a slow-building gothic romp, moody and well-constructed for the most part, effectively utilizing mechanical puppet-props and costumed actors in bringing the vengeful ghouls to life to wreak havok on the silver screen.The director chooses to focus his lens here on said zombies and the opulent atmosphere of the monasterial ruins of Berzano, with a tease of latin womanflesh thrown in for good exploitative measure, rather than to clutter up his effort with an abundance of unnecessary dialogue, and the result stands as an excellent example of the finest Spanish genre cinema of the decade, and entirely worthwhile viewing.And let's not forget that far out ending-that-I'll-be-unable-to-help-myself-from-spoiling-for-you-in-the-synopsis.Forwards!

"A good Radiesse injection'll clear that nasal blemish of yours in no time..."
While poolside on a getaway in Portugal, Betty(Lone Fleming) reunites with old school chum/sapphic tryst, Virginia(María Elena Arpón), whose wet pal, Roger(Cesar Burner), spontaneously invites her along for the scenic train ride the duo had planned for the following day, mesmerized by the girl's floral print bikini and bouncy ass.After some hard-sell flirting with Betty in their compartment causes Virginia to trot off to the caboose and pout, we're treated to a smoky wisp of a lesbo-flashback where the women, dressed like schoolgirls, pantomime a marriage and roll onto the bed together for some awkward 70's Euro-flavored sexual experimentation.So thaaaaat's what she's pouting about.While the suddenly unwanted Roger comes to grips with his mortally wounded Spanish machismo, Virginia hops off the train near the abandoned ruins of a monastery in Berzano, preferring to have her blood sucked out by reanimated slo-mo Templar knights that rise from their misty tombs that evening than play 'third wheel' with Roger and Betty on the train ride(but not before she manages to half-smoke a few cigarettes, strip naked in front of a roaring bonfire she whips up using a fistful of dead branches, and tune in some happenin' pop music on her transistor radio).While detectives grill Roger and Betty about their newly dead friend after their daylight search of the ruins proves fruitless when the horses they've rented get spooked and trot off, she comes back to life in the morgue and bites the attendant on the neck as he's preoccupied with torturing a live frog in a fishbowl with surgical forceps, before shambling to the Bava-lit mannekin warehouse that Betty works at, only to get incinerated by Nina(Verónica Llimera), Betty's assistant who's working late, putting some finishing gold flake touches on statues of the Egyptian Mother of the Veil of Darkness for H.G. Lewis or something, I dunno.

He just couldn't seem to forget her, her Wind Song stayed on his mind.
Meanwhile at the library, Professor Candal(Francisco Sanz) relates the Templars' haematic history via flashback where most of the order stand around and look at each other emptily while knights on horseback repeatedly hack a bound-n-screaming maiden's bra-fillers with their swords, before drinking the flowing blood, thus, gaining immortality through the wicked ceremony.The fuzz make the scene, blaming Virginia's murder on Candal's smuggler son(a librarian and a smuggler, this family rules), Pedro(José Thelman), but offer zero follow up, causing Roger and Betty to join forces with the sweaty pit-stained criminal and his ready-for-action girlfriend in spending the night amidst the haunted monastery ruins.What the foursome is out to prove is anybody's guess, but it's not long before Pedro's arm candy tries to seduce Roger, arguing that Betty is out exploring with Pedro, and only a naive fool couldn't guess where that's gonna lead.Why, rape amidst the grave markers, of course.The absurdity of Betty's seeming post-sex attack consent(or it might be the midnight bells, who knows for sure) draws the hooded fiends from their tombs, and they set upon Pedro in slow motion, as Roger frantically bangs on the barricaded door while Betty and Pedro's gal pick the most inopportune time to have a knock down, drag out cat fight, earning their male associate a sword-amputated arm, which he soon dies from.The smuggler's girlfriend alerts the ghouls to her whereabouts by screaming her fool head off, and they reward her by biting her to death.Betty manages to limp into the coutryside with a sprained ankle, ahead of the galloping knights somehow, and is spotted by the passing train, which reluctantly stops to rescue her, only succeeding in letting all the Templars aboard(!), killing all the passengers; one screaming child is doused in her own mother's blood(!!), while shock-ridden Betty slumps undetected into the train's coal supply.When the train is forced to stop at the next juncture, harrowing screams soon fill the air...

These Spanish broads know how to party.
de Ossorio would revisit the Templars with El Ritorno de los Muertos Sin Ojos(1973), El Buque Maldito(1974), and La Noche de los Gaviotas(1975)(all of which we'll get around to examining right here, I promise you), as well as other genre efforts like Malenka(1969), Las Garras de Lorelei(1974), La endemoniada(1975), and Serpiente de mar(1984), before passing away at the age of 82 in 2001.Lone Fleming would score genre credits in the '73 sequel, Una vela para el diablo(1973), Malocchio(1975), and de Ossorio's own La endemoniada.María Elena Arpón also appeared in 1969's The House That Screamed and opposite Paul Naschy in El jorobado de la Morgue(1973).Interestingly, a '90s NYC-based Oi band would dub itself 'The Templars', and though some of their shows I've been to may have erupted in tasty bits o' violence, I can't recall any blood-drinking going on.At least, not out in the open, anyway.On the scale Noche earns three solid Wops, with it's effectively creepy score, gothic scares, and optimum locales, a worthy Euro-shocker that's packed full of atmosphere.Hunt down a copy and check it out yourselves.

"Favor perdóname, Vermudo, sus lesiones son apenas perceptibles..."

"Zombi Holocaust"(1980)d/Marino Girolami

We've got a real fucking gem for you, the eagerest of woprophiles, to feast your glassies upon tonight, kids.An Italian exploitative classic and original BBFC-certified 'video nasty' as helmed by Enzo Castellari's dad(!), that mixes two subgenres(cannibals and zombies, though the powdery, Moe Howard-wigged natives do all of the glorious gut-munching here) with often hilarious results.In a mad rush to emulate Fulci's Zombi 2 and Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust all the way to the bank, the film's producers hastily slung together some mind bogglingly uber violent, cheap-looking gore(as provided by Maurizio Trani and Rosario Prestopino), naked thrills(as frequently served up by Alexandra Delli Colli), some identical shooting locations to Fulci's earlier film, and a cast comprised of regular genre names like Ian McCullough, Donald O'Brien, and Sherry Buchanan around a slapdash Fabrizio DeAngelis script(?) and Nico Fidenco score.Two years later, Aquarius Releasing slapped two and a half minutes from an unfinished 1977 anthology project entitled 'Tales That'll Tear Your Heart Out' onto the beginning, re-edited the film for pacing, replaced the score, whipped up a gloriously demented one sheet based on a photo of Salvador Dali(!), and changed the title to the familiar Dr. Butcher, MD, and the rest, as the late, great Chas Balun would say, is chunk-blowin' history.I remember picking up the Paragon VHS at the long gone General Radio outlet in Wilkes-Barre and thinking to myself, "Look at this, this has to be a fucking masterpiece!" as I greedily drank in the screenshot of the split-wigged cannibal on the back of the box while my father coarsely grilled one of the salespeople about a non-existent porno section.We Monteforte boys know how to live, that's for sure.

Apply more chicken gizzards to this patient's midsection, nurse...
After various body parts start disappearing from cadavers and turning up in the hungry gullet of a local immigrant hospital worker, who, upon screeching discovery, makes with an impromptu swan dive out an upper floor window only to break an arm off on the concrete below like the cheap mannekin he was, no doubt, in life.It just so happens that one of the morgue assistants, the oft-nakies Lori(Alexandra Delli Colli) just happens to be an anthropology buff(what are the chances.), and as such, she pinpoints the origin of the late heart-chewin' rascal to be Asian(Molucca, to be precise), and with the crack detective work of Dr. Chandler(Ian McCullough), the duo unravel the mystery of some primitive symbolism found at the anthropophagal crime scenes, which have extended past their own place of employment and into any surrounding hospitals that have unfortunately hired on any Moluccans of late.They enquire about the term 'Kito' to Lori's colleague and top anthropologist, Professor Stafford, who relates that it's not only the name of an island where the mythical cannibal god of the same name existed, but also the residence of a primitive tribe who comprise the 'Sect of Kito' that worships him through blood sacrifices and cannibalism.Lori finds her pad rummaged through and her ceremonial Kito dagger's been ruthlessly ganked.Call the cops? Meh, call the tourism agent.I'm sold, book the flight, baby.Joined by Susan, George(Sherry Buchanan,Peter O'Neil), and a dusty Jeep-driving guide, they track down Dr. Obrero(Donald O'Brien), a world famous surgeon who's apparently content playing doctor for the natives in a jungle Hell, and who assigns the aptly-named Mulotto(Dakar) and four bearers to Chandler's expedition into the green inferno to Kito, at the opposite end of the archipelago.Lori, shagged from the flight, strips down to knickers n' tits for a refreshing shower, unaware she's being spied upon by a powder-pussed cannibal in a Moe Howard wig, who's cruel, primitive, and absolutely unwilling to accept any form of civilization, just outside her window.Cue annoying, dated 80's synth stab.

"You call that an eye gouge, you turkeyneck? Wait'll I get ya in the ring!"
Lori returns from her shower to find a maggot-ridden human head and Kito symbol scrawled in blood under her bedsheets.After finding a well-mown patch of lawn grass in the dense jungle to set up camp in, one of the bearer's screams interrupts the party's campfires that night.The next day, Susan shriekingly stumbles across his mutilated remains in the grass, a Kito symbol spraypainted on a nearby tree.These mugs don't muck about.One of the porters tries to make a break for it, but unwittingly springs a bamboo spear trap on himself, as the approaching cannibals slit his throat, drinking the arterial spray, before gutting him longways and eating his innards raw.That night, Lori's forced to split the wig of a peeping cannibal outside her tent as the last porter takes a fatal bamboo harpoon to the labonza.The next day, the wily flesh-eaters lassoo a screaming Susan with a red satin sash-lariot and carry her off into the bushes.In the melee, George gets fish-gutted against a tree, as hungry natives pluck both his eyes out and eat them.The others are about to suffer the same fate, when an oatmeal-faced zombie with soundstage echoed groans appears and scares off the gut-munching primitives in the nick of time.The three survivors make it to Obrero, who points them to a rubber dinghy that's guarded by another cheap-looking zombie, who Peter de-face-ifies with an outboard motor(!).Afterwards, he and Lori find another zombie wearing Susan's bloody scalp like a toupee.Meanwhile, the scalpless Susan is about to have her jugular vein opened by Obrero, who's been secretly creating an army of mindless zombies by placing the brains of the living into the bodies of the recently dead all the while.It figures, man.When Susan's incessant screams annoy the good doctor, he removes her vocal cords(!!).His mad dreams of playing God are rudely interrupted by the cannibals, who have declared Lori their queen after stripping her naked and painting juvenile hippie flowers all over her and placing her naked ass in a primitive stone spreadagle-contoured fuck table, descending upon the doctor and his zombies in a climactic orgy of bad makeup and cheap ultraviolence as flames engulf his crazed work and credits roll.

Wop's diagnosis:Wind knocked out.
For years I made do with the German Dragon dvd release, which includes a nifty inlay card with meaty collage and 53 movie filmography for Girolami spanning 30 years (layed out over a shot of Delli Colli in the fuck table, mind you), extended/deleted scenes, and a trailer, until I stumbled upon the recent Media Blasters/Shriek Show disc(superior transfer for such a piece of shit, bravo, boys!) for less than what I'd pay for a pack of smokes in Manhattan, at a video clearance outlet.That's really what tonight's movie is, folks, eight bucks worth of Italian exploitative goodness that's sure to please gorehounds and genre nuts alike.If you're going in for substance or quality, you're bound to be highly disappointed.Still, the American one sheet has to be considered one of the best of the fabled era, so give yourself +2 if you've got it framed on the walls of your digs.On the scale, of course, Holocaust is another one Wopper, but when has that ever stopped you from checking it out?Track it down...

Don't worry, sweetheart, it only hurts sliding in the first time...

"Incubo sulla città contaminata"(1980)d/Umberto Lenzi

When I say that tonight's review is a becloudedly inept, low budgeted mess that often defies explanation, it's less out of criticism than it is out of love.We're talking about the Umberto Lenzi here, exploitation master whose Toscanan ass occupied the director's chair on such diverse genre classics as Attentato ai tre grandi(1967), The Man From Deep River(1972), Eyeball(1975), Napoli Violenta(1976), and, of course, everyone's favorite grindhouse feature, Cannibal Ferox(1981).Even when his lens isn't focused upon despicable acts of animal cruelty or a coked out Johnny Morghen, the man's managed to do everything from gialli and poliziotteschi to westerns and horror movies in his long and illustrious career, even managing to pioneer the cannibal sub-genre along the way.Though tonight's movie, also released under the alternate titles of City of the Walking Dead and Nightmare City, suffers from a Crayola script full of hokey cine-science and putrescent dialogue exchanges made to decompose more rapidly through adventitious performances from its lackluster conclave of actors, as headed by Hugo "One facial expression oughta cover it" Stiglitz and Mel "I've got more Maybelline on than the entire female cast" Ferrer, and filled out by familiar Italian genre faces like Stefania D'Amario, Ugo Bologna, and Maria Rosaria Omaggio, there's an undeniable emptyheaded charm about the Italo-Spanish collaboration that's hard not to notice.I've heard it said that Lenzi's weapon-toting, sprint speed contamino-zombies were an inspirational precursor to Danny Boyle's wildly successful 28 Days Later, and though that comparison holds some modicum of possibility, to be sure, let's not hastily rush to judgment here.Away from the smoke and mirrors of trendy fanboy analysis, Incubo is an uneven, cheap, continuity-free puddle o'schlock n' sloppy gore that vainly tries to cash in on the Italian zombie craze of the day, or, in other words, exactly what you're looking for.

Hugo Stiglitz, Hugo Stiglitz, oh, oh, oh, Hugo Stiglitz...Hugo Stiglitz-litz-litz-litz.Falco shoulda totally tried the song out that way.
Dean Miller(Hugo Stiglitz), a television news reporter, awakens from a bad dream, running late for an interview concerning a recent nuclear accident(based on a similar 1976 incident at a chemical plant in Seveso) with a prestigious scientist in the field named Hagenbeck.As Miller and his assistant arrive at the local airport, a large military Hercules air transport silently approaches the runway for an emergency landing with no clearance.The plane is quickly surrounded by airport security and beret-sporting military types who shout cautionary warnings (in familiar dubbing editor Nick Alexander's voice) into a bullhorn, but when the door finally opens moments later, a congregate of crazed radiation-deformed psychos(translation:Italians with latex slopped randomly on their faces) led by Hagenbeck bound from inside, armed with knives, axes, bats, and machine guns, and immediately begin hacking, stabbing, and shooting the fuck out of anybody in attendance, pouncing on open wounds to greedily gulp the red stuff spurting out.Evidently, the military plane was stocked to the gills with handheld melee weapons.Or maybe they just brought their own.One of the tox-omb-pires is swinging a farmer's scythe around.I'm not gonna try explaining that one.Miller and assistant somehow barely avoid ending up dead(translation: unconvincingly playing dead, lying on the asphalt with stage blood sparingly dripped on them) like all the others, making their way to a nearby television studio where some lycra-bound guys and gals are being filmed as they flail about out of sync to some embarrassing disco for the cameras.Miller tries to interrupt the broadcast with an emergency bulletin, but the station's plug is momentarily pulled by the military, as led by Murchison(Mel Ferrer), a General defiant enough to rock enough eyeshadow and lip gloss to choke Adam Ant(in the pre-"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" era, mind you), in attempt to suppress widespread panic.Miller, faced with the impending gag order, chooses to quit his job instead, and extricate his wife(Laura Trotter) from the hospital where she works so they can flee together.

Major Holmes(Francisco Rabal) scrutinizes his wife's(Maria Rosaria Omaggio) major hams.
With the oatmeal-faced rascals on their murderous bender, it seems like every guy in the movie is obligated to call home and warn a wife or daughter not to venture out into the blood-letting hijinks.When Major Holmes(Francisco Rabal) calls his wife(Maria Rosaria Omaggio), she's startled to find the lawnmower running on its own and a bloody knife jutted into the eye of her latest sculpture.Meanwhile, the television studio is attacked(luckily their tv monitors explode into flame when chucked), the hospital is besieged(luckily the doctors have been well-versed in the art of precision scalpel throwing), and despite the military's theory of post mortem tox-ghoul indestructibility(We've estimated they can't be destroyed, after autopsying this here dead one), flames and well-placed lead to the dome does the bastards in, right proper.Miller and wife make it to an abandoned gas station, where they share stale coffee, speculation towards man's responsibility for the countrywide terror spree, and a couple of heartily wooden laughs(!), despite said epidemic, which the military continues to suppress knowledge of to the public, long after they've failed to contain it.In the end, they're rescued in the nick of time by Holmes-in-a-helicopter, but his wife plummets from the sky to her death, unable to hold on long enough.Dean wakes up from his horrible dream alongside his wife in time to rush to the airport with his cameraman for an exclusive interview with Hagenbeck, when an unidentified Hercules transport emergency lands on the runway.Surrounded by security and police, the door slowly begins to open, titles reading "The nightmare becomes reality" flash across the screen, and the credits roll.

Pass the claret to me, Barrett.
As you might have guessed, the infelicitous Stiglitz is even outperformed here by random muck-faced extras(both Dell'Acquas included), whose propensity to run up to the camera and posture dramatically in front of the lens to show off the cheap makeup appliances spirit gummed to their faces is a frequent occurence.Then again, none of the major characters emotes worth a good goddamn here, hardly detracting from the frenetic low brow ambience of the movie, also ushered along by an appropriately groovy Stelvio Cipriani soundtrack.Years after throwing down long dollars at Mondo Kim's(R.I.P.) in Manhattan for the Dutch import region 2 'Red Edition' from Laser Paradise, which suffered from possibly the most impoverished print transfer to disc this side of truck stop horror fifty packs, I spotted the recent out-of-print Blue Underground release at an F.Y.E. for roughly forty dollars less and jumped on it.Though the extras are sparse(a Lenzi interview, a trailer), the print is pretty gorgeous, far better than something like this really deserves.On the scale, one well-deserved wop isn't going to stop a rabid genre nut like you from seeking this one out and adding it to your collection forthwith.I know you guys by now.

Does this mean we're gonna have to sit through the whole goddamned thing again??

"Mutants"(2009)d/David Morlet

After promisingly favorable beginnings, David Morlet's Mutants somehow manages to run out of gas along a patch of well-traveled road; sputtering to a customary genre finish, and earning the dubious distinction of being the first of the French New Wave of horror films that I've checked out that really didn't grab me at all.I've been pretty vocal lately about just how fucking clapped out I am with the whole overly recycled zombie/infected subgenre-crutch these days, and unless somebody's biding their time in unveiling a brilliant and original take on said subject matter, I vote for laying them to rest for a few years or more, already.I never thought I'd see the day when I'd grown totally weary of pasty-faced corpses with wicked custom contacts and horrible prosthetic dentures biting hapless idiots in the throat, but we've passed that historic day by about a month at this point.France, no reprievesies for you either.Don't get me wrong, Morlet utilizes his camera to full effect, building loads of creepy winter atmosphere at the outset of tonight's entry, but by the time his more-than-a-little Descent(2005)-ish beasties snag themselves some camera time, it's mostly the same mundane survival horror we've been force-fed for the past decade or better now.Couple that with the film's mendicancy for fake-looking computer generated splatter, and you've got l'horreur médiocre pour des débutants as a result.You might be on the other end, reading this, and dismissing my words as disharmonious analysis from a benumbed, sleep-deprived cine-snob, but you'd be wrong... and you'd probably be one of those cat/kittens who wrongfully groove on otiose fecal matter like Chud II:Bud the Chud(1989), too, wouldn't ya.

Pulverized by an ambulance into cgi roadkill.Oh laboured irony.
As the French countryside is immersed in winter climes, so is it also besieged by an unknown virus-borne mutant holocaust, from which two scientists, Marco (Francis Renaud) and his expectant lover, Sonia (Hélène de Fougerolles), speed towards the safety an army base on a snowy mountain road in an ambulance with a black female soldier named Perez (Marie-Sohna Conde) and an infected patient as passengers.After a power struggle results in a dead black female soldier with a bullethole in her face-piece, a dead infected patient, a nearly empty gas tank, and an infected Marco with painful hot lead in his labonza, Sonia is forced to transport the dying father of her unborn child to the NOAH base, where the cure is being developed, her damned self.She seeks refuge in a huge abandoned facility nestled in the elevations, where she can remove the bullet from Marco's belly, assess their situation, and perhaps, catch a breather, if she's lucky...She's not lucky.Marco's condition progressively worsens as he's helplessly morphed into a homicidal mutant with rodent-like features, bald pate, and an extra set of nostrils.Hey, what the hell, air is free, right?Sonia realizes her lover's time is borrowed, and as he degenerates further, she must come to terms with the sobering truth that she's going to have to kill him sooner or later, or he'll be instinctively forced to do her, instead.As his hair and teeth fall out, he grows increasingly more aggro towards her, until, in lieu of the lethal injection she's unable to bring herself to administer to him as he pleads for death over mutation(le poulet du jaune!), she locks him up in a cage in the basement as a consolation prize after a transfusion of her immune blood proves less than successful.

"He looks in my mouth and then he starts to glooooaaat.He says my teeth are O.K., but my gums got to gooooo."
Soon afterwards, she's gunbutted in the mush by Franck(Nicolas Briançon), an opportunistic survivalist, who, with his girlfriend, an incapacitated bitten guy, and a creepy, silent machete-wielding chromedome along for the ride, intercepts the desperate woman's emergency radio broadcasts, demanding the keys to the ambulance outside and medical treatment for his gnawed-upon chum, who relates to her,"The cannibals attacked, and we ran like faggots."Hey, at least he's honest.The muted baldie notices the teeth marks in her lower back, and figuring her to be infected, attacks her.She explains her immunity, and together, they sneak off to his former hiding place with the working radio, and while he fends off drooling mutants with his machete, she gets the message out over the airwaves, but not before the mutants do her French bastard assistant in.Just when your head is about to fall back against the chair in nap position(for about the fifth time), the mutants come pouring out of the forest en masse and descend upon the compound, eating all of the demanding intruders with much cgi blood-based alacrity.When one of the mutants looks to dine upon the scientist, she's momentarily spared by her former boyfriend-turned-rat-lookin'-sumbitch, who battles the rival mutant and kills him.She manages to escape through a vent to the barbed wire fence-enclosed yard outside, but the rodential Marco soon follows suit.He sniffs the overwrought woman like an animal, but when he shows a propensity for gnawing at her pregnant belly, she's forced to knock him into a pile of barbed wire, where he gets hopelessly snagged.Finally, she's able to bring herself to brain the fucker with a section of pipe, causing a shower of cgi blood to bring the unspectacular, derivative thing to a close, as the NOAH base helicopter turns the rest of the mutants outside the fence into hamburger with automatic weapon fire.Credits, s'il te plait...

And the 2011 winner for Best English Subtitle goes to...
As I said earlier, the cinematography is impressive, as is the director's use of color and mood, and the soundtrack mixing ambient music and rock stabs isn't at all garbage, either.Performances by de Fougerolles, Renaud, and Briançon are all pretty solid, as well.I only wish I hadn't seen twenty-five movies almost exactly like it beforehand.It doesn't take a film major to see Morlet's obvious love for all things Danny Boyle/Neil Marshall.The pacing slows to a crawl mid-movie to establish the 'love n' hope in the face of difficulty and danger' angle(yaaaaaawn), and though it perks up quite a bit in the final reel, it's too fucking late by then.I can't consciously add Morlet's name to the list of French heavy-hitters until he crafts a better flick.On the scale, Mutants transforms into a mediocre two wops; nothing special to see here.

Ooh, looky, more cgi.Right click.Scroll down.Delete.

"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.

"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.