House of the Living Dead

Hey folks. You can all relax. I'm back. Working on an audio review for the YouTubes and got caught up in that, forgetting not everyone subscribes to that. So back ta da blog!

Well found YET ANOTHER Zombie flick and yes it also has multiple titles. This hails from a 12 pack by Mill Creek Entertainment and shock of shocks, it also has Horror of the Zombies a.k.a. Ghost Galleon and predictably, Night of the Living Dead in its illustrious alumni. On a South African plantation, a diseased maniac is rampant, killing first the plantation animals and then sets on the humans! Gasp! This is House of the Living Dead a.k.a. Curse of the Dead a.k.a. Doctor Maniac a.k.a. Kill, Baby, Kill.

Ring Wraith stealing a goat in daylight??!!

Well with that fine collection of titles, how can we go wrong? Just looked at 15 different covers, just looking at the print of this poor film; it has been treated like the town trollop. Passed around again and again. Redistribution to the likes of Night of the Living Dead. Ahem, with that in mind, on with the film.

Under the cover of day, a hooded figure in a black cloak abducts a baboon because... oh hell your guess as good as many and possibly less filthy.    A mad scientist Dr. Breckinridge Brattling (Yes I swear that is the character's name!) is conducting illegal human experiments on his family estate. Guess the sound proofing there dulls down the screams. Twisting God's work into his own hellish nightmares, he dare put his scientific curiosity before common decency. So in general, he's a dick. Striving to put different souls into other people, (Yeah I can't make this nonsense up) he has had a few setbacks.

The town villagers are convinced something is going on but seem reluctant to gather pitchforks and torches to go and kill the monster. Kind of surprising really.

Oh ho, my milkshake does bring all the boys to the yard.

With various animals disappearing in the village, you think people would figure out that just possibly that it could be THE HOODED FIGURE roaming the countryside acting all suspicious??!!! FYI, not the Hooded Figure in Rotten Reelz Reviews Video Reviews. Pretty sure he's not abducting animals and people. Well, more or less sure.

A set of twins runs the plantation. Breckinridge's brother Michael (Mark Burns of Death in Venice, A Day at the Beach, Juggernaut, Rosebud and The Maids) runs the household while Insano Breck performs his madcap experiments attempting to transmigrate a soul outside the human body. Hmm, maybe some opids might be in the doctor's diet.

Jiggly fiancee' Mary (Shirley Anne Field of Peeping Tom, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, These Are the Damned and Wild for Kicks) cannot wait to marry MichaelNow, many of you know I abhor two things. A vacuum and spoilers. That being said, THERE ARE NO ZOMBIES! Yes, with all the potential voodoo, genetic experimentation, viral outbreak and how about Hell just getting full of pervs, people that talk in the theater and Nazis?

So yeah, I can only reason it was titled thus so to cash in on Romero's success of Night of the Living Dead; given Dawn of the Dead wasn't released until 1978. Redistribution is probably closer to blame.

Made in 1973 but took an entire year to release (Yup we are in good hands), our magnum Opus was actually filmed in South Africa. Nifty, right? Look, Vancouver has been Faux Detroit, NYC, Chicago, San Francisco and Post Apocalyptic Jersey and that is just the handful of flicks I have seen, so yes I am surprised they got shot on proper location. I TAKE MY HAPPYS WERE I CAN!!! STOP JUDGING MEEEEEE!!!!

Shot in 35 mm Spherical on Arriflex Cameras, yes the sound is mono but thankfully in Color and not Technocolor. The print is positively horrendous. This was a VHS to DVD translation and never went through an image rendering process. Loosely translated, it looks like crap. Which is too bad because it was professionally shot well but again VHS crap!!!

Now to change Bobo into a donkey.  Because SCIENCE!!!

Happy New Years!!!! Bloody New Year

Greeting and salutations as we tackle another helping of Phantoms of the Year Day 3. As it is indeed New Year's Eve, it is only fitting and proper that our movie for tonight is actually occurring on New Year's Eve unlike Life Blood's blatant excuse to put models in cotton teddies. I know that sounds odd, a heterosexual man complaining of such viewing but dammit folks that was a really bad film. With that in mind, what say we catch up with some pesky teens that plan to get liquored up and explore one another sexually, all the way releasing some mutant hell beast bent on destroying the world? This is Bloody New Year.

Peggy Sue and Charlie Bodell are startled!

Five teens kill time before sailing away at the Fun Fair in Wales... I have no idea why they are in Wales but how cares? Our in-depth background on everyone is they are having a weekend to celebrate the New Year when a young American get bothered by the weakest carnie punks ever and the older gent of the three looks like the bartender of the Winchester via Shaun of the Dead. After the daring rescue and very mild fisticuffs with the carnies our preppy bunch got sailing when they encounter coral reef which in my opinion was accidental during the shoot and they just added to the movie. Washed to shore, these plucky preppies make their way to the famous Grand Island Hotel that is all the rave in Wales. With no one about, they pair off, start exploring, diddle each others brains out and swipe dry clothing. Strange goings on in our haunted hotel as our director tries to go Kubrickian on us and give us cheesy haunted effects like magazines closing themselves up, fireworks going off and the death defying possessed vacuum cleaner ambled for toes.

They're upset being greasers is outdated.

The kids slowly realize that all the 1950's apparel, decor and random blurts of music might mean that nobody has been to this hotel in ages and something odd may have occurred. This by the way starts shedding light to the place is cursed PAST THE HALF HOUR MARK!!!! Up until this point it has been exploring, heavy petting (as heavy as the English can allow themselves) and poorly constrewn dialogue. Finding a 1950's film Fiend Without a Face would have been far more enjoyable to watch versus the movie I am enduring. To say the film drags on until about the 37 minute mark and finally one of the cast gets attacked, throttled and murdered by a ghost from the projector. With our hapless teens splitting up the party, it is a safe bet that death is on the rise but there is so much filler of staring aimlessly, pointless dialogue how weird everything is and LESS VACATING THE ISLAND!!!

Will there be survivors?? Does anyone get any more chances to hook up? Are they having a happy New Year?

A few comments on the movie now.

British director Norman J. Warren (Her Private Hell, Satan's Slave, Terror, Spaced Out, Alien Prey, Inseminoid and Gunpowder) clearly grew up with a steady diet of Hammer movies like many of us did, but this lad chose to try to top Hammer's gothic time period pieces with a touch of cold and grim tones set in modern-day as well as the future. With a paltry shoestring budget, our director channeled Sam Raimi's Evil Dead, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining and added a dash of Fulchi's Zombi and set it to boiling point... by that I mean it was left on the stove too long, caused a house fire and everyone died violently.

Ambitious to a fault, it almost seems like no footage hit the cutting floor, the editing was unusual and the cast of unknowns are flubbing lines and tripping over themselves. Some well timed sight gags and jump scares and the makeup for the ghouls is pretty fair but overall this felt forced. An A for effort but solid D- minus for execution. Best thing said about this movie... I am done watching it.

Deborah was under the tanning bed too long.