(Dead)icated to

Movie Classics

Dawn of the Dead (1979) *** George A. Remero's sequel to Night of the living Dead. The unrestricted movie code now allows writer-director Romero to be more graphic, and while overshock lessens the impact, he still has a primitive power that sets him apart from (if not always above) his contemporaries. This succeeds as a stomach-churning glimps at mans prowess to destroy himself with up-to-date weaponry, and as a spoof on Living Dead itself. For sometimes the walking zombies are treated menacingly, other times as jokes. The plot involves a small band traped in a shopping mall. Day of the Dead was the third and final chapter in this sanguinary saga. David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reininger. Aka Zombies And Dawn of the Living Dead.

Day of The Dead (1985) *** Third and Final Installment in the Night of the Living Dead series from writer-director George A. Romero. The world is now made up of walking zombies with only a few "normals" left. Survivors hide in a underground center where Dr. Logan (Richard Liberty) experiments on the dead. Loco Logan comes into conflict with a military unit which wants to curtail the sickening experiments. (This modern Frankenstein has the dedication of a quack at Dachau.) This conflict seems unnecessary when 9,000 zombies are trying to break in. Romero, who once had fun with zombies, here takes himself seriously, relying on effects for horror scenes that revolt rather than entertain. There's the expected chomping of body parts and unstringing of intestines, and thanks to Tom Savini we see a human body ripped apart. A clumsy, unresolved conclusion to the trilogy.

Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987) **** This is so stylishly, hiysterically overdone that stands out as a first-class comedy gore flick. "There's something out there" (a line from the film, belive it or not) exemplifies the tounge-in-cheek approach of director-writer Sam Raimi, who works with co-writer Scott Speigel in kepping close to the original film's story. Once again the Book of the Dead allows invisible demons to rove the forest, animating inanimate objects and possessing animate ones. Raimi is out to startle you with the most blatant visuals. A man chainsawing off his own hand, a woman gulping an eyeball, tree roots and tendrils strangling humans , and demons crackling their evil are among the perverted delights. There's a wonderful parody of the Rambo trailer in which hero Cambell arms himself, concluding with his approval: "Groovy." The overacting finds acceptability within the gushing blood (sometimes green, sometimes red), the flesh-destroying effects and wide-angle-lens shots that are well "Groovy." Denise Bixler, Kassie Wesley, Dan Hicks, Theodore Raimi.

Zombie (1979) *** Unauthorized sequel to Romero's Dawn of the Dead, set on St. Thomas island where Tisa Farrow and Ian McCulloch battle zombies, resurrected via voodoo rituals by fiendish doctor Richard Johnson. Heads are blown off in abundance (that's the only way to stop a zombie remember?) and director Lucio Fulci and scenarist Elisa Briganti allow this Itailian exploitationer to reach ridiculous extremes-such as having a zombie attack and bite a killer shark and having a human eyeball punctured. But thats what this "walking dead" genre is all about, right? Aurretta Gay. Aka The Island of Living Dead, Zombie 2 and Zombie Flesh Eaters.

The Return of The Living Dead (1985) *** Dan O'Bannon, author of Alien and Dead and Buried, makes his directorial debut with this spin-off from Night of The Living Dead and spoofs the genre without sacrificing shocks, making this superior black-comedy horror (O'Bannon scripted too). In a warehouse for the world's oddities are U.S. military cannisters rumored to contain corpses inflicted with a plauge from space (there are refrences to George Romero's 1967 movie). A malfunction frees a corpse and causes toxic rain to fall on Ressurection cemetery. Next, the walking dead are everywhere. Absoulutely hysterical (if you have a morbid sense of humor) with thrills in the Romero tradition. O'Bannon is to be commended. And thanks also goes to Clu Gulager, James Karen, Beverly Randolph, Thom Mathews, and Don Calfa for giving verisimilitude to thw wild , woolly fun.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)**** Strictly an exercise in exploitation, but done with such grotesque style that it now stands as a cult classic in American Grand Guignol. Nowadays it might seem tame but in it's day it was controversial, so cruel and sick seemed it's macabre touches. Marilyn Burns establishes new screaming recordsas she is pursued through an orchard by a madman eager to sink his teeth into her neck, the teeth of a chainsaw, that is. Poor Marilyn. She's bound and gagged, beaten, cut with a razor blade, shoved into a canvas sack and forced to sit in an armchair made of real arms. The family of sick characters is played for grotesque comedy. Directed by that mild mannered sentementalist Tobe Hooper. Kim Henkel cowrote with Hooper. Gunnar Hanse plays the crazy guy with the buzz saw. Two sequels followed.

The Video Dead (1983)* Uninspired video original, another variation on Night of the Living Dead, only this time the zombie monsters come out of a TV set. Written-produced-directed by Robert Scott in and around San Francisco, this features gore effects, zombie makeup and a dumb plot.

Revenge of the Dead (1984) ** By Italian horror standards, one of the tamest spaggetti-shockers ever produced. This TV-movie (aka Zeder--voices from beyond and Zeder--voices from darkness) is about an unsold novelist who discovers letters written on his typewriter ribbon that refers to "K zones," areas where the dead return to life. Writer and wife set out for Necropolis and an oracle of the dead. Unfortunately, the emphasis of director-producer Pupi Aviati is on dialogue and literacy with a modicum of visual shocks. The film's 100 minutes cannot sustain interest.