The confusion of zombie film titles.

How many zombie film DVDs have you on your shelves?

20?

30?

50?

If the answer is 50 or more then chances are that at some point you've mistakenly bought a film you already had in your collection.

Let's look at one of the cornerstones of zombie film - Dawn Of The Dead. In some foreign markets it's known as Zombie. Okay, that's fine and not likely to cause much in the way of confusion. But ... along comes Lucio Fulci with his enjoyable film Zombie Flesh Eaters. Now, again not much of a problem on it's own but ... since Zombie is a hard word to copyright, it was titled Zombie 2 in some territories in a bid to pass it off as a sequel to DOTD. However ... in the US, where DOTD was DOTD, the Fulci flick was known as Zombie ...... It also has a variety of other titles, most of which don't matter too much (unless you see Woodoo on the shelf of your local charity shop and think you've discovered a new zombie movie) - Zombie Island, Woodoo & Island Of The Living Dead. The last title matters a bit because later Bruno Mattei would direct a quasi sequel/remake called Island Of The Living Dead 2006. Why not Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 or Zombie 3, you ask? Well .....

Fulci was slated to direct a sequel to Zombie Flesh Eaters. Depending on who you listen to he either directed over 50% of the finished film or very little and he left due to ill health or production differences. Anyway Bruno Mattei took over the helming of the film and the resultant mess was titled either Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 or Zombie 3 depending on which territory you were in. However ...

Andrea Bianchi's Burial Ground : The Nights Of Terror is also known in some parts as Zombie 3 (it's also called The Zombie Dead & plain of Nights Of Terror just to confuse zombie fans that bit more).

Guess what? We're not finished. Zombie Holocaust (aka Doctor Butcher M.D.) also goes under the alias of Zombie 3.

And .... Nightmare City (or City Of The Walking Dead) has also claimed to be the real Zombie 3.

Not ... finished .... yet. The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue (which I double bought under the title of Let Sleeping Corpses Lie .... dammit) is ... go on, guess .... yep, also known as Zombie 3. The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue is a solid entry in the zombie genre and didn't need fake ties to Romero's work to stand out.

And onto Zombie 4 : After Death, also known as Zombie Flesh Eaters 3. Starring gay porn actor Jeff Stryker, this entry (no pun intended) is painfully bad (no pun intended) and surely should have killed any idea that a 4th pretend sequel to DOTD would have any mileage in it.

Killing Birds managed to get stuck with the tag Zombie 5 and it stunk. Surely there couldn't be a Zombie 6?

There really wasn't but ... Zombie 6 : Monster Hunter tried to pretend there was. This film is really Absurd (the title, not a judgement) and is more of a sequel to Anthropophagus than DOTD (it's also known as Anthropophagus 2, Horrible, Grim Reaper 2 etc.). George Eastman doesn't even play a zombie in it. There are no zombies in it. Thankfully you'll rarely find this film under that title.


Just to confuse things a little more let's go onto one of the most retitled films in the zombie world. Zombie Creeping Flesh (this was it's title when I first discovered the film so it's the one I'm sticking to) is also known as Hell Of The Living Dead, Night Of The Zombies, Virus, Cannibal Virus, Zombie Inferno, Zombies Of The Savanna and ... drum roll .... Zombie 2 .... or Zombie 4 .... Zombie 5.


So ... much confusion caused by unofficial sequels to Dawn Of The Dead. How about the actual sequel, Day Of The Dead? Well, in Germany it has been known as  .... yes .... Zombie 2.

Part 1 of "Films remade as zombie films" - Dirty Rotting Scoundrels

Zombies in prison.

1) Shadow - Dead Riot

Women in prison, improbable kung fu skills, zombies, a lecherous doctor, an equally lecherous lesbian head guard, Tony Todd as a mass murdering voodoo priest and a zombie baby. It works in a throw everything possible at the screen and hope it works, kind of way.

7/10

2) Beyond Re-Animator

The 3rd Reanimator flick and the least popular. It's still fun because it's still Reanimator, dammit. Anyway, Dr. Herbert West is in prison for his crimes but is that going to stop his "experiments"? Heck, no. All hell breaks out as zombies overrun the prison. And there's a fight (in silhouette) between a rat and a reanimated severed penis.

8/10

3) Prison Of The Dead

It's from Full Moon, you say? Surely it'll have lots of little puppet people running about killing folks, I say? No, you say? WTF, I say?

Not the worst film ever made (as some have labelled it) but it is bad. Very very bad.

Stereotypical teen types awaken the dead. In a prison.

2/10

4) Zombie Death House

Also known as Death House for those zombie lovers who don't want to overburden the "Z" section of their shelves.

Directed by John Saxon. Yes, that John Saxon. Yes, the John Saxon from Nightmare On Elm Street, Enter The Dragon, Cannibal Apocalypse etc.

There's little zombie action in this which is probably why it fit into a by the numbers cops n robbers 4 DVD pack (which I bought from Amazon for less than the price of the movie on it's own).

Still, it was directed by John Saxon.

7/10

5) Dead Men Walking

A guy goes to prison for killing zombies and .....

Hang on, is that still a crime in some countries? What kind of lawyer doesn't employ the "But they were zombies defence"?

Anyway, a guy goes to prison for killing zombies and, since he was bitten, spreads the infection. A lot of good gorey action ensues.

I do prefer the German title though. Zombie Prison Massacre.

8/10

10 Zombie Movies you might not have heard of.

10) Attack Girls' Swim Team vs. the Undead – gratuitous nudity, lesbian love scenes, mentalist plot twists, gratuitous nudity, daftest cure for zombism ever, gratuitous nudity and a laser fired out of the main characters lady bits. Oh, and a mad scientist (which actually seems to be his official job title).

9) Paris By Night Of The Living Dead - So what if it’s only 12 minutes long? So what if what little dialogue there is, is in French? This French short has more invention in it’s short running time than most zombie flicks out there. The premise? A young couple have the end of their wedding ceremony interrupted by the zombie apocalypse. Luckily they remembered something borrowed, something blue and some heavy artillery.

8) Night Of The Musical Dead – Carrie & The Evil Dead were both turned into musicals so the public domain Night Of The Living Dead was sure to get the treatment. Next up – Cannibal Ferox : The Musical.

7) Afternoon Of The Rat-Faced Zombies aka 28 Beers Later – When there is no more room at the bar, the dead drunk will walk the Earth! Hit and miss comedy but it’s a short so if it’s not to your tastes then you haven’t wasted too much of your life. The zombie outbreak is caused by a dodgy batch of beer – more believable than a crashed satellite to be honest!

6) Graveyard Alive : A Zombie Nurse In Love . A dowdy nurse is unlucky in love until she becomes a zombie! A surprisingly good zomedy romp with a good line in sending up cheap romance novels.

5) Yamagata Scream. A zombie outbreak occurs during a Japanese school trip. Japanese school girls, samurai ghosts, zombies. No one does random daftness as well as the Japanese.

4) Creatures From The Pink Lagoon. Gay zombies! Good camp zombie fun.

3) Zombabies. They’re babies. They’re zombies. They’re zombabies!

2) Grub Girl. A zombie hooker. Based on the comic series by Edward Lee (who also wrote the novel which Header was based on). Hardcore sex. With a zombie. Surprisingly works unlike Erotic Nights Of The Living Dead, Porno Holocaust, Porn Of The Dead and a million others.

1) Snow Day Bloody Snow Day The town is driven to a standstill by snow and wouldn’t you know it? Zombies attack. A well made and fun zombie film. Let’s hope we hear from the makers again.

Zombies & Jesus - what's that about?

There's currently two films called Zombie Christ.

http://andrew_larrison.home.comcast.net/~andrew_larrison/

http://www.quietearth.us/articles/2009/04/22/Trailer-for-THE-ZOMBIE-CHRIST-which-is-yes-post-apocalyptic

There's another one on the way.

http://www.billzebub.com/Filmography/tabid/71/Default.aspx

There's a short called Zombie Jesus.

http://www.zombiejesusisback.com/

Tom Savini plays a zombie Jesus in Zombiegeddon.

The Passion Of Zombie Jesus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDENmSJIlMI

And in the Worst Horror Film Ever Made (actual title) Jesus comes back, is crucified by gay Muslim terrorists, masturbates using the holes in his hands, goes on a rape bender, is raped to death by trees (ala Evil Dead) and then comes back as a rape-happy Zombie.

And of course there's the Jesus Hates Zombies graphic novels

So is it down to ......

1. Rising from the dead?
2. The whole transmutation/eating of the flesh thang?
3. The mindless followers?
4. All of the above?
5. Good old taboo busting?

Why Zombies?

So .... why zombies?

Why why why?

I suppose "just because" isn't going to cut it so why do I spend precious time on zombie flicks? I have well over 300 zombie films sitting on my shelves and, to be quite frank, a fair percentage are crap. Enjoyable crap? Yes, mostly but why watch a shot on video effort directed by someone who only just got a shiny new digital camcorder for their 18th birthday (with the script written by their girlfriend's dog) as opposed to the works of Tarkovsky or Traffaut?

George Romero has to shoulder a lot of the blame on two counts. Firstly without Night Of The Living Dead, the countless imitators wouldn't have had a template to follow. Secondly, without Night, Dawn & Day, the millions of zombie fans wouldn't have gotten hooked on the genre.

Okay, but why continue with other films in the same genre when only a handful are classics?

A) Zombies are unsettling in a way which vampires, werewolves and the modern day monster, the slasher, just aren't.

• They can't be reasoned with. All they want to do is eat you and won't be bought off with a curly wurly.
• They have numbers on their side. For the most part they number in the millions (even if it looks like the director has employed six of his mates in a variety of unconvincing wigs to create the illusion of millions).
• They used to be us.

B) Generally the films are fun. There's a number of reasons for this.

• The genre attracts nascent directors. Firstly because zombie films sell so that's always a plus. Secondly, zombies are cheap to make - white face make-up with a bit of black under the eyes, a splash of fake blood and Bob's your undead uncle. Young directors have energy (often misplaced and misdirected but hey-ho!) so even if the end product stinks, at least you sense they had fun making it.
• You don't need contrived plots when there's zombies around. Terrorists are holding the president's poodle hostage, you say? Screw that, there's a bunch of zombie trying to break down the door.
• Because zombie conventions are firmly in place, it allows film makers to play with and against those conventions - see Shaun Of The Dead, The Special Dead (and to a lesser extent RetarDEAD), Zombabies, What To Do In A Zombie Attack and the countless zombie porn knock offs.
• Zombies will never be Twilighted. Sure zombie films have had romance in them (Return Of The Living Dead 3, Zombie Honeymoon, Wasting Away etc.) but you'll not find many 12 year olds girls with zombie posters on their walls.

C) Zombies will never be respectable. They are the rebels of the monster world.

Danny Boyle won his Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire, not 28 Days Later. Even though Shaun Of The Dead & 28 Days Later won plaudits, they haven't shifted the view amongst mainstream viewers that zombie films are grubby and a wee bit nasty.