Double Feature
Seriously, I thought I saw the worst of the zombie films when I watched Enter… Zombie King. I was so beyond wrong. The past two weeks I have had the awesome judgement to pick out two completely horrible zombie flicks: Teenage Zombies and Zombie Nation.
Movie: Teenage Zombies
Year: 1959
Country of Origin: USA
Zombie speed: Dangerously slow
Cause of outbreak:Evil plan for world domination
I wouldn’t say it was the worst of the two, but I didn’t even make it to the end of Teenage Zombies. The film is from 1959, when zombies were more like domesticated Frankenstein monsters used to carry out top secret communist world domination plans. The zombies in this film are rarely seen, have no ability to really communicate but kinda lumber around a la Lurch. The plot is that four teenagers find a secret island that has an evil scientist! The evil plot of said evil scientist is to take over the US by turning everyone into slave zombies! Two other teenagers must convince the shady sheriff to investigate, but the Yosemite Sam look-alike wants nothing to do with the islands or the evil scientist. How does it end? No clue, again I couldn’t finish this black and white film. BUT YOU CAN! Just found this online, presenting… TEENAGE ZOMBIES.
Movie: Zombie Nation
Year: 2004
Country of Origin: USA
Zombie speed: Some limped, but mostly human pace
Cause of outbreak: Voodoo
The second movie was just a disaster. The only way I made it through the whole thing was because JoeCool and I had too much fun laughing and commenting on the events in the movie. First of all, the zombies look nothing like the cover. They might have blown the entire budget on that art, because it is hard to tell where else it might have gone. Here are some other things of note just off the top of my head that I noticed:
1.The opening credits never seemed to stop. It was the longest credited movie ever. And it wasn’t even very fancy or well done. Who were they giving such undue credit to for 10 minutes into the actual movie!?
2.The opening was shot in the backseat of the nicest cop car I have ever seen. The camera looks from the backseat towards the windshield so we can see the profiles of our two main characters, OldCreepyCop and NewYoungCop. The camera is not particularly focused on anything and the fact that they must have put it on autofocus is only corroborated by the cameras constant refocusing on road side signs and stoplights. It is very distracting to say the least.
3.There are these random cut away scenes to this naked man face down in hospital bed being whipped by a crazy person. You even see his junk. Why?
4.There is this ridiculous unexplained fight scene, between NewYoungCop and some other cop that rivals Enter… Zombie King for worst fight choreography I have ever seen in a movie. The best part is that there are these giant empty cardboard boxes set up in the background that the guy gets thrown through, and it (of course) knocks him out. Also, every character in the movie is present at the fight for no real reason.
5.Zombie makeup? We don’t need no stinking zombie makeup! The “zombies” don’t appear until about 45 minutes into the movie. They are all women; they talk, drive cars, and walk fine and even dance. So how can I tell they are zombies? They have black and silver eyeshadow smeared above and below their eyes. That is it.
6.The cardinal rule for a zombie movie is broken: they identify the walking undead who seem to be eating the living as zombies. The zombies even call themselves zombies!!
So I am not even going to go into the plot for this one. It is way out there, and bad. Really really bad.
Movie: Teenage ZombiesYear: 1959
Country of Origin: USA
Zombie speed: Dangerously slow
Cause of outbreak:Evil plan for world domination
I wouldn’t say it was the worst of the two, but I didn’t even make it to the end of Teenage Zombies. The film is from 1959, when zombies were more like domesticated Frankenstein monsters used to carry out top secret communist world domination plans. The zombies in this film are rarely seen, have no ability to really communicate but kinda lumber around a la Lurch. The plot is that four teenagers find a secret island that has an evil scientist! The evil plot of said evil scientist is to take over the US by turning everyone into slave zombies! Two other teenagers must convince the shady sheriff to investigate, but the Yosemite Sam look-alike wants nothing to do with the islands or the evil scientist. How does it end? No clue, again I couldn’t finish this black and white film. BUT YOU CAN! Just found this online, presenting… TEENAGE ZOMBIES.
Movie: Zombie Nation
Year: 2004
Country of Origin: USA
Zombie speed: Some limped, but mostly human pace
Cause of outbreak: Voodoo
The second movie was just a disaster. The only way I made it through the whole thing was because JoeCool and I had too much fun laughing and commenting on the events in the movie. First of all, the zombies look nothing like the cover. They might have blown the entire budget on that art, because it is hard to tell where else it might have gone. Here are some other things of note just off the top of my head that I noticed:
1.The opening credits never seemed to stop. It was the longest credited movie ever. And it wasn’t even very fancy or well done. Who were they giving such undue credit to for 10 minutes into the actual movie!?
2.The opening was shot in the backseat of the nicest cop car I have ever seen. The camera looks from the backseat towards the windshield so we can see the profiles of our two main characters, OldCreepyCop and NewYoungCop. The camera is not particularly focused on anything and the fact that they must have put it on autofocus is only corroborated by the cameras constant refocusing on road side signs and stoplights. It is very distracting to say the least.
3.There are these random cut away scenes to this naked man face down in hospital bed being whipped by a crazy person. You even see his junk. Why?
4.There is this ridiculous unexplained fight scene, between NewYoungCop and some other cop that rivals Enter… Zombie King for worst fight choreography I have ever seen in a movie. The best part is that there are these giant empty cardboard boxes set up in the background that the guy gets thrown through, and it (of course) knocks him out. Also, every character in the movie is present at the fight for no real reason.
5.Zombie makeup? We don’t need no stinking zombie makeup! The “zombies” don’t appear until about 45 minutes into the movie. They are all women; they talk, drive cars, and walk fine and even dance. So how can I tell they are zombies? They have black and silver eyeshadow smeared above and below their eyes. That is it.
6.The cardinal rule for a zombie movie is broken: they identify the walking undead who seem to be eating the living as zombies. The zombies even call themselves zombies!!
So I am not even going to go into the plot for this one. It is way out there, and bad. Really really bad.
Labels: zombies
A blog about life, plants and the pursuit of zombies.
2 Comments:
i am not even going to read this. just skip straight to commenting with,
why why why would you ever think anything called teenage zombies had a shot at being 'good'?
that's all.
Rarely zombie movies are 'good' but they are often entertaining!
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