The Stiff: Chapter 1: Page 34
I hate to promote copyright piracy, but recently I’ve discovered that there’s a ton of old horror movies on youtube. It seems unfair that huge studios only have the time or interest for policing youtube for their most recent releases, while meanwhile you can see complete prints of various ’80s flicks, classic and otherwise.
Lately I’ve taken to half-watching them while I’m working (which may not be the best way to stay productive… maybe I’d better stick to Yog-Sothoth.com podcasts…). “Night of the Comet” was a lame postapocalyptic adventure-comedy, disappointingly un-scary and zero-budget, although the fact that the heroes were both women was noteworthy for an ’80s movie, even if they were Valley Girl types. “My Boyfriend’s Back” was bland despite a few good moments; I quickly realized I’d watched it sometime before but just blanked it out and forgot about it because it’s so meh. On the other hand, it’s hard to ignore the sheer grossness and nightmare-delirium of “Demons”, “Demons 2” (definitely not as good as the first one especially with the awful puppetry– and what is up with the theme of heroic machismo running through both “Demons” movies? It’s like they’ve got a non-self-aware Bruce Campbell “Ash” thing going on), and “Zombi 3” (released in the US as “Zombie Flesh Eaters 2”, which I think is better than the Italian title).
I’d been hearing about “Zombi 3” (1986) ever since my ex-roommate Patrick Macias assured me he’d heard it wasn’t worth watching, and frankly, despite the novelty of being one of the first movies to sprint over to the US and rip off “Return of the Living Dead,” (1985) it’s pretty bad. Still, I don’t know why it was so bad that Lucio Fulci disowned it, compared to some other equally ludicrous and disjointed Fulci films; maybe he simply objected on the basis of his pride that another director finished it after he left the production, or maybe he disapproved of the high-action feel (as it lacks the slow scare sequences common in his most Fulci movies). And it DOES have 10 seconds’ worth of a flying zombie head.
I’ve been working on other non-zombie-related stuff too, of course! But more on that later!
NEXT UPDATE: Friday!
I did like “Warm Bodies” though I thought the ultimate metamorphosis of the reanimated dead were taken care of way too easily. They were very fast should have made them far more dangerous.