Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Special Dead (2006)


Director: Thomas L. Phillips, Sean Simmons

PLOT: When a zombie plague infects Camp Special Dude, a dude ranch for the mentally handicapped, a ragtag band of campers and a counselors struggles to survive the night…

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
One Brain





The acting is just plain sad and I was miserably let down at their lack of zombie horses. I watched it because… well, because it is a zombie movie. It was worse than I expected. I had hoped for something ballsy, considering the political incorrectness going on there. Sad!!! 




Re-Animator (1985)


Director: Stuart Gordon

PLOT: A dedicated medical student and his girlfriend become involved in bizarre experiments centering around the re-animation of dead tissue when an odd new student  arrives on campus.

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
Eight Brains ~ H.P. Lovecraft wrote this one… Cthulhu will eat you if you don’t like it!





One of the best zombie movies ever made

Budget: $900,000
Opening Weekend: $543,728 (20 Oct 1985, 129 screen)
Gross: $2,023,441 (USA)




Ed and His Dead Mother (1993)


Director: Jonathan Wacks

PLOT: A mourning son makes a deal to reanimate his one year dead mother, however things turn in an unexpected direction.

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
Eight Brains ~ Steve Buscemi, need I say more?!





Quirky zombie oddity done Buscemi style! Simply great.

Budget: $1,800,000
Opening Weekend: $673 (21 Nov 1993, 1 screen)
Gross: $1,097 (USA)




Dead Men Don't Die (1990)


Director: Malcolm Mamorstein

PLOT: A reporter investigating a drug dealing ring is murdered. Brought back to life by the voodoo spell of a cleaning woman, he goes after his killers…

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
Eight Brains  ~ Hilarious!





It is silly and cliché, but so funny that I couldn’t stop laughing at Eliott Gould’s performance. Yes, you can see a microphone in a couple shots. Yes, it is silly. I still love this film!



Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror (1981)


Director:  Andrea Bianchi

PLOT: A Professor opens a crypt and reanimates rotten zombies. The zombies attack a group of friends celebrating at a party in a villa nearby…

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
One Brain  ~ Peter Bark can suck it!





I understand casting an adult due to child labor laws, but for the love of zombies, at least get an adult who can pass for child! Peter Bark with his ‘Mama! Mama!’ was just so creepy. He was like a tiny little man her age, maybe older, calling her mama. And the zombies were bad. Apparently everyone in that region is buried wearing a man-dress made of burlap because that is what they wear when they crawl out of the grave. I fought to stay awake.




Virus Undead (2008)


Director:  Wolf Wolff, Ohumthi

PLOT: Was there a plot? Oh yeah...Umm...Grandpa invents a zombie plague and his snotty shithead grandson umm...I lost interest there.

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
Two Brains for makeup effects…Not the worst, but still pretty bad






An Austrian crap flick not worth watching if there ever was one. The zombies don't even appear until the movie is almost over and when they do, it is a huge failure.  German actors in English with terrible accents and a crappy almost non existent plot.




Last of the Living (2008)


Director: Logan McMillan

PLOT: A highly contagious virus is spreading throughout the land. With one bite, it's only hours before victims will turn into zombies and hunt for human flesh. Morgan, Ash, and Johnny might just be the only humans left, but they don't seem to mind and find enjoyment lounging around in their underwear living in vacant homes. When they stumble upon a hot girl who just may have a cure, the three decide it's finally time to step up to the plate and save the world- and the girl. Now the only hope for survival lies in their hands.
                         
UGLY MOLLY RATING:
Two Brains for the comedy and entertainment, but bad effects and poor plotline.






Very low budget, but the acting wasn’t too bad and it was entertaining for the most part. I laughed at some parts. Bad makeup, but funny dialogue. I enjoyed it for a ‘one time watch.’

Budget: $5,000 for the first 90%, then put a video trailer on Youtube and got another $40,000




Dance of the Dead (2008)


Director: Gregg Bishop

PLOT: It is prom night in middle America. Tuxes have been rented and dresses have been bought. But when the dead unexpectedly rise from their graves to eat the living, it's up to the geeks, the nerds, the outcast and the losers who couldn't get dates to the dance to save the town from the undead. Unlikely heroes will rise to the challenge as they are forced to put aside their differences and band together to fight for their lives. Armed with bats, sledgehammers, garden tools and guitars, this rag-tag group of high-school teens are in for a prom night they will never forget.

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
Two Brains just because it managed to get me to watch it until the end. Nothing too interesting though.






I HATED the GI Joe who takes charge of the kids, leading them to battle the zombies…He’s a total geek who makes all military look bad. Not really funny, not really bad…A middle of the road film. Not worth watching a second time.




Day of the Dead II Contagium (2005)



PLOT: In 1968, at the Ravenside Military Hospital in PA, the military loses control of an experiment – a lethal bacterial weapon that changes the DNA and transforms humans into zombies. A group of soldiers is sent to the hospital to eliminate the infected staff and interns but Pvt DeLuca steals a test tube with the virus and hides it inside a vacuum flask. He is transformed into a zombie and killed but the vacuum flask falls into the grass. In the present days, a group of patients at the mental institution now located there finds the flask and one of them opens the vessel. The culture drops to the floor and a doctor is contaminated.

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
Two Brains ~ Dull movie…NOT ROMERO!!!






NOT a Romero film! Tragically bad zombie makeup. A tribute should have tried harder! Super DULL!!!
Budget: $9,000,000




Children of the Living Dead (2001)


Director: Tor Ramsey

PLOT: In 1987 serial murderer and rapist Abbot Hayes disappeared from the morgue. Shortly afterwards, a zombie plague swept his hometown and many lost their lives in the ensuing battle. Now, fourteen years later, the aging residents of the town are trying to erase all traces of their past. But the arrival of a businessman who relocates the bodies of the local cemetery into a mass grave so he can build a car dealership riles up Abbot, who sets out to create his own army of the undead and take over.

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
Two Brains







When making a terrible movie, please remember this….
"Plot holes can exist as long as there is enough action to distract the viewer from focusing on them," …Every B-rate director knows that, and every B-rate movie fan knows it, too…Even my ten year old asked what made Abbot Hayes different from all of the other zombies and why he could think when they could not. Talk about some bad cheese…Zombies that eat only adults? Please! We did get a good laugh over the Abbot Hayes Big Foot in the Woods scene though…Dark, he is shuffling through the trees…Five steps, turns and looks at the camera…I swear it is the same shot used in the Inquirer. The only reason I gave it two brains was for the scene with Jesse, the former grave digger/ robber turned recluse who finally gains the courage to leave his room only to be mauled by zombies…I loved his “Wide open spaces” scene! That alone gets it the two brains…lol




Days of Darkness (2007)


 Director:  Jake Kennedy

PLOT: The world watches as a comet looms over the earth for days. The masses were told there is nothing to worry about. It was a lie! An eclectic group of survivors huddle together and battle for their only chance to survive against the uprising of the undead while trying to save the fate of mankind.In a twist on the standard zombie movie of the "Night of the Living Dead" series, the zombies here are infected with alien organisms from the thawing comet, not by being bitten. Holed up in an abandoned military blockhouse, the survivors are a mixed bag; a young unmarried couple, a former porn star and her sheltered teenage daughter, a born again fundamentalist preacher, a gay man, an alpha male movie producer/rancher, a couple of soldiers, one male and one female, a high-roller, and the preacher's infected brother, chained up in the basement. Internal strife hampers the group's events to come up with a plan to defeat the zombies pressing in on the chain-link fence surrounding the site; one by one they begin to fall victim, both to the zombies and to each other.
A comet turns people into zombies…Yes, Alien Zombies! Seed Pods that make the genitals drop off and turn people into flesh eating zombies…But not to worry, these are not our beloved Romero Zombies – a bite will not infect you! Apparently only the comet dust…Ok, I couldn’t find a good synopsis without spoilers…lol…


UGLY MOLLY RATING:
Two Brains..Pretty Bad






Ummm..I’ll give it creativity for the seed pods, and the little religious zealot was funny in his own creepy way…But this movie was just plain stupid. And the ex-porn mom talking like that in front of her daughter? Come on! Please!




Zombie Honeymoon (2004)


Director:  David Gebroe

PLOT: How far will you go for true love? After pledging their undying love for one another, happy newlyweds Danny (Graham Sibley) and Denise (Tracy Coogan) head to the Jersey Shore for their honeymoon. The romantic start to their new life is cut short when Danny is attacked on the beach and Denise discovers that her new husband has become a flesh eating zombie! As he tries to contain his cannibalistic behavior for the sake of their marriage, Denise decides to stand by her man "for better or worse". But will Danny's decay eventually cause Denise to forsake her true love? One part horror flick and one part romantic comedy, Zombie Honeymoon is guaranteed to first melt your heart, and then tear it out! Written and Directed by Dave Gebroe.


UGLY MOLLY RATING:
Two Brains..Pretty Bad






This movie was pretty bad! Stupid, stupid, stupid! Very low budget and super cheesy, and NOT in that good, made with love way that I adore…This is one to avoid! Not worth viewing, even for free – save that ninety minutes of your life, you won’t get it refunded!!!







Hell of the Living Dead (1983)


Director:  Bruno Mattei

PLOT: In Papua New Guinea, the Hope 10 research facility is working on a project called 'Sweet Death'...A chemical agent that would curb the population in deprived countries by turning people into zombies to feed on each other. When two engineers clad in their weakest bio-hazard suits find a zombie rat in the compound, one manages to get bitten and all hell breaks loose.


UGLY MOLLY RATING:
Two Brains..Pretty Bad






Even the director doesn't like this film...It is just that bad! A terrible Romero rip-off, (yep, a not so flattering homage to Romero's Dawn of the Dead) right down to the sound track. Mattei adopts the pseudonym 'Vincent Dawn' for this one and the Interpol SWAT team is dressed exactly like the Philadelphia SWAT in DoTD....Right down to the hats and gas masks. Amazingly bad!! If I ever see this director again, I will run because he has no braaaiiinnnns!
'celluloid shit stain' is the best description I have read so far.




Zombie Diaries (2006)


Director:  Michael Bartlett and Kevin Gates

PLOT: In the early part of the 21st Century, an unknown virus began spreading among the populace. Within weeks it had engulfed the entire planet, from the smallest rural communities to the greatest cities. Upon the death of its host, the virus would reanimate the corpse until it was no longer able to support itself. Soon, the planet was infested with a new threat - the undead. So begins our journey into the dystopian world of The Zombie Diaries.

Three compelling video diaries chart the early days of the plague, right through to the last days of the apocalypse:

A documentary film crew travel to the countryside to make a movie about the virus. Unaware of what is happening around the country, the team is accidentally caught up in the outbreak. They later take shelter in a nearby wood, where a much more sinister fate awaits them.

A husband and wife escape London and pick up a mysterious hitchhiker as they scavenge the remnants of dead towns, unaware of the dangers that wait for them in the shadows.

A group of survivors flee to an old farm to seek refuge, only to find themselves under siege from creatures that attack in the dead of night.

Watch the devastation unfold through the eyes of those who were there...




UGLY MOLLY RATING:
 One brain..Yes, it was THAT boring






Put me to Sleeeeeeep.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
No budget, that was obvious…The movie was a bore and only the very ending was even the slightest bit amusing…If you want a documentary style zombie movie, watch Romero…Or maybe, even better, American Zombie…That was a good one at the end.

Budget: L500,000 (yes, that's British money)
Gross: $1,350,000 (USA) Yep, we paid to see this trash!



Zombiez (2005)


Director:  John Bacchus

PLOT: A woman finds herself on the run from the living dead. Her friends are being slaughtered and she can find no help. Will she survive or will she too fall victim to the Zombiez?


UGLY MOLLY RATING:
One brain… It was really bad







Poorly made with almost no gore effects. However, it was very educational. It gives random definitions throughout the movie – black screen with bold white text just staring you in the face for you to read the Webster’s ghetto version.  They gave definitions for the words zombie, fear, and many more terms that should be in everyone’s vocabulary. They do it all throughout the flick so that you would understand the actress’s emotions (maybe they figured if you were stupid enough to be watching the movie, you needed the help)…Too bad they didn’t define the word ‘act’ for the people they hired as zombies because they were so lost in this movie. A zombie actually yells “Oh snap!” as he runs away…People are killed by the zombies with plastic Halloween from Wal-Mart style cycles and cleavers...lol...Oh, and rocks in one scene…And the zombies run from the cops. I guess even zombies don’t like jail.






The Quick and the Undead (2006)


Director:  Gerald Nott

PLOT: Eighty Two years ago a viral outbreak turned three quarters of the world population into the walking dead. Now, Bounty Hunters are humanity's only salvation.

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
One brain… It was really bad







After 80 years of zombies, why are people still completely unable to defend against them? Either Darwinism or Zombies win out after eighty two years. And why are they bounty hunting zombies? I don’t see the ladies wearing fashionable zombie pelts, so there should be no money involved. Very low budget… Terrible makeup, a horrible lead actor, no one in synch with anyone else…Just plain bad! Even the ‘western’ attire was poorly done. The lead looked like he raided Trace Adkins’ Goodwill donations pile. You want a fun zombie western, get Chris Kittan to eat one of Geronimo's descendants.


Budget: $105,000




Automaton Transfusion (2006)


Director:  Steven C. Miller

PLOT: Is there one??? Ummm…Teenagers, run from zombies, make stupid mistakes, get eaten, government conspiracy….that’s all I got from it…

Three teens find themselves in a town over run with zombies. Deciding to fight back, they go on a punch you in the throat, action packed, non-stop ride through the swamps, forests, blood and ZOMBIES!
Whatever! It sucked!!!


UGLY MOLLY RATING:
One brain…It was terrible






The cover looked great, and it was so hyped up when I read about it on the back of the box, with modern makeup effects, I thought I was getting something great…WRONG!…There was no plot, the acting was heinous, grainy picture like they could not afford a real camera…No redeeming qualities to this movie at all.
Budget: $50,000




Hood of the Living Dead (2005)


Director: Eduardo Quiroz, Jose Quiroz

PLOT: An experimental formula regenerates living cells. When Ricky's younger brother gets killed, the inventor decides to use it to revive him.



UGLY MOLLY RATING:
 “...when a film sucks like this it has its own genre.”






Super low budget. I would guess on a high school level. I know that my Marine buddies in the Video section could have done a much better job. Using a fake stuffed cat and the viewer is supposed to pretend it is a real one? Come on! They couldn't even get a real cat for this movie?! Holy horrible!
“Shoot him in the head! Like in the movies!” is the best line of the film? UGH!!!







Zombie Movie (horror short) (2005)


Director:  Ben Stenbeck

PLOT: New Zealand, 1986. The zombie apocalypse is here and three mates are stranded. The trusty Holden is out of gas. With only food scraps and a few cigarettes, surviving each other may be harder than facing the undead outside.

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
One brain…It was terrible






Only 15 minutes long, maybe I had a bad copy pulled up online, but I couldn't get any dialogue. I could see lips moving with no sound. It was terrible because I couldn't follow it. It got great reviews (all two of them) but I couldn't make out what was happening. 







The Zombie Dead (1981)


Director:  Andrea Bianchi

PLOT: (Le notti del terrore) (burial ground: night of teror) Italian zombie poop! A professor opens a crypt and reanimates rotten zombies, who attack friends who he had invited over to show a recent discovery.


UGLY MOLLY RATING:
WOW...that was bad..One brain because it wasn't as bad as Swamp Zombies.






Crap film of the century? I want to punch the toupee-wearing teenager (little boy who looks like a man?) who keeps whining 'mama' and OMG the horrible makeup! Zombie masks that the actors couldn't see out of so they shamble around blindly with live maggots dripping off of them because real maggots are cheaper than fake blood or latex. And was everyone in this town buried in a burlap dress or did the clothing mutate when they became zombies? Terrible! **In one scene, a zombie smashes a window and then you see the hands trying to get in. This movie, for some unimaginable reason, got good ratings, but it nearly put me to sleep.




Zombie Nation (2004)


Director:  Ulli Lommel

PLOT: LAPD officer Joe has a passion for arresting women, handcuffing them and killing them. He's a serial police killer getting away with murder, since his buddies at precinct 707 always cover for him. His killing rampage might have gone on forever, had it not been for 17-year-old Romy, who heard about women disappearing in her neighborhood and asks several Voodoo Priestesses to protect her from Evil. When officer Joe gets a hold of her, his fortunes turn around, and he is suddenly haunted by a violent group of female Zombies seeking revenge.

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
One Brain for makeup effects…Raccoon airbrushing around the eyes lets us know they are the zombies.





Seriously! Airbrushed raccoon spray around the eyes distinguishes them as zombies?! They look like Daryl Hanna in Clan of the Cave Bear. One or two laughs, unintentional, do not make up for how terrible this film was. It should have been titled zombie cops! Horrible! One to avoid! No creativity, this one was just plain sad! I think that if I handed my kids a camera, they could do better.
Budget: $1,500




Zombie Wars (2006)


Director:  David A. Prior

PLOT: 50 years after a world-wide zombie epidemic had begun, a small group of rebel soldiers learn that intelligent zombies have begun breeding humans for food. The soldiers plan an all-out war to rid the Earth of the flesh-eating monsters for good, as the rest of the surviving world's polulation struggles to survive against the zombie hordes.

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
Two Brains for Originality





I'll give it two brains for originality, but it was really boring with bad zombies and a low budget. My children liked it because it offered a new perspective on the whole zombie theme, but I was bored to tears.  

Budget: $200,000








Return of the Living Dead ~ Rave to the Grave (2005)


Director:  Ellory Elkayem

PLOT: While illegally selling one canister of Trioxyin-5, Charlie Garrison is murdered by a zombie. His nephew Julian Garrison finds two canisters hidden in the attic of his house with his girlfriend Jenny and they ask their friend Cody to analyze and research the chemical product. Cody finds that the composition of the product is very similar to ecstasy and he processes the chemical, making a large quantity of a drug that he called "Z" to make money. Using the services of the local drug dealer, they sell "Z" in the college campus. In the Halloween, the DJ and Jenny's brother Jeremy organizes a rave party. Meanwhile, Julian, Jenny and Cody disclose that the drug transform the users in zombies, and with the support of two weird agents, they try to stop the distribution of "Z".

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
Two Brains for makeup effects…





 “ Sci-Fi channel can make all of the bad movies-of-the-week that it wants but making sequels to cult favorites like "Return of the Living Dead" is, well, they should really just know better.“  ~Fan hate mail


Ummmmm…Yeah, I think that about summed it up…lmao! This one was really bad. I gave it two stars because the makeup was better than the movies below it, and so was the entertainment value, but it was still a bad movie. Sadly, I bought it because it was on the previously viewed rack…Haahaaa..I got took for five bucks! This is what they came up with? I am a Return of the Living Dead fan, so I agree…This was TERRIBLE!! 




Zombie Flesh Eaters ~ zombi 2(1988)


Director:  Lucio Fulci

PLOT: A terrorist's body, infected with a stolen chemical, is recovered by the US military, the corpse is cremated, and the virus is spread into the air. Soon the population is infected, producing flesh eating zombies.

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
Two Brains





Cheesy with terrible acting. I loved the zombie birds though, especially the ones that splat on the windshield – feather filled hamburger! The flying zombie head was the best! Very Scooby Doo of them. That part alone is worth the watch! I also love the zombie with the machete. That was cool!




Severed ~ Forest of the Undead (2005)


Director:  Carl Bessai

PLOT: A group of young environmental activists become ravenous, unstoppable zombies when a forestry company's genetic experimentation goes disastrously wrong. Sheer terror can’t pump enough adrenaline through these bodies to help them out of this remote forest in this gruesome tale of horror. Severed stands heads (and other body parts) above the rest!

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
Two Brains…Not horrible, but I would not buy it for my collection.





I like to see the gore in a zombie flick…Due to a low budget and untalented makeup artist, most of the stuff that could have had impact was off- screen. That killed it for me. I didn’t want to see spray, I wanted to see nasty! Rent it if you’re really bored and can’t get anything higher up on the list, or you’ve already seen them all, but not worth buying.






Dead and Breakfast (2004)


Director:  Matthew Leutwyler

PLOT: Six friends on their way to a wedding in Galveston, TX stop for the night at a quaint bed and breakfast in the sleepy town of Lovelock. But after a night that ends with both the inn’s owner and his chef dead, the gang finds themselves under suspicion by the local sheriff. The mystery quickly unravels when the already bizarre residents of the town become possessed by an evil spirit and pin the friends down at the b&b. Armed with a rusty chainsaw, a can of gasoline and a half box of shotgun shells, they must barricade the house and fight for their lives.

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
TwoBrains…FAIL!






The US version of Shawn of the Dead? Ummmm, no! It had some funny moments, but nothing that I would buy…Not really zombies, more like Evil Dead in that it was possession. Stupid yet funny, but definitely NOT Shaun of the Dead! I did like ‘We’re coming to kill ya!” song…lol....that was cute…But bad acting made this a bad movie. I did like the head hand puppet and it had its cute moments, but overall, it was bad.

Budget $500,000







Redneck Zombies (1987)


Director: Pericles Lewnes

PLOT: In the back-woods of America live a very special kind of people. Friendly, decent, hard-working dirt farmers. When they accidentally drink a barrel of nuclear waste they turn into tobacco chewing, flesh eating, cannibal kinfolk from hell. Meanwhile, seven sophisticated city slickers on vacation get lost in the woods and encounter a nightmare world of these illiterate, and extremely insensitive, undead. While the tourists hikers use all their wits and courage to stay alive, more and more "down-home" types imbibe the nasty brew until Redneck Zombies are everywhere. What started as a scenic nature-hike turns into a bloodbath of dismemberment and cannibalism.

UGLY MOLLY RATING:
Three Brains…Low budget, silly and made me laugh





Troma film…Need I say more? Haahahaaaaaa!! Cheese and hillbillies,chew and cannibals…FUN! – who needs effects?!

Budget: $10,000