The Undead Symphony

Ollie mentioned this one, BLOOD BROTHERS LIFE HARVEST and I said I would watch it. Much like the Dexter Fletcher Dead Man Walking aka Autumn is it based on a novel by novelists in my zombie community. 93 minutes. 2025. Looks shit. He is now saying that he recommended we skip it, he did not recommend that we watch it.

The trailer is a scene where two floppy hair teens with pistols fail to fight off a basic zombie. One is blond one has brown hair and I put this off for over a week, rather reading in-flight magazines that watching it.

Here is a excerpt:

Aaron - there's a swarm coming. (Swarm in this movie means about 10. Max.)

(They talk about staying out. Again what happened to the little sister?)

We can camp

Are you crazy?

Maybe a bank with a vault

(What? So the options are staying outside… or a bank vault…and how are you going to get into said bank vault. Also how about this? go home! Or stay in your car. Also how is your car still running?)

The idiots get to a gate. Get out of the car, don’t notice a dozen zombies including screaming zombies approaching, then when raising the shotgun Aaron cant shoot as he needs to keep brushing his annoying teen floppy hair out of the way. As Enoch, who pledged to look after his family, inc little sister we haven’t seen for 2/3 of the movie, and his brother, just stands there until someone throws a grenade into the horde. Awful CGI explosion as a zombie tries to eat it and the boys wake up tied up. I mean a grenade would have shredded them all not just conveniently knocked them out.

This was awful. Two awful teens with floppy hair, unarmed in the apocalypse, with the whole solitary premise of Enoch looking after his family when he can't fight, and spends the movie putting his brother in harms way, getting his teenage girlfriend pregnant and ignoring his little sister. Dakota was the worse character I have seen in a movie for a while and I have seen Zombie Night 1 and 2.

Not sure what the life harvest was…but it was shit

3/10 at best. I have seen better poop bags run over in the street.

It is shit like this and Autumn/Dead Men Walking that make me fearful of ever selling the rights to my books, or letting someone make them. As this shit is embarrassingly bad.

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

Hello there and welcome to this, the 265th episode of the US with ME DS in which I will review WE ARE ZOMBIES a 2023 Canadian French zombie horror comedy film based on the comic series The Zombies That Ate the World and there is a tale with this one. It is officially the last physical media of the year and you know what that means? Yes, after reviewing it we box up the entire years physical media collection and send it to Steph from Listeners of the dead who will get to expand her library and hopefully enjoy them more than last years box… 

Canada is a mixed bag when it comes to zombie movies. We have seen a few. This will be the 15th. And they range from well done, superb movies like Blood Quantum, one of my sleepers, The Revenant, love that one and the incredible Pontypool. Also Fido, great cast and concept. But they also gave us the two Zombie Nights and Dead Men Walking, that we covered last time out. Three of the worst zombie movies have covered. 

Do I have high hopes? 5.3/10 on IMDB isn’t bad, 100% on RT is misleading and 2.8/5 on letterboxed equating to 56% kinda means it is watcheable and above average.

Freaks of nature meets Death Shack meets Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse but not as good as freaks or scouts…

Freaks of Nature was a 6, scouts guide 7, death shack was 5.5, so I kinda think it is better than Death Shack but am going to score it the same 5.5

I liked the idea of living in harmony with the dead, and them being like talking road kill. And I liked anyone that died came back almost immediately so we get two chances for each character. I did laugh out loud at least three times, which could have been when Rocco killed himself and the later grandma, but this was completely watchable. I would say it didn’t step up, it could have. It wasn’t as polished as office uprising, that also had the three leads running about. It had some sort of feeling like that though. I don’t think Hannity was a strong enough character, or Coleman. But hey it is a zombie movie, it isn’t perfect…

So WE ARE ZOMBIES is 5.5/10 of Canadian fun. Check it out where you can.

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

DEAD MEN WALKING. Pfff! Where to start with this one? I went into it with high hopes for the 2009 Canadian movie starring Dexter Fletcher and David Carridine, and zero hopes for the 2005 maximum security prison lockdown story. How wrong can a man be?

Ok, so neither was great. The 2005 movie tells the story of a guy who kills 4 friends with a shotgun because they are clearly infected with a biotoxin. He is sent to maximum security prison where this becomes a prison movie. Asshole guards, a nice guard, the overworked warden and his son, the dubious doctor, and prison inmates thinking the killer Travis is fresh meat. The issue being Travis was smeared in infected blood and is now highly contagious. Enter squeaky voiced CDC agent Beckett and her inability to be taken seriously. The gore is well done, the practical effects and the locations are all fine. The Lieutenant in charge of the guards had some great lines. All in all I was surprised.

4.5/10

Our second DEAD MEN WALKING is also known as AUTUMN 2009  Canadian horror film directed by Steven Rumbelow, written by David Moody and Rumbelow, and starring Dexter Fletcher. It was based on Moody's self-published novel Autumn. Fletcher plays a schoolteacher who must survive in a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by evolving zombies. This was the final film of David Carradine before his death.  I think seeing this movie may have killed him.

Inconsistent. Awful music. Poor shot choices. Repetitive elements. Outside of Dexter Fletcher this was a bag of shit.  The mostly negative reception of Autumn led him to direct his own films from then on, which were better received.

2/10

If this movie had been made based on something I had written I would change my name and move to a different country

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

Taking a break between the Zombie Night double bill, Re-Animator and MadS in this episode of the podcast we are delighted to share airtime with writer/producer/actor and all round nice guy Lee Donaldson. We talk his zombie history, his top (I think it was 8 or 9) zombie movies and the inspiration for his zombie not-so-short DEAD ZERO.  As well as his plans for the full feature.

We share movie suggestions (he has to see Girl with all the Gifts) that we think Lee will enjoy, reference Michael's short lived OnlyFans account, and get excited after being invited to come along as extras for the BIG scene of the movie. 

A great chat with a creator that wants to create something new.

Give it a listen! And follow Lee and the Dead Zero movie on Instagram and TikTok for BTS and all other DZ news.

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

Re-Animator (1985), directed by Stuart Gordon, is a cult-classic horror-comedy that blends gore, dark humor, and science fiction. Loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft’s serialized story Herbert West: Reanimator, the film follows medical student Herbert West, played by Jeffrey Combs, whose obsession with conquering death drives him to develop a glowing green serum that can reanimate the dead. His experiments, conducted with fellow student Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott), spiral into grotesque and chaotic results as corpses return with violent, uncontrollable impulses.

What sets Re-Animator apart is its unapologetic embrace of outrageous gore effects combined with tongue-in-cheek humor. From severed heads to rampaging cadavers, the film pushes boundaries with practical effects that remain shocking and entertaining decades later. At the same time, it never loses sight of its satirical tone, poking fun at both the arrogance of scientific ambition and the conventions of horror cinema. Barbara Crampton’s character, Megan Halsey, provides a tragic emotional anchor, though she too becomes caught in the film’s increasingly bizarre and macabre spectacle.

Critically, the movie occupies a unique space in 1980s horror. While contemporaries like The Evil Dead and A Nightmare on Elm Street also mixed humor with horror, Re-Animator leaned harder into black comedy, creating an outrageous energy that set it apart. Jeffrey Combs’ performance as Herbert West has since become iconic, capturing both the manic brilliance and chilling amorality of the character.

Though not a mainstream hit upon release, Re-Animator quickly developed a strong cult following. It spawned sequels, inspired comic books, and cemented Gordon’s reputation as a director willing to push horror into daring, taboo-breaking territory. Today, it stands as a quintessential example of “splatter” cinema, simultaneously disturbing, funny, and inventive, a film that embodies the fearless experimentation of 1980s genre film making.

A clear 6/10 for us from a period in film where every movie was a banger. In this episode we give it the love it deserves.

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

Oh this one is on you, Stephanie Grant. This one is all on you. Zombie Night and Zombie Night 2. No, not the zombie night with Daryl Hannah, Alan Ruck and Anthony Michael Hall written and directed by Murphy from Z Nation. Nope. That scored a flat tire of a 3.5/10. This, the 2003 Canadian movie, its Sequel and then that mockumentary about the making of it were all written and directed by David J Francis, and it’s  sequel may be something else entirely. Reel Zombies, the mockumentary we scored 2.5.

The blurb - Following the end of World War III, the dead have risen and are eating the living after sunset. A group of survivors are holed up in a building fighting off the undead. One night though, the zombies break through, forcing the group to evacuate. They find themselves running through the woods, trying at all costs to stay alive.

So my money is on running along corridors, running down tunnels, running in the woods. With probably night vision. And bad zombies. However I could be wrong…. But I am not normally when it comes to zombie movies. It stars nobody other than the director as, and I am being serious “man peeing.”

Oh Jesus that left an aftertaste, like sucking diarrhea through a bums sweat sock

I will review both at the end….

Hold your nose, we are going in again

Zombie Night 2: The Awakening

Mosquitoes spread a zombie plague, and humanity is devastated. Denied shelter with a heavily armed group of survivors, Keith and Shelley attempt to clear out a marina and use it to escape to a better location. Amid attacks by nocturnal zombies, the previous group begin to raid them for supplies.

Susan Walker of The Toronto Star rated it 1.5/4 stars and wrote that it "might be enough to satisfy a loyal fan base" but is not a good film.[3] Ulises Silva of Quiet Earth rated it 4.5/10 stars and called it "a suspense-less, ineffective zombie film" that could have benefited from a higher budget.[4] Writing in The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia, Volume 2, academic Peter Dendle said, "There are at least a few interesting touches in the zombie conceptualizations here, unlike the depressing and tedious vision in the first feature.

Zombie night… 2/10

Zombie night 2 the awakening 2.5/10

Seriously they make the Daryl Hannah Zombie Night look like fucking Shakespeare.

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

In a genre that can go from the ludicrous to the sublime to the horrific, from farting zombie versions of the founding fathers to our daughters slow decline into zombification to your face being ripped off and eaten in front of you, there is room for a bit of everything. We have seen Attack of the Flatulating Dead, The Sadness, Maggie, and we have seen those out there over the top productions, I am thinking Wild Zero and Tokyo Zombie and New Kids Nitro. Never to be outdone, we have this Planet Terror is a 2007 horror film that serves as a pastiche of 1980s splatter and zombie movies. Part of the Grindhouse double bill with Death Proof, this was cinephile madness with an all-star cast brought to you by Quentin Tarrantino and Robert Rodriguez. 

Planet Terror stars Rose McGowan, Freddie Rodriguez, Bruce Willis, Josh Brolin, and Naveen Andrews… with bit parts for Tarrantino and Rodrigeuz favourites Danny Trejo, Tom Savini, Michael Biehn and Cheech Marin.

Set in Texas, the film follows the survivors of a biochemical outbreak as they battle zombie-like creatures and a rogue military unit. Simple.

Planet Terror is rated 77% on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes based on 30 reviews. The site's critics consensus reads, "A cool and hip grindhouse throwback, Planet Terror is an unpredictable zombie thrillride."[23] Rotten Tomatoes lists the film on its 100 Best Zombie Movies, Ranked by Tomatometer and 7/10 on IMDB. 

For me though it is just a 6/10. This doesn’t have the finesse of a Tarrantino movie. It does feel like a Robert Rodriguez movie a la Once Upon a Time in Mexico and From Dusk Til Dawn with a few Tarrantino-esque characters. The cast was great, but the grindhouse gimmick with the fake bad film with wobbly colour grading and fake flecks and tears and scratches in the film.

It has an audience. And the audience is that of fans of OTT violence, gore and cheesy contrived dialogue and story lines...The closest thing we have seen to it, it probably Wild Zero.

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

And I am back from a few nights in a cabin in the woods to work on the book and today I was at Frightfest 2025 down in Leicester Square were slasher 213 Bones was showing as I turned up for my merch, and now I am home and onto something different, French, 2024, MadS on Shudder.

August 4th 2023 Party night. One single shot, (although like the show Adolescence, it took several takes, 5 in this case to get it 100% right). Is it a bad trip? Or is it something else? One thing for sure, its only the beginning of the night.

From the trailer I got Summer Camp and Unhuman in a club scene feels, where they are drugged and seeing or acting like zombies because of it.

It stars Milton Riche, Laurie Pavy and Luceille Guillaume as Romain, Anais and Julia respectively

It gets a very impressive 6.4 on IMDB 94% on RT

The story follows Julia (portrayed by Lucille Guillaume), Anaïs (Laurie Pavy), and Romain (Milton Riche), who all snort an unknown powdered substance that causes them to grow increasingly erratic. 

Taking inspiration from the 2015 film Victoria, Mads is presented in real time and was filmed in one continuous shot. Production took place in and around Mulhouse over ten days, with cinematographer Philip Lozano also serving as the lone camera operator. The cast and crew filmed five takes, with the final take being used for the film.

Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com described the film as "George A. Romero's Run Lola Run", praising its pacing, originality, "viciously bleak" tone, and "moments of sharp, wicked humor"

What did I think?

Incredible cinematography. Superb acting. Unique story line.    

I wish I’d made this movie

Again, initial take…

7/10 the best movie I have seen in ages certainly the last couple of years

However then I slept on it… and kept waking up to make notes

The movie is my Darren Ted Talk on what a zombie is, a zombie for me is control. It is losing control, no longer being in control. That can be because you are being controlled by a voodoo priest a la the 40s and 50s. It could mean your brain has been fried with radiation a la 60s and 70s. Or a parasite. Or an alien. Or more recently a virus, on in this case a drug and or virus. You lose control, and each of the three leads, over the duration of their story lost control

I am still enamoured the next morning, and when you stop amidst the bloody chaos and then remind yourself this whole movie, spreading across a city, told by 3 people, with car rides and bikes and mopeds, taking in a dozen locations from remote farmland to up and up a residential tower block, is one continuous unbroken shot. Sure, it took 5 takes, but this was that, this was One cut of the dead and final cut, the French and better version in my opinion.

So how highly do I rate Mads?

I’ll use michaels logic – It is at least a 7 for me, personally, but putting nostalgia aside is this better than a 7 and as good as some of the other 7.5s? Is this movie top 10?

Looking at the 7.5s that do include Dawn 2004, Army and Double tap, is it a better movie than those? Yes I think so. This was fresh. This was unique, and the way it was told added even more to the weight of scoring and personal enjoyment. Damn you David Moreau, you have upturned the apple cart of my zombie scoring, put the cat among the pigeons of my personal favourites. So yes, after sleeping on it and talking to

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

Title card – the more a thing is perfect, the more it feels pleasure and likewise pain – rolls eyes at Dante quote

HI def black and white we open with a radio, piano music and spoken word recording about the end of the earth, we see a knife and a bottle of booze is on the table.

Then we cut cut grainy colour home movie of a woman walking and smiling at the camera to awful fiddle Ode to Joy...

This 50 minute movie is listed as the 31st best zombie movie of all time by Rotten Tomatoes as scored by the critics and as one of the 10 and MovieWeb included it in the list of Top 10 Zombie movies you haven't seen. Both of those things couldn't be more wrong and misguided. 

You see one zombies, and it isn't even a decent zombie for one scene. And it is a short scene.

This pretentious Eraserhead meets Dr Strangelove and Waiting for Godot wannabe wankfest reminds me of the novel by the "European sissy writer" in David Mamet's Speed the Plow,  The Bridge; or, Radiation and the Half-Life of Society. A Study of Decay.  That was a joke with Mamet thinking of the most ludicrous pseudo-intellectual content.

Whilst it was interesting, and I mean that in the same way you'd look at a weird shaped turd, or a dog that hiccups with a Mexican accent, it was NOT a zombie movie, good or otherwise. It was a disappointing pretentious art house movie that would have been better put on as an off-off-off Broadway play. If you think listening to Ode to Joy played on a screechy fiddle, documentaries on planarians whilst the shouty male lead says things like "There is no good antonym for instinct." is entertainment then this is for you.

It wasn't for me.

4/10    

FIN

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

An inconsistent bag of cats from 2010. Cast wise we have the Iranian-American director's dad, who cannot act for toffee, Sydney Sweeney's debut aged 12 and Doc from Z Nation. 

Is it a comedy? Kinda. Is it a drama? Kinda. We have a lot of political discourse from both sides of the house, the tiny island of Port Gamble has the right wing, church going gun toting ass hats as well as the lefty dems who won't even hold a gun. Pro and anti gay, pro and anti abortion, pro and anti gun, levels of obvious. 

The story, what there is of it, is that this small island community in Washington State is under attack from zombies. We have two gay boys from the city there so one of them can come out to his mother, the Iranian-American daughter of the local Persian restaurant owner subjected to constant casual racism (they think she is Iraqi and then she is tortured for half the movie as the TV news blamed an Iranian terrorist) and we have a mayoral election where the current mayor, aligned with the local firebrand reverend is being challenged by the cheery high school teacher.  

The practical effects are good, there is a screaming face peel, before the face is eaten, and a knife upwards through the face that are both done very well. However, we have lengthy nasty torture scenes that do not feel funny, the completely out of place Scary Movie getting run over death, arms off, heads blown off, a lot of blood, but then gross eating eyeball a la that terrible Ving Rhames, Nick Cannon Day of the Dead, and a Clockwork Orange style gay conversion therapy scene.

In short, a bag of cats from a director who wanted to make a political statement and cast his dad in too major a role.

5/10 Worth a watch if you have nothing else planned

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.