The Undead Symphony

ZOMBIES OF WAR AKA "War of the Dead" from 2010 although it is actually Horrors of War from 2006

OH MY

Hitlers desperation to win World War II at all costs, combined with his obsession with science and the paranormal give rise to a deadly type of warfare. Hitler unleashes his secret weapons Unstoppable Nazi super soldiers onto the advancing Allied army. After suffering great losses the American army reassigns soldiers to a mission to destroy Hitlers weapons labs. After they are shot down in occupied France, the soldiers find themselves caught between the German army and a creature that cannot be destroyed.

Just a note... it is NOT that movie.

On the DVD box we have a Zombie SS officer and a platoon of zombie Nazi soldiers… but in the movie there is no zombie SS officer and no platoon of Nazi zombies… You have 4 zombies in the whole movie, and two werewolves, which were unexpected. It is a repetitive bad WW2 movie with Halloween store zombie and werewolf masks and the sort of acting that would get you shot or sent to the front lines.

We follow OSS lieutenant Schmidt as we walks through woodland in multiple ambushes, heading back to HQ after each of them, having lost more men and butted heads with an ever increasing line of Captains who hate him.  Awful CGI planes, awful CGI full stop.

Would I recommend this? Hell no! Although I would rate it higher than Nazi Zombie Death Tales, and I guarantee Steph will put this one on first when she receives the box of DVDs.

3/10

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 so here we are, a week after seeing a movie we have waited 18 years for (or 23 year for some), a movie so eagerly anticipated we bought the themed beer and drank the kool aid. But the reality was very different to the trailer. So what did Stephanie from Listeners of the Dead, Michael and I think about the Danny Boyle and Alex Garland blockbuster 28 Years Later? Well, you will need to listen to find out.

SPOILER WARNING: We didn't agree.

Michael 7/10

Darren 6.5/10 but he was ok with upping it by half a mark

Steph 4/10 but maybe, possibly ok with moving it up to 5

Next week we talk to Brian over at Zombpocalypse about the movie and question his 10/10 rating 

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.

A married couple are confined to only their small property during a zombie invasion and they must make do with what they got.

Or

A lazy 30-something is happy to sit out the zombie apocalypse in his living room until his wife puts pressure on him to become a zombie killer.

It gets 4.5/10 on IMDB and 25% on RT and even has a soundtrack on Spotify. An OST.

And it stars Christine Woods and Paige and Graham Sibley as Guy. Now the whole reason we are watching this, or I am watching this, is Graham Sibley was in Zombie Honeymoon as the zombie husband. I gave that 4/10 so I have high hopes for this. It sounds like Death Do Us Part, but a comic version. So we shall have to see.

DVD in. It did come with 2 free movies, which says a lot about it. And the DVD load screen had a house with zombies out the front, and it has two zombies mirrored, to they are the same photo. I hate that.
 
It is the day to day story of a couple, he is enjoying the lack of responsibility of the apocalypse, where she hates it. He hides potential rescue from her, as he enjoys the slacking. A few good bits. The ending annoyed me. But was alright.

5/10 Not as good as As We Know It, but not terrible

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.

There will be a nice balanced conversation about the franchise to date with Brian over at Zombpocalypse and Michael. There will also be a Michael and Darren catch up that will cover Transit 17 (now equal worst scoring with Night of the Flatulating Dead) and ChatGPT's worst zombie movie of all time Zombie Nightmare with Adam West and Shawn Levy. But that is not this episode.

In sunny Corfu I went to see the much anticipated 28 Years Later, the sequel we have been waiting 18 years for, and in some quarters 23 years for. I did like it. But I am not one of the foaming about the mouth crack babies giving it 10/10 or 5/5 stars. It is definitely not in that territory. Even with the most basic understanding of what a comparison is this is a poor cousin of 28 Days, arguably the best zombie movie ever made (sorry Ken Foree, yours is my second), but still some people out there are going bananas. Others poopood it. They didn't like it at all. And I did like it. But given the sheer volume of movies we see, this isn't up there for me.

What I liked? I think the main characters were all superb, and a special shout out to Alfie Williams in his debut as Spike. I think some of the action sequences were great and what we needed. We needed the start, and the farm, the Happy Eater and the train. The Happy Eater was a great bit of nostalgia for me.

Erik was very funny. But his death was obvious, stupid, and taken from Predator.

I really didn't like all the dream sequences. There was a lot of them and they were out of keeping with the first two movies. I didn't like the filler of the Laurence Olivier movie being used. The black and white imagery. The Kipling. Again out of step with Days and Weeks. I could see the variants, the bloater and alpha mutations, but it felt 1. stolen, and 2. the Jurassic Park thing... we had a T-Rex in the first movie, now we need something bigger and better and not in keeping.  The alphas were good, just not original. And you don't need variants. Zombies are zombies. The thing about zombies, whether running infected or slow shufflers if there is a whole mass of them and they get you by sheer volume.

And then there is a somersaulting cult of ninjas dedicated to a massive pedophile. The mighty morphing power pedoes.  Given the rage virus was spread by bodily fluids, how are they chopping up infected sending blood everywhere? Makes no sense.

That being said, I still liked it, it was still a good movie. It wasn't as bad as some made out and it isn't as good as many are making out. I think it is a solid movie but out of keeping with the other two. My least favourite of the franchise and a 6.5/10 for me.  Harsh? Well it isn't 10/10 either.

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.

When I asked the mouthpiece of our future AI overlords CHATGPT for a list of the top 10 zombie movies of all time, it was that. It was spot on. I asked it for the best zombie movie and it gave me 28 days later. Fair. And so we agreed. The best and the top 10. So I then went there an asked it for the worst zombie movie of all time. It’s answer was the 1986 ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE starring Adam West. It was directed by porno movie director Jack Bravman, which explains a lot.

“Widely panned for its laughable acting, incoherent plot, and painfully low production values, Zombie Nightmare is often cited as a textbook example of how not to make a horror film. Even a cameo by Adam West couldn’t save it from becoming an unintentionally comedic cult disaster.”

2.7/10 IMDB 15% RT

And so that is this episode.

Now, I have a German version of the DVD and for some reason the language setting isn’t changing to English, and so am watching it in German. Starring Adam West who was only on set for 2 days, Tia Carrera in her debut movie release, Jon Mikl Thor and an over the top Shawn Levy who would go on to direct the Deadpool movies. The soundtrack for you metalheads has Motorhead, Girlschool, Thor, Deathmask,  and Fist.

It was very 1980s. very very 1980s. Not as bad as CHATGPT reported. It is certainly better than Night of the flatulating dead and Transit 17. I would put my zombie movie credentials on the line and say it’s a 3.5 putting it above 40 and more movies. It was basic. But I liked parts of it. The idea that a voodoo priestess can use a zombie for revenge was good, and that the zombie can get revenge for its own death. The deaths were not great. None of the acting was other than OTT Shawn Levy and Adam West, and Frank Deitz as Frank. 

3.5/10 not as bad as AI reports.

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.

TRANSIT 17

Before I even start I know this movie is going to be bag of horse dicks. It is going to be so bad my apartment will need fumigating.

After a virus infected France, Belgium and the Netherlands a team of resistance soldiers trying to safe a young girl who seems to be their last hope for a cure.

3/10 on IMDB

A terrible movie, absolutely mindbogglingly bad. The plot is muddled at best, although I shouldn't say that since to be honest, there is really no plotl. It is just a mess of different locations where the protagonists travel through and meet new characters you will not care about nor ever see again. With the lack of a plot you will not care about any of the characters, except maybe to root for their deaths and even when characters die it is still so unsatisfying. Also the camera shots are so dull and grey, that's it's like somebody put a polarizing film over it. And the acting is so wooden that actual planks with faces painted on them would have done a better job and you would have cared more about since a plank getting shit is a waste of a good potential coffee table. As a final now, I'm pretty sure that the writers of this piece of crap completely do not understand what an open ending means. Here's a hint to them, it's not just cutting it off and fading to black.

How was this movie made? That is the first question. The zombies are incidental. And the elite resistance alpha squad led by the very unconvincing director/writer/star Tex get wiped out or captured easily. Their status as the best squad in the resistance is ludicrous, but not as ludicrous as the muscle bound freak of a villain, known as the commander, who walks around in a tactical vest so pumped up on steroids he can barely move.

What a bag of shit. If I could liken this movie to anything it would be the vanity project of an untalented Dutchman. Made no sense. No one was any good. Nothing was redeemable about this. I want the time back I wasted on it.

I have two words to saw to Tex, (in awful Dutch/Texan accent) FUCK OFF!

1.5/10

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.

Now I do have the TUBI list of movies to work through… the detritus of the channel… Transit 17 and Age of the Dead and 5 years after the fall and the like… utter horse dung and I do have DVDs coming

• Better of Zed starring Graham Sibley from Zombie Honeymoon
• Messiah of Evil, that we are going to be watching then reviewing with Andy Beglin next month
• And what ChatGPT listed as the worst zombie movie ever made Zombie Nightmare with Adam West from 1987

But whilst I am waiting for them to arrive in the post I have one more DVD kicking about, and it has been put off for quite a while. Months even. And it is Zeder

Stefano, a journalist, finds that there is a terrain that can bring people back from the dead. His wife is murdered and he buries her in the same zone in the hope of bringing her back.

Or

The story is about a young novelist's discovery of the writings of a late scientist who had found a means of reviving the dead.

Hm sounds like Pet Cemetery to me

1983 Italian 

62% on RT, 4/5 on amazon (meaningless) but a very telling 6.1/10 on IMDB

A zombie movie in the loosest sense. It was a sprawling conspiracy that everyone was involved with from their university professor, to their cop friend, to Alessandra's doctor friend, and all to bring loved ones back from the dead. Ending with him bringing his wife back from the dead, only to kill him. So this was pet cemetery it just took 99 minutes to become Pet Cemetery and was then Pet Cemetery for a minute.

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.

I zombie

Very I Claudius or I Robot

And no not the crappy tv show either this a film which was released by Fangoria Films in 1998; it was written, directed, produced and scored by Andrew Parkinson. It tells the story of a young man who gets infected by being bitten by a zombie and gradually starts turning into one himself. 

HIS SOUL WAS THE LAST THING TO GO

Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club wrote that the film is too dull to appeal even to Fangoria subscribers.[3] Writing in Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide, Glenn Kay called the film overly serious and predictable.[4] Peter Dendle, author of The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia, described it as "more competent and compelling than most of its small-scale Yankee predecessors."[5]

Marc Price, the director of Colin, said that if he had known about the existence of I, Zombie, he probably wouldn't have made his film… so in another timeline in the multiverse Michael wouldn’t have had to see that monstroslity

Commendation Award for Best Independent Feature, Festival of Fantastic Films (1998)[

5.3/10 in IMDB 45% RT 3.2/5 on letterboxd

According to the trailer

Uncompromising real vulnerable and chilling

A brilliant, provocative sobering horror film

Quite gruesome… one of the years best horror films… um, carnival of souls, blade, species 2, children of the corn 5, sometimes they come back 2, I still know what you did last summer, bride of chucky, Halloween h20, prophecy 2, urban legend, the faculty and the psycho remake… so no…

In the tradition of cronenbergs fly? That’s the second movie in a row  using that comparison…

And it was an ideal time for indie music, I had just come out of university and was loving life in the big city

From IMDB

I give this movie an "A". "A" as in awful.

I first thought this film was going to be entertaining because Fangoria made this movie. But I was definitely let down. This was one of the worst movies I've seen. I fell asleep through most of it because it was so boring and it should have been a documentary instead of horror. I had to watch it again to see the stuff I missed and I'm very glad I was asleep during that time because I could been traumatized for life.
 
 I warn all horror fans, STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM THIS MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Awful. Dull. Repetitive. Boring. Repetitive. Awful. Repetitive. And Dull. And repetitive. 

Fangoria magazine you should be ashamed. This was college student quality at best. Guildford, where it was filmed, art college.

2.5/10 This is the sort of movie that makes you want to get on with your life.

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.

You know when the New York Times, Variety and Salon.com say something is hilarious that you have had funnier dental work. You also know that when the New York Times, Variety and Salon.com say a very low budget zombie movie is hilarious the critic didn't write the review, that their intern did. And that their intern has shit for brains.

So this movie is 2004 and tells the story of newly wedded couple Danny and Denise. First day of honeymoon down at a beach house Danny is clambered onto by a zombie from the sea who spews blood into his mouth. Danny dies and is called as dead at the hospital. But he comes back from the dead and is just discharged the same time, despite being dead for 10 minutes. Nonsense.

Punctuated with some of the worst music ever to be created, Danny will chomp his way through his hospital roommate, three cops, two best friends and a travel agent, and all the while being protected by a screaming wife. 

Is it bad? It is no Zombie with a Chainsaw. Is it good? No. Is it worth watching? Only if you want to see every zombie movie ever made. The acting was ok. The effects were meh. The music sucked donkey dick for nickels.

4/10 and they should thank me for that.

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.

We have TUBI and Michael to thank for this episode, as we go to a small island off of Ireland where death row prisoners are injected with all manner of nastiness to try to find a cure for Alzheimers and cancer. However, as Stone, our special forces Sinead O'Connor and Ellen Ripley a la Alien 3 skinhead sporting heroine discovers, the medication turns everyone fast moving black blood spewing zeke.

With decent practical effect and some good cinematography, a few good tense moments and kills, this is still average at best. The acting is ok. The costumes from some era before this, but we don't know when. The zombie effects and zombie acting is very good. Top notch actually. But ultimately this movie was missing something. I needed more of a determined escape. A better plan. And the island to be carpet bombed at the end a la Rezort.

4/10

Also Patients of a Saint? As in Patience of a Saint but they are like... patients in a hospital wing? Awful.

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.