The Undead Symphony

It is one of those rare occasions, recently only seen when the 28 Years Later and Colony came out that Michael and I are right up to date with a new movie in the genre, so we have to record a chat.

TBH when it was announced that Zac Cregger (Weapons, Barbarian) was taking on Res Evil I was skeptical, and even when the trailers and teasers started to appear, I was skeptical. So what did I think? And would Michael regret taking his eldest son to go and see it?

Is it as bad or good as Super Mario Brothers, Max Payne, or Doom? You will have to find out. 

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.

Where to start? There is probably a reason why this C Thomas Howell effort was renamed, and as reason he isn't on the cover, or mentioned in the description. I wonder what it is? The title? Mutant Vampire Zombies from the Hood! Not great is it? No wonder it was repackaged as The Undead, one of the tamest and most obvious titles going.

I needed 4 sittings to watch this atrocity. There have been UN War Crime trials at the Hague for less than this. Basically bad acting, bad writing, bad zombies, bad makeup, awful music, terrible gun effects including an M16 firing over 100 bullets from a single 20 bullet magazine, and nothing that really stood out other than C Thomas Howell lowering himself to be in a movie called Mutant Vampire Zombies from the Hood! 

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.

I have been waiting for something decent for such a long time that I went to the movie theater to see Zac Cregger's attempt at Resident Evil. I can see what he was trying to do, there are definitely computer game-like setups, the woods, the road tunnel, the hospital parking garage and elevator shaft, not to mention the barn puzzle to lock the dog inside. I can also see why people hated it. Personally if Paul Hauser's infinitely annoying and wholly unnecessary comedic character hadn't said he worked for Umbrella, and if the nurse hadn't said the green bag of something needed to go to Raccoon City General Hospital you would have been hard pressed to think it was Resident anything. And everything that happened in the lab just infuriated me.

As a stand alone movie there was enough to like for me to give it a 7/10 with possible recalibration when Micheal watches it at the weekend. Zombie Family felt like an elongated and poorly received SNL skit, even with genre legends Doug Jones and Tony Todd in it, but the real news is the second Apocalypse Z movie coming out at the end of October. The first movie I also scored 7/10 and would edge it over Cregger's effort if I had to pick one over the other.

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.

Sometimes, rarely, more rarely than you would think, I unintentionally end up watching similar movies back to back. And while the stories of Helldriver and SARS Wars: Bangkok Zombie Crisis are very different, the movies themselves have the same feel. The same this is fucking awful, cheap nasty crap feel. 

Whilst Helldriver was not strictly a comedy, SARS Wars is, and it is over the top. The gore in the Japanese and Thai movies are similar, the heroes, the villains, the zombies, the weak stupidity of the writing, the FX, everything. What sets this apart from the others? And Helldriver? Looney Tunes sound effects. Seriously we have boings and bongos in this zombie movie that do not add to it. In fact, nothing could really add to it, other than someone involved taking it seriously.

The plot had potential, a millionaire's daughter is kidnapped for ransom and held in a high rise. The same high rise becomes ground zero for a zombie outbreak. Our heroes need to go in and save the girl, fighting gangsters and zombies along the way. Simple? Right? Just watch them fuck it all up. Although if you made The Raid a zombie movie, how good would that be?

As far as this goes, it is a 3.5/10 for me. The best bit of the movie was when the DVD broke and I couldn't watch the last 4 chapters. The worst bit of the movie was when I fixed it.  

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.

Let me put it this way...

"In a scene that really epitomises this movie the starfish shaped alien attached to the zombie queen's head since the alien asteroid blew a whole through her chest, forcing her to rip out Kika's heart and stick it in her missing chest cavity, grows batons out of two of its arms and starts conducting an orchestra of zombies, making a Voltron style giant zombie made up of hundreds of regular zombies catch the next two missiles that had been fired by the Hitler moustached huma General from his bunker in the city, and uses them to fly into the sky making a zombie jet plane aimed towards the city, as Kika, the robot hearted chain-sword wielding schoolgirl climbs on board to do battle with the zombie version of the thugs that ate her birthday pudding and then her disabled dad."

Yeah, it was that level of Japanese nonsense. In short, if you liked Robo Geisha and Tokyo Gore Police this is for you. If not, the you will do as I did, spend a lot of the time confused, before scoring it 3.5/10 at best. 

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 this special episode of the Undead Symphony Michael returns to discuss my 30 minute animated short Dreidel of the Dead, a stop motion zombie movie in the sub-genre of apartment survival horror and love letter to the genre and all we have seen over the past 4 years of the podcast.

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.

This is a piñata full of shit, and I just hit it and it is spilling everywhere. A 2026 Mexican effort that sucks as bad as the other Mexican zombie movies we have seen Los Infectados (3/10) and Some Be (3.5/10) maybe even worse.

In this "every single fucking thing happens off camera" hotchpotch of nonsense we have weak woman Elena and moustachioed slacker Joachim surviving in what we guess is the zombie apocalypse, although it has to be a guess as WE DON'T SEE ANYTHING! Every kill is off camera, all the zombies are off camera. Everything that happens on the street, it's off camera, and both the times they head into the building? Guess what? It all happens off camera. What is on camera? Bad acting and poor camerawork start to finish.

This snoozefest was the worst of it's kind, a dull, apartment survival horror movie where they don't even barricade the door, they don't try to get supplies from other apartments in the building, they don't even try. It is pathetic and painful to watch. Avoid it. Watch the Ed Speleers Zoe Tapper Death Do Us Part aka Zoo instead.

3/10 and I feel aggrieved scoring it that highly

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.

After a slight disappointing opening where I mention all those people who I sent Dreidel of the Dead to but didn't watch it or tell me if they did, the episode goes downhill as I watch Stacy from 2001, one of those low end Japanese oddities that is just too odd. Our 12th Japanese movie and despite not being as bad as Everyday of the Dead, it isn't far from it.

In one of the most ridiculous plots of all time schoolgirls ages 14-16 in Japan first exhibit signs of uncontrollable euphoria and bliss and then death, before coming back as the worst kind of zombies. They walk with Frankenstein's monster outstretched arms, pale makeup with blood coming from the tear ducts, and a flicking tongue and crazy eyes.

3 of the main characters are from a puppetry class and the two main zombie killing factions are named after Drew Barrymore and George A Romero, and despite the gore levels, this is unredeemable. 

It sucked, and not in a good way. 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.

I asked ForeignHorrorMovies on Insta for a few recommendations and this was the first one available to me. Les Revenants/The Returned from 2004. 

Worldwide 70 million people who died in the last 10 years return from the grave, but rather than blue faced Romero zombies, crumbly and crusty Fulci zombis, 28 Days Later messy infected, or rotter and walkers from The Walking Dead, these are pastel wearing serene, and slightly sinister sedate mental patients, who can't create new ideas and space out a lot. So basically grandma.

It is effectively a pastel French version of John Ajvide Lindqvist's Handling the Undead, even to the level of centring on 3 stories of grief, a wife, parents of a returned child, and an elderly couple. Again, very Handling the Undead, just creepier, with zero gore. So zombie movie fanatics may hate this. It is much much better than the later Scandi movie.

And you really don't get a lot of explanation as to the why's and wherefore's of the situation, why did they come back, why don't their brains process new ideas, why can't they ad lib, does this mean the Returned Improv nights are off? Moreso what are they planning, why, and where did they think they were going?

So many questions, no answers, but still a solid 6/10 for me.

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.

If you take the Lou Diamond Phillips zombie movie Route 666 where a road gang of zombies use their road digging tools to kill people on the stretch of route 66 they died on, the 1980 The Children where a school bus of kids were killed in a tragic accident and come back to kill, and Maggie you get Wicked Little Things. 

It stars Lori Ann Heuring who hasn't done a lot since, Scout Taylor-Compton who played the Jamie Lee Curtis character in the Halloween reboots, and a 9 year old Chloe Moretz. And they are grieving the loss of the father of the family to a long drawn out battle with cancer that left them broke, so broke they end up moving to a shack in rural Pennsylvania that was in the dad's family since forever and is right by a mine where the evil mine owner murdered a couple of dozen orphans with dynamite.

So it's Sometimes They Come Back, and get revenge on the living, but "they" are cute little munchkin kids in 1900s costumes covered in soot.

5/10 not as bad as IMDB makes out, and only have 3 shots of the moon to tell us its nighttime.

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.