The Undead Symphony

Not a lot is written about this 2004 movie for a reason. The cast and crew appear nowhere online in headshot form for a reason.

Conceptually it is an ok premise. The hadron collider has an unexpected dump of radiation. A team led by the chief scientist is heading down into it and 4 twenty something junior scientists volunteer to monitor it for the weekend. The radiation causes the research team to turn into zombies, and the volunteers need to escape the tunnels of the institute whilst malevolent forces from outside hamper their escape.

What do we get? 4 awful British actors walking tunnels slowly. They are jumped from nowhere by a zombie, fight it off. Run around the corner, then start to walks really slowly again. Repeat and rinse.

There is one decent scene/shot.

And the highlight was when one of the characters asking "did you get through to anyone?" and the subtitles stating "3 2 1".

Could have been done well but wasn't. Had a Cornetto in the freezer as a nod to Shaun of the Dead and some very loose 28 Days Later music at some point. But, all in all, this was a very poor effort deserving of it's 2/10 score

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Zompocalypse Therapy Sessions

Follows Erica, an agoraphobic therapist, and her anxious clients who must fight to overcome their personal problems and the zompocalypse. Erica is a therapist with problems. In particular, the walking dead. She doesn't know what to advise clients in zombie situations. Between the zombie-virus lockdown and her agoraphobia, she's afraid to leave the house. Her husband Bob is cranky about being confined with her, and a zombie attack doesn't improve his mood at all. Warren, a street-smart zombie slayer, can't believe her lack of survival instincts. Erica and her anxious clients (the ones who didn't get eaten yet) must process the changes brought by the zompocalypse. And survive zombies.

How was it?

Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.Awful.

It took 3 sittings to struggle through this horse shit. It is made awful by Blaze Lovejoy the writer (awful), director (terrible), producer (well it was made), executive producer (awful decision making) and star (ON SCREEN FOR 95% of the movie!!!!). 

Conceptually the movie could be a cult classic. If it was more like As We Know It this could have worked. But no, it is not like that at all. She hogs the screen for 95% of the movie. She cannot act. She looks down the lens on a dozen occasions. She cannot direct. The writing is awful. You just want Erica to die.

If this was a comedy there were no jokes. It is not funny, other than conceptually. 

There are some movies that are so bad they are good. This is not one of them. This movie is so bad period. I want a refund, and the 90 mins of my life back. 

2/10 (and they should be thankful for that)

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During Thailand's WWII involvement, a Japan-engineered chemical weapon creates a voracious superhuman horde of Thai soldiers leaving a blood-soaked path of ultra-violence and destruction. Yet the greatest victims are the abject undead themselves. Friendships, dreams, and lives devoured... nothing remains.

The trailer looked good for this one so I grabbed on blu ray as there was no other alternative. The gore looked good, the zombies looked good in a Far Eastern fast movie Korean zombies go.

It has a lot of good elements. Basically, those fiendish axis of evil Japanese invaders, including an OTT anime style commander, let a chemical/virus loose on the poor unsuspecting Thais. It takes over a close-knit unit of recruits, who all grew up together, turning them into bloodthirsty monsters that kill without thinking and then regret it afterwards. And that is the new element, the zombies cannot control their rage, wiping out their own people, including kids, and then feel awful the next day. Talk about killer's remorse.

There were a few elements I didn't like; turning to dust when reaching a point of karma, still functioning with literally no head, and it did seem repetitive as we went through the same scenario a few times.

But overall a pretty decent effort from the same country that have us Paradise Z and Zombie Fighters. I would give it a go.

6/10 

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You remember those meals where you didn't really have everything you needed? Maybe it was a few days before payday and you need to make something with what you have? So you have kosher chicken hot dog wieners, Marinara sauce and 2 minute noodles for dinner? Well this movie from 2015 is that meal.

In a town where Dennis Leary's factory dominates the skyline, and he sponsors everything, using the money he makes from selling the Ribblet, a processed meat product with a chemical found on Saturn (WTAF?), humans, vampires and zombies live peacefully and in harmony.

We have all the high school nonsense, bullying, the pretty guy pressuring the girls into having sex with aggressive manipulation, stoners, uptight teachers, and friendships gained and lost.

Nerd Ned, awkward baseball pitcher Dag, and slutty girl Petra are all human. Although Ned is bullied and sees the zombies are totally chilled about everything, so lets himself get turned, and Petra is pressed until she lets the handsome lead vamp turn her too.

Aliens then turn up and the vamps think the humans called them to wipe them out, the humans thinks the vamps called them to wipe them out, and the zombies... well they just wonder why no one brought the days supplies of brains.

Everyone turns on each other, and the 3 main characters are thrown together trying to work out what is going on, whilst rekindling friendships. Oh and there is a alien voiced by Werner Herzog, and a family of werewolves.

In the end it was that meal. Was it tasty? The comedy was very funny, maybe too funny. Michael-Keegan Kay, Patton Oswalt and Bob Odenkirk, and Ned, were hilarious. Kay too funny at times, because it didn't balance with the heavy teen stuff of losing parents, forcing someone into sex and bullying. The drama was too dramatic for the comedy, and the comedy was too funny for the drama.

If you like two minute noodles with your kosher hot dogs and marinara sauce you will love this. I thought it was ok.

5.5/10

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1983/4 and a Troma effort back when a Troma effort looked on par with the likes of Zombie Flesh Eaters, Zombie Creeping Flesh and Zombie 4: After Death. In this movie a group of American tourists unwittingly fall foul of unseen forces on a small island after witnessing a voodoo ritual. Some gore, a couple of jumps, but a lot of nonsense otherwise. 

Is this a zombie movie? Until the payoff. But, should I be hard on it for that? Maybe. Unhuman was also not really zombies, Summer Camp too. However, we go into it based on the idea that it is. And Zombie Island Massacre made in the early 1980s screamed zombie movie to me. Do I feel cheated? No, really, I have seen worse.

I watched it, so you don't have to. 

3/10 

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In this festive time Michael and I talk gifts, and the gift that is the 28 Years Later trailer that dropped this week and made the online horror community wet themselves. In short, we are both excited, but not convinced. After all, it is no Pro Wrestlers vs Zombies. How dare you!

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 bring season 7 to a close with this effort from Channel 4 in the UK, a channel with a pedigree that includes Spaced, Drop the Dead Donkey, Trigger Happy TV, Black Books, Big Brother and more. It brought us Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright, and Dead Set by Black Mirror's Charlier Brooker. Although I would insist you watch the Brazilian remake Reality Z instead.

This steaming turn left in a bag on my porch my Michael Avery does not live up the aforementioned billing. It is not good at all, despite Robert "Citizen Smith" Lindsay, Sue Johntsone and Johnny "Balls deep in carp" Vegas. Acting is awful, writing is some of the worst and they have to pad with with constant radio chatter over the top. The characters are lamentable. Constant switching of locations and then location banners telling us. This is clearly for the tiktokkers with the attention span of a demented bee.

The story? Stolen from Return of the Living Dead 1 and 2 the military are driving a dangerous gas in a canister through the countryside. They get to a town and the truck rolls over and the canister ruptures and the gas comes out.

Stolen from Cocoon, the town is made up of retirement homes and the gas gives the old crumblies a lust for life... mainly taking it by killing people and animals and eating them.

But it is poorly written, directed, the locations are shit and the acting is sub par from a lot of the cast, a but like Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks.

By the end of episode 1 I couldn't take any more. I think 20 or more location banners in a 45 minute episode was enough for me.

3.5/10 

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The 2003 Australian Undead is one of the many movies marketed at the SHAUN OF THE DEAD FROM (insert country). We have seen many of them, Go Goa Gone from India, Juan of the Dead from Cuba, New Zealand's I Survived a Zombie Holocaust starring friend of the pod Harley Neville and, of course, the awful American Dead and Breakfast. You know I hate that one, despite it having Oz Perkins, Jeremy Sisto, Diedrich Bader and David Carradine.

The interesting thing about Undead being classed as the Australian Shaun of the Dead is that it came out a year before Shaun of the Dead. Shaun came out in 2004. And there are similarities. So you have to ask, is Shaun of the Dead the UK's version of Undead?

To the insane plot. In the small outback town of Berkeley meteors are falling out of the sky and turning people into flesh eating zombies. Renee, who is saddled with debt and the jealousy of the town, tries to get the hell out of dodge as the bank forecloses on her parent's farm but can't get out. She is saved my Marion, a triple barreled shotgun toting lunatic who claims to have been abducted by aliens. Add Renee's very pregnant rival SallyAnne and her idiot BF Wayne, a shouty bully of a police sergeant and is inept rookie partner and we have the making off a zombie survival story.

Until... well, the acid rain turns people back from being zombies before they are taking up into the sky by intense alien lights, and the zombies keep getting up. The actual cause of the first zombie apocalypse, and the second subsequent zombie apocalypse will surprise followers of the genre but hey ho.

As it is this movie was alright, it felt at times like an early Peter Jackson with the comedy and gore and other than the constant music I liked it.

5.5/10 would recommend and watch at least once more.  

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It just a 3 hour episode of the Walking Dead with Negan and Maggie heading off without the others, and into Manhattan. What else is there? 

I mean, acting is good, writing was good, a few decent twists, too many of TWD equivalents of the red shirts in Star Trek, nameless victims. I don't believe the writers of any of the Walking Dead shows can write for children. They are either mute, even when up to a teen, or a brat. My niece is 3 and won't STFU, so goodness knows why they have all these silent kids?

Negan is Negan, Maggie is Maggie. I stopped watching TWD before Negan and Lucille pulverised Glenn and Abraham because of that. And thanks to this show and Maggie's tortured dreams, I have seen it a dozen times. Thanks for that.

I mean. It was an ok offshoot, that has a longer second season greenlit. So we shall have to see.

6/10

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I waxed rhapsodic about this movie in the last episode and, after interrupting Michael's DVD stack, got him to watch this so we could talk about it today.

7/10 all day long. Can't wait for the other parts. Come on, don't disappoint me now, Amazon.

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.