The Undead Symphony

All the stats from the year, thoughts, and a recap of the movies we watched.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from us at the Undead Symphony, and we hope to catch up with you in 2024

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 festive episode with music and mayhem, jokes, japes, Jesus, and Johnny Z, an absolute shit kicker of a movie. It was bad on so many levels it took two attempts to record the preamble let alone watch it.

A half-man half-zombie Johnny Z escapes a lab and is trained by JonRay a martial artist zombie hunter mourning the death of his son. It could be a good Adult Swim Metalocalypse style animation but no. Definitely not. With a group of bad guys named like your crazy auntie's cats (Frank, Mr Clark, Vinnie and Monster Boy), a belching alcoholic side kick and 1980s dramatic music we hated it.

3/10 and that is being festively generous.

Worst still there is room for a sequel as Frank got away, Dr Lars (chika bow bow) was never rescued, the company was not taken down and Johnny Z doesn't know who he is.

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 festive episode we watch and review one of only two festively themed zombie movies we can think of "Stalled" (the other being Anna and the Apocalypse), both British, with this one part of a three movie DVD boxed set along with the NZ movie starring friend of the podcast Harley Neville, I Survived a Zombie Holocaust, and the Australian Me and My vs The Zombie Apocalypse. 

And the comedy does feel in-keeping with the pair of them inasmuch as it is happy to show gross out body comedy, blood and guts, raunchiness, and physical violence with a comedic element, as well as peppering the audience with one liners. 

The 2013 Stalled tells the story of WC (played by the writer Dan Palmer), a lowly maintenance guy who gets stuck in a stall in the women's toilets of an office building when the charity Christmas party being held there turns into the zombie holocaust. Short on locations, but big on laughs, this is no Shaun of the Dead, but it is very much watchable, funny, and we are happy to sing ding dong merrily on high and give it as solid and recommendable 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.

Bill Moseley as a shock jock (recently we saw him in Exit Humanity alongside a shock jock from a very similar zombie movie Pontypool, Stephen McHattie), Patricia Tallman (Barbara in the Tom Savini remake of Night of the Living Dead where Moseley played her brother Johnny - they're coming to get you Bar-ba-ra) as his ex-wife and producer at the radio station. Directed by LA Law's Corbin Bersen (recently seen in Herd) with a cameo for him in a dodgy beard and LA Law buddy Larry Drake over the phone. 

A middle eastern terror cell set off a biological weapon at a basketball game. The biological agent turns people into homicidal maniacs that bleed from the eyes.

Often compared to Pontypool as it is set "mostly" in a radio station Moseley stays on the air, taking calls from the public and sending his co-host to look for and save his family, it is a poor relative to a far better movie.

It was particularly rabid in it's breakdown of terrorism and the US foreign policy FUBARs that fuel the fire, and loses it's way often. It is not one thing or another. Is it a terrorist movie or a zombie movie? It isn't great if it is either. It certainly pales into insignificance compared to the far superior Pontypool. I would recommend you watch Pontypool and the most recent version of The Crazies to be a lot happier with your life choices.

It is a 4/10 for the pair of us. Michael considered giving it a 4.5 but the meandering storyline and the poor plot choices marked it down.

It is a meh from us.

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 movie doesn't have a wikipedia page, a bad sign. It is supposed to be a comedy but that would involve it having some jokes that are funny. It has a few jokes, typical sophomoric nonsense, but no laughs. In fact the funniest thing about this movie is that when you Google Dug Up Movie you get images from the Pixar movie Up of the golden retriever named  Dug.

It tells the story of a bunch of rednecks who go searching for gold in a local cemetery, between perving over sunbathing neighbours, sex and strip joints, only to find an old magic dial, a necrometer, that will bring the dead back from the grave, and raise an army for the Devil. 

We have seen about 30 zombie comedies and this sits somewhere in the middle. This was filmed ok, mostly, the CGI weaponry and awful green screen driving scenes aside.  A 5/10 at best, and we know that is a generous score.

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 week, to start the new season, Michael and I are comparing old to new. Fair? Maybe not, but it is our show and it seemed a reasonable enough premise. And so a real-time game of Virus or Voodoo as we watch the 1932 Bela Lagosi "classic" White Zombie and the 2023 Herd.

Back in the black and white days of cinema men were real men, women were real women, and zombies were almost entirely created by voodoo. Bela Legosi was the star of the time, Dracula in his caped finery and he plays Haitian voodoo priest Legendre, hired by jealous aristo Beaumont to turn blonde bombshell Madeleine into a zombie who loves him.  Did we like it? It was very dated. It is a classic and should be afforded the status as such, but slow and obvious, it was never a game changer, it was just one of the first. If it didn't have Legosi in the lead would it even be classed as a classic? Probably not. And thus we can only score it 4/10. And a generous 4/10 in that.

Coming out this summer we have Herd, virus not voodoo, and stars Ellen Adair, heading out with here partner on a camping in canoeing trip to repair their relationship. Does it work? Well, do we care? We kinda do after a while as both Jamie and Alex are well played. After a canoeing accident that was telegraphed they try to head to town to find help only to discover the zombie apocalypse under way. It has some very very good scenes, clever shots, but is let down by awful action sequences, red necks and paramilitary types who can't shoot for shit and the heavy overtones of a dead mother, abusive drunk father and an intolerant community. Still, most of it was shot well, and we scored it an above average 5.5/10.

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.

For our 100th Episode we have sausages under the grill, pork stew on the stove and input from Janine Pipe, author of Sausages - the making of Dog Soldiers, and pal of Neil Marshall, the writer/director of one of both of our favourite British horror movies the 2002 Sean Pertwee, Kevin McKidd and Liam Cunningham Dog Soldiers.

Yes, we are branching out, and not the branch that Bruce impaled himself on, away from zombies to the furry fun ride that is werewolf movies, for this 2002 cult classic. Infinitely quotable, one of Michael's personal favourites, and with the feel of so many other good movies it brings together Predator, Aliens, Assault of Precinct 13, 30 Days of Night, Black Hawk Down, with great banter from the boys and fun practical effects that make it stand out from the pack. Not that there is much of a pack as outside of the Wolfman, American Werewolf in London, and then Paris, The Howling and Ginger Snaps we are pretty hard pressed to name many more.

So please enjoy our chat, and look the movie on Amazon Prime, and Janine's book on Amazon too and any reputable book stockists.

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 week two very different movies. 

2 years before Brad Pitt brought his perfect chin line and blond bob to the mainstream zombieverse in World War Z someone made Exit Humanity, which does seem to have been based on Max Brooks' book, just that it is set in 1865 after the US Civil War. We do have a pretty decent cast in Brian Cox narrating the book (as the central character keeps a journal about the plague and it's origins and how to beat the dead) which is 100% stolen from the WWZ book, Stephen McHattie and Chops Moseley as the villains. 

We follow Edward Young as he survives the zombie apocalypse of slow moving, pale faced silent shufflers, meeting up with Dee Wallace's witch Eve, and fellow confederate soldier Isaac and sister Emma. A fine replacement for Young's dead wife and son if ever there was one.

Not as bad as I thought, but with the near constant music, ultra high def filming which I hated, and it is clearly is a WWZ rip off.

5.5/10

And I have been waiting for Day Zero, with Filipino kickboxing champion Brandon Vera racing around fast moving infected slums looking for his family, since I saw the add in the Summer. 

Well it is is here now, and I liked it. Not hugely, it isn't a game changer, but it was fun, fast paced, constantly tense as Vera does some damage with fists, guns and knives and, well, anything he can get his hands on.

Claustrophobic, tense, with Korean like zombies of the cloudy eyed, blue veined, screaming running variety, if it was in a bigger tenement building and more like Dredd or The Raid, it would have been even better. Definitely worth a watch. It is nonstop. 

6/10

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.

This was a fun one, I am not going to lie. It was a game of "What's in the Bloody box?" a mystery game where I watch a movie (Anger of the Dead) and Micheal watches a different movie (Colin) that the other hasn't seen and we have to sell it to the other via a preamble and Q&A session.

Anger of the Dead, hated by Steph at Listeners of the Dead podcast, a misogynistic and misanthropic Italian movie with knock-off Negan Captain Rooker trying to populate the world with immune warriors by basically turning all the women he meets into sex slaves. Not a fan. The cinematography was good. The FX were ok. The script, and the acting were found lacking.

4.5/10

Colin, made for £45 and it showed. Potentially a clever idea but executed badly. Normally movies that follow the zombie (Fido, Warm Bodies, Dead Heads, and The Revenant) are comedies, but this was a drama (we think). Cheap, poorly acted, poorly scripted. Must try harder.

3.5/10

With special thanks to our fellow podders over at Let's Talk Turkeys podcast. 

And special thanks to our musical guests Combat Sports, a 3 piece band out of Colchester Essex, with gritty guitars, fuzzy basslines, and the opinion that if you hit drums harder they sound better. It's a mix of nostalgia for 90's alt-rock/grunge sound, and a modern edge with production at the hands of Tom Donovan.

Their new track Social Fallacy expresses their frustration for what social media has become and how it now penetrates every part of life.

They have just released our debut EP 'Natrium' that you can find on Spotify 

And you can find them here

https://www.instagram.com/combatsports_band/

here

https://www.facebook.com/people/Combat-Sports/61551212364313/

and here

https://www.youtube.com/@CombatSports-band

Please check them 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.

No this isn't the wonderfully filmed documentary on the Amish teens heading out for Rummspringa, it is a knock off of several other zombie and infected movies and stars, for want of a term, Danny Dyer, Craig Fairbrass and Colin Salmon "Chunks".

Released in 2010 this British movie looks at the use of a performance enhancing drug trial that goes wrong. 30,000 people were given the drug, and 29,999 ended up suffering terrible fevers, multiple organ failure, bloody faces, blue veins and ultimately the insatiable desire to spread the disease by biting people after chasing them down using parkour. 

In an unnecessarily convoluted plot top billed Danny Dyer is a former police officer who killed a kid, and gets out of jail just in time to enjoy the apocalypse, the 1 patient out of 30,000 not to turn is his ex-gf Angela who is immune, and pregnant, and her blood could be the key to the cure. 

Craig Fairbrass is the tortured former head of security at the company who now wants to find Angela and protect her before delivering her to doctors to find a cure, and all within 54 hours as he has been bitten and has three 18 hour suppressants he can take.

Add a tarty backstabbing friend, two manipulative city wankers, Sean Pertwee with a giant moustache and set a chunk of it on the Thames or in a rundown garage in Essex and what you have is a movie that is wholly unoriginal and pretty Dyer... I mean dire.

They should have made Fairbrass the hero/villain more as that is the character, and binned Dyer completely.  A lot of the choices didn't make sense. And it annoyed me.

4.5/10 

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.