The Undead Symphony

The 2010 Ford Brothers production of The Dead, filmed in Burkina Faso and Ghana finds the hero (Rob Freeman) the sole survivor of an evacuation flight crash making his way across a dusty, African country in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. 

Meeting up with local soldier Daniel, who is trying to find his son, Freeman makes his way from unprotected village to unprotected village, airfields and through the bush in a battered Peugeot truck. 

Awful continuity, bad overacting, bad eye overacting and a very very repetitive plot from a 12 week  shoot that should have taken 6. I have seen worse, but with the potential this had, I can't score it very highly at all.

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 the grim offering last time out I needed quality, and this spin off of Fear the Walking Dead was a perfect route back to decent zombie fare.  Starring Nick Stahl as Riley, his character from FTWD (Season 6), during the opening of the show back in Season 1, the crew of the USS Pennsylvania is pulled from a NATO exercise to the Gulf of Mexico but then lose communication with command. 

A crewman dies of septic appendicitis but then turns, biting three of the crew and by the next morning the 82 strong crew is dropping in numbers in the close confinement of the submarine.  Then a message comes through that they have a target.

With a hint of Crimson Tide Stahl and the Captain wrestle with the idea of firing on US soil when we discover the target is Chicago, and that the US Army (not the National Guard) has been deployed. They try to work out what has gone wrong as they battle their undead crewmates, and Riley finally works out that he needs to be off the ship and head home to protect his family. 

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.

Two of the bottom of the barrel movies this week, one of which I couldn't comfortably finish.

The overly stupid, misogynistic, self-referential Range 15 starring a whole landing craft of celebrity veterans and cameos from William Shatner, Sean Astin, Keith David, Danny Trejo and Ron Jeremy. Funded by the "stars" and a indie-go-go crowdfunding page this is god awful.

But it is basically Full Metal Jacket meets 28 Days Later in comparison to the pile of shit that is Another World, an Israeli extinction movie that is so bad it doesn't even have a wikipedia page. With stereotypical characters The Colonel, The Wizard, The Doctor, The Daughter and The Mouser who flit between bad plans, an apartment, a parking lot and long boring discussions about god, government, civilisation, existence and purpose this is the sort of movie that can cause people to self-harm. My advice, avoid both like the plague and pray that the people who created these monstrosities get their bloody comeuppance. 

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.

Starring Elliot Page and with a more than a hint about the rehabilitation of terrorists detainees from the Troubles, this infected movie set in Northern Ireland poses the questions he have been wanting ask; what happens if the infected get cured? Do we take them back in? Are they the same person as they were before? Can we forgive them for the crimes they committed when out of control and infected, including murder and cannibalism? 

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.

Making the most of my Amazon Shudder account this week to watch a second Shudder Original (Virusl:32) as well as The Horde. 

First we have the overly macho The Horse where a group of undercover cops head into the ghetto to take out the drug dealer who murdered their friend, only for the two competing elements to be forced together to fight the eponymous horde of zombies that are heading their way and escape the tower block they find themselves trapped in.

And Virus:32 a joint Uruguayan and Argentinian movie set in a claustrophobic abandoned sports club, with fast movie smart infected that for 32 seconds post murder/feed are dormant, so you have a tiny window to escape. Very tense, very 28 days later, very recommended.

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.

Set in a First Nation reservation where the natives are immune to a zombie virus that affects the white population, fish and carnivores, we see local police chief Traylor and family try to survive with their people, whilst balancing saving those who could bring it all to an end.

The late Jeff Barnaby's movie is a superb take on the zombie genre with the back stories of racism and tradition. And it was arguably one of my favourite reviewed movies to date. Check it out on Shudder.  

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 we look at Lucio Fulci's 1979 classic Zombie Flesh Eaters, aka Zombie, aka Zombi 2, an official sequel to Romero's, or at least the Argento edit of, Dawn of the Dead. Starring Ian McCullouch of Survivors, and Mia Farrow's less talented sister, we head to the Caribbean where the dead are rising from their conquistador graves to bit people on the throat before eating their innerds.

It has better effects, some terrible dubbing, but with excellent locations, and a shark vs zombie underwater fight, it really is up there as one of the classics of the genre. 

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.

Back to a double header this week with the macho men Dolph Lundgren and Michael Dudikoff facing off as we watch and try to enjoy the awfully named Navy Seals vs Zombies, where a crack team head into Baton Rouge to rescue the Vice President and a Scientist with the cure when the zombie plague starts, and Dead Trigger, the big screen version of the phone first person shooter, where a crack team of millennials... wait... what? Yes, a team of newly recruited 20 somethings join Lundgren, Oleg Taktarov and a couple of other old hands to go into a sparsely populated Terminal City to save, yes, you guessed it, a Scientist with the cure.

It is the battle of the bads. You will genuinely enjoy the podcast more than the movies. Thank God they were free. Small mercies and all 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.

It has received cult status but then there is no accounting for taste. I can see why, but not really. High school prom, nerds, cheerleaders, a bully, a bullying gym teacher with a military past and an alcoholic principal. But then add a spill from the local powerplant brings the dead back and it is all gonna go wrong.

Favourite line. "Stare at the wall. It is the wall channel. All wall. All of the time."

The rest I was not a fan of.   

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 Thai movie where they get the zombie effects, the set and lighting and speed right but everything else wrong. Awful acting, annoying characters, ridiculous repetitive plot and in the end you even do a head tilt as to who the hell the characters in the final scene are. I hated this one, given that it got the look and feel so right, it could have been great. But with over a dozen shouty teens running the halls of the hospital shouting and screaming when they should be quiet, it just annoyed me. If you want to spent 90 minutes exasperated then pay good money to watch Zombie Hunters.

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.