I DRINK YOUR BLOOD

"I Drink Your Blood" (1971), directed by David Durston. This review has been a long time coming and I apologize for that....so let's get down to business. This is a grimy, low budget drive-in masterpiece. It does not live up to the high expectations that many reviewers have given this movie, but it is still a fun and filthy ride.

"I Drink Your Blood" is about a gang of violent, Satan worshipping, LSD taking hippies. They move into a small country town and take refuge in a dilapidated hotel. The locals do not take a fancy to them at all. A local child and his grandpa are on to these hippies' game pretty fast. The grandpa goes to investigate with a shot gun. The hippies manage to violently subdue him and load him with LSD. Grandpa returns home in shambles. His grandson vows to take revenge. He shoots a rabies infested dog, takes it's blood and injects it into meat pies, and feeds these freshly baked pies to the hippies. Of course they come down with rabies, and all hell breaks loose. Eventually a zombie-like plague of rabies takes over the town, and the citizens must board themselves up or become infected...

"I Drink Your Blood" has many flaws to me. It is not the balls out, drive-in hippie/LSD/zombie/exploitation flick that many bill this one to be. Instead it is hampered by bad acting, worse gore effects, and a director who can't decide if this movie should be funny or morbid, so he just plays it middle of the road. First off, let me say that I love the grimy vibe that this movie exudes. It made me want to take a shower after I got through watching it. At times it is truly nauseating. There is something missing however. It is neither terribly fun nor terribly brilliant. It is a fun ride and a great concept for a horror movie. I do think this movie could have been done better under different hands. I think "I Drink Your Blood" would make a great movie for someone to re-make. The idea is already there...I would like to see more done with it. As much as I hate re-makes, I would love to see this one redone. I've seen a ton of grimy, filthy, late 1960's and early 1970's gore flicks and I expected this one to be a cut above the notch. It wasn't, but I can't complain. Anyone with a passion for bad cinema needs to watch this one.

DIE YOU ZOMBIE BASTARDS!

Caleb Emerson’s “Die You Zombie Bastards!”(2005) is an insane gem of a B horror movie. Here's a word of warning...do not take this movie too seriously. You must keep your tongue firmly planted in cheek. If you are one of those that take your horror too seriously you had best look elsewhere. This movie is not for you. But if you are one of those like me that love your B-Movies and you miss the good old days of the 1960's and early '70's when they made'em raw and fun and they didn't give a darn about who was going to be offended, then “Die You Zombie Bastards!“ is for you!

Let's see.....how do I even begin to describe this one? It is like watching a movie made by Herschell Gordon Lewis, John Waters, Ted Mikels, and Russ Meyer all at the same time. It starts out with the legendary, one-of-a-kind country singer Hasil Adkins playing as himself sitting outside of his trailer, introducing the movie. He is preparing us for a strange tale, a very strange tale indeed. It seems that there are some unusual things going on at a place called Hell Island. The story centers around our heroes: Red Toole, your typical run-of-the-mill mild-mannered cannibalistic serial killer, and Violet, his sex-crazed human flesh-hungry wife. He loves to bring parts of his victims home so they can eat them and have wild sex. They love each other, and something is bound to come in their way, to try to pull them apart.

Enter our nemesis, the mysterious hooded Baron Nefarious, a mad scientist gone awry. He too is sex-crazed and he has a mission: to make the entire world an army of zombies that do his bidding...and he has a zombie ray to do it! Right now he just has a gun that shoots the ray, but his zombies on Hell Island are working on a machine that will soon zap the entire world! Nefarious needs lots of bizarre sex (there is almost too much juvenile sex humor in this movie and way too many penis site gags) so he kidnaps three hot blonds to become his sex toys and zaps them into zombiedom so they will do his bidding. So he has three green zombiefied sex slaves that run around in nothing but go-go boots and a g-string. He has it made, right?

Wrong. He needs a wife. Some one with a libido to match his, someone to be his partner in crime. So Nefarious is watching a hillbilly version of The Newlywed Game and he sees our loving couple on there. After the show is over the camera is still rolling and Violet is so worked up from all the whoopie talk that she attacks the game show host and begins to eat him alive! Nefarious wants her so off to Hell Island she goes.

Of course this doesn't bode well with her husband. He dons a skin-tight red super hero suit fashionably accessorised with a chest plate, penis, and cape all made from genuine human flesh! Find her he will. So begins Red Toole's maddening, sometimes irritating, always dada-esque quest to find Nefarious, destroy the zombie army, and get his wife back.

I can't tell you anymore about what happens next because that is the charm of the movie....what will they think of next? It will keep you guessing...you're in for one thrill-packed, exhilarating, cartoonish, wild ride of a movie!

Well what are you waiting for?

ZOMBIE ROAD SIGNS

Over the past several days, hackers across the country have been altering the messages on digital traffic warning signs to read "Zombies Ahead! Run for Your Lives!" and other warnings of a zombie apocalypse. As a zombie fan and a reader of "The Zombie Survival Guide" I find this to be highly amusing.
You can read about it here.
You can watch the news story here.

ANDREW PARKINSON'S "I, ZOMBIE"

Andrew Parkinson's "I, Zombie"(1999). I have this on VHS and I was wanting to watch it badly the other day. I put it in the VCR and to my horror, the tape no longer worked. It had deteriorated and the picture quality was unwatchable. I'm still trying to get my VHS collection re-purchased on DVD, so I looked this one up to see if it was out on DVD. No luck. Both VHS ad DVD are out of print...

"I, Zombie" is one of my favorite zombie movies. It deals with the human side of being a zombie, what happens in the life of one person as his body slowly deteriorates. The main character(Mark) is a scientist and he is going out in the woods to collect some samples. He comes across a dilapidated house in a field and finds a man that has been shot several times in the head. In another room he hears a woman moaning and goes to check on her. She is in the final phases of turning into a zombie. He picks her up to help her and she bites him on the neck. He passes out for a while in the field and returns home to his apartment after he awakes.

Mark is slowly turning into a zombie. How does he keep his relationship with his girlfriend? How does he cope with the isolation and loneliness as he locks himself in his apartment most of the day? How does he deal with the urge to feed and still function in society? How does he deal with his body decaying more and more everyday?

"I, Zombie" is a very realistic, saddening film. You feel for the main character and want to help him but you can't...all you can do is watch his physical and mental state deteriorate. This movie was filmed on video tape, yet the production and direction are highly effective. The story and acting are strong, making you feel strongly for the main character. Mark's slow decaying as a zombie is horrific and depressing. I want to watch this movie again, but I guess I'll have to wait until a new DVD release becomes available. This is not your typical zombie movie nor your typical horror movie. It is more of a drama with tons of gore. If you're adventurous in your movie watching, check this one out if you can find it. I'm sure you will like it.

Jean Rollin's THE GRAPES OF DEATH

Anyone out there familiar with the works of the French director Jean Rollin? He's made numerous maddening horror flicks from the late 1960's through the 1990's. They are very difficult and artsy at times but they are always entertaining and beautiful to watch.

THE GRAPES OF DEATH came out in 1978 and it is a masterpiece of psychological horror.....and it is also a great zombie movie. The premise is very simple: the pesticides used by a local winery are turning everyone who drinks the wine into zombies. The way the director Jean Rollin takes this simple concept and turns it into such a poetic movie is not so simple......it is breathtaking!

The STYLE is what makes this movie. Jean Rollin directs a little like Dario Argento.....the difference is, where Argento uses shock tactics and weird lighting and strange music to get to you, Rollin uses space and silence. It is almost like a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western.......the beauty of the cinematography and the atmospheric noises that are going on the background(footsteps, doors opening and closing, wind blowing, rocks crumbling, etc.) build the suspense......the soundtrack is almost non-existent. And the dialog is sparse as well. Jean Rollin is a strong visual storyteller.

So on with the movie. The main character is Elizabeth. She's on a train to see her fiance at his winery in Roubelais. A zombie boards the train and she narrowly escapes her death. Right then, the movie puts you in her shoes, and you are just as confused as she is. She runs to a nearby village looking for help. What she finds is terrifying....a zombified husband who has killed his wife and is holding his slowly turning daughter prisoner. The daughter wants to help Elizabeth get away, but her father stabs her in the chest with a pitchfork before she can. Elizabeth finds a gun, makes it out alive, and takes off to the remote hillside. She has no human contact. Every village she comes to is in flames. Every person she finds has been gruesomely murdered. Zombies are everywhere.

Eventually, she meets a blind woman trying to get to her village and return to her husband. They find the village, return to her cottage, but her husband is not there. Frantic, the blind woman calls out for him and runs out to look for him. She is instantly surrounded by a hoard of zombies, led by her husband. They crucify her on her cottage door and her husband tells her he loves her, then cuts off her head and keeps it with him so he can kiss her on the lips whenever he wants to....

You see, these zombies are unusual....they have the same feelings as the living, they carry their memories with them......they are conscious of what they are doing, they just have no control over it.......


Back to Elizabeth. She must find her fiance! But will she keep her sanity? I can't tell you too much more about this movie without spoiling the plot. I will say that it has one of the most original endings in zombie history.....

I strongly recommend this one.......as long as you're ok with reading subtitles, you'll love it!