Well for those of you that have been either with or without me for the past few months oughta know by now that I've been having a lil countdown going on. Specifically listing some of the best (and perhaps critcally worst perhaps) horror films that you need to feast your eyes upon. These films are all listed as intentionally to be either bought at your local video place (such as an FYE, Best Buy etc.) because a lot of video stores to rent them - like Blockbuster (aka Cockbuster) will never in their mind carry these films - and if your lucky enough you need to get the unrated director's cuts of a lot of them.
So it's about one week and counting until Halloween officially comes about. We're already starting to catch a few of these horror films on television now, but like I've listed over and over again - you're never gonna get the real deal through programs found on AMC, SCI-FI channel or anyone else. If you want to see what these films are really about, find the few places that you can rent them from or just buy them on taking my word of mouth from the review. Check out my countdown to see which films that you DEF need to see before getting any of these other films.
Listed below are the films that ALMOST made it but just couldn't cut it all the way (no pun intended for the slasher fans). I don't think that this list in particular is in any order of preference like my true countdown. This film is more like the second stringers that I hadda cut back in preference of other films that really came to my mind in time that I think they really needed to get the recognition and word of mouth that they deserve. So here we go, if I can list you guys the amount of blood and breasts and such for the specific films: I shall - if not they are still def movies you need to check out. And if you don't see a film that YOU FEEL BELONG TO DESERVE ON THIS LIST please list a lil comment below. Cause the more of us that stick together on this thing, all the more better that we can make a more unified and glorified (or should I say gorified) essence of horror in the world.
Here we go - in no particular order, here are some truly great horror films that I believe you all need to check out. If you're a lil particular about a few, I really want to narrow my films to horror specific, and say, not truly a sci-fi gorey film (such as John Carpenter's The Thing or Critters) to say a fantasy based film like perhaps The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Army of Darkness or even Lord of Illusions. No, this is straight up horror, so unless you thik otherwise, please feel free to drop me a line or comment on my blogs:
1)Dawn of the Dead (aka Zombi or Zombie:Dawn of the Dead)
1978, Directed and written by George A. Romero
George A. Romero's epic zombie film and the follow up to his original classic Night of the Living Dead (number 2 on my list). A comibination with George A Romero and Italian horror master Dario Argento turns out to be a match made in Hell that lived on through a long team up including Two Evil Eyes. The film itself is about four people (a helicpoter pilot, a newswoman and two SWAT soldiers) find refuge in an indoor shopping mall while the zombie epidemic wipes across the face of the Earth. They hold their ground off against a maruading band of bikers/pirates who also try to steal what they can to survive. In the end, it's an all out war/pie fight against the bikers and zombies and whoever survives - hitches a ride onto a helicopter to find safety elsewhere.
The film itslef was filmed at the Monroeville Mall in Monroeville,PA whenever the mall would close up- the crew would set up for the night until Dawn, and then start again for the next day of shooting the following night. The film itself is a legendary cult classic and along with Night of the Living Dead, has inspired many, many zombie films. Some like to even consider that Shaun of the Dead, is an uncompromised sequel to Dawn of the Dead that continues it's story line. Along with it's prequel, (but no so much with it's prequel) there are a lot of social issues that pracitacally satirically look at the world in it's time with ourselves against the zombies. You can call the zombies whatever you like and picture the global problem with them in it's place (whether famine, God's wrath, war or a domineering government - the zombies are just mankind's most natural enemy.)
Did you know that there's an alternate ending suppossedly? Where Peter shoots himself in the head and Fran sticks her head in the blades of the copter she would have flown away from. In my humble opinion, this could def make sense and make a clear cut (even though down trotten ending) but everyone knows there is NO escape from the zombie epidemic Some other side notes, it's a very awesomely gorey film and it includes pretty much where Tom Savini, gore make up fx extradoinaire and George Romero teamp up. A lot of the gore was thought of right on the spot and they just create a gag for it right then and there. Look for deaths like someone getting themselves ripped to shreds in the blood pressure tester, a screw driver in the ear and a pie fight sequence.
The film touts an insane amount of zombies and last year had it's remake, which wasn't all to bad considering how remakes are nowadays. The director of that remake will now also be doing a remake to that original sequel, Day of the Dead. So expect the remake to Day of the Dead to come out next year. Probably the most notable thing in the remake is the differences of the zombies, that are more typically faster and probably smarter and even more ferocious (more parell with the ones you'd find in Return of the Living Dead, which is number 8 on my listing I do believe)
NOTE: Be on the lookout for the rather racist, hilarious and losing it WOOLY in the beginning of the film whose in the task force int he apartment complex. Thanks Wooly, for blowing the zombie's head totally off. :D
Breast shots: One, nearly in the bed scene as done by Fran.
Body count: 88 (includes the living and the undead)
Gore factor: 9 out of 10 heaping buckets of blood and ripped up cow intestines.
2)Hellraiser
1987, Directed and Written by Clive Barker
This was a hard one to call for me between Hellraiser 1 and 2, but I hadda pick the first one since Clive did direct it and I feel it's quite transcendental for horror films at the time, a bit of a step above a typical slasheresque horror film, and we had a new boogeyman born known as Pinhead the Cenobite (as played so coldly by Doug Bradley). I feel that Hellbound: Hellraiser II is a bigger epic in scale of the Hellraiser films and with each film (with the originals at least) we get to know more and more about Pinhead and the Box. So they spent the first three films really getting to know the man behind Pinhead and his curse, and the fourth film is all abou the Mythos of the puzzle: THe Lament of Configuration. Then Hellraisers 5-8 which really just have Pinhead as lil cameos as far as I'm concerned and are just direct to video pieces of crap. But this is what you get with the first one to really have a feeling for the Hellraiser saga:
The story- So, a young girl: Kristy Lawrence moves into a house with her mother and father. The house belongs to her father's half brother (Uncle Frank) Now the story between Frank and the mom is that they used to be lovers and fuck around and the such - basically Frank was a scumbag. Frank, a lil while ago, discovered the puzzle box - and basically discovered and solved the riddle for the Lament of Configuration: All of these hooks and shit ripped his flesh right off, and these demonic S & M creatures called the Cenobites were conjured up as well and brought Frank down to Hell.
So you can think of this as almost like a haunted house story and features the typical almost wicked step mother kinda role int he film. A drop of blood from the father ends up absorbing down into the house into the remnants of Frank. And with each bit of flesh or blood he gets, he becomes more and more man again. Well, the "wicked stepmom" finds out the secret and so wants to be re-united with her lover again - so she helps lure in men so that he can have their flesh and he can be whole again- that includes his own half-brother and her husband Larry.
So Uncle Frank is whole again, but now the Cenobites are pissed that he escaped hell - so they come back to retrieve him and no matter the cost. I find that the film is all about pain and the love of pain. The tearing of the flesh and the reprimanding of the wicked. Did you know that the film was originally going to be called "Sadomasochists from Beyond the Grave" that just sounds like a bad porn title right? Anyone a big Clockwork Orange fan? Well the address of the house is the same as the institue young Alex attends in order to become a better man in society. The film is a bit demented with the whole Love of Pain and pleasure of the flesh themes going on withint the film. Clive kinda makes within the film series itself a mythos about Hell and what is to be possiably expected in the afterlife, it's more so present in the second Hellraiser film though. Anything else prior to Hell was just simply Demonic possessions and or the Devil himself with such films like The Exorcist, THe Omen and Rosemary's Baby- Hellraiser took a vast realm as Hell, and added a lot more of a flare to it. If not, this film woulda just been another cliched slasher film like all of the other Freddy's and Jason's at it's time. Don't worry too much about a super director's cut though, cause Clive Barker only had to trim about 20 seconds from his initial cut which are lil hammer blows, fingers entering the flesh and some S and M ass spanking. But do check out the first two Hellraiser films to get a great idea down for how the whole bizarre mythos works.
Body count- 7
Breast seen-1
Gore factor- 9 out of 10 buckets of blood. Watching Uncle Frank slowly returning to a man is a slowly, gorey and bloody process.
3)Freddy vs. Jason
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Buckets of Blood: 10 out of 10- hilarious Kung-Fu style bloody spraying as if when you cut people's limbs or major arteries they'd shoot out like puncturing a hole in a spray can.
4)Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn
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1987, Directed and written by Sam Raimi, also written by Scott Spiegel.
As listed in my countdown for the original Evil Dead (number 4 on the list) as Sam Raimi's sequels progress, they become less gorey and more comedic- that's why as much as I LOVE Army of Darkness, I really don't consider it a horror film. But Evil Dead 2 is yet another ingenious blend of comedy and horror, more so comedy and creepyesque horror. So we got some more slap stick where Bruce Campbell has a bit more acting ability in him to roam around the house and either get possessed, laugh with a lamp shade and lose his mind, or play a Tom and Jerry lil sequence with his hand that he had to cut off.
The story- As I've mentioned before, Evil Dead 2 isn't so much of a sequel - but more like a bigger budgeted remake of the original. the boys wanted to make it more commercially viable than the original, so that's why it's not so much necessarily gorey - but you're not just gonna see red blood. Cause a lot of RED blood means a film has to be trimmed down a lot more. So instead they featured a lot more like green blood, black bood and anyting else gorey they can feature in the movie. So if you've seen the original, the first twenty mintues or so of this one is pretty much the same.
Ash and his girlfreidn Linda are in a cabin, by mistake the discovers the book of the dead and the demonic incantantions that awaken the dark forces in the woods. THe demons come for his girlfriend so that Ash is forced to kill her, then they come for his hand which he cuts off (and then the hand runs around causing trouble all throughout the film - waaay too funny.) So we got Ash acting all paranoid, throwing himself around the cabin and smashing plates over his head like a goof ball. Then, two hill billies and relatives to the archeologist who discoverd the book of the dead return to the cabin wonderign what happened.
Ash is blamed for all of the madness and they think he called the Archeologist and his wife Henrietta. Well this couple gets sucked into all of teh madness as well (there's no tree raping but Bobbi Joe is sucked out intot he woods by some trees) and other's die and or possessed. The only way to get rid of the evil, is by using some new passages that were discovered that were intially came out of the Necronomicon, the original book of the dead. The first passage puts the force into a viewable form, and the second part of the passage will suck it into a worm hole back to where it belongs, in the medieval times int he days of Henry the Red and King Arthur (no not that one)
This movie is very hilarious and some (such as Jack Black in High Fidelity) will proclaim it as one of either the greatest a)horror b)cult c)cinematic films of all time. There's a lot of goofy tongue in cheek humor, Oldsmobile and of course three stooges humor all through the film. The reason people consider this as a remake is only because the film makers couldn't obtain the rightsto the first film to give the audience a recap. So they reshot scenes with Bruce and his girlfriend, but there is an exact point where Evil Dead 1 begins and the "semi official" Evil Dead 2 begins when Ash is possessed by the evil but is saved by Dawn.
Having a "possessed" Ash comes from the original short film - Within the Woods, which Raimi and crew shot for funding to get the original Evil Dead made. They used a lot of the scares in their first film (to the "T") but having Ash romaing around as a possessed monster is closer to the Woods plot. But did you all know that some of the film was shot within a gymnasium in North Carolina, but also on the set of The Color Purple, due to the fact that the original Evil Dead cabin burnt down under "mysterious reasons"
"For God's sake, how do you stop it?" Well, that's obvious - you can't. THe franchise is still thriving with a hopeful Evil Dead 4 in the works, comic books, a remake of the original Evil Dead and numerous video games of the series. To me, it is the quintessiantial cult film/series.
Breasts seen: Almost one from the decapitated muppet body of Linda running around with the chainsaw and I guess the same can go for Henrietta in the basement - but really no boobs. ANother graphic semi-porographic seen woulda involved Bobby Joe having her legs spread and rammed so hard/fast with a tree between her crothch she woulda been split in half.
Body count: 6
Gore factor: 6 out of 10 buckets of blood, as mentioned up top, not a very gorey film but they did what they could to make it a more marketable peice of art. Even if that involves decapitated puppet bodys, head in a vice a hole in the wall that shoots blood or juice of some sort (almost like black coffee at times) that spurts and blows all over Ash.
5)The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2
1986, Directed by Tobe Hooper and written by L.M. Kit Carson
Y'know, I just got done writing about the TCM movies not too long ago so I'm not gonna get into it. But here are the reasons that you probably should chec it out for - A) Tobe Hooper returns to direct B)Dennis Hooper with a barrage of chainsaws C)Tom Savini does the make up fx D)Kinky pseduo chainsaw sex. Gunnar Hensen isn't back to be Leatherface, but a kinda retarded and perverted Leatherface is back with an evne goofier mask. Only the actor of the cook has returned from the original, but we do have a new family member, Chop Top, who is the twin of the Hitchhiker from the original whom was away in Vietnam during the original film. He is totally over the top and always hilarious, and likes to use a hot wire hanger to scratch at the metal plate in his head.
The story- A radio DJ (Stretch) ends up having a recording of some kids calling in her show and getting chopped up by the crazy Leatherface family of Cannibals. This intrigues the local sherrif who is played by Dennis Hopper and is on a vengeful quest to get back at those bastards what they did to his family from the previous film. Leatherface falls in love with the DJ and all hell is rampant in this film. I should probably check it out again, since I haven't seen the movie myself in a while, and can only really remember a cheesy ending, the over the top Chop Top and some of teh more memorable moments in the rest of the series. The cannibals carry around a corpse with them thourgh out the film (I'm not too too sure if it's their brother the Hitchhiker from the original) but it does people a few people hacked up with a chainsaw and a dude skinned alive. So it def features more in your face gore, but doesn't hit on the same graphic (felt but not seen) impact that the original had. But it does incorporate the legend of the cannibal family but their victims in chili, which was actually award winning in the fine ol state of Texas.
I remember first getting sucked into this movie with the drive by chainsawing, and then losing faith in it when I saw Dennis Hoopper sobbing over his nephew Franklin's skeleton in the wheelchair. Liek he even knows that's the skelton (oh that's his wheelchair that's right) Ah but there is an awesome chainsaw fight at the ending, think of it like Obi Wan vs. Darth Vader but no Force and using Chainsaws instead of light sabers. And did you know if you can find the proper posing from the 2nd video box, the family has posed their bodies in a parody to the Breakfast Club?
Breasts seen: 0, but there is some kinky pseudo chainsaw sex where Leatherface likes to put his big ol long blade between Stretch's legs.
Body count: 8, including a fun one of a dude gettign skinned alive.
Gore Factor: 6 out of 10 buckets of blood, the beginning scene of the chainsaw drive by still sells me to this day :D
6)Frankenstein/ 7)Bride of Frankenstein
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1931/1935 both Directed by James Whale, both written by John Bolderston
Unlike my other sequels listed, these are the ony two I consider as back to back make a whole. They are so directly linked, so unique and some may even consider that Bride is better. I for one believe so, but both are just SOO awesome and transcending that none of our modern day horror films would have been nothing without the original masters of horror and their monsters like the directing of James Whale, Boris Karloff as the monster or even Colin Clive as the kooky Dr. Frankenstein. There's a lot of immoral ethic undertones about Frankenstien playing God and the reprecussions about "being God." Whereas he really doesn't take responsbility for his actions, and the monster runs rampant and destructive through one sequel after the next (and still does to this day).
The story- Like I'm evne gonna get into the concept of Frankenstein. If you don't know anyting about this masterpiece of the macabre (whether it's novel or various adaptations) you need not read my blogs anymore. Well Frankenstein anyways wants to create life, he accidentally puts a criminal mind inside the monster (along with other spare parts) and he's created and the monster kills. WHere the original novel, the monster kills out of neglect, this one kills from the mind that it was given "from Abby Normal" lol. People are to believe that the monster and creator are destroyed but their wrong.
In Bride, it's so beatufilly shot in scope, from teh lighting of the scenes to the angles played on the characters. Oh, speaking of great characters this one is chop full. From the gay ol'd Dr. Waldman the alchemist necromancer whom really pushes Frankenstein so that they can combine their talents to better use (he kinda represents the Devil in this movie) in fact there's a lot of this movie with a lot of religious themes and tones. Frankenstein also wanders in search of a mate and friendship where he befriends a blind man and is instructed things like smoking, drinking booze and speaking. Which in this film makes us feel even MORE sympathetic towards the monster and to his untimely ending. Def check it out if you're any bit of a man of horror or monster movies this is one is a def see!
Breasts seen: 0, it is the 30's, but you can really use your imigination to see through the Bride's wrappings ;)
Body Count: 6 between both films
Gore Factor: In our time, I'd say about 2 out of 10, but in the 30's I'd say around 10 out of 10.
8)Halloween 2
loomis-5.jpg (8622 bytes)
1981, Directed by Rick Rosenthal, written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill.
Hey, has society seen enough of John Carpenter's getting redone or what? I'm just awaiting for someone to redo his original Halloween classic because they can only go SO FAR with the Myers sequels already, which probably have the MOST conviluded continuity than any other kinda slasher film In fact, the ninth Halloween film is currently in pre-production, no plot yet but could be possiably called Halloween:Retribution or Halloween:Blood Lines. But, we should give the film series it's due but pretty much beginning the whole slasher genre from teh influences of Psycho and the Italian Giallo films. But this sequel as equally good as the original.
Maintaining that THE SHAPE has escaped and just magically disappeared give the film it's eerieness, and at it's points has some essence of Frankenstein. This film though only has John and Debra (Mr. Carpenter's main producer and co-worker for years) as the writers, and some unknown named Rosenthal (who besides this film directed the 80's cult classic The Russkies, which is like the Russian version of Goonies lol) and he now directs many many tv episodes. But we got Jamie Lee Curtis as a deranged victim still trying to escape her brother and Donald Pleasence is still the only doctor mad enought so stop the Shape known as Michael.
The story- This film takes place the same night ast the original Halloween, actually takes place DIRECTLY after the end of the original where Michael's body just kinda mysteriousily disappears. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee) is taken to a hospital to recooperate for the night. No one truly knows about the murders that happened besides Laurie, Dr. Loomis and Sheriff Brackett (whose daughter died in the original). So the two men are really the only ones out on a manhunt to stop Myers and prevent the town from further panic.
In the mean time, Loomis is ordered to get off the case and return to Smith's Grove from hence he came. But he knows he's really the only one that can stop the force of Michael, he then discovers that Laurie Strode is Michael Myers sister who went up for adoption after the incident where he killed his older sister. Which we later end up finding out in the series is that Michael has to kill off hsi blood line to maintaint eh piece in his life blah blah blah.
Want some hidden tidbits? Look for Dana Carvey in his film debut, playing an assistant , he's taken some directions from a blonde reporter. John Carpenter turned down the direction of this film, but helped write the script. He was also brought in because some people thought that Halloween 2 wasn't gorey enoughh, so they called John in to shoot a few scenes from some extra gore. The film a couple is watching around the set is Night of the Living Dead, but the film you might catch fromt eh two kids watching int he original is the original version of The Thing, which John Carpenter would end up remaking a few years later.
This marks the only film in the Halloween series to feature anyting the day after Halloween, all of the other ones endo on Halloween night. The film has some truely more hardcore killing than the original film but almost not as fun. Loomis is still a psycho and seeing Michael burn to death at the end of the film makes you wonder how/why exactly he should appear int he 4th film. Oh, because in the third film, it has nothing to do with the series and exists within it's own pocket universe. I'll get more into the Halloween series on a futrue date....
Breasts seen: 1- A very hot bath scene, and hot can be used as a pun if you like
Body Count: 11
Gore factor: 6 out of 10 buckets of blood, I'd say a lot of it goes towards the slipping on blood scene in the hospital and the burning of the bitch in the hot bath.
9)American Werewolf In London
1981, Directed and Written by John Landis
Who woulda thought that the director of the great comedies Animal House and The Blues Brothers would go on to create two landmarkish points in horror. The latter of the two being Michael Jackson's Thriller (which granted, whether you like to knock it or not- was probably the greatest video ever made in it's day.) The other landmark would be the QUINTESSENTIAL WEREWOLF film...American Werewolf in London. Where previous werewolf movies dwelled a lot of gypsy curses or time lapse photography to show makeup being applied very slowly to Lon Chaney Jr. - this film broke all molds in special effects style and and cocept within the werewolf films and it's own distinctive take on the horror genre as well.
On another side note, if you wanna watch a werewolf movie - I can think of only a few that are really needed for considered viewing. First is this film, then if you wanna go nostalgic, check out some of the good ol versions of Universal's Werewolf movies with Lon Chaney Jr. Some people have questions of the Howling series, I for one have tracked down and owned the old school VHS versions of the first 6 or 7 Howling movies. Well, they all such and have terriably funny makeup in it - and none of the films are truly connected throught he series. T he first one was great because ti was directed by Joe Dante, but all of the others are fairly cheesy. A great modern horrific werewolf movie I saw not too long ago was Dog Soldiers a new kinda werewolf movie, that's kinda got some Resident Evil/Evil Dead stuff going on for it but the special effects are awesome and it's quite graphically gorey to watch the werewolves actually eat people up.
The story- Landis had the idea for this film since he was still a teenager, but it wasn't until he'd done his work on Kelly's Heroes and directign two of America's greatest comedies we'll have to hold, was he able to finally direct a horror film like he wanted to. Two american guys (David and Jack) are out on a trip to jolly old England. On their hike on night, they take basically the "wrong" path. The local werewolf of the parts comes on by and attacks them. Jack is killed and David is mauled, and the townspeople save the day by killing the werewolf. David survives but grieves for Jack, and then all of the townspeople deny anything about a werewolf especially after David notices the wolf reformed to a man.
So David just kinda shrugs it off while he is hospitalized, he starts to have nightmares at night - oh and he's devoloping a Florence Nightingale syndrome with his nurse by the way. So, he's banging his nurse and sometimes he tends to sneak out at night and wake up naked in the zoo. He doesn't know why, he thinks he's going insane - especially when he starts to see his best friend Jack coming back to life.
Jack has been telling him night after night that David was bitten by a werewolf, and he must kill himself because he is kiilling others. And everyone that he does kill, they will also be caught in the same limbo that Jack is. Of course David thinks that he is slowly going crazy and just shrugs it off. Becuase everynight he wakes up refreshed and can't recall what happened the night before when he turned into a wolf. So night after night, Jack's body gets a lil bit more and more decomposed and another victim or two joins his ranks. It's really quite ghastly how they just pop in and out in the film and they're like, "Hey David, have you killed yourself lately?"
Jack: Now, I'm really sorry to be upsetting you, but I have to warn you.
David: Warn me?
Jack: We were attacked by a werewolf.
David: I'm not listening to this!
Jack: On the moors, we were attacked by a lycanthrope, a werewolf. I was murdered, an unnatural death, and now I walk the earth in limbo until the werewolf's curse is lifted.
David: Shut up!
Jack: The wolf's bloodline must be severed; the last remaining werewolf must be destroyed. It's you David.
So we got A LOT of internal struggle rushing through David's mind. How would you take it when your best friend and corpses are springing up to tell you to kill yourself - it's very nutty. OH and how's a bout the werewolf nazi nightmare he has lol, when they'r eattacking his family while they watch the Muppet Show. WHICH is yet another Muppet connection obsession that John Landis likes to use, such as in The Blues Brothers when just before the Mall chase sequence, the one guy is like : "Do you have this in a Miss Piggy?" or in Landis' take on Vampires in his film called Innocent Blood he hires muppeteer Frank Oz as a coroner in his film.
So again, we got some great internal struggle going on with our main character and some ghastly gorey scens elsewhere in the film for the deadly ghost nightmares. On top of all of this, we have THE GREATEST WEREWOLF TRANSFORMATION OF ALL TIME, basically because this wasn't done by keeping the actor still and slowlly apply make up to him - this werewolf is full on screen transformation using a lot of warping, wire pulling, animatronices and just about every trick in the book to make it such a memorable scene in cinematic history.Rick Baker did the special effects for the film, which earned him an 1982 Oscar for his work on this film. THe movie was also won/nominated some Saturn Awards (which are like the oscars for fantasy/horror/sci-fi films) for various categories including best film, best make up, best writing and best actress.
How's about some worthless trivia for you? Such as a bit of John Landis' trademark usage of porno, or the fact that every song in the film has the word: MOON in it. The special effects in this film were doen so well, that the Academy had to recognize such efforts- London became the first film to recieve an Oscar for special effect treatment in a film.
Breasts seen: 2 pairs
Body count: 13
Gore factor: 8 out of 10, having the corpses hanging around all of the time and the quick/sudden late night killings give us the gore we need. The bloodiness and ghastliness go hand in hand with the awesome special efffects and make up.
10)Zombie
1979, Directed by Lucio Fulci and written by Elisa Briganti and Dardano Saccheti
Now as noted from previous listings this film known as Zombie is also known as Zombie 2 in parts of the world. In Itally it is intended as the sequel to Romero's Dawn of the Dead, but Argento called his cut Zombie so that's why this is a sequel. But only in name, there is really no connecting story line here. Lucio Fulci is probably the second best Italian horror director around and has made some really great (and sometimes pretty bad horror films) but if you want the cream of his crop (eeeww) then go for this film, The Beyond (which they like to also call Zombi 3 over there, again no continuing story line but make sure you get the The Beyond from '81 wich is also known as the seven doors to death) The House by the Cemetary and City of the Living Dead (aka the Gates of Hell, which is an awesome second installment in Fulci's zombie trilogy - which are again just 3 dif zombie films, no continuing story line)
It's still a great movie and has some memorable stuff in it. Like a zombie vs. a shark, girl getting a huge wood splinter in her eye, quick striking zombies with maggots in their eyes and zombies slowly roaming towards NYC. This Zombie film like all of the other sequels have no continuity between them, but except fro teh first two - are pretty much all second rate peices of Italian horror trash.
The story- A boat suddenly appears in the NY harbor with zombies on it, the track the boat and it belongs to this scientist. A girl is on a mission to find out what happened to her father (the scientist) she teams up with journalist and stuff to reach a small island in the Caribbean. Where there is a plague going through the community which is turning them into zombies.
It's gotta some rather creepy, graphic and gorey scenes in this film. I enjoyed the main theme in it and Fulci's zombies almost have a differnt flare than all of the others that I've ever seen. They move slow at first, but when you get close to them - they strike like vipers and rip your jugular out as it gushes up a fountain of blood.
Breasts seen: 2 pair
Body count: 8
Gore factor: 8 out of 10 buckets, if not for the eyeball scene, underwater zombie and quick striking jugular ripping- this movie would be nothing.
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