Aaah! Zombies!! or Wasting Away

Yet again I have some across a movie that is known under two different titles.  You might find it listed as Aaah! Zombies!! or Wasting Away.  No matter which title you happen to see this movie listed under, it takes zombie movies and turns them on their collective ears.  This movie tells the story from the zombie point of view.  Rather clever.

 

A military experiment has gone wrong.  The subject is given a substance that kills him rather quickly and then transforms him into a zombie.  In an effort to cover up the mishap, all of the containers of the toxic liquid is being transported to a pristine lake for dumping.  But before the payload can be delivered, there is an accident and one of the barrels rolls all the way to a bowling alley.  There, the bio-hazard goo gets absorbed by the dairy containers and is made into ice cream, which four friends eat.  One of the friends is an alumni of Medusa's Face, previously seen in Bottom's Up.

 

They turn into zombies and are joined by another zombie that was a PFC at the military installation that was doing the testing.  While they think that everyone else is infected, it is this group of five that are the infected ones.  These five think that they are somehow "super soldiers" and can help change the world.  They don't seem to die and they have incredible strength.

 

It's a pretty good movie and I like the change of pace from some of the other zombie movies that I have seen.  I wanted a little more over the top senseless violence.  There was some, but I felt that this movie needed more of that.  Nothing too memorable, other than in order to translate zombie to human, either the zombie's brain waves need to be stimulated or the human needs to be drunk.  I thought that was a nice touch.

 

So remember kids, when drunk .. you might be able to understand zombies.

 

I give this movie 3 out of 5 bowling ball bags.

Evilution

This is one of those movies that you know what you are going to get right from the beginning.  Lots of senseless gore.

 

A United States Army Research Facility in Iraq is overrun by an infectious substance.  One of the doctors attempting to leave the facility is stopped by the guards at the gate and they discover that he has a vile of bio-hazard material.  The guards are attacked and a bomb is dropped on the facility.  The end.

 

That would have been a pretty short movie if that was the case.  It's not the case.

 

Over in New Mexico, the facility there gets some information that the vile of material is still intact and in the area.  The doctor that was attempting to leave the Iraq facility, did escape and is trying to continue his research.  His personal research lab is in the basement of an apartment complex (a good sterile environment) and a drug addict steals the bio-hazard vile thinking that it is meth.  So the meth addict cooks himself up a high and then begins eating the flesh of people in the complex and infecting all of those people as well.

 

In one scene, the infected people are banging on doors trying to lure fresh meat out into the hallway.  Two people answer the knocks.  One, a large muscled man and the other a blond in a towel.  Moments later, the now topless blond is shoulder chow.

 

The bio-hazard material is actually an alien life form that is a parasite.  Most of the host individuals cannot communicate with the aliens and that is when the hosts become flesh eaters.  There are two people that are able to communicate with the aliens, but they are destroyed too.

 

The movie is very violent and has gore on top of gore.  It's your basic zombie movie.

 

I give this movie 2 1/2 out of 5 alien parasites.

The Mad

This is a zombie movie that sort of makes fun of zombie movies.  I liked how this movie didn't take itself too seriously.

 

An old man grinds up some beef and delivers it to the local diner.  As he is driving to the diner, you can see a "quarantined" sign by the slaughterhouse.  That can't be good.  The diner accepts the delivery and changes the menu for the day to have the ground beef featured for the special.

 

A group of four arrives in the town as a stop over on their way to their vacation.  They get checked in to the hotel, then head off to get some lunch.  While the father and boyfriend order the special, they are not able to get the special.  It was sold out.  The chef was saving a burger patty for himself, but it has begun to move and is no longer on the plate.  Things go south pretty quick.  The other patrons begin getting ill and one female customer asks Monica (the father's girlfriend) for some aspirin.  Monica drops the aspirin and the female customer comes up and stabs her in the head with a fork.  Oh, and the female customer is not the only one who has transformed either.  Several other customers are zombies and the father begin fending them off with a prop pitchfork.

 

Slightly funny scene in the diner when the father gets shoved into the jukebox with the female customer who is now a zombie.  The music changes and they begin dancing a waltz.  Now back to the zombies.  The boyfriend gets his toes bitten off when he tries to kick one of the zombies in the head.  Then later he gets shot.  And finally when he freaks out after being attacked by the missing meat patty, he gets decapitated.  Good stuff.

 

The father/daughter are the only ones left in the town that escape.  They arrive at the farm that sold the tainted meat.  The rancher's son greets the pair and they are off to the barn to try and find the rancher.  The rancher, who is a zombie, bites his son on the forearm.  As he is gnawing away on his own son, some of the ground beef attacks the rancher.  The police arrive and everything gets under control.  Until the policeman gets attacked by one of the meat patties.

 

Overall, it's a fairly dumb movie.  But, it is good rainy day material.  Nothing too violent or scary.  And some light hearted scenes to keep you watching.

 

I give this movie a 4 out of 5 anabolic growth hormones.

I Am Omega

I am Omega has very few alpha moments.  Zombies already roam the land and waiting to either eat you or be part of a bullet buffet.

 

Renchard, played by Mark Dacascos (a.k.a. Amerian Iron Chef's Chairman), has a very elaborate security system at his house for alerting him whenever the zombies try to invade.  And because of the system, he has been able to survive.  Every so often, he goes into town, fights zombies, and strategically places time bombs on the gas lines.  This is what you see for almost half of the movie.

 

The movie picks up after Renchard receives a video call, on his laptop, from a woman who is trapped downtown.  She needs to get to Antioch and Renchard is not in the mood to risk his life to save her.

 

He gets in the mood real quick after a couple of ex-marines show up and destroy his house.  The three of them begin going through the sewer lines to get to the lady, Brianna.  The sewers used to carry in ocean water into the city and the zombies do not like the salt.

 

The movie keeps moving along, Renchard gets to the girl, the two of them escape, the surviving marine shows up, and PLOT TWIST ALERT wants to kill the girl because she is part of the cure for the zombies.  With no more zombies, he can't go around killing them.

 

The ending is very weak.  It is almost as if the writer(s) didn't know how to end the movie.  It might be a better book than movie, but I am not going to read the book.

 

I give this movie 1 out of 5 zombies in the sewer.

Boy Eats Girl

This movie was made in Ireland.  So it makes the cut for being a "foreign" flick here on Medusa's Face.

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

 

A lady is working inside of an old church, when she finds a secret passage to a crypt.  All sorts of items are there that were from missionaries who lost their way.  The priest catches her and sends her on her way.

 

The students at the town school are preparing for the end of term disco.  The shy fellow that wants to ask this girl out, can't seem to pull the trigger, and sees her later in another guy's car.  Thinking the worst, he goes home and begins drinking.  While drunk, he flirts with thoughts of suicide and puts his head in a noose.  Every teenager keeps one of those in their bedroom, right?  With a nudge from his mother, the son is strangled to death.  Good thing this is the lady who was helping out at the church, because otherwise she wouldn't get the voodoo book and bring her son back to life.

 

So we now have our first zombie.  Only, he's not that much of a zombie.  It's not until he bites the cheek of another student when the zombie virus is spread.  The next thing you know, just about everyone in town has become a zombie.  Even the priest!

 

There is one funny scene where the love interest of the story, climbs on a tractor and begins shredding most of the zombies on her property.  But other than that, the killing scenes are minimal.  The zombie cure is a bit odd too.  A bite from a poisonous snake.  Who would have thunk it?

 

I give this movie 3 out of 5 zombie priests.

Zombie Honeymoon

This is a story of undying love.  And a zombie husband.  But mostly about what you do for love.

 

The newlyweds head off to a house, close to the Garden State Marina, directly after the wedding ceremony.  The vegetarian husband enjoys surfing and the non-traditional bride enjoys drawing.  The couple head to the beach for a little surfing and drawing.  While drawing, this man walks up from the water and vomits blood in the grooms mouth.  Just the way that every honeymoon begins.

 

Off to the hospital and the groom dies on the table.  Or at least that's what the people in the ER think.  Because 10 minutes later, the groom is sitting up.  The doctor orders him to get some rest, so they wait and then he is released.

 

The couple dream of moving to Portugal and do not think it's going to happen soon, so the groom quits his job, the bride quits her job, and then they give up their apartment, all in an effort to force them to go to Portugal sooner.  This is how everyone begins married life, right?

 

Finally the zombieness starts kicking in on the husband.  It's discovered when the wife comes home from the grocery and finds the husband in the shower eating the intestines of a neighborhood jogger.  He pleads with her not to go and through the power of love, she stays.  But she makes him promise that he will not eat or attack her.  Cuz you know, you have to look out for number one first.

 

The best man and maid of honor are invited for dinner to celebrate the couple going to Portugal.  It's a very awkward dinner moment when the vegetarian groom wants some of the best man's steak.  But it does lead to a good line for the next morning when the groom tells his bride, "I guess vegetarians don't make good cannibals.  Do they?"

 

It takes a long time before the zombie kills begin, but when they start, they come in heaps.  Travel agent, video store customer, sheriff, several deputies, the best man, the maid of honor.  They all are gnawed upon and killed.  But unlike most other zombie movies, the victims do not come back to life and create a never ending cycle of future zombies.

 

The end of the movie is bizarre.  Does the groom die?  Does the bride?  It's hard to tell.  And I am not about to watch it again anytime soon.  If ever.  Nothing too memorable about this movie.  The zombie kills were weak and predictable.

 

I give this movie 1 out of 5 vegetarian zombies.

Dance of the Dead

Remember when you went to prom and you had to blow up the gymnasium because everyone inside was a flesh eating zombie?  Yeah?  Good times, good times.

 

The grounds keeper of a cemetery doesn't seem to mind it when he is trying to keep a flower vase upright and a hand comes at him out of the grave below him.  He just snips it off with his hedge clippers and goes about his business.  It just so happens that the town is next to a nuclear power plant, so this must be a regular occurrence for him.

 

Meet the kids of Cosa High School that we will be watching throughout the film.  The popular kids, the cheerleader, the nerds, the bully, the student counsel, and so forth.  They will be the main focus of the movie.  It's prom time too, and everyone is looking forward to the Hawaiian Hula Prom.  Unless you are not going to prom, then the night is going to be pretty boring.

 

Well not this time, because if you are not going to the prom, you will help save the town from the army of zombies that have just begun to take over.

 

There are a few good face stomping scenes.  A scene where a guy is beaten with his own arm and even zombie frogs.  I don't know how the dissected frogs came to be zombies too, but I am not complaining.

 

This movie takes a lighter look at zombies.  It still has the gore and senseless violence that you would expect from a zombie movie, but lets the castaway teenagers win the day by killing all of the zombies.  Overall, not that bad of a flick.

 

I give this movie 3 1/2 out of 5 spiked baseball bats.

Dead Man Walking (2005)

The opening scene to this movie is one of the best openers that you will ever see for a zombie movie.  If you like uncontrolled camera movements and lots of senseless violence, this is a movie for you.

 

We arrive at Harwood Maximum Security Prison after watching a man shotgun four people coming after him,  had some blood splatter on him, and he is now sick.  When he arrives at the facility, he is sent to the infirmary to be checked.  He tells the doctor that he has been infected by an experimental bio toxin that transfers through body fluids.  After he pukes blood on the doctor, he is sent to solitary.  On his way to solitary, he pukes on several other prisoners.  

 

You can already see what is going to happen here, don't you.

 

Yep, the prison has to be put on lock down while the prisoners riot and also begin eating each other and the guards.  The zombie roller coaster keeps going along, getting just about- everyone in the prison infected.  From the family who came to visit their loved one, to the conjugal visitor, and even the warden's son, no one is safe.  Yeah.  Bad day for "bring your kid to work" day for the warden.

 

Like other movies before it, the real action doesn't happen until you are close to the end of the movie.  That's where the over the top gore comes up.  Intestines being eaten, forearms being ripped off.  Part of just about every modern zombie movie out there.

 

For the introduction to the movie, I give it 5 out of 5 shotgun blasts.

 

For the zombie action, I give it 2 out of 5 zombie children.

 

For the unnecessary and completely senseless violence, I give it 2 out of 5 arm bites.

 

For an average rating of 3 out of 5 maximum security prisons.

The Crazies

I would have liked this movie a bit more if the story would have unfolded quicker.

 

The small township of Ogden Marsh, IA is pretty proud of their baseball team.  A good part of the town shows up for opening day and it's a good thing that the sheriff is there, because a man with a shotgun shows up and disrupts the game.  The sheriff tries to talk the gun out of the man's hand, but conversations end when the sheriff shoots him dead.

 

Three hunters come across a body attached to a parachute out in the woods.  After the discovery, things in the town change dramatically.  One guy locks his wife and son in their house, then sets it on fire.  The coroner has sewn shut the mouths and eyes of several people in the autopsy lab, one not dead yet, and he also tries to kill the sheriff with a bone saw.

 

Now the fun begins.  Citizens of the town are relocated to a tent city where they are divided into fenced in areas.  A truck plows into one of the fences and the passengers of the truck start unloading on the guards, starting a riot where lots of people escape.  This goes on and on for a while.

 

It's not until much later when the sheriff, sheriff's wife, and deputy interogate an official that knows something about all of this.  A biological weapon, designed to destabalize a population was accidently lost and discharged in the area.  The incubation of the weapon is 48 hours, you either die or you don't have it.

 

The only two survivors are the sheriff and his wife, and they are on their way to Cedar Rapids, IA.  But they are being tracked, and this might happen all over again.

 

I give this movie 2 1/2 out of five biological weapons.

Zombie Strippers

Zombie Strippers is one of those movies that you probably could never take a date to see.  But it has it all.  Brutal killings.  Nudity.  Zombies.  What more could you ask for?

In the near future, America is at war with just about everybody.  Even Alaska.  A group of scientists are in charge of creating a toxic virus that reanimates dead tissue and jump start brain motor functions so that the dead soldiers could come back to life and continue fighting.  The test subjects get out of control and a military team has come to the test facility to eradicate the test subjects.  Only, one of the team is bitten and escapes the lab while all of the other zombies are killed.

The bitten team member makes his way to a strip club and bites the best stripper of the group.  "Let me get this straight.  Our best stripper is a reanimated corpse who feeds off the living flesh of out customers ...."  But get this, the zombie stripper is out selling the rest of the girls.  Not only do the customers not seem to mind, but they love it.  So the other girls become zombies one by one.

There are some fantastic ultra violent kills by the strippers.  There is a wonderful brain eating scene, several head splatters, and face stomping aplenty.  Two lines in the movie got a chuckle from me.  "Get on the bread truck and haul f**king buns" and "Not enough kids smoking these days".

Definitely worth the time.  I give it 4 out of 5 Rhino's (strip club name).