Zombie movies are a favorite of mine, so it's stupid that it took me this long to enter the world of the living dead. I've always thought fondly of this flick and I seemed to remember the zombies looking damn cool... hm, maybe if papier maché masks are cool... What I did remember right though was the damn creepy "kid" in this flick. Well, it's a midget (not the munchkins in Oz kinda way, more like a jockey kinda small dude) that really doesn't look like a kid at all, but considering what he does in the movie I suspect they could never have used a real kid in that role. And hey, Peter Bark is probably more known than anyone else connected to this movie just because of the creepiness factor.
The film starts with an archaeologist, who looks like a cross between santa claus and Rasputin the Mad Monk, hacking off something in an old crypt somewhere in the italian countryside. Yep, for once no one is pretending to be american in an italian zombie movie, this one is set in italy and the characters are italian (although, they do have american names so I have no idea really what that is about). Anyway, our old friend, Rasputin the Weird Archaeologist, sits in his study going over the thing he took from the crypt and all of a sudden tells us (the viewers that is as he is alone) that he has discovered "an incredible secret"! He swiftly returns to the crypt where he stumbles upon a couple of rotting zombies... not having seen any zombie movies before he think that telling the zombies he's their friend should work. It doesn't... and Mr. Weird Beard is turned into a zombie snack.
Cut to the opening credits and some awful jazz music... Three cars are driving up to a big mansion and out of them comes the three couples that you're gonna spend the rest of the movie shouting "how fucking stupid can you be????" to. Well, not all of them as some are destined to be zombie food, and right from the start you wish that the teenage son, Michael (Peter Bark), will die as fast as possible as he bring more terror to this movie just acting like a teenager than the god damn zombies do. Apparently the bearded professor/archaeologist from the beginning of the movie is staying in the house as well (so you know the crypt where the zombies woke up in are just around the corner), but the fact he's missing doesn't bother any of the couples and soon most of them are sexing it up nicely. Michael manages to put on a cock blocking move on his mother, Evelyn (Mariangela Giordano), by visiting her and her dude (not sure if that's supposed to be Michael's father or not, but who cares... he'll soon be dead anyway) right as they are doing the naughty stuff... We'll soon learn the reason for this, Michael is a twisted 13 year old (played by a 26 year old... yikes!) as he wants his mother all for himself. And not only the mother and son kinda way, no he likes his mother A LOT more than that!
The next day the couples decide to check out the grounds (I'm not bothering with any of the characters' names as they will die soon anyway) and it doesn't take long before the zombies start attacking them. It's nice to see zombies walking around in the sunlight for a change, although the papier maché looking masks are a bit too cheap looking when you see them in the bright light. And why do all of the zombies walk around with closed eyes? (they're covered with black make up under the masks and I suspect by closing their eyes it should look like the eye sockets are empty... doesn't work at all, I'm afraid) All of the three couples, except for that dude who were banging Michael's mother (he is ripped apart nicely), manage to get to the house fleeing from the zombies. Although, we do get to experience the weirdest placing of a bear trap ever in a movie... right in the god damn garden! And instead of the usual woman running and falling we get a woman running, getting trapped in a fucking bear trap and falling... geez!
The zombies in this movie are quite different from other zombies in movies at the time... these seem to have some brain activity left as they can set traps, throw huge ass nails and use tools. The maid in the house get to experience all three of those things when she is tricked to a window on the second floor, when a zombie is throwing a nail through her hand and a couple of other zombies uses a scythe to cut off her head. One of the zombies also manages to climb up one floor and get inside the house and cause some mayhem... and in the middle of this little Michael needs to be comforted by his mother, which ends up with him first kissing her on the mouth, fondling her breasts and then put his hand in her panties. Yeah, that's a healthy relationship, huh? His mother wants nothing of that though and he runs away... only to be killed by a newly turned zombie.
The zombies refuse to give up on the snacks that are waiting inside of the house, so they even try to use a battering ram to take down the door. This is when one of the guys come up with the brilliant idea of letting the zombies inside the house, because they might be "wanting something else in the house and not them". Give this dude the Nobel Prize of Stupidity now! The fact that the zombies attacked him and his wife, and the other people that are staying at the house, outside in the garden didn't register with him apparently... they didn't seem to want something inside the house then, what the zombies wanted is inside their bodies for fuck sake!
The survivors make a run for it and end up in an monastery nearby, where the monks of course also are zombies, so no rest for the retarded... They end up in a work shop area where they think they're safe, but no one is safe from Michael, not even after he's died. So here comes zombie Michael and he still lusts for his mother, who is so happy to see him again she shoves her breast right in his face for him to suckle on... Well, we know what zombies like to do, so you know what happens next - no sucking here, biting and a big bite it is as well! And then the movie ends in a rather bleak way with a confusing prophecy (or "profecy" as it says in the movie), and it's not just any prophecy, it's the prophecy of the Black Spider!
If you can stomach a 26 year old midget playing a 13 year old kid, while looking like he's 40 or something, that loves his mother a bit too much this is a really great italian zombie movie from the classic era of zombie movies. The gore is excellent, the zombies are really cool here (albeit a bit on the cheap looking side), there is of course plot holes and illogical stuff a plenty - just like it should be in an old italian zombie movie. Hell, I used to place this one above Fulci's "Zombie 2" back in the day, and although I wouldn't do so nowadays I do feel it's well worth a spot at the top of the italian zombie flicks of the late 70's/early 80's. You need to see it for Peter Bark alone!
No comments:
Post a Comment