Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974)

After the surprise, slow burn success of Night of the Living Dead, the early 1970s saw a mini wave of living dead films "inspired" (ie: in most cases, flat out ripped off) by the Romero classic.  This first wave was an interesting time for the Zombie movie subgenre, as it showcased a particular blueprint set forth by Night of the Living Dead, before ushering in a second, bloodier wave in the late 70s and early 80s after Romero again put his stamp on the scene with Dawn of the Dead. 


That first wave saw a few US titles like Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, Deathdream, and House of Seven Corpses.  Across the Atlantic though, standouts included Amando De Ossorio's Blind Dead four pack, Jean Rollin's  Les Démoniaques (released as Curse of the Living Dead in the States), Jess Franco's A Virgin Among The Living Dead and, of course, Jorge Grau's Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (known in the UK as The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue and, curiously, in the US as Don't Open The Window).

The plot of Sleeping Corpses follows George (Ray Lovelock, looking the spitting image of Barry Gibb), an antique dealer leaving the congestion and pollution of Manchester for a holiday in the English countryside.  Almost as soon as his trip begins though, Edna (Crisitina Galbo) quite literally runs into him and the begrudged pair set out traveling together.  Even though George has a time-sensitive meeting in Windermere with friends, he reluctantly decides to accompany Edna to her drug-addicted sister's house in South Gate, before can borrow her car to get himself to his destination. 

Ray Lovelock, as George, is just trying to stay alive.

It's not long into their journey when the pair meets a dead end and George asks some workers from the Department of Agriculture for directions.  This is where Sleeping Corpses stands out from its maggot-faced peers; much like Romero's films, Jorge Grau goes for a "message" here about a pollution (briefly hinted at in the film's opening segment) and the effects of technology on the environment.  The DOA are using a new, experimental machine to kill insects in fields . . . with the use of radiation.  Ever the hippie, George immediately grills the DOA on possible side effects to the land itself. 

George realizes that Edna is more than a woman.

The film's first zombie appears shortly after; a soaking wet suicide victim who rises from the river and tries to attack Edna.  This is where Sleeping Corpses really starts to take off!  The make-up by Italian legend Giannetto De Rossi (Zombie, The Beyond, Rambo III) is actually pretty impressive here -- especially considering some of the on-screen zombies of the time -- with the character quite literally sopping wet the entire time he's on-screen.  However, what sets Grau's zombies apart from Romero's is, as evidenced by the wet cat, they seem to have the ability to think. 

Knock, Knock sucka!  Open up!

In a later scene where George, Edna, and a beat cop named Craig are trapped in the mausoleum of a local cemetery, our wet friend manages to revive two freshly dead, not-yet-buried, companions . . . by rubbing his bloody fingertips over their eyelids.  It's also here where the film's first real gore occurs as the trio rip into a poor soul's stomach cavity and disembowel him for a quick snack! 


Also along for the ride is Academy Award nominee Arthur Kennedy, as a fascist police sergeant who believes Edna's sister is responsible for the murder of her husband (who's actually done in by our drip of a friend).  The Sergeant immediately takes a disliking to George and Edna of course, bluntly stating "You're all the same, the lot of you...with your long hair and your faggot clothes.  Drugs, sex, and every sort of filth!"  Of course, he also implicates the pair in the gory disembowelment, labeling them as devil worshippers!  Kennedy's appearance really elevates the film above a sort of standard "a bunch of unknowns trapped by zombies" and also creates an outright villain as The Sergeant and George have a continuous back and forth in their scenes together.  George represents the defiant, authority-questioning counterculture and The Sergeant embodies their iron-fisted oppressors with Conservative values.

This zombie ponders how to mend a broken heart.

Later in the film, several more living dead are revived once the action turns a nearby mortuary and what is perhaps the standout gore effect in Sleeping Corpses occurs; a telephone operator is ambushed from behind by the zombies and has one of her breasts torn off!  It's pretty gnarly and, true to the gore that De Rossi would later wow fans with in Lucio Fulci's films, is top notch! 

This zombie has a case of Night (of the Living Dead) fever.

Perhaps aping a bit too much from pre-Dawn of the Dead Romero, the film contains a rather downbeat ending, but manages to elicit one final, revenge-soaked cheer from the viewer before the credits roll.  


All in all, it's an incredible entry in the Zombie movie subgenre and was certainly a worthy film that I'd read about before tracking down a bootleg VHS (ripped from the old, uncut Japanese laserdisc).  It's currently available on from the fine folks at Blue Undergound as Let Sleeping Corpses Lie on DVD, as The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue as a 2-disc DVD (with more special features and the Manchester Morgue title card), and also on Blu-ray as The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue.  Highly recommended if you haven't seen it yet!

Night of the Zombies (1980)

As a kid, trips to the video store meant many things to me; aside from renting something cool, above all, I absolutely loved perusing the Horror section and checking out all the incredible covers!  Of course, there were many, many covers that stuck out and either slightly scared me or made that internal voice inside me shout "COOL!"  One in particular belonged to Night of the Zombies, a film which I didn't actually get to see until about 1996 or so when I picked up a grey-market bootleg release from Creature Feature.

Of the many titles this movie has, this is the most common.

Let's get something out of the way right off the bat:  Night of the Zombies (or Hell of the Living Dead, as it's more commonly known on digital media) is not a good film...at all.  It's poorly acted, has shoddy direction, mind-numbing dialogue, baffling editing choices (hello random jungle stock footage), a ripped off soundtrack and, depending on which version you're watching, has a horribly murky picture!  But it's oh so much fun!

Dawn of the Dead comparisons be damned!

What little story there is begins at a top secret research facility where some scientists are developing something called Operation Sweet Death.  Of course, all Hell breaks loose and, the entire facility is gassed by their newly created chemical, effectively killing everyone.  This all starts when a zombie rat bites one of the scientists!  From there, we move to an "elite" commando unit (ie: a no-budget version of Dawn of the Dead's SWAT team) attempting to thwart some local hippies who demand research facilities such as the one we just saw get shut down.  Our crew of wanna-be tough guys shoots first and asks questions later, apparently being the best of the best so to speak. 

I can't wait to see Ethel's face when she finds this in her soup!

Our heroes are soon informed that they've been assigned to investigate the facility seen at the start since communication has been lost.   Along the way, the commandos run into a journalist and her cameraman who have just been attacked in a local village by several zombies -- including a zombie child!  From there, our four commandos and their new journalist friends (hmmm...sounds like a familiar combination from another zombie movie we've all seen, no?) continue their journey to the research facility.  Along the way, there are seemingly endless shots of wild animal stock footage, multiple zombie attacks (and decent gore), as the film plods to its inevitable conclusion.

Hey! Anyone got any extra tickets?

Notorious Italian director Bruno Mattei (under the pseudonym of "Vincent Dawn"...see what he did there?) handles the action here, which I guess could be called successful . . . in that I've seen much, much worse films and shot-on-video movies.  However, when combined with a poor budget and a weak script, it's hard to believe even George Romero could've gone for the win here! 

I don't think this is how to make kids' lunches healthier!

While watching Night of the Zombies, the first clue that we're in familiar territory comes in the fact that this film straight-up lifts portions of Goblin's scores from Dawn of the Dead and Contamination!  While I'm not sure exactly how that happened (or how it got by Richard Rubenstein), it does make for some jarring musical cues that ultimately get quite repetitive; much like the Dario Argento cut of Dawn of the Dead, there are only so many times one can hear "Zombi" before it gets boring.  Of course, the team-up of commandos/journalists is also borrowed from Romero's classic . . . why does it seem that so many Italian zombie movies ALWAYS have a journalist involved somewhere and/or start out in New York City? 

Seen here:  Geraldo Rivera speaking with protesters at the DNC.

As I said earlier, this film REALLY plods along . . . in fact, I've often thought about doing some slight editing to it to drop some of the endless stock footage (borrowed from Nuova Guinea, l'isola dei cannibali) and tighten up some of the sequences.  When the group reaches a native village, the film suddenly becomes like a mondo pseudo-documentary due to the abundance of stock footage, which paints the indigenous people as some sort of cannibals.  In fact, this footage doesn't even match the actual footage Mattei shot; the actual natives are clearly emaciated, while the zombified dead who attack are muscular and have current hairstyles!


Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior "Uggh"?

At its heart, there's a pretty decent story here, but for me, the action really doesn't start to get good until our heroes encounter an abandoned house -- which is soon overrun with zombies in a pretty cool attack sequence.  Here, the action significantly picks up with glorious zombie attacks and lots of gore! 

"Wait, you mean we're not in a sequel to Dawn of the Dead?"

The Dawn of the Dead "borrowing" continues in the final scenes at the research facility, as the last remaining commandos are picked off (one even in/on some sort of elevator!) and another is bitten and returns, to lead a heard of zombies back to the last survivor!  


Easily one of the coolest shots in the entire film!

The zombie makeups are all over the place.  Make-ups range from the grey/blue skin tones of Dawn of the Dead to purple and green tones and then, some kinda grizzly-looking specials that might be at home in a Fulci picture.  It's almost as if several different effects people worked on the film at different times! 

A good portion of the budget must have been spent here!

While Night of the Zombies/Hell of the Living Dead/Virus is often a mixed bag, it's still a gory hoot that is truly a product of its time and must have been awesome to see in the grindhouse theaters of Times Square back in the day!  If you're looking for a tastelessly fun movie night, this is the one for you!

MANIAC: NYC's Grindhouse King

 

Would you just LOOK at that poster art?!  If ever there was a Horror movie poster that accurately described to the viewer exactly what they were in for, it's this one!  Genre favorites Joe Spinell and William Lustig came together to leave a very unique (and very bloody) mark on Horror movies with this 1980 shocker.

I'd first heard about Maniac sometime in the early to mid 90s as I was diving head long into Dawn of the Dead and everything Tom Savini!  I clearly recall a review of Elite's special edition laserdisc in an issue of Fangoria and found myself wondering aloud "how did I miss this one?!"  I quickly found a copy of Anchor Bay's VHS port of that special edition (you know the release...the one with the white box) and immediately fell in love with the lurid tale of Frank Zito:  super for a low-rent apartment building by day and Night Stalker by, er, night. 

If you know Joe Spinell's story, you know how close he famously was with Sylvester Stallone -- hence his appearence in the first two Rocky films.  Bill Lustig has often stated that Maniac was "Spinell's Rocky" in that it was the actor's pet project, much in the same way of his famous friend.  Spinell researched newspaper articles and clippings about real-life killers to come up with a composite that would eventually be the script for this film. 

The story follows Frank Zito as he deals with some severe mother issues and, much like the shark in Jaws, hunts and kills innocent women on the streets of New York City, circa 1979/1980. On the surface, this could have been just another exploitative piece of garbage; a guy hacking up women just because.  But no...because of the heart that Spinell and Lustig poured into this one while shooting it guerilla-style . . . it's got something more to it. 

I imagine this is probably what it looked like while Spinell was writing!

 One of my favorite elements to Maniac is its portrayal of New York's seedier side in its locations; Old New York, if you will . . .  a place that I can never visit thanks to "flippin' Giuliani".  Even though it wasn't exactly the safest place to be, I'd love to spend just a few hours on 42nd Street sometime in the early 80s, checking out all the Grindhouse movie theaters (the Horror ones of course). 

Forget going back to the future, give me Old New York any time!

 The other standout here is, of course, Tom Savini's incredible special effects work.  Here, Savini found himself the equivalent to a Michael Jordan Three-peat:  Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th, and Maniac!  The guy was simply on fire and quickly earning the many fan and press-appointed titles bestowed upon him throughout the 80s. 

Here, Savini sees George Romero's first draft for Day of the Dead!

One thing that has always made me sort of scratch my head about Maniac though is the budding romance that occurs during the picture's second half between Spinell's Frank ZIto and Caroline Munro's Anna D'Antoni.  A guy who could be Ron Jeremy's stunt double meets (and woos) a beautiful fashion photographer who was probably once a model herself.  Not only does the physical attraction seem odd, but the way that Frank sleezes his way into Anna's life . . . the creepo factor is definitely at an 11! 

Caroline Munro:  Maybe I should take him to the zoo?

Let's go back to that poster art shall we?

 

 

 THIS is how they used to make posters for Horror movies back in the day kiddos!  You won't find any of that "floating heads staring back at you" or "generic font for the title" BS on this classic poster!  No sir...this is straight-up and in your face about what this film is all about.  In fact, it's art like this that really makes me yearn for the old days of having actual art on a poster instead a Photoshopped collage combined with the other two tropes I mentioned. 

 

When it comes to Maniac, it's also worth mentioning the 2012 remake helmed by Franck Khalfoun (of High Tension fame) and starring Elijah Wood in the titular role.  While it transplants the action from seedy New York to the brighter lights and bigger city of Los Angeles, on paper, this combination may sound silly...but it actually works.  There are some really great nods to the original (including a great shot replicating the classic poster image) and the film's first-person POV style amps up the grizzly factor.  Surprisingly, it's a worthy successor to Lustig's original!

 

Even though the days of seeing (and making) films as brutal and filthy as the original Maniac may be long gone, we still have countless VHS, laserdisc, DVD, and bluray releases (and the odd midnight screening in your local theater if you're lucky! to pour over.  Not just a typical "slasher" film, this is one that gets up under your skin and leaves a stain that stays with you forever!

TORSO (1973)

Sergio Martino's TORSO is one of those movies that I'd always heard about and read about over the last handful of years.  Back in the day, I'd seen posters and other artwork for it at conventions, but never took the time to check it out….

Until this past weekend.

Easily a quintessential Italian Giallo, Torso tells the tale of a crazed "psychosexual" killer terrorizing a group of college girls.  While watching it, I was amazed at how many bits and pieces (pun intended) were direct blueprints for the Slasher craze of the 70s and 80s!  A lot people seem to hail Black Christmas as the prototypical Slasher film, but watching a few Giallos from the likes of Martino, Dario Argento, and even Lucio Fulci, and it's clear to see where this Italian subgenre bled itself into the veins of the Slasher boom.

 The story begins with a double murder which leads to a game of "who dunnit" with one of the main girls having some idea of who the killer might be.  All the while, the viewer is kept guessing while the bodies start quickly piling up. 

One standout sequence involves a girl -- having just smoke some dope in a hippy hideaway -- being chased through a muddy swamp, with the killer seemingly appearing from the foggy haze ahead of her.  

The setting quickly shifts when the group of girlfriends decide to "get away from it all" for a weekend at a cottage high atop of a mountainside, overlooking a rustic Italian village.  Naturally, the killer follows them . . . and there are some surprises as everything unfolds, leading up to the big reveal.  

Possibly the best part of the film involves an intense game of "cat & mouse" as the Final Girl is trapped inside the cottage and witnesses the killer dismembering several victims for disposal.  Seriously, this part of the film ranks right up there with HItchcock!  

You might feel a little let down by the revelation of who the killer is and, more likely, exhausted by his long-winded reasoning for committing all of the murders, but I thought it was still a fun time! 

Torso is now available of DVD and Blu-ray from Blue Underground, so definitely check it out!!

My Bloody Valentine: 3D (2009)

Remakes are always a tricky proposition. On one hand, the original is usually hailed as a classic and deemed "perfect" with no need to be touched. On the other, there is always room to explore a particular angle left out of or not even thought of in the source material. Happily, My Bloody Valentine 3D (MBV3D) succeeds where few have.

The general plot remains the same as the 1981 slasher classic; after a terrible accident in the Hanniger Mine, Harry Warden snapped and took his bloody revenge. Years later, he returns and the killings begin once again.

MBV3D picks up where the original left off with, what it is pretty much a condensed version of the original's finale; workers at the mine are throwing a party and boozing it up . . . with Harry Warden on the loose, after a terrible accident there which left him in a coma for the last year.

The love triangle of Tom (aka T.J.), Sarah, and Axel is still prevalent. Here Supernatural's Jensen Ackles stars as Tom. Right from the start, there is tension between Tom and Kerr Smith's Axel -- and it's obviously over Sarah (played by Jamie King). After Harry Warden shows up and starts slaughtering people, Tom is left for dead in a mass confusion with Axel, his girlfriend Irene (played by Betsy Rue) and Sarah feeling for safety. Ten years later, Tom returns to town and finds things aren't exactly as they were when he left . . .

Axel is now the Sheriff (taking over from Tom Atkins' Burke) and is married to Sarah. Like the original, that love triangle still exists and it serves as a springboard for some intense moments between Tom and Axel. But, the one that remains the same is that a similar string of murders by someone in a miner's outfit (complete with the eerie combination of the gas mask and miner's headlamp). Is it Harry Warden?

The script by Todd Farmer and Zane Smith is fun and intelligent for what it is. Let's face it, MBV3D is not out to win any Oscars. If you go to see to be enlightened, you're at the wrong movie. If you go into it expect a fun time and a roller coaster ride into Hell (as the posters are saying), you will have a grand old time! Farmer's writing has happily improved since he wrote Jason X and with Smith at his side, he creates a world familiar to longtime fans of Harry Warden, while at the same time bringing them something new.

The acting is pretty solid all around, with Tom Atkins pretty much stealing the show everytime he's on-screen. He plays Burke as if he's in a B-movie and does his dialogue with the perfect delivery; seriously, some of his early scenes recall 70s drive-in double features. The major letdown though is Jamie King as Sarah. King plays the role by the Slasher genre rulebooks and, well, Sarah was never your standard throwaway Slasher character. Although that problem begins with the writing, King's performance dumbs down the character so much to the point that she falls into the standard Slasher cliches of moving too slow or just standing there when something bad is happening. Kerr Smith is also pretty intense, as well, playing nicely off of Jensen Ackles; the suspense of the Miner's true identity, coupled with the tension over Sarah gives these two actors a lot to work with.

Where the original MBV was heavily cut by MPAA censors, special Effects supervisor, Gary Tunnicliffe pours on the gore for Harry Warden's 3D debut! Victims are dispatched in a manner of colorful and grizzly ways enhanced by the amazing 3D effects! Like the Friday the 13th series, this is absolutely a bodycount movie and the kills are so cartoonish that you're bound to have a good time. Again, people come to see movies like this to see the effects and the gore; and in that regard, MBV3D delivers across the board.

Since this is, afterall, a remake of a classic movie loved by many -- including director Patrick Lussier -- you may be wondering if there are nods or homages to the original Canadian classic. Of course there are! Lussier updates a couple classic kills that are even more spectacular given the recent DVD release of the original in its uncut form. In fact, there are plot elements in MBV3D that make watching the original even more interesting considering what some of the newer versions of favorite characters do this time around....

And, speaking of familiar territory, Lussier has stocked his cast with some genre favorites to appease the hardcore Horror hounds in the audience. As I said before, Tom Atkins (The Fog, Escape From New York, Creepshow, Halloween III, Night of the Creeps, Lethal Weapon, Maniac Cop, etc.) is on-hand, chewing up scenery and stealing the show right out from under the younger actors. Then, there's John Harrison (composer for Creepshow, Day of the Dead, director of one of the Dune TV movies, and of course, the "Screwdriver Zombie" in Dawn of the Dead) as the foreman at Hanniger Mine. Harrison has a bit role, but any George Romero fan will recognize him and smile. And, speaking of Romero, there's one more alum creeping about . . . Bingo O'Malley ("Jordy's Father" in Creepshow and "Valdemar" in Two Evil Eyes) appears as Sherrif Burke's right hand man, Hinch. Sure, to the average moviegoer, these cameos are insificant, but to those "in the know" it's a nice way for Lussier to show he cares and respects the fanbase.

The 3D technology has drastically improved from what many from my generation remember in, say, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare or Friday the 13th Part 3D and Jaws 3D. Gone are the red and blue lenses in the cardboard glasses (at my screening, there was a metal detector outside the theater to ensure none of the state of the art 3D glasses walked). Also gone is the almost instant headache that feels like an icepick is being driven into one or both of your eyes! The 3D here really kicks off with the depth of field on-screen in terms of the actual mine itself. Of course, some of the effects are throw-backs to 3D fun of yesterday with objects either popping or, um, flying directly at you....yes, there were a few parts where I actually blinked and flinched. Some of the scenery looks breath-taking in three dimensions as well -- especially the wooded areas surrounding the mine.

However, MBV3D is not a perfect movie. As I said earlier, Jamie King's portrayal of Sarah was a letdown. Perhaps if she'd studied the original movie a little more and identified with the character, she could have made Sarah more believable. Granted, no one is asking for the opposite end of the stereotype -- ie: Lt. Ripley or Sarah Connor, but it just would've been nice for her to have some depth. Also, some of the guys out there my hoot and holler and drool over Betsy Rue in all her naked glory . . . but really, I think the nudity was a bit overdone (the same way Danielle Harris' was in Rob Zombie's Halloween). Another point of centention surrounds the believablity of the actors' ages; time shifts ten years and hardly any of the actors look different from the way they are in the beginning. Only Kerr Smith grows some facial hair and, from what I've read, Tom Atkins actually looked younger in the beginning.

Lastly, the movie could have been a minute or two shorter. The ending they went with is a bit redundant and it would have been more effective for that "one last scare" moment had things been trimmed just a bit.

Overall, MBV3D is a fun little movie that ushers in the next trend for Horror: the 3D movie. Yes, there is a plethora of 3D-based Horror movies coming out later this year or early next year (I'm looking forward to Final Destination 4 and Alexandre Aja's remake of Piranha). While it was also released in the standard 2D version (which I plan on seeing), I cannot recommend seeing the 3D version if it's playing near you! See it!