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Severed: Forest of the Dead (2005) directed by Carl Bessai.
(Proposed Title: “Enviro-Logger-Zombie Smackdown”)
Starring Paul Campbell, Julian Christopher, Sarah Lind and JR Bourne.
Zombie Film Rating:

“Quick, before the tasty bits are taken!”

Teaser: Just another day in the forest. Protestors busily chanting slogans at the loggers, loggers busy cutting down trees, trees busy infecting loggers with geneticically enhanced sap and the now infected loggers rampaging all over the protestors. So the cycle of life continues.

Seriously, a technically competent production with a promising premise but one that finds itself rapidly hobbled by cliched characters and situations. The film is visually pleasing, and the effects are entirely adequate but for some reason the film never seems to make it off the ground. Pacing is sporadic, and the cookie cutter characters entirely fail to elicit any empathy making their plight tedious and uninteresting. Not that the movie was entirely devoid of any entertainment value, but the lost potential is frustrating.

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Dead Meat (2004) directed by Conor McMahon.
(Proposed Title: “Where are the damn Provos when you need them?”)
Starring Marian Araujo, David Muyllaert, Eoin Whelan, David Ryan and Amy Redmond.
Zombie Film Rating:

“I said no riders dammit!”

Teaser: Poor Helena is officially having a bad day.

She and her boyfriend had become lost, then just when they had begun to enjoy the rustic beauty of the “scenic route” had run over a local resident. The local resident then came back to life, bit her boyfriend who then tried to kill Helena. She’s now on the run through the Irish countryside with hundreds of zombies chasing her and only the local gravedigger for help. Although they’re never specific, it’s probably a typical Monday for most involved.

An enjoyable low-budget effort from Ireland. The film seems divided into two acts, with the first capturing the chaos and hopelessness of a flight from the unknown menance surrounding our two survivors, while the second sees them link up with other survivors and takes on a lighter, almost comedic, tone altogether.

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Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave (2005) directed by Ellory Elkayem.
(Proposed Title: “Oh sweet Zombie Jesus, not again…”)
Starring Cory Hardrict, Aimee-Lynn Chadwick, John Keefe, Claudiu Bleont and Sorin Cocis.
Zombie Film Rating:

“Two words, Situational Awareness”

Teaser: Offering a commentary on the dangers of recreational drug use this, the fifth in the “Return of the Living Dead” franchise, details the struggles of the survivors from ROTLD4 to identify the contents of suspicous barrels located in an attic, then to contain a zombie outbreak caused by their friends efforts to transform Trioxin5 into pill form for consumption by unsuspecting college students. Help is offered in the form of two generic Eastern-block Interpol agents that are unfunny when trying to be comedic, and funny when being serious.

Filmed at the same time as ROTLD4 this effort fares no better. Completly ignoring the rules established in the first of the series, the zombies are now killed with wild abandon, vary between uncommunicative shamblers and garrulous sprinters. Production values are reasonable, but as the bulk of the cast is Eastern European (and seems it) it’s difficult to believe this takes place anywhere but within the former Soviet Union.

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Mansion of the Living Dead (1985) directed by Jesus Franco.
(Proposed Title: “Vacationing Strippers and the Unconvincing Dead”)
Starring Lina Romay, Eva León, Mabel Escaño, Antonio Mayans and Elisa Vela.
Zombie Film Rating:

“This is not good latex work!”

Summary: Topless waitresses on vacation encounter an ancient quasi-evil which interupts their bi-sexual merriment. Can four vacuous women discover the secret of the perverted immortal monks in time to prevent a pointless prophecy from being fulfilled or will they perish in an explosion of superfluous nudity and bad acting, shredded by a script that doesn’t care and an audience that left an hour ago.

Billed as an homage to the “Blind Dead” series this film lacks any sort of a coherent plot, special effects, gore, acting or direction. Excessive nudity is just no substitute I’m afraid.

Watch this at your own peril, your IQ is in jeopardy just picking up the DVD case.

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Tokyo Zombie (2005) Directed by Sakichi Sato
(Proposed Title: “Mad Mitsuo, Beyond Zombiedome”)
Starring Sho Aikawa, Tadanobu Asano and Erika Okuda.
Zombie Film Rating:

“Easy rider this ain’t.”

Teaser: A touching story of Love, Jujitsu, self discovery and the end of the world as we know it as experienced by two fire extinguisher plant employees suddenly thrust into a world overrun with the living dead. Can they rise to the challenge? Do they have what it takes to survive while demonstrating that Jujistu is the best fighting method?

A more recent zombie effort, this film maintains a light tone while avoiding the current cliche of absolute self mockery and schlock. The movie entertains, holds to the majority of conventional zombie lore and establishes itself as a solid entry into zombie movie history.

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Zombie Nation (2004) directed by Ulli Lommel.
(Proposed Title: “Attack of the Racoon Women!”)
Starring Günther Ziegler, Brandon Dean, Axel Montgomery, Phil Lander and Martina Bottesch.
Zombie Film Rating:

“Back from the dead and ready to rummage.”

Teaser: Rookie Officer Vitalio has a problem, his veteran partner has a habit of pulling over young women, handcuffing them and then driving them to a remote warehouse and taking them inside while Vitalio is ordered to wait at the car. Even as a rookie he has noticed that the young women go into the warehouse, but the only thing his partner ever brings out is a big black body sized duffel bag.

This film goes above and beyond, just not in the areas of production, script, acting, logic or continuity. It is easily one of the worst zombie movies I have ever seen, and it’s efforts at using a police setting are beyond laughable. This movie should serve as a warning to film school students as to what happens when they start a project with the phrase “Hey, I bet you can’t…“.

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Dellamorte Dellamore (1994) directed by Michele Soavi.
(Proposed Title: “It’s OK to love the undead, just don’t LOVE the undead.”)
Starring Rupert Everett, François Hadji-Lazaro, Anna Falchi, Mickey Knox and Fabiana Formica.
Zombie Film Rating:

“‘Till death do us part…sorta”

Teaser: Francesco Dellamorte leads a humble existence, tending to the Buffalora cemetary by day and killing the reanimated bodies of it’s newest residents by night. It’s not this that causes him distress however. Discovering the woman of his dreams among the mourners causes him to re-evaluate his existence.

Francesco finds that discovering true love is the easy part. Making it last is somewhat more difficult. Naturally the zombies don’t help matters at all, and when you add Francescos burning desire to escape Buffalora altogether you end up with an interestingly odd take on a zombie movie.

Will Francesco find love and live happily ever after. Will he “live” at all.

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Day of the Dead 2: Contagium (2005) directed by Ana Clavell and James Glenn Dudelson.
(Proposed Title: “The complete and utter bastardization of Romeros efforts.”)
Starring Laurie Baranyay, Steve Colosi, John Freedom Henry, Justin Ipock and Julian Thomas.
Zombie Film Rating:

“Damn semi-auto bolt action rifles!”

Teaser: Ravenside Memorial Hospital has a bit of a checkered history. Now used to treat those with psychological problems, it used to be a military facility before it’s untimely demolition in response to a zombie outbreak. History is revisited when one of the patients discovers a sample of the zombie formula and accidentally exposes staff and patients alike. How will they survive?

Aside from the name, this film has no relationship with “Day of the dead” by George Romero. It’s appears to be little more than an effort to cash in on Romeros film, relying on bad special effects and gore, overused and relatively poor CGI effects and wooden acting.

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Return of the Living Dead - Necropolis (2005) directed by Ellory Elkayem.
(Proposed Title: “Did anyone involved in this movie see the preceeding ones?”)
Starring Aimee-Lynn Chadwick, Cory Hardrict, John Keefe, Jana Kramer, Peter Coyote, Alexandru Geoana and Diana Munteanu.
Zombie Film Rating:

“Acting causes pain!”

Teaser: When one of their friends is abducted by an uber-corporation on the way to a hospital, the rest decide that they will have to handle matters themselves. They break into the HybraTech facility with the assistance of a friend in the security center, and while rescuing their injured friend manage to release the zombies warehoused in the “Necropolis”. Only good luck and chaotic action sequences can save them now.

Ouch, Number four in the franchise, and while still better than number two (figuratively not literally) it falls considerably short of zombie perfection. Violating, at this point, well established rules for Trioxin-245 zombies and employing a cast composed predominantly of people with pronounced Russian accents this entry hardly raises the bar for “Return of the Living Dead’s” to follow.

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