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Michael and I talk the classics this week; White Zombie, I Walked with a Zombie, and King of the Zombies. And these movies have all had a significant influence on the horror genre. White Zombie, released in 1932, is considered one of the first zombie films and is credited with popularizing the concept of zombies in popular culture. It introduced audiences to the idea of the undead being controlled by a master, a theme that has been revisited in countless zombie films since.

I Walked with a Zombie, released in 1943, is often praised for its atmospheric and moody cinematography, as well as its exploration of voodoo and Caribbean folklore. The film has been cited as a major influence on later zombie films, particularly those that focus on the spiritual and supernatural aspects of the undead.

King of the Zombies, released in 1941, is a more comedic take on the zombie genre, featuring a group of characters who stumble upon a mysterious island filled with zombies controlled by a mad scientist. While the film may not be as well-known as some of its contemporaries, it has still had an impact on the genre, particularly in terms of its blend of horror and humor. Overall, these films have helped shape and define the zombie genre, influencing countless filmmakers and writers in the years since their release. Their themes and imagery continue to be revisited and reimagined in modern zombie films, making them enduring classics in the horror genre.

Did we like them? Have you seen them?

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How to unpick this one? Toyko Zombie first. 2005 Japanese and based on a Manga of the same name that is classed as one of the best.

It certainly hit a lot of the zombie movie themes. We have the reluctant hero, the cause, it happening in the background, societal collapse, and then the rich controlling the poor, before marauders take it for themselves.

But I found it quite slow, a little dull in places. Maybe, like Zom100 Bucket List of the Dead, the manga/anime is better and it just didn’t translate as well as it should.

The school boy/girl perversion at the start with the school teachers, and old man was limited to then, if there was any depravity I would bet it would have been later, after the collapse of the rule of law.

A few too many random characters, the guy from TV becoming the prince, the bald guy who stole the van wanting Calpis and becoming the marauder leader.

The oddest thing was seeing Tadanobu Asano from the Thor movies, Mongol, Shogun and Mortal Kombat in a stupid role.

And Burial Ground, 1981 Italian by Andrea Bianchi. In a nutshell a bunch of Italian couples descend on a remote rundown villa for 70s style soft core sex whilst perved over by creepy supposed teen Peter Bark's Michael. He is a truly weird and creepy character as he is playing a young teen but he is clearly in his late 20s or early 30s and looks older. Think the Martin Short movie Clifford but a really, really creepy version

Everyone is an idiot. They stand transfixed as full body suited rotting zombies slowly close in, then only react when they are within spitting distance.

It will annoy you. Janet screamed the whole time. The boys couldn't fight for shit. It has such little plot that they had to tack this final explanation blurb on the end.

If you watched Zombi 2 (Zombie Flesheaters) or Hell of the Living Dead (Zombie Creeping Flesh), or any of the other European movies from the same time and think you will give it a go, then sure, but it is the weakest by far.

4.5/10 for both from me, and will talk about them in a discussion episode with Michael soon

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A king related episode. No, not THE King (Elvis not Charles), but the zombie king, or the king of the zombies. Same naming, very, very different movies.

Zombie King was filmed in 21 days in the UK in 2011. It looked awful in the trailer and it was.. It has a milkman (the writer) and a postman as 2 of the main characters. It also and this was the draw stars former child stars Edward Terminator 2 Furlong and Corey Lost Boys/Goonies/Stand by Me Feldman as the Zombie King and the spirit Kalfu, aka Papa Legba a Luwa from Haitian voodoo respectively.

It gets an overly generous 3/10 on IMDB and the blurb is “in an attempt to bring his dead wife back to lie (aka Pet Sematary) Samuel performs black magic that backfires and turns him into the zombie king. Hordes of zombies soon wreak havoc over the human race. 0/10 for originality there.

It is awful and despite the two Hollywood actors being top billed and on the cover, Furlong is in it for about 6 minutes in total and Feldman for not even 2 minutes of screen time.

Watch it at your peril. It is a 3/10 at best, and probably should be marked lower.

As for the 1941 King of the Zombies, I thought it was ok. Black and white. Voodoo. A lot of comedy mixed in with it. But one character in the middle of everyone else playing it straight. Certainly better than White Zombie and I waked with a Zombie. I Walked with a Zombie gets a staggering 7/10 on IMDB and 85% on Rotten Tomatoes making it the best scoring of the old old 30-50s zombie movies.

A plane crashed onto a Caribbean island, the three survivors (Mac, Bill and Jefferson) meet a Doctor Sangre who used voodoo to control the locals, and also to extract information from a US Admiral who went missing on a secret government mission. Sangre is totally a Nazi.

It wasn't as well thought of as White Zombie or I walked with a Zombie.

This however, despite the political incorrectness, was really entertaining at times. Jefferson was the star. He played it well. The Doctor as over the top. I hate it when my villains are clearly villains. But Henry Victor is camping it up.He was a silent movie star. And, coming back to White Zombie, Bela Legosi was meant to play the Doctor but was busy, so they then wanted Peter Lorre, but negotiations failed so they ended up with victor. Purcell, who played Mac, was also Captain America. Cool.

It is a 6.5/10 for me

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After a month hiatus for summer breaks we are back with a new intro from Zombpocalypse, and a new DVD player to play new DVDs. How exciting? Physical media!

With a stack of DVDs off eBay we are back on it, and I am starting Season 7 with the 1943 classic I Walked With A Zombie, a film that has had an influence on the horror genre that cannot be overstated. While some critics have criticized the film for its stereotypical and sensationalized depiction of voodoo, others have praised it for its respectful and authentic portrayal of the religion. The film's use of actual voodoo rituals and practices adds a level of authenticity and depth to the story, making it a unique and groundbreaking film for its time. It remains a classic of the horror genre that continues to captivate audiences to this day and it gets 85% on rotten tomatoes and IMDB gives it 7/10 and Stylus magazine in 2007 listed it as the 5th best zombie movie of all time. High praise indeed.

And I liked it, certainly more than White Zombie, maybe less than The King of the Zombies, and it is a 6/10 for me.

As a juxtaposition we have Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! Imaginative title. According to the DVD box this is laugh out loud funny and a successor of Shaun of the Dead. Made in 2008 he blurb is that When an experiment goes awry a horde of flesh hungry zombies go on the rampage and face-off against some tasty strippers.

So strippers… again.

So I cant help but compare it to all the other zombie movies with strippers. Peelers, Zombie Strippers, Stripperland, see also parts of A scouts Guide to the zombie apocalypse, the opening credits of Zombieland, etc etc. I feel like it was more Zombie Strippers and Peelers than anything else just a poor version. The strippers don't even strip, like their did in the aforementioned.

It may not be a critical darling, but it has found a niche audience among fans of zombie movies and cult horror films. If you enjoy cheesy, low-budget horror movies with plenty of gore and zombie mayhem, this film may be worth a watch.

Personally I think it was poor, certainly the weakest in the zombie sub-genre of zombie movies set in strip clubs. Definitely as weak as Stripperland, Zombie Strippers and Peelers so will give it 4/10

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Ok this one is for Oliver, Oliver Gray, out there on the west cost. He mentioned we didn’t have Zombie with a Shotgun on our list. Well it wasn’t on the list of movies we’d reviewed, but it was on THE list. The Z list. Ollie is making the definitive Z-list and I look forward to him sharing it with the zombie horror community. SO we can complete a very lengthy box ticking exercise.

Before that, Zombie with a Shotgun came out in 2019. It gets 3/10 on IMDB, 2.5/5 from Voices from the Balcony, and we always ignore the Amazon score as it is always massively over inflated.

It stars Braeden Baade, or Bade, or Ba-ade or Bard as Aaron, he is infected with what he and his whiny OTT gf Rachel believes is the zombie virus, but it turns out it is a half dose, and he ends up with powers, the ability to speak to zombies. Dr Doolittle meets Rick Grimes, or, that’s just Matt Smiths character in Patient Zero. A far far superior movie.

It was shit really shit

Bad acting bad writing bad sets bad action sequences bad sex and rape attempts bad costumes, inconsistent across the board, including his ever changing zombie makeup

If you ask yourself was this virus or voodoo, how could you tell? The weird big pharmaceutical company overseas (WHAT?) said it was a virus, the police and police radio and even Aaron and Rachel called it a virus, but then Angela was a witch doing magic on Aaron's sister and ex gf and even cut his heart out. I mean WTAF?

It was a mess

There were too many poor choices, the random drone shots were awful, any use of stock footage of NY streets was terrible, and it did jump all over the place time wise, as well as dream sequences, and at times narration.

It is winding up now.

I am going to give it the equal lowest score, along with Attack of the Flatulating Dead, Zombie with a Shotgun and Zombie with a Shotgun : The Beginning get 1.5/10

Avoid this movie like you would a big pharmaceutical company overseas, someone trying to film with a drone or an OTT New Yorker who wants to sit down with you and talk about how crazy your old man was.

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Rampant, South Korean, 2018, one of those top 50 zombie movies that you haven’t necessarily gotten around to seeing. Like I walked with a Zombie for me. And it is set in feudal Korean, which is a rarity. It is a topic I broached with Brian at Zombpocalypse. This is a zombie movie set a long time in the past. Why is a zombie apocalypse a modern day or a futuristic phenomenon? 99.99% of zombie movies are modern day or in the near future.

How would you survive a zombie apocalypse in the middle ages? Or as a neanderthal? I suppose back then hunters were real hunters, not some asshole taking an AR 15 to shoot tame deer in the woods. Back in the day they had to know how to use their weapons pr they would die, and their weapons, for the most part, were reusable. You had a sword, axe, polearm, halberd, bow and arrows, with the arrows being reusable unless damaged when firing them. Oooh coming back to the caveman thing, no one has done a caveman zombie movie. I need to write to Troma. Zombie Caveman Apocalypse, or Sabre Tooth Zombie. To quote George Takei, “oh my.”

Anyway the blurb is that a darkness looms over ancient Korea, murderous creatures known as night demons have overrun the country. Returning from a long imprisonment abroad Prince Ganglim discovers it will take the strength of his entire kingdom to stop the bloody rampage across the nation in this fresh take on zombie horror from the studios that brought you Train to Busan.

The reviews talk about spectacular sword sequences, swarms of zombies, and lack of character development. And we have talked about character development before. Or lack thereof in zombie movies. It seems to be a thing. The critics also said that the tension is built with the zombies but then too much human drama draws away from the tension.

And it is true. Too much business business. Overly convoluted plot. Too many characters. And far too much of the unnecessary comedy man servant of the prince. He ruins every scene he is in.

6.3 on IMDB, 62% on Rotten Tomatoes 4.2/5 again meaningless, on Amazon, and a 6/10 for me.

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I went into this expecting to get progressively more and more angry about a 2022 French remake of the 2017 Japanese hit One Cut of the Dead. I was ready. Fists and teeth clenched. But then I watched it. And it was brilliant. Sure, it was almost a scene by scene remake of the original, but 1. it looked better and 2. it included references to the movie on which it was based.

We follow a small movie production creating a live 30 minute movie in a single take for a new online horror channel. Very similar to the original. We have the diva star who argues about everything, the drunk, the guy with the dodgy belly, the model actress, the actress who goes loony tunes thinking it is all real, and the director, trying his best to be cheap, and decent.

7/10 and I genuinely do think they improved on the original with this one. Highly recommended and free on Amazon at the moment.

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"Little girl?"

Has there been a more iconic pilot episode? Maybe Lost, but they are few and far between. The Walking Dead, 177 episodes, plus 5 spin-off shows, plus numerous computer games, and not to mention the tomes upon which the show is based. It took over people's lives, it made zombies mainstream by creating a universe on TV. This wasn't the Romero's, you didn't need to be a horror fan to enjoy this, it was more like Star Trek, where one iconic cast and show spawned others in a whole universe.

In his episode we, as two die hard "Grimies", a new name I made up to describe Rick Grimes fans, talk that uniform, Coral!!!, Little Girl, Dead Inside Don't Open, the legacy of Rick and Morgan, and everything that came after. A show that rightly is classed as one of the game changers in the genre of zombie entertainment, perhaps the most important of them all.

Corallllllllllllllllllllllll!