Dante’s Weekend Double: “September Of The Living Dead” Is Off To a Gory Start With ‘Braindead’ And Lucio Fulci’s ‘Zombi 2’
The summer has officially ended. There was no justice for Juneteenth, and it’s back-to-school time for July’s youth in revolt. Last month burned with the fury of one thousand suns, but now only death remains. However, that is only the beginning of the next journey.
The path ahead is one of pain, hunger, and rot. You may have made it through the Wrath of August, my friends, but now try to survive September Of The Living Dead. Get ready for a double tap of the best undead flicks on this side of the nether realm. Because when there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth. So let’s zombie!
Braindead (Trimark Pictures/Wingnut Films)
The first grave upturned is the hilariously gruesome gross-out from 1992, Braindead (titled “Dead Alive” in the Bloody States!) by Oscar-winning director, Peter Jackson. Lionel Cosgrove (Timothy Balme) is a nice boy from the suburbs of New Zealand’s capital, Wellington. He lives there in a huge Victorian home with his overbearing mother, Vera (Elizabeth Moody), and this lady has some trouble letting go.
Lionel meets a beautiful shopkeeper named Paquita (Diana Peñalver), and the two fall in love. Mommy doesn’t like that. Not…one…bit. So, she decides to follow the couple while they’re out on a date at the zoo, but Vera’s cover is blown after she gets too close to an exhibit and receives “the bite” from the accursed rat/tree monkey hybrid of Skull Island (ZINGAYA!)
Things go from bad to worse for Lionel when they get home. His mum starts to quickly deteriorate, in ways that will forever ruin custard for anyone who watches, and dies soon after. Only to rise from the grave, and kill a bunch of people (including a priest who “kicks arse for the lord”) that become Zingaya Zombies themselves.
Lionel manages to get them all into his cellar and does his best to keep the situation under wraps, but then his arsehole uncle decides to throw a giant party at the mansion. The lid gets blown off Lionel’s secret, the roof gets blown off the house (literally!), and body parts soon follow.
Braindead used over 80 gallons of fake blood, and it’s safe to assume that most of it was spent on the epic third act. It’s quirky, fun, and way over the top. Before the world knew Peter Jackson from his Middle Earth trilogies, cinematic gore hounds were bowing down to his Splatter Trilogy – three very amazing, and extremely effed-up standalone films (save Easter eggs) that are a celebration of some of the finest grotesqueries that sweet ol’ practical effects can provide, and they are not for the squeamish.
Braindead, the grand finale of that trilogy and unquestionably the best, is available on Prime.
Zombi 2 (Variety Distribution)
Next up is a true graveyard classic from 1979 by Italian goremeister, Lucio Fulci. Zombi 2 (or just “Zombie” because Americans gotta make-a-things so complicated!) is an unofficial sequel to George Romero’s 1978 masterpiece, Dawn of the Dead, but that’s another rabbit hole for another time. Back to the movie at hand, capeesh?
Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow) heads to the Caribbean island of Matul after her father’s boat drifts into the New York harbor, and a zombie onboard kills a cop. She brings along a journo (Ian McCulloch), and they discover that doctors are researching the phenomena of reanimated corpses. More zombies start popping up (even underwater), and the island becomes overrun. Not even the sharks are safe from the hungry jaws of the undead.
This movie takes zombies back to their bloody roots by reintroducing Voodoo curses that went extinct sometime around the late 1960s (I wonder why), and makes them disgusting, dried-up husks of decomposition that will eat anything they can get their rotting hands on.
Zombi 2 also features a legendary scene that includes a splintered piece of door, an eyeball, and ouch! Where this movie lacks in coherency, it makes up for in atmosphere and let’s not forget good ol’ “glorious gore.”
Zombi 2 roams the island of TUBI, capeesh?
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