Dante’s Weekend Double: “September Of The Living Dead” Is Going Off The Rails On A Crazy ‘Train To Busan’ And Then To ‘The Return Of The Living Dead’
We are in the third weekend of this month’s salute to the rotting undead, and their foul stench is getting worse by the minute. In a vain attempt to flee the rancid odor, let’s hop on the “ever-so-reliable” mode of public transportation, and skedaddle. Just remember that once you’ve bought the ticket, you have to take the ride.
Train To Busan (Next Entertainment World)
All aboard for this weekend’s double feature of flesh-eating fiends, and the first stop is the land of bangers (aka South Korea) with the 2016 zombocalyptic hell ride, Train to Busan, from director Yeon Sang-ho (The King of Pigs, Psychokinesis), and starring Gong Yoo (Squid Game).
Seok-Woo (Yoo) is a workaholic hedge fund manager from Seoul who doesn’t have enough time for anything, even his estranged young daughter Su-an. After a really bad birthday present fail, Su-an demands that he taken to visit her mother in Busan. After careful deliberation (and some valid guilt tripping by his ex-wife) he reluctantly gives in, and books a ride for two on a KTX bullet train the next morning.
When you’re that deep in the dog house with someone, it is sometimes best to just give them what they want, and get out of your own way.
After a car ride full of red flags everywhere they looked, the two get to the station and on the train. A young woman with a terrible bite on her leg also boards the high-speed locomotive, and any horror fan worth their salt already knows how this will go.
She spasms her way out of this life, and comes back as a rabid zombie with an infectious bite that turns people as fast as the bullet train that has now become a slaughterhouse on wheels.
Alongside an expecting couple, a high school baseball team, a rich a-hole named Yon-suk, two elderly sisters, and a homeless man, father and daughter fight to survive the train to Busan while watching the falling world outside zip past through the windows.
A tale of paranoia, apocalyptic terror, and tons of blood, but unlike most zombie movies, there are no guns on this nightmare ride; only baseball bats, duct tape around the arms, some very impressive fighting skills, and just enough shaky cameras without going into overkill (no pun intended).
There’s also no search for a magical “cure” to fix everything, just survival for as long as possible. This is a formerly overlooked gem that has finally started to gain appreciation in recent years. Grab a free ticket over on TUBI, and take the ride.
The Return of the Living Dead (Orion Pictures)
After the ending of our last feature, a good laugh should help reassemble those broken parts inside, and very few movies do it as well as the celebrated 1985 horror/comedy, The Return of the Living Dead.
This is the directorial debut of Dan O’Bannon (if you don’t count his weird 1969 student short, Blood Bath) who is known for working with fellow film student John Carpenter on his 1974 feature debut, Dark Star, but he’s even more well-known for co-writing some of our favorite movies (Alien, Total Recall, Heavy Metal, Blue Thunder, Lifeforce, and the unfairly hated Screamers), and here he shows what happens when someone spoofs a subgenre too well.
The date is July 3rd, 1984. At a medical supply warehouse in Louisville, two morons named Frank and Freddy (or James Karen and Thom Mathews) accidentally unseal a top secret military cannister full of toxic gas which reanimates dead tissue, and this includes the rotting tar-like cadaver inside.
The soon to be former warehouse employees have to get their boss (Clu Gulager) involved and he has to call in a favor to his buddy (Don Calfa) who runs the crematorium next door. Instead of the problem burning away, it creates acid rain in the sky that pours down on the neighboring cemetery, and you guessed it! The dead come back from the grave, and they’re ready to party.
For a movie that’s obviously a parody of George Romero’s films, it’s loaded with classic zombie moments, and enough glorious 1980s practical effects to satisfy the delicious brains of every living dead-head. It has gore, terribly great one-liners, the funniest zombie attacks, KILLER MUSIC, and a few unforgettable moments featuring Trash (the great Linnea Quigley).
One of the best horror movies of the decade, it can be found for free on Roku, but make sure to send…more…paramedics…
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