Wednesday, September 5, 2012

ADD THIS ZOMBIE COLLECTION TO YOUR...UM...ZOMBIE COLLECTION!


10 FILMS THE MIDNIGHT HORROR COLLECTION: ZOMBIES



SYNOPSIS

Includes:

  • White Zombie (1932), MPAA Rating: NR 
  • King of the Zombies (1941)
  • Teenage Zombies (1958)
  • Night of the Living Dead (1968), MPAA Rating: NR 
  • Hide and Creep (2004), MPAA Rating: R 
  • Awaken the Dead (2006)
  • Zombie Dearest (2007)
  • I Am Omega (2007), MPAA Rating: NR 
  • Last of the Living (2008)
  • Grave Mistake (2008)


  • White Zombie 
    In this haunting low-budgeter, Bela Lugosi stars as Murder Legendre, a shadowy character who exercises supernatural powers over the natives in his Haitian domain. Coveting Madge Bellamy as his bride, wealthy Robert Frazier enters into an unholy agreement with Lugosi, whereby Madge will die, then be resurrected as a zombie.

  • King of the Zombies 
    Set in the Caribbean shortly before the U.S. was drawn into WWII, this zombie chiller tells the tale of an American special agent who, along with his butler and a pilot, is sent out to find a missing American Admiral, whose plane crashed on one of the islands. Unfortunately, the hero's plane also crashes. Fortunately, a suave but sinister German doctor with a very strange wife is there to help them. The doctor explains that his spouse is in a strange trance and he is trying to find a cure. The butler soon discovers that she is not the only one; the island is teeming with zombies. When the butler tries to tell his employer, the employer refuses to believe in "voodoo hocus pocus." The butler and the pilot find themselves entranced. Fortunately, the agent is still around to solve the mystery of the zombies and to confront the culprit, an enemy spy.

    Teenage Zombies 
    A deranged female scientist conducting weird experiments on a remote island kidnaps teens and injects them with a formula that transforms them into zombies.

    Night of the Living Dead 
    When unexpected radiation raises the dead, a microcosm of Average America has to battle flesh-eating zombies in George A. Romero's landmark cheapie horror film. Siblings Johnny and Barbara whine and pout their way through a graveside visit in a small Pennsylvania town, but it all takes a turn for the worse when a zombie kills Johnny. Barbara flees to an isolated farmhouse where a group of people are already holed up. Bickering and panic ensue as the group tries to figure out how best to escape, while hoards of undead converge on the house; news reports reveal that fire wards them off, while a local sheriff-led posse discovers that if you "kill the brain, you kill the ghoul." After a night of immolation and parricide, one survivor is left in the house.... Romero's grainy black-and-white cinematography and casting of locals emphasize the terror lurking in ordinary life; as in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963), Romero's victims are not attacked because they did anything wrong, and the randomness makes the attacks all the more horrifying. Nothing holds the key to salvation, either, whether it's family, love, or law. Topping off the existential dread is Romero's then-extreme use of gore, as zombies nibble on limbs and viscera. Initially distributed by a Manhattan theater chain owner,Night, made for about $100,000 dollars, was dismissed as exploitation, but after a 1969 re-release, it began to attract favorable attention for scarily tapping into Vietnam-era uncertainty and nihilistic anxiety. By 1979, it had grossed over $12 million, inspired a cycle of apocalyptic splatter films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and set the standard for finding horror in the mundane. However cheesy the film may look, few horror movies reach a conclusion as desolately unsettling.

    Hide and Creep 
    A backwater Alabama community contends with a zombie outbreak, flying saucers, and mysterious federal agents in this satirical horror flick laced with biting humor. The shambling undead are filling the streets in search of fresh flesh, but the local police are nowhere to be found. Realizing that he'll have to act fast in order to avoid becoming zombie chow, a fearless video store clerk assembles a small task force comprised of a resourceful FBI agent, a retired deputy, and the sheriff's secretary in order to take back their town from the growing army of gut-munchers.

    Awaken the Dead 
    Two down and out strangers are brought together by mysterious letters into a safe house as the world around them is infected by an experimental virus that transforms the living into the living dead. She is a former prostitute hiding from the world. He is a former assassin turned priest who has renounced violence. Together they must unravel the mystery of the letters if they hope to survive.

    Zombie Dearest 
    A starving comedy writer makes a grisly discovery while fighting to save his marriage, but realizes too little too late that it may be the death of both himself and his long-suffering wife. Gus Lawton is a comedy writer whose career stalled out before it got started. His wife Deborah has been patient while he's struggled to make a name for himself, but when Gus strays she flees to her childhood home in the country. Forced to live by her rules if he wants to save their marriage, Gus begins to work on the house and unearths a zombie while digging up the septic tank. Incredibly, the walking corpse obeys his every command. But the more Gus and Deborah rely on the zombie to make them happy, the more vulnerable they become when it ultimately proves to have a will of its own.

    I Am Omega 
    Straight-to-video martial arts staple Mark Dacascos stars in this apocolyptic sci-fi zombie flick, which casts him as the lone survivor of world annihilation -- that is, if you don't count the throngs of zombie-creatures chasing him.

    Last of the Living 
    Three slacker survivors of the zombie apocalypse encounter a brilliant beauty who may hold the key to saving mankind in this campy horror comedy from New Zealand. Morgan, Ash, and Johnny are hardly heroes; they spend most of their days hiding out in vacant houses and playing video games, trying desperately not to draw the attention of the zombie hordes shambling about outside. Upon meeting a girl who claims she can restore actual life to the living dead, the group races save the world before getting gobbled up.

    Grave Mistake 
    A young boy searches desperately for his mother while battling the legions of the undead during the zombie uprising. Alex has every reason in the world to hate his abusive, racist stepfather - not the least of which being that his substitute dad has just unleashed a plague of the undead. Now, Alex and a small group of survivors attempt to reach the National Guard Armory so they'll have a fighting chance against the gut-munching masses. If they can just locate Alex's mother before running out of ammo, this desperate group might actually be able to escape the nightmare that's transformed their beloved hometown into a blood-soaked abattoir. 

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