Welcome again to Movies From Beyond, the weekly jumble sale of forgotten B-movie classics, blood-stained horror mayhem and the just plain odd.
This week we have been delving back to the 80s again with a couple of real classics. However, it is worth bringing your attention to some of the bargains we have seen in the high street that no self-respecting gorehound should be without – get yourself out and pick up the seminal Tim Burton / Michael Keaton classic Beetlejuice as well as the darkly funny The Man With Two Brains starring Steve Martin when he used to be funny, and don’t miss the surprisingly not terrible House Of Wax remake, all of which are under a fiver and ideal for a rainy bank holiday weekend.
We are very excited about the upcoming release of Lost Boys: The Tribe coming straight to DVD later this year and so decided to check out the original all the back from 1987 this week, along with Day Of The Dead…
The Lost Boys follows two brothers who move to the seaside with their slightly befuddled mum, only to discover things are not as idyllic as they appear. Yeah, you guessed it, there are vampires running around complete with new romantic leather jackets and backcombed mullets led by Kiefer Sutherland biting the locals and generally making a nuisance of themselves, and would you believe one of the new boys only goes and gets mixed with them with them!
There really isn’t anything wrong with this slice of 80s classic horror-light with legendary soundtrack. Crimes against fashion and an early coming together of The Two Coreys (Haim & Feldman) – the latter of which plays one of the now infamous Frog brothers, slays his fair share of the nightcrawlers and has the best line in “Death by stereo”.
It won’t come as much of a surprise that the movie was produced by one of the favourite Movies From Beyond Hollywood big guns, Richard Donner – who directed Superman, Superman 2: The Richard Donner Cut and the other big Corey movie The Goonies. We advise you to check out this as it has probably been years since you saw it last, and we dare you to try and not sing Cry Little Sister for weeks afterwards.
We were really impressed with the recent(ish) remake of Dawn Of The Dead and so when trailers for Day Of Dead started doing the rounds we were really wetting our pants with anticipation. Then it disappeared off the radar; there were stories of bad feedback on test screenings, re-shoots and script changes and it started to become a bit of a joke. There was no way it would be as good as the 1985 original but it might be a decent update, so when it finally escaped out on DVD last month we rushed to import it and immediately regretted trying so hard.
OK, so there are zombies and, yeah, they look the part. Yes, there is a decent body count and plenty of blood and guts and a bit of social commentary – but where is the heart ?
Like the undead this movie really just shuffles around without much point, dead eyes, a shadow, barely alive, if you will. Ving Rhames is trotted out to add a bit of star power and probably as a ploy to trick moviegoers into thinking it is a sequel to Zack Snyder’s superior Dawn Of The Dead from 2004. Be sure that it is not – there are some really cheap-looking CGI shots towards the end of the movie that looked rushed and done on a budget. All in all this was a huge disappointment and we recommend you avoid it like the plague and go back to the original, especially as it is now available on Blu-ray.
[story by Simon Woodley]