The Undead And You: 3 Zombie Movies That Surprise

There are a lot of shitty movies out there in that giant cultural zeitgeist, that black hole of filmdom. I should know this - I've watched way more than the average person. I've divided up up a lot of these "bad" movies into three categories:

•The fuck was that: Movies that are so bad that they're memorable. These are movies where there are technical errors (boom mics visible, characters switching names, visible crew members in the shot, giant logic holes and plot problems, scenes in random orders) are paramount and the serious tone is quickly tossed out the window in order for the lols to live free. A prime example? Silent Night, Deadly Night Pt. 2.

•Somewhere in the middle: Their production values are decent, their storylines and actors forgettable, there is not one intriguing stylistic choice present during the whole feature.A chore to get through, the laugh factor is low. The story's been done before, and done before. A lot of direct-to-DVD movies are of this caliber, unfortunately.

•"Holy shit, that was actually really good": This is the kind of movie that pleasantly surprises. Instead of sucking wholly (based upon knowledge gleamed from various things like the box art, summary, cast list and trailers seen), these are the rare gems, the movies that surpass expectations and genuinely are filmic treats. the following list are three of those types of films.

1. Zombi (aka Zombi 2 aka Zombie aka Zombie Flesh Eaters aka Woodoo) (1979)

Sometimes movies have an alternate name for the international market. Sometimes movies have a working title and then an actual release title. Sometimes, movies like the one listed above have a cavalcade of loosely-affiliated names that tell an intriguing tale.

Romero's Dawn Of The Dead was released in 1978 in Europe as Zombi, recut/renamed by Italian director Dario Argento to emphasize the action elements of the picture. Argento, the one who kicked Romero's butt into making a proper sequel while he was in his post-NOTLD funk (Seasons Of The Witch, anyone?), Zombi (or Zombi 2), by Lucio Fulci, was marketed as an official sequel to Dawn Of The Dead '78 in Italy and drew massive profits when it was originally released. A tale of lost relatives and a search that leads a team to a remote, zombie-filled island is the basic premise of this tale. The scenes that make this film stand out are numerous: zombie vs. shark, human eyeball vs. giant splinter, the last 20 minutes of the flick. Well worth checking out, moreso than the subsequent sequels (Zombi 5 boasted motherfuckin' DEADLY BIRDS).

2. The Dead Next Door (1988)

This late '80s shot-on-Super-8 (yeah, that's right, Super 8, the same videostock your mom used to capture your '80s-ccentric toddler adventures) gorefest has one thing that a lot of zombie movies lack: heart. A lot of these tales have a proper narrative and a cast of (somewhat empty) characters, this one manages to stretch an exceedingly small budget into a tale about a pack of government-funded zombie killers who also have to battle a cult of undead worshippers. Produced in part by Sam Raimi (back when he wasn't busy dealing with Spider-Man and loved chainsaws), this movie was shot in bits and pieces over a series of years. This is the type of movie that can be shown to budding film enthusiasts as a way of actually getting shit done with almost no money. It's kinda like Clerks, but with more guns. And zombies. And despair. A sincere love letter to the genre on a shoe-string budget.

3. Dead Alive/Braindead (1992)

Peter Jackson, he of the Hobbit boner kind, was once a lowly New Zealand filmmaker who dreamed of nothing more than gross-out gorefests and strange alien tales. I remember seeing this film when I was at the very impressionable age of 13, at the time where Jackson was merely known as that dude who was making that movie with Michael J Fox and ghosts. Pre-LOTR trilogy, Jackson was small fish, capable of crafting a gory tale. The film's mix of comedy, special effects and a story everyone can relate to made it a winner in my book. The bloodtacular ending scene (where there were literally buckets of blood utilized) is worth seeing at least once. The mix of comedic and horrific elements works exquisitely well, one of the rare instances where the outcome is positive.

Contemporary Vampire Movies Ain't Got Shit On...

...One of the most slept-on movies of the late '80s. Near Dark, the second feature from director Kathryn Bigelow (she of subsequent Point Break and Hurt Locker fame), is a modern vampire tale that distances itself from the transluscent love-fests we're used to seeing on TV screens and within the confines of movie theaters.

I mean, what other film can boast the badass pairing of Bill Paxton and Lance Henriksen as the villains? (Answer: None, though both actors were in Aliens... But that doesn't count. I mean Henriksen was a goddamn android in that flick!) This tale of an American teen who reluctantly becomes part of a roving gang of vampires who ride America's highways in the same way hobos used to run railroad tracks is everything that's missing from the current crop of neck-biting capers: the film is bloody, action-packed and the word 'vampire' is never actually uttered during the movie.

The film acts like an operatic take on the classic Western, mixing elements of horror mythology to make an original tale full of anti-heroes and tough decisions. Unlike 1987's other take on vampire lore (The Lost Boys, a film that seems more fondly remembered in the minds of nostalgic adults everywhere), Near Dark operates on a much more mature level than Joel Schumacher's glossy production. Whereas The Lost Boys' marquee, which included '80s dreamteam Corey Haim, Kiefer Sutherland and Jason Patric, was filled with a certain boyish angst about the problem of becoming a vampire, Near Dark is a nihilistic in tone. The course is set, the tone bleak and the performances outstanding, suggesting much more than a simple movie about people with fangs.

The finale, an ingenious take on the classic movie gunfight, caps off a difficult film that at times finds the viewer rooting for the villains simply because they are afflicted with a condition that they cannot rid themselves of, and one that makes them make tough choices.

The biggest subsequent downside is since this explosion of "lovely vampires", the kinds of posters they've been using to promote the movie (an original theatrical poster, for example) have been changed to fit the current fad (peep the BluRay box art) and it may unfortunately turn away many of the horror hopefuls. Still, don't let the packaging turn you away from an awesome film.