Seeing out this Octoberfest with a mini-binge:
ZOMBIE 5: KILLING BIRDS – I always feel a bit warm and fuzzy when I see the word ‘Filmirage’ pop up onscreen, and ‘Zombie 5’ is no exception. It’s from 1987, which puts it out of sync with those other flicks by Fulci, Mattei and Fragasso, but that’s a mere quibble. It has a different vibe, too, being less a clusterf*ck of random zombie action and more a mood piece, although you wouldn’t guess that from all the throat slashing at the start. In it, a bunch of college kids head out into the woods to find the last of the soon-to-be-extinct ‘grey-billed woodpeckers’, so credit to whoever came up with that one, it is slightly more imaginative than the usual camping trip. Robert Vaughn, of all people, crops up as the creepy ex-throat slasher turned professional twitcher, but the bulk of the film focuses on the kids as they wander around in a decrepit house. It could be boring, but a rank atmosphere sets in courtesy of the location and the cinematography, very well done by Joe D’Amato. After it decides that it needs to be more than a haunted house movie, some gore effects arrive along with night, fog and the undead, although the long-awaited killing birds only appear in the form of a skyful of swarming black dots right at the end. I really enjoyed ‘Zombie 5’, it has all the hallmarks of the late period Italian horror knock-offs that I so enjoy, from the strangely familiar sounding synths ‘n’ sequencer soundtrack to the chronic garishness that makes lines like “I meant to scare you, and I’m glad I did” sound natural and at home.
DEAD HEAT – A film I never used to really rate, but one I’ve grown increasingly fond of over the years. It’s a sharp splice between buddy-cop-action-comedy and eighties prosthetic horror – Treat Williams plays a zombie cop hot on the tail of a conspiracy of reanimators presided over by cackling Vincent Price. Great fun, with some wonderfully manic make up fx moments, such as the edible undead in the Chinese restaurant.
THE STONE TAPE – I have a very faint but at the same time quite vivid memory of watching a rerun of this in the early eighties. Only snippets stay with me, but I remember being suitably freaked out by the phosphorescent ‘thing’ at the end, which set me up for a preoccupation with nameless horrors that has lasted a lifetime. A founding text of all things hauntologically seventies, ‘The Stone Tape’ was written by Nigel Kneale and has Jane Asher as a spiritually sensitive scientist and Peter Bryant as her cocksure (in fact, cock full stop) boss, both a bit perturbed by the paranormal happenings besetting their lab. A dainty-looking Victorian spook gives rise to lots of furious speculation and algorithm-speak, but there’s something far more ominous echoing from some place deep within their surrounds. Flat TV play aesthetic aside, ‘The Stone Tape’ still has a formidable shudder running through it right up to those final moments. And what could be more sinister than that end-credit sequence?
Happy Hallowe'en everyone, and don't slip too many razors in with that candy!
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