ZOMBIE CREEPING FLESH - When did zombie movies stop being fun? I resent the incessant avalanche of post-apocalyptic survivor angst that passes for the genre now, in a world where rubbing someone's face in oatmeal and shoving a raw steak in their gob could never be enough. Maybe it's pointless looking back, but I'm so glad there's none of that "let's build a wind turbine and think about the future" attitude here. ZCF is a revel in total idiocy (of course it is, it's a Bruno Mattie flick), complete with shameless Romero steals, use of stock footage so blatant it tilts toward the avant-garde, utterly crass jungle nudity, and a fairly mind-blowing agenda that seeks to critique Third World genocide whilst delivering dialogue that sounds like it was written by a zombie in the first place. Gunked-up and brainless, how fab to revisit this total anti-classic.
A BLADE IN THE DARK - Well regarded enough as a late entry, but this fascinating Lamberto Bava giallo just seems so strange. I don't know what it is... I think it's the house, the way it feels a bit boundless and indefinable, a succession of endless corridors and empty rooms that makes the random encounters of our musical protagonist appear weirder than they are. Everything's shadowy and a bit dreamy, the kills odd and disjointed, and what's happening with all those tennis balls? It was made in 1983, a year when I imagine lots of people in the arts were going on about postmodernism as they sipped their wine, and you can see Bava is slipping in the same kind of clever-clever meta-tactics he used to con the audience of 'Demons' into thinking they were watching Baudrillard's fave flesh ripping zombie flick. Putting that to one side, and also the by-the-numbers resolution of a mystery that for a time did seem genuinely mysterious, 'A Blade In The Dark' leaves a haunting impression that pulls me back for repeat visits, even if it's all about interior design in the end.
PUMPKINHEAD 2: BLOOD WINGS - I've never really clicked with the original. It's thoughtful, I like Lance Henrickson, I like rubber monsters and flashy lighting and storms, but there's just something a bit ponderous about it all. 'Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings' made it easier on me by getting straight to the shitty basics - vicious fifties kids murder a small-town outsider and unleash primordial vengeance. 'Basics' is the word though, for Pumpkinhead 2 offers little beyond a rote slasher-style one-by-one as transgressors fall victim to some KNB effects, and again, that's stuff I usually like, but it all felt a bit tired. I did appreciate little bits here and there though, like the way the makers hung the interior of a barn with carcasses just so as to make the inevitable chase / struggle / hurtling about seem a bit more visually interesting.
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