Deadly Dogs vol. 4

DEADLY DOGS 4

By Goat Scrote

Atomic Dog

In this installment, misunderstood mutant dogs...









... trained killer Nazi dogs...

The Boys From Brazil

...and experimental Army dogs off their leash.

Dogs of Hell

The Boys from Brazil (1978)

Mainly a ripoff of: “They Saved Hitler's Brain” plus “The Omen”

The Dog(s): Dobermans trained by a paranoid racist are commanded by a child-aged clone of Adolf Hitler to kill mad scientist Josef Mengele. Holy fuck! The dogs are scary and the kid is scarier, but they only become important during the climax in the final twenty minutes.

Summary: A young man searching for escaped Nazi war criminals discovers clues leading him toward a horrifying conspiracy by surviving Nazis to "re-create" Hitler. There are 94 clones which have been adopted out all over the world. They are being brought up under conditions that will help warp them into having a twisted psyche like der Führer, and also put them into positions of influence when they are adults. Somehow the movie avoids being cheesy and maintains a very dark tone. A determined investigator puts the pieces together to figure out what is really happening.

Best Scene: The denouement shows one of the cloned Hitler kids in a darkroom. He is developing photographs of the bloody murder scene. He has kept a trophy of his first murder, a trinket carried by his victim. Mengele may be dead, but this scene assures us that the chilling consequences of his experiment will torment future generations. It's a solid skin-crawler of an ending.

Dishonorable Mention: More of the dogs, please! Oh, and more dead Nazis!

Recommendation: This is a pretty darn good flick from the director of “Patton” (1970), “Papillon” (1973) and “Planet of the Apes” (1968), with a superb cast including Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, and James Mason. Steve Gutenberg is also in the movie. The horror at the core of this movie is the threat of a resurgence of fascism in a new generation, which has a special power to terrify at this moment in history. Very highly recommended!

Dogs of Hell (1983) 
(aka Rottweiler)

Mainly a ripoff of: Anyone who paid to watch it. Not to be confused with Brian Yuzna’s unrelated film “Rottweiler” (2004).

The Dog(s): Well, they tell us there is a pack of killer Rottweilers, but the absence of evidence on screen leaves me unconvinced.

Summary:  Southern good ol’ boys vs. escaped, out-of-control, military-trained Rottweilers. That sounds awesome on paper! The movie itself is a steaming pile, unfortunately. The first kill is at 20 minutes, but the dogs are still just sound effects. There’s a mud wrestling scene at 23 minutes and I’m relieved that at least there is some kind of action on-screen, even if it is dubious “comedy” which does absolutely nothing at all to move the story forward. The first actual dog appears on the screen at 26 minutes, just barely. I was 49 minutes deep in my journey into boredom before I noticed another dog appearance. The pack appears to consist of two dogs, who show up, get killed, and are immediately replaced by two identical dogs. “Rottweiler” was released theatrically in 3D. There are a number of really cheesy shots like a dart on a string coming toward the camera. The 3D moments would have been groan-worthy filler even with the gimmick.

Best Scene:  A rottweiler gets his head blown off with a shotgun! Actually it’s not that great, but it’s the closest thing to an exciting moment that this movie has to offer.

Dishonorable Mention: During the mud-wrestling scene, the sheriff sucker-punches a citizen with no provocation, after getting the perp to relax by lying that he won't hit the guy. What a total cocksmith. Oh, he's the hero? I guess I was supposed to think he was awesome because he can punch so hard. Also, it's really, really obvious that the filmmakers had exactly two Rottweilers. That's just fucking insulting. Show a few seconds here and there of five or six dogs running through the woods to make the rest of the illusion work. It's just plain stupid filmmaking, and the whole boring mess is made with the same lack of craft. In fact, I declare this entire movie to be a Dishonorable Mention. Take that, you big dumb movie.

Recommendation: Slow and boring, hardly any animal action, ineptly done, and that sheriff is no Joe Don Baker. This was a rough one to get through, folks. Hard pass. So very hard.

Atomic Dog (1998)

Mainly a ripoff of: "Beast of Yucca Flats" retold as an After-School Special… with dogs!

The Dog(s): Cerberus the "Atomic Dog”, Trixie, Lobo, and Scamp… a very dysfunctional canine family. Industry pro Roger Schumacher was head animal trainer.

Summary: A puppy named Cerberus gets caught in a minor atomic accident and is left behind by his owner when the contaminated power plant is abandoned. He grows up to be a super-intelligent dog with strong family values. Cerberus has been abandoned, abused, and attacked by humans, and eventually kills a teenager who shot at him with a rifle. The lonely Atomic Dog frees a family pet, Trixie, and takes her back to his radioactive love nest. Some time later, she drags herself home to deliver a pair of pups before she dies. From afar, Cerberus watches his pups, Lobo and Scamp, grow up. When Lobo violently turns on his human family and is taken to the veterinarian, Cerberus kills the veterinarian to free his son. Lobo is blamed for the death, and later shot. Cerberus begins a campaign of revenge. Scamp continues to protect his human family from his father. The grieving Atomic Dog kidnaps the youngest daughter of the family as a replacement for his lost son. Her family tries to rescue her and has a confrontation with the Atomic Dog. In the end, Cerberus sacrifices himself to save the little girl, and Scamp comforts his dying father.

Best Scene: The final fight between Cerberus and the humans. He uses his wits to beat them. When they shoot him with darts, he immediately pulls them out with his teeth. He works loose the knots securing big waste containers and drops them on the human father and son. It’s a good climax, relative to the rest of the movie.

Dishonorable Mention: What kind of Homer Simpson level moron would bring a puppy to their job at a nuclear power plant?

Recommendation: Extremely tame made-for-TV fare, this is what would happen if Hallmark Hall of Fame started churning out low-budget horror. The animals are very well trained, but overall mediocrity makes this is a snoozer and you can safely skip it.

Satans Sadists

Satan's Sadists (Nightmare Bloodbath) Directed By Al Adamson, starring Bud Cardos (1969).

This was the first Al Adamson flick I'd ever seen period! I've been trying to revisit his work recently and Fandor has fed my addiction. He's just brings that irresistible goofy level of schlock and menace that works well together and everything looks like a hideous Castle Berry Pit beef BBQ drive-in sandwich ad.

Almost makes you wanna puke your guts out

2 mins in, we're treated to an acid soaked gang rape by some of the wackiest looking bikers led by Russ "chocki / David Cross' current father in law" Tamblyn. The bikers all look like they're at a cosplay rally (Mrs. Adamson aka Regina Carol looks like a sweaty, run thru the wringer version of Nancy Sinatra). There's Acid (Greydon Clark, who also wrote the script, he's shitty genius film maker in his own right), here he looks like a fake Lee Hazlewood. It's kind of interesting that a fake singing duo like Hazlewood and Sinatra are in the same movie, they should've put on a trashy Reno tribute act to fund some of the budget! The theme song is a schmaltzy ballad that's "I'll Never Fall in Love" by Tom Jones stolen and reworked with lyrics about killing for Satan! If you're not sold by now that you must immediately track down this flick, there's no hope for you in my mind!

I threw my rancid panties at Tom Jones but he tossed them back!

Acid (or the "Some Velvet Morning" singer clone) reads up on pot while the other hippy dippy creeps gyrate to the sounds of ear torture. Wait a minute-- we've got a second rate celeb in our midst, Lawrence Tierney's brother is present, you might remember him as the cop from Gremlins. They pick up a giant eared drifter who was a former marine played by Adamson regular Gary Kent.

A female waitress/geology student rides around in a sweet dune buggy, in fact it looks almost exactly like the cartoon Speed Buggy!

Hey Speed Buggy make sure you bring us back that money so we can smoke more angel dust

Kent, Tierney and his wife all end up at the roadside stop where she works, don't look now but I smell a biker takeover coming up soon! Obviously they show up with their fugly crew, one character played by Bud Cardos, has a weird Mohawk and the skin complexion of a hotdog! Tamblin wears a big oversized lady hat and granny glasses, he looks almost like a midget or Paul Williams with a colander over his head. His hat is totally over his eyes, I'd imagine him bumping into walls.

The camera does a bunch of Laugh In zoom ins and outs as the dudes stick their tongues out--VERY REBELLIOUS! 

Can I use your bathroom, I ate too many roadside Gorditas.

Eventually they get rapey with these poor girls minding their own business and they all wear Swastikas but seem more like Scooby Doo villains than white supremacists. Back then Bikers just all flirted with fascism it was trendy! The labels on their sad sack jackets look like they're about to peel off. Why do they want to give everyone acid, I guess that's what bikers do?

I'm Van Morrison and Paul William's unwanted love child

Kent doles out the pain on the white trash, starting off with a swirly and cracks open one dude's face. It looks like they poured ketchup on his head that streamed down symmetrically.

It's difficult to make a biker flick interesting and this one runs on fumes, it's very derivative, it's only strong point is the Sadists all look really stupid. No one has any personality and there's no real message (even when Tamblyn goes into a speech about the generation gap it seems false and phoned in). At an hour and change, It's not even that long but it feels like four hours! 

I'm listening to Dino Desi and Billy on this groovy ipod  

We've covered a few bikers films on the site like thee mother of all inept genius road hog flicks The Northville Cemetery Massacre, the tepid Peace Killers is still on the agenda, but this one is too watered down for its own good. They spend at least 40 minutes wandering around the desert, man I'm getting sleepy! Greydon Clark, the guy who plays Acid directed Joysticks, The Bad Bunch and The Uninvited (1988) one of the best killer cat movies practically of all time! One of the most fascinating aspects of the film is that it was shot at the Spahn Ranch while the Manson Family prowled the area, they even watched the production. Tamblyn was also in The Female Bunch, another Manson-sploitaton flick shot there, they were pretty lucky to make it out alive if you ask me.

I thought She Devils on Wheels was dull but this one makes it look like a non stop cavalcade of perversion! I'd rather listen to the worst Standells record than suffer through this one and if you don't get that reference... flake off!

ALL CARICATURES AND NO SUBSTANCE, NEEDS ANGELO ROSSITTO TO BRIGHTEN IT UP!

AVAILABLE ON FANDOR!

Men Behind The Sun 2: Laboratory Of The Devil

Men Behind The Sun 2: Laboratory of the Devil Directed By Godfrey Ho, Starring Zhu De-Cheng (1992).

Godfrey Ho you motherfucker! How dare you accomplish something that's nihilistic, shockingly revolting and surprising of all effective! How did this happen, I was lured into a trap of my own design! How could I not see it coming. As I saw your name listed as the director, skimmed around the Youtube vid and heard some laughable Nightmare on Elm Street music, I just figured "Hey this might be a goof" (wipes sweat from brow), holy shit was I wrong! Even Wiki described you as the "HK Ed Wood", only Wood never delved head first into depravity, well Ok there's that bizarre porn era with Rene Bond, but you never defiled our senses with an actual child corpse. This dead body by the way looks unnervingly real to me (Skunkape who sat through this with me disagreed). She's dismantled in extreme closeup and each organ is pulled out until hollow, kind of like a Thanksgiving turkey (excuse me, REEEETTTTCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)!!!!

HIGH FIVE!

Thanks to the Wu Tang collection, this grotesque nightmare is freely available on YT to crush souls and warp minds at the click of a mouse. Skunkape, my partner in grime is the only person on the planet that I can safely enjoy and cackle at something this fucked up and wickedly disturbing. We recently watched Human Centipede 3 together guilt free and each of us has been through the entire sequence (or arduous sequels) together. I don't have the slightest interest to revisit them either.

The worst part about 731 part 2 (or Laboratory of the Devil) for me was that I wasn't able to take notes and had to suffer through it again. It felt like I had picked off a scab that had recently healed (or maybe I was having a nightmare that I had to endure one of the medical experiments from the film). When we viewed it together the first time, we were goofing on it or trying our hardest to deflect the macabre vibes).

Does this mustache make me look like Michael Jordan?

Well, it looks like the same regime from the original is back again only now having a shitty time, aww poor babies--fuck you nazis! Commander Sagawa played by Zhu De-Cheng talks germ warfare and the good old days of squad 731 with some white Nazi bitch with funky teeth at a secret location, as we hear the sleep clinic music from Elm Street 1. Don't let your guard down, because even though we're waste deep in goofiness (bad dubbing, hokey acting), there's also real pickled babies in jars to hurt your feelings. It's rather hard to decipher if the autopsy of a little girl was real, but it definitely got to me. It's kind of odd how when I researched the actors in this on hkmdb the actors only appeared in all three sequels (Yes that's right, this series was so popular that they kept making them)!

I think I left my hot pocket in the toaster oven

Next the ghastly Ishii Shiro shows up played by Wang Gang (nice name), who was also in the first film! This human monster was the Japanese Josef Mengele and it's even more barbaric and mind bending that all of the testing and live evisceration experiments were handed over the General McCarthur in exchange for exoneration, so "Yay Whoopie, Fun Times!"

I dig that popped up collar dude!

If this review sounds repetitive than that's not an accident, this "sequel" really just re-hashes what occurred in the first film. I'll tell you one thing though, this one is a lot less depressing than the first film, although I realize that's like saying a kick in the balls is less painful than a kick in the teeth! They call the tortured captives who are frozen, injected with plague germs, boiled and sliced and diced "logs," as described in a hideous documentary I watched on this subject because they were considered non human. They recreate all the gruesome torture than went on in the first one and there's a few new creative torture scenes for those sickos out there with their pants down getting off on this shit! One scene has a dude being beaten into submission until he slurps down a watermelon injected with poison and a girl with face herpes. Other than that, there's zero reason to suffer through this film, do your self a favor and skip it.

Proactiv doesn't work, I want my money back!

This movie is extremely grim but sort of clumsy in its execution, I mean we are talking about Godfrey "King of shitty ninja movies" Ho! He also made the next sequel too, which I doubt I'll review, but you never know.

DON'T BOTHER!

INSERT RACIST JOKE HERE

As Dr. Katz would say, Our time is up

Hard Rock Zombies

Hard Rock Zombies Directed By Krishna Shah, Starring "The Usual Gang of Idiots" (1985).

Perhaps you fancy yourself a metal movie maniac and think you've seen it all. Maybe you've read the book Heavy Metal Movies by Mike "McBeardo" Mcpadden and consider yourself a scholar in metallurgy or metalology. There are all kinds of rad heavy metal films out there, you've got the so shitty, they're good ones like Rock n Roll Nightmare and Zombie Nightmare (starring Thor)! And the barely watchable ones like Terror on Tour, Slaughterhouse Rock, Rocktober Blood and even higher grade trash like Trick or Treat (with Ozzy and Gene Simmons as a dumbass Wolfman Jack impersonator named Nuke). So what's left at the bottom of the Showbiz Pizza ballpit, but Hard Rock Zombies, which according to Chas is the Plan 9 or zombiedom! 

   John Carl Buechler completists should have this on their bucket list as well because he was the Assistant Director and chipped in a few special effects here and there. Plus it's got all the Charles Band kind of garbage any self respecting gore hound should run away from in terror! 

   I recently watched this over at Sharky's (Hollywood High's #1 fan) pad and maybe it was the booze, the Chex mix or the double feature pairing with Shock 'Em Dead; but I didn't want to immediately slit my wrists like I imagined I would and even stayed awake throughout the entire film! 

I'm warning you though, this is a special case, so act accordingly when you view Hard Rock Zombies (you'll notice it's not called Heavy Metal Zombies--that should scare you already)! Watch this sufficiently baked, drunk out of your mind or dump 1000 cups over your head or you'll never make it out alive!

Not Enough Beer!

   We start off in the desert with a blonde skinny dipper, who kills two of the wimpiest kids on the road as midgets in tuxedos frolic with delight across the pond. She hacks off an arm and does a Beatles joke and we're off!!

Coke party at Jeff Dunham's house!

   At this point in time, I must stress that we've got at least an hour and 20 minutes left, so start boozin' early!

   Then we're thrust face first into a concert where a dude with hockey hair and a peach fuzz mustache plays what I can only describe as "New Wave Bob Seeger". Their solo guitarist holds a rose in his teeth (reminding me of another awesome metal movie Black Roses with rocking Howard the Duck looking demons). The room tone is extremely loud for some reason and when you hear the rocknroll, it sounds like its blaring from a busted transistor radio. A droopy eyed girl with french fried hair named Cassie (Jennifer Coe) shows up in a sea of groupies and warns them not to go to their next gig. Later on she becomes the object of Jessie (E.J. Curse) the lead singer's affections; He's 40, she looks like she's 12 and you thought Winger's "She's Only 17 was scandalous!"  

Ride away on my back, I'm a pedophile unicorn!

   The country bumpkin locations remind me a little bit of Please Don't Eat The Babies (man I thought I blocked that one out of my mind forever)! 

   They pick up the same blonde from the beginning out hitchhiking and she leads them into a trap. Oh yeah and her mother is a werewolf, howling up in the attic. She makes more "hilariously unfunny" hand jokes and the band ditches them to act like The Monkees. They spray beer at people over at a Bank of America line, bust out a giant cardboard cut out of themselves and do some mime-- I mean these guys know how to party!

Peter Frampton in Kiss makeup

   It turns out the midgets aren't just regular little people, but the inbred offspring of an elderly Adolf Hitler (in a Rip Taylor wig no less, perfect disguise if you ask me). This was the true story of the Ratt "Round and Round" video, it turns out Hitler's master race plan was to have butlers and sexy rodent hybrid girls painted silver look like new wave dicks and rock out with Milton Berle!     

Ratt and Roll, more like Reich N Roll

    Jessie (played by E.J. Curse), the leader of the miscellaneous band (they don't bother to mention their name) starts to fall in love with Cassie, who's criminally underage. I'm guessing she's the Tory Spelling of this film and got the job because her father is the producer or something.     

   They try to play a song for the Nazis in their courtyard that sounds like fake "Hysteria" era Def Lepard and wind up getting electrocuted. 

Working on a SEX FARM! 

   The repressed authority has a council meeting to try and stop the band from playing and giggle a lot about various types of sex that's are forbidden in town. Hard rock Zombies has got some real gusto, I mean they even decide to throw in a reverse Psycho shower scene, where one of the males in the band is stabbed by a woman. I've noticed a pattern with terrible directors who think they're doing us a favor by tossing in an Alfred Hitchcock homage, just stop right now! Birdemic is another wretched example I can think of.

Do I hear Hitchcock spinning in his grave again?

   Cassie plays a shitty song over the bands gravesite (they are all buried in about 3 inches of dirt, right next to each other). The beat makes the dead band pop out of the ground and march around like Thriller extras. 

Why the hell is Hitler so chipper?

   I think Jack Bliesener, is not an actor at all, but a genuine Hitler impersonator, because he's uncomfortably gleeful in his role and wears out the welcome mat really fast. The contrast between Holocaust humor and unfunny comedy is very unsettling--I also have to mention that I'm watching this again sober! The zombies strut around like undead mimes and start killing all the Nazis that murdered them. They play this awful fake Peter Gabriel song during the montage of them slaughtering their killers. 

Not a Kids in the Hall sketch

   A scuzzy promoter who looks like Dennis Miller or Rich Hall shows up to watch them play that Hysteria "Ode to Cassie" song on stage. Now here's a relationship too forbidden-- I mean he's a walking worm feast in his 40's who should be arrested for statutory.

  After awhile, I know it's hard to believe, but they run out of script and it turns into a wacky comedy, complete with Benny Hill music and too many severed head gags!

Man, I love Der Wienerschnitzel!

   One Nazi dwarf sits at a table and eats himself to death in different meal courses. Phil Fondacaro, the famous dwarf actor from Troll and Willow tries to eat a giant cow, I mean these are some cheap gags folks! The promoter freaks out over the zombie band and has a "Back to the Future" Chuck Berry's cousin moment.

I CAME UP WITH THE BEST SNIGLET EVER!

   I know its crazy to apply logic to this film, but that's my job here over at the TOG headquarters. I wonder why they keep the blonde who helped kill the band in the first place around and don't kill her. If anything she's more crucial to the plot then killing Hitler, they even encourage her to dance on stage!

   Toward the end, it gets so dark that it looks like they sent the lighting guy home! This movie is even worse the second time! I like how they took the slogan from Return of the Living Dead and paraphrased it to the effect of "They came back from the grave to misbehave"! Your patience may just completely run out as you watch this film and degenerate into a puddle of goop. 

ONE OF THE WORST MOVIES EVER! MAKE SURE YOU ARE SMASHED BEYOND ALL COMPREHENSION BEFORE WATCHING! 

WATCH HERE IF MUST

I came back from the grave to get some RC Cola!

Groupies!

Nothing scarier then an elderly dog with a switchblade

    

Joel M. Reed's Night of the Zombies

NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES (1981) DIRECTED BY JOEL M. REED

Review By John Szpunar

To quote the mighty Chas. Balun, “Oh no!  What’s THIS one doing here?”

A sound and solid question to be sure, but just like rock and roll, this dipshit oddity (courtesy of director Joel M. Reed) is here to stay.  Ever wonder how XXX star Jamie Gillis would perform in a non-porn movie that was financed by Broadway producer Lorin Price, lensed by Groupies director Ron Dorfman, and co-edited by Spike Lee protégée Samuel Pollard?  Ever fantasize about the onscreen chemistry between Mr. Gillis and Alphonso De Noble (the fat guy from Alice, Sweet Alice)?  Ever wonder how a zombie movie would fare with absolutely no blood and gore?  Wonder no more!  That’s right, kids, we’re talking about Night of the Zombies, the film that all but threatens to be the notorious director’s swan song.  

Also known as Gama 693, Battalion of the Living Dead, and a zillion other titles, Night of the Zombies (the title that this reviewer is sticking with) is yet another poverty-row project that Reed decided to tackle in exchange for a few hot meals.  Shot in Munich, the Central Alps, and in Reed’s usual New York stomping grounds, Night of the Zombies lays waste to logic at every turn.  The common consensus can be summed up in a single sentence:  If you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it once too many.  With that fact acknowledged and accepted, allow me to take a few steps back, pop the tape into the VCR, and give the film a second look.

Are you really sure you wanna do that?

Jamie Gillis stars as Nick Monroe, a down and out CIA agent who is sent to the Bavarian Alps when a United States Graves Registration officer is killed under mysterious circumstances.  The head of the CIA (Ron Dorfman) believes that his death may be linked to several missing canisters of Gamma 693, an experimental gas that the United States planned to use against Germany in World War II.  A very young looking biochemist (and WWII vet), Dr. Frank Proud (Ryan Hilliard) is also interested in the canisters.  He and his niece (Samantha Grey) soon join Nick in his investigation.

They'll be no boning in the ski lodge hot tub this time around!

Things take a bizarre twist as soon as the trio hit the Alps.  It seems that a letter was found near the Graves Registration officer’s dead body.  A letter written by an American GI believed missing in action in 1945.  A letter dated 1979.

Soon, Nick finds himself running with a group of neo-Nazis (headed by Joel Reed himself), unearthing ghastly military secrets, and surviving several zombie attacks from a group of undead GIs who have been hiding in the German countryside for thirty-five years.

Let's morse code in some Der Wienerschnitzel take out

Nick learns that 693 was a chemical developed to keep wounded soldiers alive until they could be taken to a medical unit.  Several mortally wounded WWII soldiers hijacked the supply to suit their own needs and are reenacting battles in the desolate Bavarian Alps.  Dr. Proud was once one of them, before he was exiled from their camp.  He now desperately needs another dose of “the gas” before he begins to rot away. 

The film ends with an unintentionally funny looking Proud attacking his niece as she lies in bed.  Nick interrupts Proud’s meal just in time and saves the day.  But there is the slightest hint that Nick is now one of the walking dead himself.

It'll be a deadlock when I wear this sweater to my interview at Sears

Night of the Zombies is a far cry from the perverted excess of Blood Sucking Freaks, but the film still contains several signature sequences and off the wall performances that hold their own.  Reed’s cameo as a neo-Nazi leader is a prime example.  Joel, dressed in a powder blue sport coat, gives the film’s best performance.  His interpretation of the German language is beyond terrible, a strange mix of “neins” laced with a New York accent.  “It vas the Jews, the Jews!  With ze industrial might ve have today, ve could crush them!”  Alphonso De Noble’s performance as an undercover agent is almost as good.  Bloated beyond belief, he struggles with a German accent, but when attacked by Jamie Gillis, he reverts back to New York speak:  “Hey, buddy— buzz off!”  Ron Dorfman looks like he’s reading his lines off a teleprompter.  And Ryan Hilliard is more than over the top as Frank Proud:  “Please.  Just give me a bit of the gas!  THE GAS!  Oh no, it’s too late!”  The camera lingers on a German prostitute as she undresses for Jamie Gillis.  She might just as well be undressing for Joel.  And then, there is Joel’s death scene.  Stabbed in the back by a mysterious gloved hand, he spastically flops around the streets of Munich like a marlin out of water.  One of the most memorable scenes has Jamie Gillis examining the blood of a wounded zombie and concluding that it is very similar to vegetable oil.

TelePrompter is broken...FUCK!

Does Night of the Zombies work as a horror film?  Not really.  The elements are there, but unlike Blood Sucking Freaks, the envelope is barely addressed, yet alone pushed.  Does the film work as comedy?  Again, not so much.  Reed’s twisted sense of satire seems to have taken the back seat on this ride.  Does the film work as an espionage thriller?  That’s debatable, but that’s probably where Night of the Zombies fares the best.  Yet still…

There’s something so loopy, fucked up, and otherworldly about the film that everything almost seems to fall into place (and make perfect sense) after a second, third… hell, in my case, probably twentieth viewing.  And to be honest, Reed’s direction is solid, and Jamie Gillis is surprisingly believable as a CIA agent who is sent off to Germany to investigate World War II zombies in 1979.    

So, what is the casual viewer left with?

Well, you have Night of the Zombies (also known as Gama 693, Battalion of the Living Dead, and a zillion other titles), Joel Reed’s last film to date. An insane mess of priceless dialogue and plot holes, a totally mindless roller-coaster ride to nowhere. This is the film that Broadway producer Lorin Price took a gamble on. The mind wonders what kind of film Joel and Lorin would have cooked up if they had worked together again…

To read more about Joel M. Reed and his films, be sure to check out John Szpunar’s interviews with the man in Headpress 19 and 2.4.  An honest-to-goodness book on the subject (Blood Sucking Freak:  The Life and Films of the Incredible Joel M. Reed) is forthcoming from Headpress.

Crank here, cutting in for just a second, thanks so much John for doing a special guest review! John Szpunar has been such a valuable friend and the secret weapon for TOG in securing talented contributors who've worked for Deep Red magazine and knew Chas Balun. We're ecstatic to finally get a review from him and know that our readers are on the edge of their seats in anticipation for his next book. Read our interview with him here and support Headpress Magazine.

WATCH HERE

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