Bloodsucking Freaks
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077247/

Anyone seen this? is it as awesome as it sounds? has it been remade?
I tripped over a quote earlier and found this movie

As I recall, Troma has publishing rights to it these days, or they did it last time. I may be wrong. It's an interesting film, but it's been a while since I've seen it. I think that, despite being somewhat interesting, it was also rather boring.

Dawn of the Dead (1978) - 2/5. Ugh. Why is this movie considered a classic? It has got to be one of the least scary horror movies ever made, and the social commentary is so weak and transparent. None of the characters is likeable. The zombies look stupid. The gore was pretty well done, but that's about it. If it wasn't going to be scary, it could have at least tried to be charming or funny, like Evil Dead. But no, it just drags on and on, and who cares what happens, really. Romero should have stopped after Night of the Living Dead.

Honestly...I agree.

The Equalizer was a pretty good movie. It also got hilarious gruesome at the end. Like, a drill in the back of the head? Garden clippers through the neck? Haha.

Re-watched the Last King of Scotland tonight. Forrest Whitaker is definitely one of my favorite actors and goddamn he plays the part of Idi Amin to a T in that movie.

While I quite enjoyed the movie, I found some of the aspects to be too Hollywoodian/dramatized like the romance between the lead and one of Idi's wives. And well, instead of playing Idi Amin, it felt more like Forest Whitaker playing a generic paranoid mad man who just happened to be the dictatorial president of Uganda as well, rather than Idi Amin. Though I suppose a lot of that can be attributed to the simplified script as well as the Hollywood treatment: Everything must be one-sided and easily absorbed.

Only film I didn't like Forest Whitaker in was the remake of The Experiment with Adrien Brody. What a disappointing film and Whitaker's performance was melodramatic and silly.

Hmm it seems Troma remade it in 1981 but the original is from 1976, it'd make a good book or a worthy remake perhaps...

Isn't that most of his performances? At least the melodramatic part.

Not in his ersatz Rod Sterling role in The Twilight Zone reboot that aired in the early 2000's...

I loved Annabelle. Better than The Conjuring for me since it never leaned on a possession climax, which is the laziest route of all supernatural horrors. Some really terrifying moments piqued with that classic Wan stillness, even if he wasn't there. Slow start and white bread actors but it just makes you crave the doll more.

Yeah, I hated that Scottish kid in that film. That was pretty cliché Hollywood filler. I guess just the fact that they did a movie about the Ugandan dictator in general got my attention, it woulda been nice if they'd gone further back in Idi's past, like, before he rose to power. Kinda help put in perspective why he hated the British so much, the title wasn't really explained all that well. To be fair, idi amin was a pretty paranoid guy, like expelling all the Asians from Uganda because "god told him to" and shit like that.

I also find that movie enjoyable, despite the 80's cheese.

I don't think Troma remade it. That date in 1981 from Troma might just be a copyright renewal by them. Indeed, it seems that the very title "Blood Sucking Freaks" was Troma's retitling of the original film, which may be where the copyright is from.

It's considered a classic because it is a fucking classic. Keep in mind, what seems like transparent social commentary was revolutionary at the time, and you no doubt knew what the commentary was before watching it. Yes, the zombies look silly, and it can run over-long (the uncut is way longer, but the European cut by Argento is much shorter and removes much of the comedic elements), but it's a classic.

I would suggest you check out the trope page on TV Tropes for Sienfeld is Unfunny. This basically explains what your problems are with the original Dawn of the Dead. Essentially, Seinfeld is unfunny because if you watch it now, the jokes seem tired and predictable instead of fresh and cutting-edge the way they were when it was new. The reason is that everything following Seinfeld tried to incorporate elements of it and follow in it's success, ultimately whittling down the perceived originality of the original. This is what's happened to Dawn of the Dead--it was so influential that to watch it now, perhaps unaware of how and why it was influential, is to see it through the haze of it's derivatives.

Day of the Dead, however, is superior.

I would personally rank Romero's Dead films thusly:

Day of the Dead
Night of the Living Dead
Dawn of the Dead
Land of the Dead
Diary of the Dead
Survival of the Dead

Survival is pretty terrible, actually. Like the latter-day Star Wars trilogy, this second trilogy probably didn't need to be made. Not that you asked. Well, you kinda did.

I haven't seen Dawn of the Dead in like ten years, but I remember liking it, if not as much as Night of the Living Dead. I didn't see Romero's stuff again until Land of the Dead and Survival of the Dead - which were both just fucking awful. Hated those films.

I definitely have to watch Dawn again this year to see what I think of it now.

I'm with Resident_ on this one. Day is a far superior zombie film. Actually it's probably one of my most favorite horror movies of the 1980's.

I just watched it the other day (for the first time, since when I did see it once before I was so stoned it doesn't count). Same here though, liked it, but not as much as Night of the Living Dead. The effects budget is higher, so that's in its favor, but the story-telling isn't quite as good, ya know? It isn't as tense or dream-like, but it's also not "happier" or anything. Definitely not an "uplifting" experience. He manages some style similarities (like the signature inept flopping that people in terror can't seem to snap out of). I particularly like that both movies feature a black main character.

I'm not sure if it's supposed to be the chronological successor, or just a kind of same-world sequel. Do you know?

NIght of the Living Dead, though, is classic for all the right reasons. That movie is so good. A really great example of how a great movie can be done on a pretty low budget.

Honestly, Dawn of the Dead just overall sucks. The zombies look like shit. Most of them look like barely any work was put into them. Some of them are...blue. It's boring. I don't care if the social commentary was super cutting edge back then, it does nothing for me now. Day and Night are both much superior movies. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the Dawn of the Dead remake was INFINITELY superior to the original.

Thanks for the reply, Resident_Hazard. What you say makes sense, but it doesn't sway my opinion. Something can be a classic and not appeal to everyone. Take Gone with the Wind, for instance. I hate that fucking movie. It suffers from all the same problems as Dawn of the Dead. Wait, there weren't zombies in that movie? Eh, there might as well have been.

Funny that you mention Seinfeld; I never actually bothered to watch that show. I can't call it unfunny because I haven't seen enough of it to say, but what little I have seen didn't tempt me to watch more.

I watched Day of the Dead years ago and thought it was all right. Maybe my opinion would be different now. If I'm honest, I'm sick of zombies and wish everyone would shut up about them for a while. They're one of the weakest and least interesting horror monsters, and few zombie movies are very good, in my opinion. I do like Fulci's zombie films; they're so off-kilter that they're enjoyable.

I'll close on a positive note and say that I'm glad Dawn of the Dead exists, just because of a certain album called 'Fearless Undead Machines'.

Zombies are great when you add in mysticism and weird atmospheres like Fulci does, or go artsy like Pontypool. As stand alone monsters they can be rather weak though, true.



I thought it was a chronological successor, but then again, I last saw Dawn 10 years ago. Night is just a classic...the stark atmosphere, the hopelessness; I missed it last year but will definitely see it this month. I'll throw in Day, too, as I've never seen that one.

Words of wisdom, Emp. Words of wisdom.

Necro, I'm actually with you on Dawn Of The Dead. Considering the internet has accelerated 'social commentary' into total oblivion, the movie just doesn't hold up. Even atmospherically it's... lacking.

Day of the Dead is on my list. I wasn't gripped by Dawn of the Dead, but it's a chapter in the story, so it has its place. I didn't mind the zombies themselves, really. Honestly I didn't think about them much, which I suppose means they sucked pretty bad.

Comments on mall culture aside, I think a lot of his comments on white leadership and heteronormative gender roles are still very timely.

Also, recently watched Paris is Burning which is a VERY good movie, not to mention basically socio-culturally mandatory.

I've still never seen Day but Dawn was...ehhh. I do like the remake, but the step down from Night to Dawn was pretty big if you ask me, and those recent Romero movies have been nearly unwatchable horseshit.

Also Seinfeld is fucking timeless, so that link's whole point is moot!

Aside from all the, you know, insanely dated parts of the show. Which is literally every single thing about it.

*exeunt serendaded by a synthesized bassline on a shitty Casio keyboard*

What's dated about any of this (ignoring unimportant shit like clothes and hairstyles)?

Okay, that was pretty great. The last line was brilliant.

Pretty surreal that a guy could become a millionaire by pretending to be broke and hopeless.

Day of the dead is indeed better than Dawn of the Dead, however it's still plagued with filler and the climax is predictable and disappointing.
Surprised nobody mentioned the 1990 Tom Savini's remake of Night of the Living Dead. That movie is better than all of Romero's work in my opinion, Tony Todd and Patricia Tallman are highly engrossing. Tom Savini has a superb eye for good horror.

Does it have jump scares?

Seinfeld by and large isn't dated and is still very funny, because the jokes are common everyday 1st world nitpicks/problems, I never watched Seinfeld thinking 'gee these jokes are fresh and cutting edge', I thought 'I can relate to Jerry, George is so petty and it's a hilarious switch-up for him to be successful with women despite his obvious short comings and that Kramer guy is a laugh riot'. I can only think of a few opening jokes told by Jerry and a few episode themes (what with the Internet and gadgets we have now) out of 9 seasons which may seem old, but nothing glaringly significant.

You know what isn't funny, Friends. Okay, Ross had moments with his terrible music but they were few and far between. That Phoebe is a straight-up rude obnoxious bitch and 'smelly cat' isn't funny unless you're a child, does Phoebe even qualify as a 'Friend'? The other women on the show are interchangeable with no significant character traits and Chandler Bing did the same one liners every episode and Joey had next to no personality except for being dumb and flirtatious. 2 whole seasons was all humanity could endure of Joey Tribbiani.

I fucking hate friends with a passion dude.

You know here in NZ that's had a 6PM timeslot for easily the last 10 years, maybe longer.

I watched Alien the other night for the first time in a couple years. Incredible atmosphere.

I get what you're saying, and I totally agree that not everyone enjoys classics just because. I think we all catch this at some point in our lives--for instance, I don't really care for Black Sabbath, despite how many classics they've contributed to music. I just wanted to illustrate part of what may have damaged Dawn 78 in your view. I recognize it's silliness, but I still really enjoy the film, but I don't think it's Romero's best work. I think his best movies are Day of , Night of, and Creepshow. I also grew up with these movies.

For as much as I like Romero, I think he's a hit-or-miss director, but not as bad as Wes Craven, whose terrible movies are ridiculously bad. Have you ever seen Shocker? You can hardly make a more absurd film without calling it "Halloween III" or "Birdemic."

Day of the Dead grew on me. I originally considered it the weakest of the original trilogy, but now I see it as the best. He got the "zombie rules" completely set, it was post-apocalyptic, it was oozing with character tension, the zombie and gore effects are about the best of any zombie film, and the dialog. Man, the dialog is fucking awesome.

"I'm running this monkey farm now, Frankenstein, now I wanna know what the fuck you're doing with my time!"
"I'm fuckin' gonna have to lay off the fuckin' booze because pretty fuckin' soon, there won't be any of it fuckin' left!"
"I don't want to study them, I just want 'em to drop over dead!" "Well, they're not inclined to do that."

It's not without it's cliche's, but it plays them to it's strengths.

I also get your point about being tired of the zombie tropes. They're getting a little over-played. And frankly, the longer The Walking Dead goes on, the less I can maintain that suspension of disbelief. From my point of view, a zombie apocalypse is a very temporary event.

At the same time, I find most modern horror films to be brainless trite dependent on torture porn shock values, cheap gimmicks, endless remakes of actual great films *cough*FrightNight*cough*, and there are way too many fucking ghost/haunting/possession movies based on those fucking charlatans, Ed and Lorraine Warren. Fuck those people and the bullshit movies based on their nonsense. The difference between John Edwards and these people is that he eventually went the fuck away. /rant

I will always credit Craven with being the guy who gave us Freddy, but I'm starting to agree with this. I recently saw a couple of his lesser-known movies (Cursed and The Serpent and the Rainbow), and at this point my opinion of his career in general is getting close to my opinion of John Carpenter. Each guy made a few good ones, and LOTS of crap.

Might try watching Shocker again, just out of curiosity. I remember thinking it was awful when I saw it years ago, so I wonder if Craven's arguable low point is even worse than Carpenter's (which would probably be Prince of Darkness for me).

The reason I believe Seinfeld is funny even today, is because the whole series is based around annoyances and how egotistic people respond to this annoyances. Showing people being nit-picky was also very prominent in the show. This is important today, because, the internet community is greatly based around this concept. Now that I think about it, what are a great part of the internet's meme's for? To express some annoyance, to nit-pick about some situation, express some disgust, etc.
So the show works because the annoyances are true even today, it's super easy to relate to something that hates the same things as you do.

This last week, I watched Halloween III for the first time, and I might not necessarily consider it Carpenter's worst because I think he made it bad on purpose. I think he wanted to stop being asked to make more Halloween movies. And indeed, he wasn't involved in Halloween 4.

I think Carpenter is a stronger overall director than Craven or Romero, but I think Craven gets way more credit than he deserves largely because he A) gave us Freddy and B) had some strong titles early in his career. Granted, all the horror greats had some crap in their catalog. Tobe Hooper made the ridiculously kid-centric Invaders from Mars and one of the worst Masters of Horror episodes. I think Fulci is frankly over-rated. Joe Dante has been hit-or-miss over the years as well.

I think most of these guys have not done well transitioning out of the 80's. Don Coscarelli's career was malingering until he bounced back with Bubba Ho-Tep and recently, John Dies at the End, which has allowed him to start prepping Phantasm V (which has apparently been delayed until next year), and he's found a new niche in his career that works. John Landis largely graduated out of horror, and I think he's incredibly talented. His Masters of Horror, Deer Woman, perfectly blends humor and horror and remains my personal favorite of the series, but he has a charming love of the genre that shows in his work. Lucky McGee is interesting because his stuff tends to break away from overt or typical horror themes, and some of his stuff is pretty intense--like The Woman.

Not every artist or designer or developer or film maker has a perfect record. I think Carpenter's overall catalog is pretty strong, even with a hefty dose of 80's cheese in some of it. I think Craven is horribly over-rated, Coscarelli's doing great now, and Romero has done very little in recent years worth much of anything. Survival of the Dead was monumentally bad. I could barely bring myself to finish it.

I have not liked Craven for a long time, and the only films worse than the ones he directs are the ones he produces.

The last truly great Wes Craven film was New Nightmare in 1994. Scream has lost most of it's charm and I wouldn't rate it too highly now.

Shocker is a very decent horror/thriller film with an interesting spin on a serial killer that turns into electricity (sounds silly in writing but visually not), this results in really fun scenes that don't give a shit with Peter Berg and Mitch Pileggi jumping through television sets across the US. There is a true stroke creativity in Craven's writing and directing that is almost entirely absent later on in his career. In my opinion this would have been a worthy follow up franchise to A Nightmare on Elm Street had Wes Craven been given the green-light.

Plus the soundtrack is really enjoyable better-than-average rock/heavy metal.
Link:

I definitely don't like Scream 1 as much now as I did back in the day. And I never cared much for any of the sequels.

Even The Hills Have Eyes (1977) didn't do much for me when I finally got around to watching it a few years ago. That's another horror movie where I think the remake is better.

Did a new blog post about Cronenberg movies after being holed up in my apartment sick last weekend and watching four in a row. Check it out!