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Late to the Party: Zombie (1979)

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Going into this movie I knew two things beforehand. One, expect top notch zombie makeup effects. And two, there is a scene involving a shark and a zombie fighting to the death, and that premise alone sounded so incredibly ridiculously bad ass that the rest of the movie would surely be as goofy, right?

Thankfully no, the rest of the movie is not nearly as silly as the zombie on shark smack down, though it was still cool to watch. The film opens with an unknown zombie attacking some unsuspecting police officers, and managing to kill one of them, before falling overboard after being shot by another officer. In the first five minutes, we are treated to some absolutely incredible zombie makeup and design.

Image Credit: Zombie 1979

While Zombie‘s opening moments take place in New York, most of the film takes place on a small island known as Matul. And it is here on Matul that the zombie makeup and effects really shine. Nearly all of the zombie’s designs are eerily similar to the same creatures brought to life by none other than the late, great George Romero. And interesting enough that design choice does serve a purpose.

Zombie was originally supposed to serve as a sequel to George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead which explains why the majority of the zombies showcased on screen call back to Romero’s work. It was also interesting that the exact cause of the undead outbreak is never fully explained. It is stated that a voodoo ritual is to blame, but never expanded on after that.

The voodoo serves the job as to explain why there are shambling corpses wandering around, but is still vague enough to leave something up to the imagination of the viewer. Another strong point was the use of gore. At one point a character is killed brutally by one of the undead by having her eye slowly pushed into a large splintered piece of wood from a broken door.

Gif Credit: Zombie 1979

It was one of the most painful things I have had the pleasure of watching in a horror film in recent years, and only helped to showcase the stunning practical effects that were used. While the acting and writing may be a little dated just due to the age of the movie, the final product is endlessly entertaining even if it’s a bit ridiculous at times. But hey I got to watch a zombie fight a shark underwater, and if nothing else, that is the coolest fight scene I have seen in any horror movie.

Be sure to come back next week to check out our thoughts over none other than Ridley Scott’s horror masterpiece, Alien.

Feature Image Credit: Chris Fischer

 

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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