maiden manhattan.

Phew!

With half term and hard art out of the way it's back to normal around here.

Well, as normal as it gets.

Been a while since I viewed any Fulci so thought I'd ease myself back in with this classic of the possession genre.

Enjoy!

Manhattan Baby (AKA L' Occhio del male, Eye of the Evil Dead, Evil Eye, The Possessed. 1982).
Dir: Lucio Fulci.
Cast: Christopher Connelly, Laura Lenzi, Brigitta Boccoli, Carlo De Mejo, Giovanni Frezza and Cinzia de Ponti.

"You can take my life with stuffed birds,
but you shall not take my immortal soul!"

Somewhere in the deserts of Egypt the dashing professor of old foreign stuff, George Hackett (son of Jennifer and star of Peyton Place, Connelly) is busy collecting deadly scorpion's to give to his daughter as a gift.

Is she that annoying?

His Egyptian helper Alan is a wee bit concerned by this, pointing out that in his culture the scorpion is a symbol of evil and the like.

Thinking this over George, deciding that the information is a bit scary for a nine year old, paints the poor thing yellow before sprinkling some glitter over it and telling her that it's a new kind of Pokemon instead.

Dads eh?, you gotta love them (but not in a sneaking into your room and taking photo's of you with an infra-red camera kinda way obviously).

Now there's a mooth made for a shite-in.

And who is this lucky child?

Well, it's the precocious, tomb toothed blonde poppet Susie (former child star turned topless circus entertainer Boccoli), who's spending her time clothes shopping with her tussle haired mum Emily (freckled beauty and Uber-MiLF Lenzi).

Unfortunately mum has mistaken an old dilapidated building for one of those modern supermarkets and the only other person around is a blind eyed old hag who smells of vinegar.

A bit like Partick Market in Glasgow then.

Whilst Emily is off taking photo's of the locals holding slightly malnourished babies in an attempt to look caring (or at least give her something to chat about over lunch at the hotel), the old blind tramp approaches Susie before uttering the words “Tombs are for the dead” and handing her a huge gold amulet with a big (boss) eye in the middle of it.

Eye hen.

Meanwhile Indiana Dad is busy excavating the lost tomb of King Habibabsomething but the locals have warned him, the tomb holds a terrible curse.

A curse.....OF DEATH!

Curious George doesn't care tho' and prepares to go down with (but not on I hasten to add) his assistant into the undisturbed resting place of a once glorious king.

Stumbling and fumbling around in the dark cavernous chamber Alan discovers a stone tablet placed in the far wall which, on further inspection fires deadly cobra's across the room like slinky green Arrows.

Luckily George is a professional sharp shooter and manages to kill the snakes (for real, I mean this is 1980's Italian cinema after all) before taking a well deserved rest and leaning against an innocuous leather marked 'do not press'.

Oops.

"Touch my ring".

A gaping hole appears in the dirt covered stone floor and our unlucky pair suddenly find themselves plummeting into a stinky cobweb covered pit of death.

Luckily Alan's fall is broken by some rather large pointy spikes, enabling George to bounce of his companions ample arse and onto the relative safety of the crypt floor.

But our intrepid archaeologist barely has time to dust himself off before two supernaturally spooky blue laser beams fire out of the crypt wall and hit him square in the eyes (son).

And all this before breakfast.

Pa pa papa pa pa pa.....X Men!

Back home in New York, George is told that the blindness caused by the mysterious rays should only last a year or so and in the meantime he should go about his daily business with two Kotex sanitary pads taped to his face and held in position by a pair of Su Pollard's glasses.

Tho' why he should need glasses when he can't see shit is never explained.

Life goes on as normal for George (well as normal as it can be seeing as he has to carefully totter around his house looking like a twat in glasses George A Romero would knock back for being too large), Emily is busy juggling her photojournalist career with typing up her hubbies notes whilst shapely child-minder Jamie Lee (the yumsome de Ponti from The New York Ripper) looks after the ungodly Susie and her little brother Tommy (the legendary Frezza).

I did a Google search for Cinzia de Ponti,
this is the only pic that came up.
Frankly I don't even think it's her
but the scenery looks nice.

Everything seems to be going fine until one day when out in the park Susie gets a polaroid picture taken and, rather than a cute looking girl appearing on the photograph the amulet appears in her place.

Thinking it's a faulty film Jamie Lee chucks it away and takes the kids home for a quick game of hide and seek before tea.

With the kids running around and jumping into cupboards Jamie Lee takes time out to relax with the latest OK magazine (or whatever the Italian equivalent is) but just as she gets to the article on the love woes of Cheryl Cole the whole house is suddenly engulfed in shit scary noises.

Which is unusual to say the least.

But obviously not as unusual as the fact that there are snakes emerging from the fridge whilst a spooky light and fog starts to emanate from the pantry.

Who ya gonna call?

The concierge (unfortunately not played by Bobby Rhodes or Fred Williamson) obviously.

"Yo never get yo hands on mah
lucky charms muthafucka etc".

No sooner has she hung up the intercom that the kids re-appear and everything returns to normal.

Bizarre and chilling too.

Pity then that she forgets to tell Jeff Security who, even as we speak (well even as I type and you read or something but you get the gist) is slowly waddling his portly arse into the lift.

Munching on a bagel and jabbing the buttons with his chubby sausage fingers, Jeff hasn't even time to swallow (unlike your mum) before the spooky noises start up and the floor gives way causing the poor sod to fall to his death.

He leaves no immediate family but does leave a cupboard full of crisps and cake.

Jeff, we'll miss you buddy.

"Fuck me a scorpion!"
Giovanni Frezza
gives it his all.

Meanwhile back at the plot some unknown woman approaches Emily (the hot mum, remember?) and hands her the polaroid of the amulet from earlier in the movie.

Examining it closely she notices the name Adrian Marcato (not this one) written on it.

Being a girl and only knowing about shoes and make-up she gives it to her husband to examine but then remembers that he's blind (but not as blind as he was-it's getting better) so gives it to his pal professor Wiler to take a look at.

After much humming and harring the professor confirms that the symbol is the crest of the great god Habibabsomething.

coincidence or creepy craftiness?

"Hello? Is it me you're lookin' for?"

Back at home things are going from bad to very bad, wee Susie keeps going missing all the time, doors are mysteriously locking themselves and Tommy spends all day trying to convince anyone who'll listen that there's a time/space portal that leads to Egypt in his toy cupboard.

Scratch very bad and make that very, very bad.

Being a caring mum Emily decides to ring an expert in such matters for help.

Ghostbusters?

The Pope?

Yvette Fielding?

Nope, she calls he children's entertainer cum magician friend Luke (City of The Living Dead star and professional sexy beard De Mejo) to pop over and try to look in the toy cupboard mystery.

Arriving in his best suit and top hat Luke entertains the little uns with a few card tricks before heading up to the bedroom, standing in front of the cupboard door and with a chant of "Izzy whizzy let's get busy!" opening it.

Only to be zapped by a huge blue fireball before disappearing.

"Tonight Matthew I'm going to be Chris De Burgh!"

Hearing the commotion (and recognising the acrid stench of fried magician) Emily bounds upstairs and opens the bedroom door only to find that the room stinks of camel shit and is covered in sand.

This is the final straw for Poor old Jamie Lee who sits in the corner weeing herself as Tommy recounts another tale of his trips to Egypt whilst Susie and her mum desperately try to get the scorpions out of the sock drawer before dad gets home.

George, now with working eyes arrives back at the apartment with a plan.

Yup, it's time to go visit Adrian Marcato, professional antique dealer, collector of stuffed birds and part-time warlock.

"Smell my finger!"

Luckily Marcato is well versed in the dark arts and recognises straight away that the amulet is actually the fabled the eye of evil and is using Susie as it's portal to our dimension.

Thinking on this for a minute and taking all the facts into consideration, George decides that it's all bollocks and that Susie is just jealous because her lips aren't as pretty as her brothers but Marcato is adamant (it's the white stripe across his nose and bouts of depression that give him away) that he's correct and offers, free of charge to come over and fix everything.

Including hopefully the lift floor.

Agreeing to this our intrepid trio head back to the Hackett apartment, the race is on to save not only poor Susie's soul (tho' looking at her dead eyes I'm pretty sure she never had one) but the family a huge amount in dry cleaning bills.

"It's Cccccchhhhhrrrriiisssttmmmmaaasssss!"

Armed with only his wits and a sexy beard, Marcato begins his exorcism ceremony as the movie transforms into a blur of eyes and silence, broken only by close-ups of Tommy's pouting lips as he whispers "punish me!" to anyone who'll listen.

Scary as hell does not do this justice.

With a cry of "Birds of darkness! consume me!" Marcato suddenly rolls to the floor, sexily writhing and wriggling like your nan after a stroke and talking in Susie's voice whilst the missing (presumed bored) Jamie Lee (well her corpse) bursts out of the wall.

With Marcato inside Susie's body (but obviously not in that way, that would just be wrong) the curse is broken and Susie returns to normal leaving our psychic pal to re-enter his hairy frame and inform George that he must take the amulet and put it in the bin as only then will the family be safe.

And with that Marcato heads home for a small Sherry, a tearful wank and a well deserved Pot Noodle.

Phew.

Without further ado, George grabs the deadly piece of jewellery, legs it out of the house (being careful to use the stars) and throws it into a nearby reservoir leaving it to sink to the bottom.

Double phew.

Watch out, watch out...John Leslie's about.

With everything back to normal George can get back to digging up dead foreigners and the lovely Emily takes a break from her photography to interview a new nanny (but not before removing the last one from between the cavity insulation mind) whilst the heroic Mercato takes a well deserved break, tidying and dusting his collection of stuffed birds.

Stuffed that is until they all come alive and murder him!

Meanwhile back in Egypt, the boss eyed woman is handing the amulet to another small girl....

Unfortunately Susie doesn't sport
anything this sexy in the movie.

With riffs from movies as far afield as of The Exorcist, Poltergeist, Rosemary's Baby and the Charlton Heston snoozefest The Awakening, the question to ask is 'is Manhattan Baby a loving homage by a master film-maker or a blatant rip-off by a man long out of ideas?'

But lets be honest here, it's a Fulci film and we all love him to bits (except Cat in The Brain obviously) so at the end of the day who really cares?

But if there are any accusations of plagiarism, they can surely be blamed on the frankly bonkers script by regular collaborators Elisa Briganti and the legendary Dardano Sacchetti that takes in not only the movies mentioned above but also The Birds and The Omen for good measure.

When you put this in the hands of a director whose main concern is to make everything look nice rather than building a conventional narrative coherence you can see how some (less educated) viewers could mistake it for a rambling mess rather than for the terrifying vision of bodily possession that it really is.

Or even the "terrible movie" its director accused it of being.

Go on, you know you want to.

If you haven't already that is.

people you fancy but shouldn't (part 18).

Beth Willis, executive producer of Doctor Who and sexiest person to work behind the scenes on the show since Eric Saward and his Magneto hair.

I've gone all fanboy.

Sorry.

under. pants.

It was a friends birthday a few weeks ago so

A. being a nice man

and

B. Knowing he was a huge fan of iconic cinema God Bill Pullman

I decided to purchase him a copy of the little seen 1990 comedy epic Going Under, a kinda Hunt For Red October/Spaceballs/utter shite hybrid that seemed to sink without a trace on release.

Tho' with the ad-line When is a sub not a sandwich? When the meatballs are in control it's not really surprising is it?

Well imagine my surprise dear reader when this popped thru' my letter box instead...

Going Under (1998).
Dir: William Hellfire.
Cast: Bill Hellfire, Lindsay Loves, Chelsea Mundae (AKA Daisy DeWright), Misty Mundae, Amanda Starr and Lilly Tiger.

Anyway, I thought I'd better check it out to see if it was in any way similar to it's namesake, hoping that it would at least suffice on the jokes front.

Well at least the pompous 'Factory 2000' bumf on the back made me giggle, they see themselves as a retro 90's reincarnation of Warhol's infamous coterie of weirdos and wannabees.

But obviously without the vomit stained hair and STD's.

Oh, and talent.

Anyway, let's begin now.

Moms hair, dads coat and a drink problem
caused by constant buggery from his uncle.

Opening with two fairly attractive (well, I say fairly attractive but I mean breathing - just) young women (the pug faced, fright eyed Chelsea Mundae and bespectacled brunette rentawhore Loves) curled up on the sofa watching the latest episode of the David Jason crime drama 'A Touch Of Frost' , their evening of police based fun is interrupted when a camply dressed and horrendously overacting serial killer cum bewigged nonce (director Hellfire - not his real name) suddenly breaks into their (well, his mum and dads, they must be on holiday) house and, after what seems like days of tedious 'hip' dialogue 'forces' them to strip to their cheap market stall (and non matching) undies before making them chloroform each other in a scene of acting so wooden I swear my DVD player got dry rot.

Hankies in mah mooth!

After the poor unfortunate ladies have passed out, Mr. Hellfire (resplendent in his mums bingo coat, really thin white sports socks and a market stall Joey Ramone wig) self consciously touches them up a wee bit before strangling the pair putting both them (and us) out of our misery.

But oh no, it doesn't end there.

They have one more story of floppy tottie to thrill us with.

Happy, happy, joy, joy.

Tom Baker and Lalla Ward finalise the divorce.

A young couple (one of which is every man's guilty pleasure and professional winsome waif Misty Mundae, the other is just some guy they found down at welfare) return home after a hot date and a taco.

Asking her in for coffee (and a bloody good meal judging by the alarming skinniness of her legs) our sneaky stud sneaks another girl out of his cupboard and onto the sofa before whipping out a handy jar of chloroform and laughing menacingly.

If I'm honest I wasn't really paying too much attention at this point, finding the sensation I got from jamming a rusty nail into my scrotum far more enjoyable.

They must be watching the same movie.

Still laughing (I think he's trying to remember his dialogue) the swine forces the two girls to chloroform each other.

But not before they wrestle and squirm for a bit.

Then some other stuff happens, he touches up Misty (but then who wouldn't?) for a bit and looks longingly at her big pants whilst the cameraman tries to stifle a chuckle.

I've also heard (and read on some, less noteworthy sites) that the film suddenly twists all expectations and suddenly becomes a Hitchcockian style shocker, playing on the bizarre feelings of claustrophobia inherent in the sordid sub-culture of sexual asphyxiation and the whole sinister underbelly related to the dangers of 'stranger sex'.

Well the Hitchcock similarities could be true if it turns out that he really wanted to make amateur shlock-shock porn featuring skinny homeless teens and girls with oversized faces gurning at every opportunity.

Probably.

If I'm honest I'd have to say I'll never know seeing as I got bored and turned it off.

I mean, who wants to see Ms. Mundae throttled by a tramp (whilst, gulp, wearing clothes) when you can easily download the 24 minute snippet from the classic Dead Girls Don't Say Goodbye where Misty tells her pal about the first time she experienced girl on girl action?

At least it's short (and to the point) and luckily for us director Bill stays well behind the camera.

Fuck, my pals in for a disappointment.

comico el filtho.

More Foreign comic muck for your enjoyment!

dane wowers.

Courtesy of the fantastic DEVAG (Danish Ex-rental VHS Appreciation Group-find these and more amazing covers on facebook) enjoy these video variant visions of films we all know and love.

Can you name them all?

shite from mah mooth.

Thanks to Jazzy Jay B. for pointing me in the direction of this effective little chiller from 'The Canada' (yes you can), can't give too much away for fear of ruining what's one of the best thrillers this side of the last one I raved about.

Pontypool (2009).
Dir: Bruce McDonald
Cast: Stephen McHattie, Lisa Houle, Georgina Reilly, Rick Roberts, Hrant Alianak, Boyd Banks, Tony Burgess and Rachel Burns (but only toast).

Cowboy hatted radio shock-jock Grant Mazzy (sterling supporting stalwart Mchattie in a main role for once) has lost his job at a big city radio station, relegated to reading local news and drinking whiskey from a church basement cum local radio station in the arse end of nowhere town of Pontypool (Ontario not Wales, tho' I don't know which would be the more frightening).

Constantly berated by his producer, Sydney Briar (Mchattie's real life wife Houle), hero worshipped by her assistant, Laurel Ann (cutesy bunny Brit-chick Reilly) and forced to pretend that the 'reporter in the field', Ken Loney (Roberts) is really in a helicopter and not a second-hand van, our beleaguered broadcaster thinks that things can't get any worse.

Pontypool: not this one.

The early morning shift begins like any other with Mazzy insulting everyone and Sydney getting defensive until that is the stations phone lines are inundated with reports of strange occurrences across the town, there's a silent protest outside the local Doctor, Jeff Mendez's (Alianak) clinic, people are beginning to talk to themselves and behave erratically and to top it all there are reports of the military attempting to quarantine the town.

Mazzy attempts to eat a miniaturised Michael Jackson.

Bemused by all this town based nonsense Mazzy continues to light heartedly report the bizarre happenings but gradually finds, in part through Loney’s 'on the spot' reports and eventually through an impromptu phone call from the BBC, that the towns folks actions are becoming more and more freakish.

And not to say violent.

"Fiona! Where's mah lunch?"

As the news gets scarier and the locals get loopier a perturbed Dr. Mendez arrives at the station looking for safe refuge and someone to spout philosophical discourse and chaos theory at.

Obviously Mazzy's the man.

As the good doctor excitedly expounds his outlandish (yet scarily believable) ideas regarding what is happening to the town of Pontypool it becomes clear that what they're dealing with is no conventional virus and, if Mendez is correct, nothing can stop the unique way it spreads.

Meanwhile in the confusion, no-one notices that yummy Laurel Ann has started rocking back and forth in a creepy manner whilst mumbling to herself in the corner...

Sydney's Popeye impression always
got a laugh (now) at office parties.

Playing out like a particularly tense (a what done it rather than who done it) stage play or the Rod Serling classic that never was, Bruce McDonald's Pontypool is a taut little gem of a movie that plays cheekily with audience expectations of the genre, twisting their cinematic knowledge to breaking point before delivering a pay off which you'll either appreciate as sheer genius or laughably ridiculous depending on the amount of brain cells you possess.

Tho' worry not, 'cause if you read this blog it'll no doubt be the former.

Taking the source novel to heart, the first forty odd minutes of the film are effectively a three hander between Mchattie, Houle and Reilly as the listen to callers on air and read aloud the local police reports, the only first hand news they trust coming from Loney's sporadic and increasingly jittery on the spot rants and raves.

The audience sees nothing of the town or the events being described for the films entire running time, forcing them to imagine their own interpretation of events as they unfold.

And this is where the film truly shines.

It's a rare thing these days to find a horror movie that leaves anything to the imagination so hats off to McDonald for treating his audience with the intelligence that most of them (well a few) deserve.

Shite in mah mooth.

The cast are perfect, especially Mchattie who imbues Mazzy with the dulcet and throaty tones of a sixty a day smoker whilst cleverly keeping the characters fucked off and angry persona just this side of lovable old git ably supported by Houle whose straight laced station manager is one of the most well rounded female characters in horror since the heady days of classic Romero.

The rest of the tiny cast, from the aforementioned Reilly to an almost pitch perfect Richard France impression from Hrant Alianak via the fantastic voice only performance of Rick Roberts are spot on for summer.

Big man hugs and much kudos to McDonald for bravely stretching the horror concept as far as it can go without it springing back all limp and lifeless like your Grans knicker elastic after a torrid OAP Christmas party.

See it, love it and thank God for low budgets.

island life.

We've waited and waited for Sir George of Romero's latest undead opus to hit our screens (almost as long as we waited for a proper title) and when it finally arrives the thing is shoddily shat out by Optimum Home Entertainment with absolutely no special features (I'm surprised they even bothered putting a menu on it) and a cover illustration draw by a blind, wooden handed boy in crayon.

A cover so shockingly bad even Arrow turned it down.

Bodes well for their 'special edition' of A Lizard In A Woman's Skin.

And here was me joking that they were going to steal one of my limited edition Giallo postcards for the cover.

Of which there are a few sets still available at a mere £5, Paypal accepted.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand.

Survival Of The Dead (2010).
Dir: George A. Romero.
Cast: Alan van Sprang, Kenneth Welsh, Devon Bostick, Kathleen Munroe and Athena Karkanis.

And neither is the art of cover
design by the look of this.

It's six days since the undead mysteriously (if you don't count that pesky Venus probe) began to rise from their graves and the survivors are struggling not only to keep the ever growing zombie hordes at bay but to come to terms with what the situation actually means to humanity as a whole.

Off the coast of Delaware is the island of Plum, home to a couple of annoyingly accented, scab hatted Oirish clans with a history of drink fuelled feuding named (quite originally) the O'Flynns and the Muldoon's.

Their latest disagreement revolves around the fact that the Santa-bearded terrible tinker Patrick O'Flynn (Twin Peaks' very own Windom Earle, Welsh) wants to shoot all zombies on sight whilst pie loving, pig carrying Shamus Muldoon (RoboCop: Prime Directives Fitzpatrick) reckons that domesticating them is for the best.

And meanwhile, in an underground bunker just outside Pittsburgh, Richard Liberty's body begins to spin.

"Hoo-de-hoo! you'll never get yer
hands on mah lucky charms!"

Into the middle of all this shooting, fecking and potato guzzling comes the flame haired, boss eyed Jane (teevee stalwart Monroe), Patrick's non silly accented daughter and local voice of reason who, within the space of a few minutes manages to stop her dad being shot (persuading the manbreasted Muldoon to exile him instead) and look good in knitwear.

Which as fans of George will know is important as far as female characters go.

Back on the mainland, chain smoking tough guy (and part-time dirty looting bastard) Sergeant Crockett (Tom Arnold alike Van Sprang, reprising his role from Diary of The Dead) and his merry band of AWOL National Guardsmen are busying themselves shooting zombies, masturbating (a fantastically realistic performance from Karkanis), watching teevee and stealing armoured cars from red necks as they attempt to head north (to Canada?) and carve out a new life for themselves as a kinda travelling Hogan's Heroes comedy troupe.

Possibly.

Deleted scenes from the new John Leslie sex tape.

All this changes tho' when upon finding a wee emo boy (Degrassi: The Next Generation's Bostick) held captive by bad men, they discover an Internet site, run by our old pal O'Flynn, offering the chance of a new life on the fine isle of Plum.

Arriving at the docks to get the ferry to freedom, Sarge is surprised to find that Patrick has his own reasons for inviting everyone to join the island community.

Not us tho' I mean he's Irish and therefore cannot be trusted.

Yup, he's been fleecing all the would be travellers of their valuables, false teeth, lunch money and even in some cases their shoes.

As he sees it, there may be a global catastrophe happening all around him but why shouldn't he make some cash on the side?

Sarge, finally happy to meet a three dimensional (if fairly clichéd) character, immediately bonds with twinkly eyed old Patrick and head off to the island determined to kick Muldoon's ample arse.

Sarge farted and it was an eggy one.

Chugging along to the island our merry band make a horrifying discovery, it seems that Muldoon has been good to his word and rounded up all the dead folk in order to train them to do menial tasks.

And if all goes to plan maybe, just maybe get them to eat something other than humans.

Back in deepest, darkest Pittsburgh, Richard Liberty's body is spinning fast enough to create it's own gravity field.

"Tramp in mah mooth!"

Survival of The Dead, Big George's sixth Zombie movie (yet first direct sequel-to 2008's Diary of The Dead) finds the director appearing to embrace 'reboot' mode, almost as if the original 'Dead saga' which began in that gloomy graveyard way back in 1968 ends with the hope of some sort of peaceful co-existence at the climax of Land of The Dead.

But Survival, when watched back to back with Diary (yes, some of us are that sad) feels as unrelated to the original four as they do a part of a bigger story.

A new, lo-fi Dead saga for a more cynical age?

The island setting, the community at odds at to what to do with the undead and the water based zombie shenanigans make it seem that Big George still hasn't gotten his original, unmade script for Day of The Dead from way back in the early 80's out of his system, with ideas and characters featured in it surfacing in Land of The Dead and with the same applying here making the movie appear more of a prelude than an actual story in itself.

It's almost as if George is getting cold feet about finally finishing the story, retreading ideas regarding the feeding and domestication of the undead and concentrating more and more on the philosophical debates the litter the quieter moments of his original vision.

The problem this time is that although the original Day of The Dead is basically chat and debate culminating in mass bloodshed you never forget that the zombie hordes are there, shuffling and waiting, their moans filling the caverns, echoing thru' the underground bunker and chilling the viewer to the bone.

With Survival, there are times when you almost forget that you're watching a Romero zombie movie, with genuinely chilling ideas such as the undead postman moaning loudly as he posts and reposts his letters and the horrifying sight of Muldoon's undead wife, literally chained to the kitchen sink as she attempts to cook dinner quickly glossed over in favour of more chat and
Sarge's wise-cracking one liners.

Revenge of the disco dads.

And the movie's shock revelation as regards to what the undead will eat, which in any other Romero movie would have you gasping with surprise, passes you by with a 'hmmm', so engrossed you are with spotting the similarities to Day and humming the John Harrison score to the very same movie as the zombie's break out of Muldoon's shed.

Survival is one of those rare films that although enjoyable on some levels is really difficult to like.

Which is a genuine shame.

Criticising Romero feels a wee bit like criticising your kids school report when you know they've lazed their way thru' a term, you know what they're capable of and feel crushingly disappointed when they fail to deliver, we all know that there's at least one final great dead movie in George.

By the looks of it tho' it's the one that never got made.