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The
Dead Hate the Living!
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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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4
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10 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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"What
would Bruce Campbell do?"
That's the rhetorical
question asked by one of the trapped characters in The
Dead Hate the Living! as rampaging zombies pound on a
barricaded door. It should give the reader an excellent idea
of just what to expect from this low-budget horror from Full
Moon Pictures, Charles Band's indie House of Puppetmasters,
Demonic Toys and Bloodstones. Loaded with references to great
zombie flicks of the past, it's a fun if slight excursion that
fans of Raimi, Romero and (particularly) Fulci should readily
enjoy.
A small film crew,
comprised entirely of Gen-X twentysomethings, is illegally shooting
a low budget horror film in an abandoned hospital. Bruised egos
and internecine sniping are the gang's only problems until Topaz
(Jamie Donahue), a cute blonde production assistant, stumbles
upon a collection of bizarre laboratory equipment in the basement.
The opportunistic young director, David (Eric Clawson), immediately
decides to incorporate the setting into his movie; he's particularly
keen on using a weird, casket-shaped machine that's covered
in strange runes. It's just too "cool" not to use as a prop.
The discovery of a dead body inside the coffin-machine doesn't
dissuade David in the least. He even wants to use the corpse!
(A plot element cribbed from 1972's Children
Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, by the way.) David's
actress sister Shelley (Wendy Speake)
the only person with a damn lick of sense
smartly advises against it. Refusing to be involved, she storms
off while her brother cajoles the others into going ahead. In
the process they end up activating the coffin-machine, which
not only reanimates the corpse but opens a dimension door to
a spectral plane populated by the living dead. The dead man
longhaired Rob Zombie lookalike Dr. Eibon (Matt Stephens)
turns out to have been an alchemist who pursued the black arts
in an attempt to resurrect his late, beloved wife. He commands
a legion of undead ghouls who emerge from the machine to seek
out living victims for him to make more zombies out of. Why?
'Cause the dead hate the living, that's why!
As he states in the
disc's audio commentary, first-time director Dave Parker's goal
was to make a movie expressly for a particular group of horror
fans
the "Deadites" and Fulci freaks among us. In this he mostly
succeeds. The film contains a plethora of reverential references
(Topaz's car has a "Fulci
Lives!" bumper sticker on it, while the late Italian director's
name is also glimpsed on a tombstone), lovingly ripping off
scenes from a whole host of movies. This makes for an extremely
derivative film, of course, but one that at least does so with
a knowing (and open) wink, tongue firmly in cheek. Parker has
the good sense not to take anything seriously
With a ridiculous
story like this, how could he? Not all the comedy works well,
however, given the limitations of the mostly inexperienced,
no-name cast. With the notable exception of Stephens, who's
quite good as the undead zombie master Eibon, the male actors
(those with dialog, anyway) are all pretty amateurish; the ladies
Donahue and Speake
are the best performers here.
Fortunately, The
Dead Hate the Living! contains a pair of memorable zombie
performances: ex-NFL player "Doc" Newman as Maggot, a hulking
ghoul adept at smashing down doors (and punching holes through
people's guts a la Riki-Oh), and Gaunt, a shambling 8-ft. nightmare
played by the very tall Matthew McGrory. The makeup used to
realize these "featured" zombies is quite effective.
The rest of the FX are all over the place. To its detriment,
the film relies too much on strobe lights and cheesy CGI. And
the whole "homage" thing, while cute at first, is
taken just a bit too far... There's a completely pointless resurrection
scene, with slo-mo shots of Eibon's horde clawing their way
out of the graveyard set erected by the film crew
which makes absolutely no sense considering the zombies have
already emerged from the coffin-machine. Parker also
swipes his ending straight from Fulci's The
Beyond. Yet, despite its numerous flaws, I found The
Dead Hate the Living! a passable way to satisfy a craving
for zombie mayhem. Just be sure to check your brain at the door.
You won't need it.
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Full
Moon's DVD of The Dead Hate the Living!,
which I picked up on a lark in the bargain bin of a retail store
for under $10, is quite a package considering the film's low budget
origins. Presented fullframe (a direct-to-video feature, it was
likely shot that way), the print is virtually flawless. Stereo
sound is crisp and robust.
Surprisingly, bonus
features are plentiful. There's a production art gallery, a photo
slideshow, a music video by the punk band Penis Flytrap (which
I didn't care for, frankly), the film's trailer, and a series
of short text articles by Parker (Memories of the Dead),
expressing his thoughts on the cast. Also included is a 20-minute
"behind the scenes" documentary weaving clips from the
film with interviews of Parker and the main cast members. Even
with a tendency to wax pretentious
c'mon, y'all, it's just a cheapjack zombie flick!
these kids obviously put a lot of heart into it. Best
of all is the feature-length audio commentary with Parker and
lead actors Clawson, Donahue, Stephens and Beardslee. Often funny
and boisterous, it's actually more fun than the movie itself.
10/09/01 |
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