YEAR 1989 directed by j. r. bookwalter

STARRING peter ferry, bogdan “don” pecic, michael grossi

Qs: 22.  AR: ãããããããããã

N       0:01:56.  A Z jumps Jason, tears out his throat and then rips into two of his buddies, campy splashes of blood splattering the very door they were trying to break in.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:03:04.  I can’t be sure, but something that looks like it might be part of a dog (there appears to be fur on it) defines the end of a long trail of blood leading across a bottle of Jack, up the sofa, through a bowl of popcorn and down the back where a Z appears to be finishing his meal.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:04:02.  The blood starts fast, hits hard and doesn’t stop.  A scene on the road goes from a simple drive to a smorgasbord, the Zs pulling people right out of their cars and eating them alive.  The sequence starts with a woman on the pavement, her right arm still up in her car, blood overall as a Z hand reaches for her.  Next, a group of Z thugs jumps out of the back of a van, a human head falling out and bouncing on the street.  Third, a man’s body that had obviously been smashed between two cars was stripped of its face, blood poured onto one of the vehicles’ hoods.  From there they storm restaurants and high schools for fresh meat, tearing into them when possible.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:05:57.  A very campy-looking ex-farmer stands alongside a Virginian road, a splatter of blood on the back of his shirt and much down his front, little remaining of the flesh that it once delivered nutrients to.  The man’s face, if we can call it that, is practically nothing but an upper jaw and a set of eyes, the nose and much of the throat gone entirely.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:07:26.  A member of the Z Squad, Richards, follows a red trail upstairs to a room where a Z is up against the wall, covered in blood, munching out of the back of a young boy.  The victim’s skin is torn open completely with B & G all over the place, the Z more or less quietly slurping it up.  Richards takes a shot at it and lands a bullet right in its head, red pouring out.  This apparently is unsatisfactory as he then draws a machete and advances on the hungry creature.  Stepping over the unfortunate’s body, he hacks the Z’s head off, the stump squirting blood as the hands flail around in nervous twitches.  The head, now lying on the floor, still moves albeit only slightly to pulse blood from the bullet hole.  The neck stump continues to squirt red everywhere while Richards reaches for his gun.  Feeling where he’s not looking, he doesn’t see the Z head as it bites off four of the fingers of his right hand, the nubs spouting blood.  The scene is given an extra point because one of the fingers emerges from the head’s open throat, its digestive system up to that point evidently still functioning…somewhat.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:17:28.  Another of the Z Squad gets his throat torn out by a hungry flesh-eater.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:17:37.  Immediately after, we cut to a shot of a split-headed Z twitching about, its skull halved almost exactly, blood and brains simply all over the place.  The camera then pans left and reveals the body of a man the skin of whose throat is held open, an electronic device positioned inside that enables him to speak semi-quasi-intelligently.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:21:38.  The good doctor shows the Z Squad half of a severed tongue injected with the re-animating serum.  Though “separated from its corpse,” it continues to twitch and live.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:22:10.  Just like Richards, when one of the men isn’t looking, the research Z, Vox, rolls its head over and takes a bite out of his wrist.  While blood squirts from the site, the lump of flesh Vox bit out of Mercer’s arm slides down his face, landing with a small splat.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:32:26.  Vincent snaps (like we suspected he eventually would) and snatches Capt. Kline’s machete, swinging it down into his left shoulder.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:34:07.  It’s feeding time at the Z zoo, researchers handing chunks of meat through the cage wire to the voracious mass.  Later, at 0:34:41, one of Rev. Jones’ clan feeds Jason meat through the bloody bars of his cage.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:38:17.  Vincent spits up a mouthful of blood and dies from his gunshot wounds.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:40:00.  Vincent’s fellow cultists tie up his body in a canvas sack and dump him into the basement wherein dozens of the walking dead are kept.  The Zs tear the bag open and rip Vincent’s fresh corpse to pieces, savoring each bloody bite of warm meat.  In the same frenzy, a rather freakish-looking Z, freakish-looking even for Zs, picks up and eats a rat.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:43:20.  The Z’s arm Raimi slammed in the door of his cruiser finally rips apart, dumping its former owner’s body in the road.  Another Z on the hood gets it worse when Raimi shoots him off the car and his body falls in its path, the tires squashing his skull flat, blood spurting from the mess.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:44:38.  Rev. Jones shoots Powers in her throat, blood splattering the back wall, running in thin rivers as the wound itself pulses red.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:53:28.  A man tacked to a wall with nails through his hands, as if he were up for crucifixion, bleeds down himself and the wall while Jason looks on.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:56:20.  Jason’s body reacts to the anti-serum and starts to break down rapidly.  First, his blackened skin turns into an oily slime that pours from his face.  Second, a spot on his head pops and spouts some sick yellow substance while more of his skin is eaten away.  Eventually, little remains and the decomposing creature dies.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:01:12.  Rev. Jones dies from his gunshot wound shortly after releasing his Z horde.  As per his final wishes, apparent by his moves in brazenly opening the doors to their rooms, the Zs rip his chest to pieces, tearing hunks of flesh and muscle off of his ribs and collectively making a meal out of the handfuls of human meat.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:04:12.  It’s a bloody slaughter downstairs in the building.  Zs eat people from wall to wall, red pools everywhere.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:07:00.  A Z takes a bite out of Raimi’s throat.  Throwing the Z to the ground, Raimi rams it in the head with the butt of his gun, an arc of blood being spit out as he goes down.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:07:48.  Zs eventually break into Dr. Moulsson’s cage and tear his face off of his head, break his legs in half and pull them off and yank his tongue out by the roots.  Then, jointly they tear into his chest and start pulling out random organs, intestines and such.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:10:00.  Raimi, fully turned, yanks the throat out of one of the doctors and starts munching away at it while fellow Zs work on Kuller and everyone else.  SR: SSSSS

N       JFF: Just like Stephen Norrington’s Death Machine (to come five years later, 1994), there are abundant references to other directors and big players in the horror genre:

N       One of the first characters we meet, Jason, is likely named for the renowned killer from the Friday the 13^th series.

N       An officer from the Z Squad is Raimi as in Sam R., director of the Evil Dead.  Also, for legal reasons I presume, J.R. was never allowed to say his name on-camera, but Sam was also the executive producer for the film.

N       A Z researcher is named Savini after Tom S., makeup effects wizard and actor.

N       A civilian character is named Vincent – though I can’t prove it, I know it’s for Mr. Price.

N       As expected after I watched Death Machine, one of Rev. Jones’ congregation is named Carpenter after John C.: Halloween, In the Mouth of Madness, Assault on Precinct 13.

N       At 0:37:00, Raimi walks up to a curious tussle in the middle of an open field between several normal-like people and others with wire masks.  One of the people who flees when he approaches has on a hat and striped shirt like Freddy from the original Nightmare on Elm Street from five years earlier, 1984.  The exception is this individual’s shirt is blue and yellow rather than red and green.  The hat, however, is alike.

N       0:46:53 begins a sequence in the congregation’s basement on one wall of which can be see the orange spray-painted message romero is king, naturally after Day of the Dead [O] (which is picked up in the rental store scene early on) director George A. Romero.

YEAR 1992 directed by robert zemeckis

STARRING goldie hawn, bruce willis, meryl streep

Qs: 3.  AR: SSSSSSSSSS

N       0:50:34.  It takes a little bit to pay off, but Ernest gets fed up to the hilt with Madeline’s belittling of him and so lets her fall hard down their marble staircase.  While he phones Helen, Madeline gets up.  Her head is twisted around 180° and consequently she has quite a difficult time walking.  The special effects that created this sequence are indicative of Zemeckis’s style (live action/animation with Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the time-traveling effects in Back to the Future and almost everything in Forrest Gump) and won the award for Best Special Effects in 1992.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:55:53.  The sequence at the doctor’s office is an absolute scream – Madeline is rushed there by her strangely helpful husband and the doctor begins to give her a once-over.  The reactions are priceless that he gives as all of his years, decades maybe, of medical training go right out the window and he struggles to understand how someone in her condition can be sitting where she is.

N       0:59:13.  An unfortunate bike accident victim bleeding from both knees and elbows.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:08:08.  Madeline has long recovered from her little accident and still bears the grudge with Helen.  She takes it to her in a big way with an elephant gun to the stomach.  The shot throws her back into the pool, the water turning a grim red.  While Madeline and Ernest plot to hide their crime, Helen gets up out of the pool, ruddy water pouring out of the giant hole in her midsection.  For a while she struts around, everything behind her completely visible through her body until Ernest fixes it.  During their hysterical shovel fight, look carefully when Ernest goes upstairs and we can see the girls only in silhouette – the hole is in the wrong shadow.  SR: SSSSS

N       1:36:49.  No one can ever forget the finale to this freak show – you’ll go to pieces.  J

YEAR 1994 directed by stephen norrington

STARRING brad dourif, ely pouget, william hootkins

Qs: 6.  AR: SSSSSSSSSS

N       0:11:33.  Dante turns on a wicked cartoon where a man in a white lab coat smashes a dog in the head with a wooden mallet, blows said head off with a shotgun, cuts him up in four pieces and stomps on them in a bloody splat.  SR: SSSSS

N       0:32:06.  The camera pans past a setup of bloodied computer equipment, an appetizer before the main course – Scott’s body, damaged in ways that have to be seen to be believed.  It looks as if he’s been folded in half, had his throat ripped open and had his entrails dragged out and left hanging all about the blood-soaked mess he became. SR: SSSSS

N       0:51:54.  The Death Machine’s giant front claws stab through Yutani’s leg.  SR: SSSSS