Category Archives: Zombie horror

Watch Zomblies online, free, legal: Excellent 2010 zombie horror short film

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poster - Zomblies, 2010 UK zombie horror short filmCountry: U.K.
Director: David M. Reynolds
Horror themes: Post-apocalpse, zombies, undead, gore, firearms, war, first-person cam
Tagline: THEY ARE FAST NOW
Verdict: 7/10… Great zombie horror short film; it’s actually hard to believe it’s low-budget, visually speaking — kudos to Dave Reynolds and the rest of Realm, as well as the entire crew and the 200+ volunteers that made this short film happen. Zomblies is a must-see for all fans of zombie horror; it is free to watch anytime online (see the streaming video below; just press PLAY)!

Official trailer, Zomblies, 2010 U.K. zombie horror short (watch entire film below)

This killer short horror film has been made available to the masses via YouTube, as I discovered during the writeup process a couple of days after watching the film. There’s no need to feel guilty downloading and/or watching this flick online, free of charge!

Zomblies plot synopsis

In a post-apocalyptic version of the present or the near-future, the zombie hunting unit of a private militia runs into major trouble and sends a distress call to headquarters – located on the safe side of “The Wall” which protects what’s left of humanity on the island nation. It’s up to the Rangers – a heavily armed unit containing both vets and rookies – to make it back to the Wall, cross back over The Wall into relative safety, as well as uncover the truth about a terrifying virus which – after killing the infected – also reanimates the dead, creating a quick, dangerous, carnivorous zombie.

Watch Zomblies online free here

Be sure to use the full-screen option to maximize your experience

This short film is apparently the first from writer/ director/ actor/ visual effects specialist David M. Reynolds, who has successfully created this exciting, edge-of-seat zombie horror. Kudos, man. This is low-budget successfully masquerading as Hollywood. The visual effects are outstanding.

The zombie-hunting unit includes:

  • Jack, The Chief
  • Bear, The Tracker
  • Nickel, The Marksman
  • Walker, The Big Guns
  • Drew, The Science
  • Bull, The Comms

Although the official budget was around five thousand pounds U.K., this is rather misleading as Zomblies was clearly a 200-member-strong team effort from which no one will profit financially, directly, per an interview with Dave Reynolds at Zombie Command.

Thanks to Realm, the actors, the crew, and all the volunteers who made this possible – and thanks for giving us this video at no cost, online, and allowing others to embed it.

Resources: Zomblies, 2010 U.K. zombie horror short

The House by the Cemetery, 1981 Italian supernatural horror

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a.k.a. Quella villa accanto al cimitero (original Italian title)

Country: Italy
Director: the unforgettable Lucio Fulci
Horror themes: undead, murder, creatures, blood, body parts, cellar, H.P. Lovecraft, corpses, haunted house, gorefest, mannequins, decapitation, zombie, ghost girl, psychic warning, tombstones, medical experiments, psychotronic, bats

This is REAL HORROR… none of that remake sh%t or teen preppy horror. This is the real deal!! (Source: Quote about The House by the Cemetery from YouTube)

The House by the Cemetery: U.S. trailer for Lucio Fulci’s Lovecraft inspired… (1:50)

Synopsis of The House by the Cemetery

A deranged killer lives in the basement of an old mansion and pops out occasionally to commit grisly murders that include be-headings, ripped throats, and stabbings with a fireplace poker. The killer needs fresh body parts to rejuvenate his cells. He also has maggots for blood.

About The House by the Cemetery

The House by the Cemetery represents the third installment of Lucio Fulci’s Gates of Hell trilogy which also includes City of the Living Dead and The Beyond. Its plot revolves around a series of murders taking place in a New England home – a home which happens to be hiding a particularly gruesome secret within its basement walls. Themes and motifs from popular horror films such as The Shining, The Amityville Horror and Frankenstein are readily on display.

Trivia about The House by the Cemetery

Bob’s voice – the voice of Bob in English is irritating because it has been doubled by a girl and unfortunately also in the Italian version it is the same. That’s because at the time girls doubled little boys (also in the cartoons). Luckily nowadays the voice of kids stays the same. I know that The House by the Cemetery and other Fulci movies are difficult to understand and this is because they have a psychological meaning you have to interpret; also, The House by the Cemetery leaves a lot to the imagination.

The House by the Cemetery:Trailer for the gore classic by Italian splattermaster Lucio… (3:26)

These older psychotronic exploitation horror movies directed by Lucio Fulci are in a class by themselves. The House by the Cemetery
is disquieting as hell, even ominous – but to me this is a different type of creepy/scary than most modern horror movies (e.g., Paranormal Entity, Insidious). Fulci-branded horror is more disturbing and unforgettable than most other horror titles. American horror fans who have not yet ventured into Italian horror have a few surprises waiting for them, that’s for sure.

The highly controversial film art of Lucio Fulci was initially met with disgust by critics and movie industry moguls the world over. Dario Argento and Mario Bava (two other great Italian horror directors) tended to employ a certain amount of artful technique in their films, but – by contrast – Fulci’s direct approach certainly did not skimp on the gore. Even so, the best Lucio Fulci horror titles are not just gorefests; they were not merely gore for the sake of gore… they are so much more. Although this blogger and supernatural horror fan looks down on excessive gore, generally speaking – Fulci gets a pass!

The scariest Lucio Fulci horror movies

In chronological order…

  1. Zombie, 1979 (a.k.a. Zombi 2) – IMDb (Rating: 67)
  2. City of the Living Dead, 1980 – IMDb (Rating: 61)
  3. The Beyond, 1981 (a.k.a. Seven Doors of Death – the U.S. censored version)

Resources: The House by the Cemetery, 1981 Italian horror

Originally written on Saturday, June 25, 2011

“Bombshells”: The House episode with a zombie horror sequence

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Dr. House fights zombie versions of his staff in the House episode Bombshells“Bombshells” is the fifteenth episode of the seventh season of the American medical drama House, originally airing on March 7, 2011 – and part of it plays out like a classic horror movie.

“Bombshells” is one of the more creative and unique episodes of House that I’ve seen so far; however, I’m a recent House convert and haven’t been watching the show for more than a few months. As a horror fan, my favorite part of the episode was the nightmare sequence that had Dr. House fighting scary, rotting, cannibalistic, zombie versions of his medical staff at the teaching hospital in some sort of a nightmarish, post-apocalyptic setting. Dr. House even brandished a special axe version of his cane with its own retractable blade, which he handily used to decapitate the first zombie. Then he whipped out a shotgun component which transformed his cane into a functioning shotgun, which Dr. House then used to take care of the remaining zombies. Excellent!

Resources: “Bombshells” – The House episode with zombies

Dr. House fights zombie versions of his staff in the House episode Bombshells

The Dead Outside, 2008 low-budget Scottish zombie flick

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movie poster - The Dead Outside, 2008 Scottish zombie horror movieCountry: U.K./Scotland
Director: Kerry Anne Mullaney (Amazon.com)
Horror themes: zombie, low budget, outbreak, farm, remote, character study, virus

Synopsis of The Dead Outside
A neurological pandemic has consumed the Scottish countryside. Drug resistance has mutated the virus into a ravaging psychological plague, rendering the ‘the dying’ desperate, paranoid, and violent. Two survivors end up sharing an isolated farmhouse under desperate circumstances: April, a mysterious young girl who has survived alone for months; and Daniel, a desperate and bereaved man clinging desperately to hope. When a third person appears on the remote farm – a woman who seems to take to Daniel – they are confronted with a new enemy even deadlier than the one beyond the perimeter.

movie stills - The Dead Outside, 2008 Scottish zombie horror movieMy thoughts about The Dead Outside
Although not the most action-packed zombie movie, The Dead Outside is a well done low budget/ B affair. (Technically speaking, this is not a zombie movie, per se: the protagonists have not risen from death. It’s a viral infection.) The project really does work, but not everyone will enjoy it. The Dead Outside is definitely worth a watch for the true fan of zombie horror; I’d suggest that others learn a little more about this movie before diving in.

The Dead Outside is more of a character study than most zombie-style flicks and does not follow a standard walking dead (or in this case, walking infected) horror movie plot.

The Dead Outside is one of many movies that blurs the line – technically speaking – between zombie horror and virus/disease outbreak horror. From a technical standpoint, it is a virus outbreak and not a walking dead or resurrection situation. This is one area that adds some wrinkles to my efforts in horror movie & horror theme categorization. Other horror movies that blur the line between zombie horror and virus horror:

The Dead Outside would be more accurately described as zombie-style horror (as opposed to Zombie horror). Perhaps I should change the Zombie horror category to Zombie-style horror, which would include two sub-categories of Undead and Virus/disease.

Trying to create bullet-proof categories for supernatural horror movies has proven difficult.

Resources: The Dead Outside (Zombie-style horror movie)

Reviews of The Dead Outside (2008 U.K. horror)

Should zombie horror movies be included in the realm of supernatural horror? That is, are zombies supernatural? Are zombie movies supernatural movies? (My answer, obviously, is Yes.)

  1. Answer one: Sort of. One could argue that the undead, or the walking dead, is a supernatural phenomenon. (I sure hope it is.)
  2. Answer two: Not really – especially when the culprit is actually a viral infection as opposed to the literal undead.
  3. Answer three: Hell no – and your blog sux!

Resident Evil: Apocalypse, 2004 horror movie

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Amazon:

2002′s popular video-game-derived hit Resident Evil didn’t inspire confidence in a sequel, but Resident Evil: Apocalypse defies odds and surpasses expectations. It’s a bigger, better, action-packed zombie thriller, and this time Milla Jovovich (as the first film’s no-nonsense heroine) is joined by more characters from the popular Capcom video games, including Jill Valentine (played by British hottie Sienna Guillory) and Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr, from 1999′s The Mummy). They’re armed and ready for a high-caliber encounter with devil dogs, mutant “Lickers,” lurching zombies, and the leather-clad monster known only as Nemesis, unleashed by the nefarious Umbrella Corporation responsible for creating the cannibalistic undead horde. Having gained valuable experience as a respected second-unit director on high-profile films like Gladiator and The Bourne Identity, director Alexander Witt elevates this junky material to the level of slick, schlocky entertainment. – Jeff Shannon