Terror in the Aisles 4: Undead By Dawn

This past Friday, Portage Theater hosted another Terror in the Aisles but this time it was aimed towards the zombie subculture, so naturally I had to tag along. This time around they were going to show Night of the Living Dead and Fulci’s Zombie on 35mm print and then they presented to us REC 2, the Midwest premiere. In between each break there would be ‘trailer trash’ and independent short zombie films. It’s also good to note that I finally realized who actually started the Terror in the Aisles film festival and it was none other than Chicago’s own… Rusty Nails.

The evening started off with 20 minutes of trailer trash that was somehow consolidated into 3 trailers. The first trailer was for the brilliant film Mean Streets. The second trailer was for the gorefest that is Dead Alive and the last trailer was for Gobstopper, which I have to talk about.

Gobstopper

I’ll admit, when I saw the trailer for this I let out an expression of slight disgust because I thought the concept for it was really tacky and stupid. However, I warmed up to the idea of a Willie Wonka going bat-shit insane and using real people to make his candy. I found it hysterical that Christopher Lloyd agreed to play the part of the crazed chocolatier. Slugworth is racked up in chains and on the verge of death, the Oompa Loompas have bloody handprints on their shirts; it all looks like great fun and I would love to see it.

Official site.

Afterwards the showed us a brief 20 minute clip for One for the Fire: The Legacy of ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and I was a little bored by the clip, but than again… it was only half of the movie so I would want to see the full film eventually.

And now for the films:

Night of the Living Dead

This was shown on a 35mm print and it was nice to see this in the theater as opposed to watching it late night on TV. I forgot how character driven the film was and how the arcs molded out throughout the film. I also forgot how Barbra looked completely stoned out of her mind the whole time, specifically when she is touching the lace on the couch. It’s also nice to note that the zombies in these films are significantly more brutal than the latter Romero zombies because they pick up rocks and bash in windows.

There was a Q&A with Bill Heinzman afterwards and he was the man who started it all, the very first zombie to ever appear in Night of the Living Dead and the first modern zombie. He was a fun guy and he did his zombie walk for all of us.

Bill recalling his time working for George.

Bill doing his zombie walk for the audience.
And the crowd goes wild!

Me and Bill.
I know, I’m a fan boy.

REC 2

I did not see REC but I did see Quarantine and from what I know, Quarantine is a direct, almost word-for-word remake of REC so I did understand what was going on in REC 2. All I can say is that I really enjoyed this film and I enjoyed the perspective of having 3 different cameras. Even the twist, which is in the beginning, is great and why these people are suddenly going crazy. I’ve come to the conclusion that these found-footage films are always creepy because they really utilized the silence in the movie.

They also held a zombie contest for who is the most sexy looking zombie, who is the funniest zombie and how is the most disgusting looking zombie. Needless to say, it was no Zombie Pageant

Zombie (aka Zombie 2)

Where can I begin with this movie; it’s campy, it’s corny, it’s really good, it’s epic and the score is hypnotic. This was the first time I saw this film and I have to say… after the zombie vs. shark scene I knew it would get better. I love the idea of having zombies, as part of some voodoo, terrorize an island and it was executed perfectly. The gore was fantastic but sadly that can’t be said for the acting.

I’ll have a full review of Zombie on Buy Zombie.

The sexy zombies.

Shockingly, I did not see Kitty Zombie at all during this event. Overall, it was a fun time at the Portage and as I always like to state during these event treatments, it was really nice to see all these films on the big screen.