Mutant (1984)

Talk about boring poster art... Chock full of plot holes and laughable action scenes, Mutant falls somewhere between a zombie flick and a epidemic movie, similar to today's 28 Days Later. Of course this low budget, campy, 80's flick doesn't play like the polished 28 Days Later, it plays more like The Children (1980) and I couldn't help but see similarities between the two films. Mainly due to the virus being passed through the zombies hands instead of saliva.

Two brothers from the big city decide to get away from the rat race and head down south for some rest and relaxation. Instead they are greeted by hostile rednecks in a pick up truck, who throw everything from beer bottles to truck tires from the bed of the pickup at the outsiders. The hillbilly's run the brothers off the road, sending their little sports car off a bridge and into a lake. The brothers eventually make their way to the local pub, where they have yet another altercation with the not so tolerant locals.

Bo Hopkins, who I remember best from The Wild Bunch as the crazy son of a bitch who shoots the hostages and says "Well kiss my sisters black cats ass", shows up as the drunken sheriff and breaks up the fight. He sets the boys up with a place to stay and tells them to leave town as soon as their car is fixed which never happens due to a viral epidemic caused by (Yes you guessed it) toxic waste.

The small town hicks are dropping like flies, only to get up and walk amongst the dead as pasty faced zombies with slits in the palm of their hands that leak a yellow substance that looks identical to the blood in the Phantasm movies. The simple makeup is effective and fun and we also get a bunch of 80's latex-bubble-skin special effects. Unfortunately Mutant doesn't offer any gory head explossions but we do have our fair share of dead children, which is always a plus. In one of the best scenes a hot school teacher is trapped in a elementary schools bathroom stall while undead, zombie children try their best to get at her.

Mutant doesn't offer any nudity or explicit gore but for a under the radar zombie flick it serves as a decent time passer. Dead children, angry rednecks, bad acting and zombies with deadly hands. Check it out for something different.

28 Days Later (2002)

Take Omega Man with Charlton Heston and cross it with Dawn Of The Dead and you would come out with something like 28 Days Later.

Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) takes on an apocalyptic style horror flick about a man who awakes from a coma and finds he is alone after a viral epidemic has destroyed London. England has been quarantined and the the whole country has been killed off by the outbreak of violence.

The thing that makes 28 Days Later interesting is that the obstacle is not zombies. These people aren't dead at all. "They have been infected by rage". Sounds pretty silly but no more ridiculous then an outbreak of flesh eating ghouls in a George Romero flick.

Like a Romero flick the characters have plenty of depth to them and never come off as one dimensional but come on, we came here to see people die. We have a strong female lead played by Naomie Harris and she is quick for some chop-chop action with her machete. Unfortunately she doesn't offer up any nipples. The most we get is a bra shot in an attempted rape scene but the female audience is treated to some swinging dick action from Cillian Murphy who plays the main character. Aside from his penis we have the privalege of watching him push in eyeballs with his fingers and kill an infected child with a baseball bat. We also have some gun violence and some blood spewing but over all 28 Days isn't a very gory movie. Instead it relies on fast paced chase scenes and jump scares. Unfortunately there is more cgi then needed but its still a good watch.

Its sad to say but I would take 28 Days Later any day over Romero's Diary Of The Dead or Survival Of The Dead. Its been a long time since anyone has made a decent zombie flick. Maybe Boyle should try one out.

Isle Of The Dead (1945)

You really have to be in the right mood for this one. Its a little on the boring side but the story is very good, with strong characters. Isle Of The Dead stars Boris Karloff as a British General who is trapped in a house on a small island in Greece. The plague has infected some of the people in the house and Karloff quarantines the perfect strangers. He threatens to kill anyone who tries to leave the house because he can not risk the plague spreading to any of his soldiers.

The thing that makes Isle Of The Dead so interesting and appealing to me is that every character has their own beliefs. Some believe in science while others believe in god and the super natural.
For me the real horror is showing the war between science and religion and the fact that an idea can spread as fast as the plague and do just as much damage.
Karloff's character is a man of logic and science and he is appaled at the fact that the people he is trapped with believe the plague to be the work of a evil spirit. An old woman in particular rants about how one of the girls in the house is a sort of demonic vampire. This infuriates Karloff and causes him to further alienate himself from the others. This is until Karloff's character becomes sick himself and the influence of the others finally corrupts his mind. This is when peoples lives are really at risk.
Isle Of The Dead is only worth watching for its subject matter. Its the perfect movie for anyone who looks at religion and finds it to be completely insane. Otherwise I'd just skip it.

They Came From Within (1975)

They Came From Within also known as Shivers is another great from David Cronenberg. Its almost like a cross between Night Of The Living Dead and every epidemic film ever made. This one is so awesome because the viral parasite is spread through sexual penetration, so the movie is almost a message on the scary and fast spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Conenberg also chooses to make the victims become sexual deviates which allows for lots of sleazy and creepy rape scenes. The movie also has a nice amount of gore in it and lots of nude scenes including actresses such as Barbara Steele and Lyn Lowery. They Came From Within also has some very weird scenes including a sexually charged child and another where two young girls are being walked on leashes like dogs. The parasite in this movie also looks like a piece of shit. This thing is spewed up with blood in some scenes and in others it climbs up into vagina's (Barbara Steele's vagina to be exact). They Came From Within is often compared to Cronenbergs Rabid but in my opinion this one is a bit better. Either way they are both great horror films from the Canadian king and should be seen by everyone.

Alpha Incident (1978)

I really enjoyed this movie but I'm not exactly sure why. Its your typical quarantine, virus, epidemic film and it has a very thin story line. The film is pretty much all dialogue and it pretty much takes place all in one room but some how it manages to really hold your attention. I think the reason I liked this one so much was because of the character Hank. Yes sir!, Hank just might be my favorite tobacco chewing, drunk train conductor in any movie ever. Come to think of it all of the characters are hilarious here. We got Charlie (played by Ralph Meeker) a perverted old man who stashes his porno mag, whack stack in a drawer at work and checks out his young, not so attractive employees ass every five seconds. Then we got a suicide scene where a girl blows her brains out and that's always good for a laugh. Best of all it all concludes with a Night Of The Living Dead type ending and I always love those. So if you're into epidemic films and ya don't mind a bit of chit chat you might want to check this one out. Its not the best thing in the world, I mean it was directed by the same guy who did Monster A Go-Go but its a good time killer.