Two new releases this week, along with some fun catch-up films.
We’ll start off with the brand-new underground tunnel-chase, “Scurry” and then go out to the retro-desert in “Brute 1976.” We’ll take a walk on the silly side with “Lavalantula” from 2015, and then finish off the George Romero zombie series with the final two of his films: “Diary of the Dead” 2007 and “Survival of the Dead” (2010).
A bunch of winners this week!
The latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #48, is on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link:
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Mainstream Films:
2025 Scurry
Directed by: Luke Sparke
Written by: Tom Evans
Stars: Jamie Costa, Emalia, Peter O’Hanlon
Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A claustrophobic view of a big disaster event has us following a couple of survivors as they work their way out of an underground obstacle course of collapsed buildings and streets. And is there more going on than just a local earthquake or something? Just how bad could it be? We travel along with them to find out. There are some hints given in the opening seconds.
Spoilery Synopsis
We see some kind of apocalyptic disaster happening from out a skyrise window. There are alarms sounding. People are running and screaming. Then we hear growling noises from down the hall and one running woman dies in a wet splatter against the wall. Maybe we aren’t at the top of the food chain any more. We fly over the city, and there is a big blackened pit that is surrounded by burnt out emergency vehicles, and it pans down to a dead man laying there and no, he’s not dead. He wakes up. He’s trapped under a chunk of rubble. He pulls out his cell but can’t get through to anyone. He finally thinks to use his phone as a flashlight and looks around. He finally gets through to his wife’s voicemail and explains what happened from his point of view. He levers himself free..
Mark hears a chopper flying over, which is hopeful, but then it crashes right next to the hole he’s in. The hole collapses behind him, trapping him in an underground tunnel. He pulls out a piece of glass that impaled him, but he’s not bleeding too badly.
It takes a while for Mark to get his bearings, and he hears rocks falling all over the place. He finds a woman’s purse and digs through it for anything to use. He finds a video camera with an infra-red feature, which is useful.
He gets a jump scare when the woman who owns the purse shows up. She’s Sarah. There’s a rock slide or something, and she soon vanishes. No, she’s hiding, “Shhhh. They’ll hear us.” He sets her dislocated bone, but she says everyone up above is dead, no one is coming for them. She’s very paranoid that he’s going to leave her alone. They talk about their kids, but she seems to know a lot more about what’s going on than he does. She’s not really Sarah; that was a stolen purse. Then she pulls a gun on him. And things get complicated.
As they argue over who gets to hold the lighter, something growls nearby. “They’ve found us.” Mark uses the infra-red camera but doesn’t see what it is. They run for a while but eventually, Mark gets a glimpse of the creature behind them with the camera. She notices that she’s lost her pills and wants to go back, but he says that’s stupid; this leads to her pulling the gun again. He has to go back for her pills and notices that the creature seems to be stuck in place, so he’s OK for now.
Mark wants to know what she knows about the creatures. They killed her sister, dragging her right out of the car. He explains that he was just crossing the street and fell into what he thought was an earthquake sinkhole. “Nothing can survive up there,” she says. He doubts that everyone is dead. They continue to crawl through the tunnel until they see a light; it’s not an exit, it’s just a flashlight someone dropped. They find the flashlight’s owner, dead, and go through his stuff. Turns out, he’s not dead, but when he starts to scream, one of the creatures eats him.
Now Mark believes in monsters. They argue over her hard-as-nail attitude since she still doesn’t trust him. As they argue, one of the spiderlike monsters spears Mark and pulls him away. Is this creature an alien, or was it always down here? We don’t know, but the woman’s story makes it sound like they came from space. She continues on, crawling through the tunnel until she catches up to Mark who is lying there; somehow, he killed it with his knife– he’s got to be some kind of marine or special forces.
Mark then explains his sad life story. He drunkenly started a house fire that nearly killed his son. He left the family after that, and now he feels he still can’t protect them. She gives him advice, and now they’re friends.
After an incredibly long time, they come to a room where they can stand up, and it’s full of bodies. They can hear shooting and bad things happening through the sewer grate above. There are soldiers up there, and they hear the two down below and offer to help. “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be OK,” they say. And then we hear them all die up there; our guys get absolutely drenched in blood.
Mark and the woman are forced to keep on crawling through the tunnels since one of the monsters is trying to get to them through the sewer grate. She finally tells him that her name is Kate. Just to make things worse, they both have to swim through a flooded, dark, murky tunnel.
They finally find a way outside and see the light. Happy Ending (with forty minutes left). As they crawl to the opening, a creature pops up between them and the light at the end of the tunnel. It takes a look at them and then goes back the way it came, where we hear more screaming.
Mark and Kate climb over the open hole, slowly, and try not to wake up the creatures down there. By the time Mark makes it over, Kate has died from her internal injuries. As he climbs over her corpse, we see just how many of the creatures are scurrying around in the tunnels below. Rather than continue to the exit, he goes through her pockets and sets her body on fire… in front of him, blocking the exit. No– he just imagined doing that. Then he lays there within sight of the exit and plays with his phone for a while. I guess her body must be blocking the tunnel, but it doesn’t look like it.
Suddenly, Mark’s phone pings; he’s got a message from his wife. “These things are coming from beneath the ground and sunlight makes them grow bigger and bigger. Please come home,” she says. His desire to live re-ignited, Mark goes back to the vertical shaft the alien was in and uses the phone to attract a monster. It crawls up and takes Kate’s body, unplugging the shaft (he could have pushed her body into the shaft much more easily).
Mark then crawls up the shaft toward the light. A monster attacks, but Mark sets it on fire with the lighter and alcohol they found; it backs off quickly.
As Mark emerges into the daylight, he sees that the monsters have grown to skyscraper size outside, and there are many, many, eggs.
Brian’s Commentary
This is one very dark movie. Make sure you watch this one at night, in a dark room, or you’re likely to miss something. That said, being so dark, they didn’t have to show as much of the creatures. I think they were going for the same kind of scares as “The Descent” (2005), but the characters and tunnels here aren’t as interesting. We get to know more about them as they go along, but the whole film is basically just two characters in a narrow tunnel, so it takes a lot to make that interesting.
It was a good concept, but I felt it was too slow-moving. I was yelling at the screen after Mark just lay there talking to Kate’s corpse for like twenty minutes in front of the exit. The creatures do look really good once we get to see them and the ending was bleak enough to satisfy me. Overall, I thought it was entertaining, but there are some issues with the characters making dumb decisions.
Kevin’s Spoiling Commentary
I had excellent dim viewing conditions, but like Brian said, it is best in a dark room. Dim room at least. I can still see.
Those two must have had really fit legs by the time they were done, as much squatting and crouching they had to do working their way very realistically to an escape.
What a situation. Like just surviving an impact like that and having to work very hard to try to dig yourself out isn’t hard enough. Imagine being pursued by meat-eating creatures too. I like how little we see of the creatures for so long. The characters don’t see them either for a long while, only hearing the sounds. It really helps tighten the sense of being there in the same boat with them. And then we all see them. Why did it have to be spiders?
I don’t ever want to be in a situation where someone asks, “Is your flashlight waterproof?” That water scene was chilling.
The acting is amazing. It’s immersive. I thought it was excellent. Full disclosure, my computer locked up, I was doing remote work, and I didn’t see the last 20 minutes. Right around when Kate died. I won’t mind rewatching the first part to get there.
2025 Brute 1976
Directed by: Marcel Walz
Written by: Joe Knetter
Stars: Adriane McLean, Sarah French, Gigi Gustin
Run Time: 1 Hour, 45 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s another killer family and a group of victims who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. They captured the retro look and feel of this one very well, the acting is good with well-defined characters, and the special effects were very realistic. It wasn’t anything particularly original, but it’s well put together and entertaining.
Spoilery Synopsis
August 19, 1976, in the desert, we zoom into two girls broken down on the highway. The road is completely deserted, so hitching probably isn’t going to happen. “There has to be something off this road,” as June and Raquel begin walking. They eventually come to an old, abandoned mine and go inside to cool off. There are lights already on in the mine, and they stop for some kissing. They hear something and get spooked. A man with an axe shows up, and the screaming starts. They are very much not alone in the cave– Raquel sets one of the men on fire, but another comes out with a chainsaw. Credits roll.
A bunch of stereotypical 70s young people park in the desert in their van. The driver explains that this place is called “Death,” or at least that’s the nickname because so many people go missing here. He says “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” was based on what actually happened right here. Ray says, no that movie was based on Ed Gein, not anything around here. The group is here for a photo shoot for Roxy and Raquel, who hasn’t arrived yet.
Elsewhere, Raquel wakes up and finds herself chained up in a barn. Daisy, a bald man in drag, walks in, and he’s not sympathetic to her plight. He wants her to call him pretty. He’s wearing the breasts he removed from June. She gets away but is soon recaptured by Brutus, another masked man. She’s returned to captivity, where she watches the now-three masked men dismember what’s left of June.
Since Raquel hasn’t shown up for the photo shoot, everyone talks Raquel’s sister, Sunshine, into taking her place. They soon finish, but the girls want to visit the ghost town they saw a little while ago. “One of us is definitely getting murdered here,” jokes the driver. They soon run into Mama Birdy, who lives there. She says it’s fine to look around, just stay on this side of the road.
As the group explores, we get to know the group a little better. Ray goes into an outhouse and finds a glory hole. He tries it and very quickly regrets it. Sunshine and Roxy talk about how much Roxy likes Adam. Jordy explores with his camera until he comes across one of the masked men. He avoids that guy but then runs into Brutus with his chainsaw. Brutus turns around and sees Sunshine standing there watching.
Mama Birdy cackles when Charlie hears the chainsaw across the road. She knows all about the killer family. He goes looking and finds Sunshine locked in a box. Daisy shows up, and Sunshine stabs Charlie. Could she be in on it, or is she just wildly incompetent?
Adam and Roxy barricade themselves inside a building as Brutus cuts his way in. Sunshine walks in just as Brutus breaks Adam’s back. “You got him. He was too nice anyway,” she says. They don’t see Roxy, who’s hiding. Sunshine and Brutus have sex as Roxy listens from under the bed.
Sunshine runs to Roxy, pretending to be innocent, and she’s got the keys to the van. Roxy knows what’s up and knocks her out, taking the keys. Turns out, they’re the wrong keys, and Roxy gets stuck in the van as Sunshine menaces her from outside. “You’re the chosen one,” Sunshine taunts.
We cut to Mama Birdy and Raquel, who is still chained to a bed. “You’ve outlived all of your friends,” Mama congratulates her. Roxy manages to talk to Phoenix about Sunshine, whom she tattles about Brutus. Brutus and Phoenix fight, and Brutus easily wins.
Mama rings the church bell, and the whole group gets together. Sunshine, Daisy, Brutus, Roxy, and Zeus all march into the church. Mama Birdy stands up, and she’s got very realistic-looking bat wings, like a demon. Mama talks about the Bicentennial and how there’s no real freedom in the USA. “Technology is creating a new world, one of hate. A reckoning is coming.”
They all want Roxy to join their weird family. Roxy talks about how people living in the past will be weeded out, generation by generation. Zeus leads Raquel in and threatens to kill her. No, Raquel has joined the family now as well. Raquel stabs Roxy; she really has gone over to their side, fully brainwashed.
Later, Raquel has a saw to cut up Roxy, but Roxy’s not quite dead and stabs her first. Roxy then staggers off to lie down next to Adam and die.
Brian’s Commentary
It’s a retro-slasher film that borrows heavily from Texas Chainsaw, which even gets a callout in the film itself. It’s a killer family, for no real reason other than they like it. As isolated as they all are, why bother wearing masks? It’s the desert, it’s gotta be hot.
The masks worn by the killers are really distinctive and well-designed. The characters are all individuals, and you get to see their personalities before they’re brutally killed off.
It’s very good!
Kevin’s Commentary
This one had me feeling nostalgic for my childhood when I was taken to see “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” when I was nine. And it reminded me of other 1970s films in the horror genre that I saw then and again since. This movie is like them only made with better effects and a bigger budget. It’s good and entertaining.
2015 Lavalantula
Directed by: Mike Mendez
Written by: Neil Elman, Mike Mendez, Ashley O’Neil
Stars: Steve Guttenberg, Nia Peeples, Patrick Renna
Run Time: 1 Hour, 24 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Steve Guttenberg does a fine job playing an actor thrown into a horrific situation, with a great supporting cast. Despite horrific deaths and mass destruction, this manages to be funny. A big budget was at work here, but not on the CGI - but it gets the job done. It’s a mix of serious and ludicrous that is very entertaining in a dumb fun kind of way.
Spoilery Synopsis
We watch some bad men beating up a former special forces CIA FBI Spy guy. They want him to talk, but he’s not a superspy for nothing. No, wait– he’s an actor in a movie. He hates bugs, but this movie’s about bugs, so that’s a problem. Colton West leaves the set, but he’s a has-been who used to be in a bunch of bad action movies.
On the drive home, he hears about earthquakes on the radio. He gets a call from his angry manager, Arni, and then his wife, Olivia, who wants to know why he’s so late. Suddenly, the mountain erupts in a ridiculous explosion of CGI fireballs– and giant spiders! These giant tarantulas are covered in lava themselves, and Colton wastes no time getting away from the disaster.
Both Arni and Olivia feel the quaking, but they haven’t seen the spiders. Colton gets home, and she thinks he’s lost his mind. For some reason, she doesn’t believe his story of fire-breathing giant spiders. He grabs his shotgun and leaves to find his son, Wyatt, who’s way too old to be a teenager.
Olivia calls her friend Doris, whose little dog won’t quit yapping. When the dog does finally shut up, there’s a good reason: he’s been toasted, and she’s next. These spiders like their meat cooked.
Wyatt, meanwhile, is downtown riding his bike with friends when they see another big explosion and helicopters flying over. He and his friends soon find a lava-filled hole in the pavement that explodes spiders. They hide in a warehouse, but several of them are injured in the process.
Colton, meanwhile, has lost his car due to the tires melting, and can’t catch a ride. He finally flags down a tour bus, and they’re happy to finally see a celebrity.
Olivia checks out Doris’s house and finds several spiders eating her well-done friend. They chase her all the way home, where she sees the city on fire. Now she believes Colton’s story. About this time, the spiders are all over the news, as is Colton’s stealing a tour bus.
Colton’s bus literally runs into a pack of spiders, with hilarious results. The busload of foreigners all think they’re in a movie and cheer on cue.
A spider breaks in and goes after Olivia, who is very armed and dangerous. The spider doesn’t stand a chance.
Colton and his new sidekick Chris run into an actor-turned-pirate in downtown Hollywood. Suddenly, the spider-quakes return. We watch as various Hollywood landmarks collapse and dozens of spiders crawl out of holes in the street. Colton runs into Fin Shepard, the guy from all those “Sharknado” movies and they admire each other for a minute until Pirate Jack picks up Colton and Chris.
Olivia gets on the military evac truck; they say it’s really bad in the city. Wyatt and his friends try to evade the spiders, who are slowly burning their way into the warehouse. Colton, Chris, and Jack hide in the La Brea Tarpit Museum with Dr. Struble. Struble is a scientist, and he tells them that the spiders and volcanos are one: Lavalantula! If they kill the mother Lavalantula, they’ll all die. Colton immediately heads for the queen.
Olivia’s truck and soldiers all get wiped out, leaving her on her own. She ends up driving a huge army transport back into town for her family.
Wyatt and Eli watch their girlfriend, Jordan, go into convulsions after being bitten by one of the spiders. She soon explodes into a million little spiders, who promptly burn up Eli, leaving Wyatt on his own.
Colton gets a text telling him where Wyatt is just as a really huge spider comes out of the tar pit. Pirate Jack gets fried, but Colt and Chris fight off the huge spider.
Somehow, Olivia finds Colt and they drive off together to save their son, who’s been making use of a fire extinguisher to battle the spiders. They arrive just in time to find him, but they lose their truck in the process.
Colt remembers the liquid nitrogen they used on the set of the bug movie this morning, and he wants to use that against the spiders. When they get to the studio, Colt sees his Red Rocket outfit, designed by NASA for his old superhero movies. Teddie and Marty are there from his movie as well. They know all about liquid nitrogen, and the group assembles to make a plan to beat the queen spider. They have some explosives too!
The group enlists other actors and film crew to spread out and plant canisters of frozen liquid nitrogen around the holes where the spiders live. Colt gives a long, yet rousing speech to raise their spirits as the hopeful music swells. It’s all very over-the-top.
As they drop bombs, Marty makes funny voices and Colt can’t keep a straight face. Meanwhile, various actors drop tanks into holes all over town. Colt, Marty, and Teddie work together to battle the unstoppable horde, but they do stop them.
Colt leaves the others and goes after the queen. The others detonate the bombs, which are a little excessive. They don’t, however, get them all, so there’s another battle– until the queen breaks through the ground and comes up, and it’s really something.
Colton, in his Red Rocket costume, has all the C4 and uses his jetpack to Iron-Man his way over to the huge spider. They climb the side of a skyscraper, and Colt drops the C4 right into the spider’s mouth, killing it.
The news all reports on Colt’s heroics. Most importantly, his family now respects him, which is good. Marty says he smells a sequel coming on…
Brian’s Commentary
There are an amazing number of cameos and special appearances by familiar faces, especially if you enjoyed the old “Police Academy” films. Steve Guttenberg is basically playing himself, a washed-up actor who now lends his face to cheap movie posters. He’s… perfect for this role, and he does really well here, taking it all very seriously– but not really.
It’s a cheaply made horror-scifi-comedy parody of creature features, basically in the same vein as “Sharknado” and similar films. If you’re into those, you’ll probably like this.
It’s goofy, campy, stupid, and very entertaining all in one
Kevin’s Commentary
It was funnier than I expected. Just because there are loads of horrific deaths and mass destruction doesn’t mean we can’t have a good time. At the same time, there was more suspense than I expected too.
Dr. Struble with the best movie title usage ever “The Mayans had a word for it: Lavalantula.”
The CGI is pretty obvious in the film, but the horror aspects are taken seriously. It’s a real hybrid of a movie. Spoof, reunion, horror, comedy, action, suspense, eco disaster, stupidity. And the ending was way out.
Overall, it was super entertaining, which is the fundamental reason to watch.
2007 Diary of the Dead
Directed by: George A. Romero
Written by: George A. Romero
Stars: Michelle Morgan, Joshua Close, Shawn Roberts
Run Time: 1 Hour, 35 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This contains a lot of found footage style, as we follow some film folks that started out making a horror movie until the real horror hits. Then they start making a documentary. It’s not bad, but it’s not Romero’s best work in the series. There wasn’t enough new, and we both rate it as just okay.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on police and ambulances at a crime scene. Bree is a reporter, talking about the murder-suicide. In the background, one of the corpses is still moving– and attacking the paramedics. All the corpses suddenly get up, and the cops open fire. Bree is killed, and the cameraman uploads the footage to the Internet. We get further news reports of the zombie apocalypse, now in progress. Jason Creed made a film, “The Death of Death” compiled of found footage from the incident. This is that film…
We open on a film crew making a very lame-looking mummy movie. It’s Jason’s senior project for film school. They all hear about something weird on the news. Tony is skeptical of the news, since it’s all made-up anyway. They all decide to pack up and leave for safety.
Jason goes to the dorms and finds them not only wrecked, but there’s a looter clearing out stuff. He loads the friends he can find into an RV and tries to find a safe place. Mary, Debra, Tony, Eliot, Gordo, Tracy, and Professor Maxwell are all trying to make their way home.
The group comes upon a car crash on the road, and there’s a dead man wandering around. They run over a few of the “people” as they pass, which makes everyone stop joking about it. Mary, who was driving, gets out of the car and shoots herself in guilt. The group rushes her to the hospital, but the place is oddly deserted. An undead doctor shows up, and Gordo has to shoot him.
Jason stays behind to recharge his camera as the others spread out to find help. Debra comes back and tells Jason about her encounter with a zombie in the next room. As the group reconvenes, Mary dies and starts to change. On the way out, Gordo gets bitten in the arm; by morning, he’s dead. When Gordo gets up again, Tracy shoots him.
The RV breaks down at a farm in the county. There’s an old Amish man there who can’t hear or speak. He knows all about the dead, and he’s got dynamite. They get trapped in the barn, and the old man gets it before the RV starts again.
The group encounters another group and follows them to a big warehouse. They see a news broadcast that has been edited to make things look… not so bad. It’s all Fake news. They upload their own footage to MySpace, which was a thing in 2007. Jason and Debra argue over the appropriateness of filming the end of the world.
The group hears about one of the men who died from a bad heart and then went missing… inside the compound. They find the man and Tony throws a bottle of acid on him. The man keeps staggering around as his head melts. Before they leave, the group gets food, supplies, and weapons.
The group makes it to Debra’s family home, where she’s supposed to meet family. Her family is missing, but there seems to have been trouble there already. They soon find the family, or what’s left of them. The group decides to get back on the road and leave.
The group is stopped by the National Guard. Turns out, they just want everything the RV group has. They take nearly everything but the weapons. We start seeing videos online of soldiers and “the good guys” turning against civilians.
They go to the home of another student they know, Ridley. The front door is standing open, which is a bad sign. They find Ridley, still dressed like a mummy. He’s rich, weird, and sketchy. He says Francine is out back with his family and the staff. They are indeed out there, but all is not well. He separates from the others, and we see that he’s been bitten.
Ridley chases Tracy through the woods, just like a horror movie. She whacks Ridley with a rock and steals the RV, leaving everyone else behind. Meanwhile, Ridley, totally not dead, kills Eliot. Jason, Debra, Tony, and Maxwell discuss hiding in the safe room until this all blows over, but Jason wants to stay outside and keep filming. “All that’s left is to record what’s happening for whoever remains when it’s over.” Still, on the way to the safe room, Jason is killed.
Debra decides to finish Jason’s movie. She wonders if humanity is worth saving…
Brian’s Commentary
It’s mostly found footage, more or less, edited into a finished project. It somewhat hits on social media, cameras being in everyone’s hands, fake news, and everyone having an opinion online; Romero’s gotta put in the social commentary, and there’s a lot of it here.
Found footage was all the rage in 2007, so it makes sense that Romero would try it, but it’s not innovative anymore, and it actively detracts from the story.
It’s very… meh.
Kevin’s Commentary
I thought the filming stuff, a movie within a movie of sorts, was pretty cool actually. It’s just that the rest of the movie didn’t have enough that was new or interesting. It’s solidly made with good special effects, but overall I thought it was just middling.
2010 Survival of the Dead
Directed by: George A. Romero
Written by: George A. Romero
Stars: Alan Van Sprang, Kenneth Welsh, Kathleen Munroe
Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s an action zombie flick with military action, set on an island off the coast of Delaware that is populated by Irish people and cowboys for some reason. While this wasn’t actively bad, we were both disappointed in it, feeling it lacked Romero’s usual touches and relied too much on CGI augmenting practical effects. It’s a weak finish to the “Dead” movies.
Spoilery Synopsis
Sarge narrates how the zombie apocalypse simply overwhelmed the living. The soldiers argue over killing one of their own who has been bitten. We get a flashback to when Sarge and his AWOL soldiers robbed a bunch of filmmakers in an RV. Credits roll.
We cut to Plum Island, off the coast of Delaware, six days after the dead began to walk. Patrick O’Flynn and his friends went around the island and killed all the zombies. They go to see Matthew, whose children were “injured” a few days ago. The men end up shooting the children’s mother and then go after both children.
Suddenly, Seamus Muldoon comes in and makes O’Flynn stop. He thinks somebody’s going to find a cure, so he wants to round up the zombies and protect them. O’Flynn and his gang backs down and leaves. O’Flynn is exiled in a tiny boat, but his friend James and daughter Janet opt to stay behind and work with Muldoon.
Three weeks later, Sarge and his crew investigate sounds in the woods. They run into some hunters who have a whole bunch of living heads on sticks. They kill the zombie heads and the hunters, and pick up one young guy who goes with them. The kid suggests finding an island where there aren’t any zombies. He shows them a video made by O’Flynn, and it’s a sort of recruiting video for Plum Island.
We cut to the docks, where a hapless fisherman catches something too big to reel in. The soldier group arrives. Francisco ends up swimming to the ferry as the others fight the Irishmen. The Irishmen lose badly, as only O’Flynn escapes alive and makes it to the ferry with the soldiers. The group sets to work on clearing the ferry of zombies.
O’Flynn tells the story of his exile, and they soon arrive at Plum Island. There’s a gunfight, and Kenny gets killed. They find the bodies of all the other people that O’Flynn had sent here for safety.
Meanwhile, Muldoon has rounded up a bunch of dead and is keeping them in the barn. Muldoon’s been killing the dead recently if they don’t “show promise.” He wants the dead to learn to eat something other than people, but they won’t touch a pig.
Francisco got bitten during his swim earlier, and he knows he’s going to turn. He asks Tomboy to kill him. She’s immediately captured by Chuck and Lem, two of Muldoon’s men. Muldoon questions her over dinner. He’s got his dead wife chained up in the kitchen. Of O’Flynn’s daughters, Jane is a dead zombie, and Janet is alive and helping Sarge’s group. Janet and O’Flynn argue about family responsibilities.
There’s a standoff between the two groups, and O’Flynn decides to surrender to the Muldoons. After a lot of discussion, there’s a shootout, and the zombie corral gets opened. Muldoon eventually shoots O’Flynn in the back, but O’Flynn returns the favor. Then Janet sees Jane eating the horse; maybe Muldoon was right after all. O’Flynn gets up and shoots her as well.
Sarge, Tomboy, and the Kid go back out to the ferry and move on to another place.
We cut back to the island, where the zombies are eating the horses now. We see Muldoon and O’Flynn, now zombies, still trying to kill each other…
Brian’s Commentary
I still wonder why this island in Delaware is populated exclusively by Irishmen with thick accents and cowboy wannabes?
It’s a Romero movie, so I was expecting social commentary of some sort. If it was here, I missed it this time. It’s basically just an action zombie movie, probably the weakest of the series.
Kevin’s Commentary
These are supposed to get better as they go along, not worse. It was clever putting in a direct link to “Diary of the Dead” with a different point of view when Sarge and his group encountered the film folks. CGI, when it’s obvious, isn’t an improvement over purely practical effects. I’d call this one my least favorite of the series.
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