Ah ‘tis the season for mindless hordes consuming mass quantities, and devouring the flesh of the living. After a recent visit to the mall last weekend battling shoppers on cruise control, and then reading of the recent Walmart trampling tragedy, I couldn’t help but be reminded of zombies run amok. And since I hate most Christmas themed films (when are they going to make A Christmas Carol with Anthony Hopkins? “I ate his liver with some cranberry sauce and a nice rum eggnog! Slurp! Slurp!”) I thought I’d review some of the best zombie flicks reminiscent of some of the folks you’ll meet at Chinook Centre over the next few weeks.

Dawn of the Dead (1978)
The second film in George A. Romero’s zombie saga is once again set in Pittsburgh, PA where the zombie plague is gaining momentum and the populace is figuring out that it’s time to get the hell out of the city (like you need an excuse!). Two soldiers, a comely news producer and her jackass boyfriend, escape the city by helicopter and set up refuge inside a giant shopping mall. The foursome must first eradicate the wandering zombies currently occupying the mall and then fortify the doors to keep other undead shopaholics from popping by for midnight madness. The 2nd act of the film shows how life can go on during a zombie apocalypse as long as you have groovy muzak, and a convenient master key to every store in the mall. Alas, life is ruined by scuzzbucket biker survivors who covet thy neighbor’s mall and attack the fortress, allowing the zombie throngs in to consume and consume!
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Why don’t filmmakers remake movies that sucked in the first place instead of classics that can’t be duplicated? Director Zack Snyder has the audacity to reimagine Romero’s 1978 version by updating the zombies from slow, lumbering menaces to ravenous, track record-breaking speed freaks and creating 4 times the number of survivors under siege in a mall. The survivors include many of Canada’s familiar character actors and lead by Canuck darling Sarah Polley, looking rather embarrassed to be starring in a commercial vehicle with no cultural contribution.
The assortment of survivors reads like a who’s who of 70s Irwin Allen disaster clichés including a pregnant woman, a sweet but spunky old woman, a dolled-up slutty bitch, an arrogant yuppy scumbag, a scrappy teenaged girl, and a strong, imposing African American cop. The poorly written screenplay churns out the clichéd characters as if served up on a buffet conveyer belt on maximum warp without bothering to give them any development that would allow us to care whether they become lunch. The mall itself was uninspired and unlike its predecessor, had no character. No one has a sense of its lay-out save for the fact that it apparently has no escalator and only one elevator to access the 2nd floor. And the worst of all – no H & M! The film does deliver some improved scenes than the original, including a rather touching sub-plot dealing with a lone survivor atop his ammunition store across from the mall. Not to mention the exciting escape finale (the bikers didn’t make the cut) where we witness a Pimp My Ride transformation of two mall shuttles into chainsaw wielding Mad Max style deathmobiles.
After Dark Horrorfest: Mulberry Street (2007)
Two years ago, this nifty low-budget indie screened at the Calgary Underground Film Festival at midnight to a modest crowd. Not until recently has it been available on DVD and is the perfect stocking stuffer for the zombie enthusiast on your Xmas list, as chances are they won’t have seen it, and that they will surely enjoy it! Keeping with the original notion that zombie movies are subversively political, the film’s characters are working class New Yorkers living in a shit-hole tenement who have recently been evicted to make way for a new development project. If you ever wondered what would happen if zombies invaded Forrest Lawn then this is the movie for you! The zombie plague is instigated by rats in the NYC sewer system who start to see human beings as if we were made of swiss cheese. The infected humans transform into zombie-like rat people with a taste for human flesh.
As “cheesy” (sorry I couldn’t resist!) as that sounds, the plot is conveyed with much seriousness and with much success leaving the dark humour to stem from the likeable assortment of characters left to defend their slum, including a tough but vulnerable ex-prize fighter named Clutch (Nick Damici) and his long-time best friend and drag queen Coco (Ron Brice) who secretly longs to be more than a high concept buddy team. The survivors also include a pair of senior veterans (where Statler and Waldorf went to live once the balcony closed on The Muppet Show) and a single, working mom (Bo Corre) who really gets the ultimate f*$& you in the fate department. However, the film’s most political jab is the role of Clutch’s daughter Casey (played by Kim Blair) who has just returned battle scarred (literally) from her tour in Iraq and spends the entire length of the film trying to fight her way home to her father across New York. Look forward to a good old- fashioned Romero ending on this one, where the noble characters always die in the most ignoble of ways - by their own people
Night of the Comet (1984)
The world has come to an end thanks to a deadly comet that microwaves anyone who sticks around to watch the light show. Two valley girl sisters Samantha (Kelli Maroney) and Regina (Catherine Mary Stewart) appear to be the only survivors. Nothing says apocalypse like a shopping spree! But gag-me-me-with-a-spoon, it turns out that a secret military operation nearby has gone horribly wrong and their zombie experiments have escaped from the lab and are also headed for the mall. It’s a good thing these girls had a marine daddy who taught them how to shoot Uzis because it’s shop ‘til you drop time! This guilty pleasure is not only funny, but also like totally tubular to the max.
Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild (2008)
Yes ma’am we are still talkin’ zombies as this retarded, half-assed sequel to the deliciously sexy and stupid spoof of teen sex comedies features one of its better moments - in a nightmare sequence that crosses Romero with ChiChi LaRue. I’ve always thought bathhouses were great fodder for a horror movie as apparently did screenwriter Todd Stephens who scribed a scene where boy-next-door Andy (Jake Mosser) goes to a seedy bathhouse to find his sexy crush only to be cruised by the undead. Andy and his sexy Latin crush Luis (Euriamis Losada) end up on the receiving end of a fisting scene that gives new meaning to “gut crushing”.
Matt Salton is the festival director of the Fairy Tales International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in Calgary. He can be reached for comment at reelpublicity@yahoo.ca
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