ZOMBI 2 - Lucio Fulci - "Let's Eat Out Tonight" (1979)

I'm switching nights with Tabonga on this part of the Halloween Countdown to wish Reverend Tom Frost a Happy Freakin' Bloody Birthday, and I can't think of a better way to do it than with Director Lucio Fulci's monsterpiece of blood and guts from 1979, "Zombi 2" or "Zombie" or "Zombie Flesh Eaters," whatever the Hell you want to call it!! Now Reverend Tom Frost is about the most Halloweenish guy I know, and one of the few people in modern society that knows how to make a black cat moan, so here's to him, Cheers mon ami and Bon Appétit!!!

Lucio Fulci's ""ZOMBI 2" is a story unto itself! Today the most popular show on television is "The Walking Dead," but in 1979 it was quite a different story! Although made in 1979, Fulci's bloody banquet wasn't released until 1980, but only as long as it had one minute and 46 seconds cut out of it and was given an X rating! In 1984 the movie was actually banned and was put on the 'video nasty' list! It was cut and re-cut, rated and re-rated over the years, and finally the full version was released in 2005! I'm honestly not a big gore fan, but this film didn't seem THAT bad compared to tons of stuff made in the last 20 years! It just came out in the wrong place at the wrong time!!

Not all thoughts are original!  George Romero's "Dawn Of The Dead" was released in Italy as "Zombi" so Fulci changed the name of this film to "Zombi 2" to cash in on the zombie craze!

As the film opens, the viewer is faced with a loaded gun! In an uncensored scene, you see a body bound and wrapped in a shroud, get shot in the skullbone!

A boat drifts into New York harbor, everything's a mess and there's nobody on board! So it seems until a big zombie jumps out of a closet, and runs amok and then he gets shot and falls in the ocean!

Tisa (Anthropophagus) Farrow is the daughter of the guy who owns the yacht! She and a journalist played by Ian (Contamination) McColloch are thrown together by fate, and must search out the reasons for this big mess! They get a lead and head out to the tropical island known as Matul!

Here's where I get just a little unhinged! The kindly Doctor on the island refuses to accept the reality that voodoo might just really exist, and spends all his time in denial! He only believes in science despite what he sees happening in front of his eyes for the last couple of months! The Doctor is played by Richard (The Haunting) Johnson! Richard has had a long and varied career and is still working today!

The Doctor is so removed from the reality around him that he leaves his wife alone in their house while he's miles away, even though she is scared to death about what is happening all around her! She wants off the island, but instead is one of the first victims of the new mass zombie attack! Olga (Purple Rain) Karlatos has the role of the wife!

Olga is one of the first large scale all you can eat zombie buffets that the locals imbibe in! This scene was edited out of the earlier versions!

After that, it's time for the zombies to go after the Doctor and all the new arrivals in a no holds barred bloody freak fest!!  This zombie's mug was used on a lot of the posters!

Here's a couple of great shots of the zombies shuffling in for the big "Zombie Jamboree!" Really, these zombies would be quite easy to outrun, actually you could skip, and still get away from them!

The zombie's awesome make-up was done by Giannetto(Cannibal Apocalypse)(When Men Carried Clubs and Women Played Ding-Dong) De Rossi. Not necessarily these three, but a lot of the zombies in the movie look alike because there were four brothers, the Dell'Acqua clan, Alberto, Arnaldo, Ottaviano, and Roberto playing members of the zombie community!

They can't think, so the zombies move around like they are in some slow motion mosh pit, taking turns at banging into the door with their sides, which eventually breaks the door down! They just know they're hungry!

In the end, Tisa and Ian somehow manage to escape the island and get back to New York. They're going to be surprised that's it's not going to be as difficult as they thought to convince people they just got off an island full of zombies! Fulci didn't have a big enough budget to stop traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, so despite the zombie takeover, there's still a bunch of cars driving around!

These days you can see the whole reviled uncut version on Creepster TV for a pittance! Anybody up for a cheeseburger and a beer?

THE MUMMY'S CURSE - Codee and Orth - "Hey, You!" (1944)

Curse that dang mummy, who's he think he is anyway, Lon Chaney??

Well, the reason this classic has got our ear tonight, is because at the very beginning of the film, the viewer is treated to this special moment, a pretty cool song by the lady of the house, the Belgian beauty Ann Codee, as barkeeper Tante Berthe! The song is called "Hey, You" and was written by her husband Frank Orth, along with another gentleman, Oliver Drake. Ann and Frank had a vaudeville act back in the day, called what else but "Codee and Orth!"

Unless something changes, this will be the last sound clip we feature! It's gotten far too complicated to be fun any more, and Kurt Katch as Cajun Joe agrees 100%. So our focus will no longer be on the music, but more on the films themselves. I thought offering up a short sound collage was a good way to give more insight, but I didn't know it was going to be such a headache. So welcome to the new look....

Peter Coe is Dr. Ilzor Zandaab, racial profiling aside, is it really possible to trust a guy wearing a fez?

What's really incarnately evil is the power duo of Dr. Zandaab with the fez, and Martin Kosleck, the future supremely execrable Professor Peter Bartell in "The Flesh Eaters!"

They've got a lot in common! Looks like the prefect couple to me!!

Virginia Christine is Princess Ananka, and you gotta admit, she cleans up pretty good!!

Kharis, the peeping mummy! What a perv!

You better watch out, because in about 15 minutes of so, I'm gonna get you!!

Kind of an awkward time to catch up on your pole dancing techniques, isn't it ladies?

This is one awesome painted backdrop, and they wisely use it more than once!

It's not bad enough that Lon had to wear all those bandages, and carry Christina around, now it's time to go up stairs! Great!!

Big Thanx to Douglas McEwan for sharing the following tasty bit of information, and correction in the Comments Section:

"I knew Virigina Christine a little bit, who was a wonderful woman, the wife of lip-popping Fritz Feld. I talked with her once about this movie. She told me that when Lon as Kharis had to carry her up those worn and uneven temple steps, she was strapped to him under her and his costumes, so he literally could not drop her.

Unfortunately, they shot it after lunch. In those days, sad but true (Remember, this is what Virginia Christine told me herself, face-to-face), Lon drank his lunch and was very drunk when they shot it. (Universal usually tried to get Lon's scenes in all movies shot in the mornings, because he was always useless after lunch.)

So predictably, Lon fell in doing the scene, fell on her! Since she was strapped to him, she couldn't get loose or out from under this much, much larger person, and was severly squished aganst the steps under Lon until they could first cut her loose and then roll him off of her. They could not roll him off of her when she was still strapped to him, It was impossible.

So Lon then went off to his dressing room to drink the rest of the day away, and Eddie Parker came in and shot the scene. That's Eddie Parker carrying her up the stairs in your screencap above."

The lighting on this shot is really cool, and they use it on each group of people that come down the stairs!

Despicable contra Loathsome, who will come out behind?

The pith helmet just sets off the whole shot!

"The man in the fez, he turns around and sez, I'd like to help you make your trip!" - Country Joe

All right kids, go off, and be good now, ya hear? Right!! You can't tell me they didn't knock it out before they even got out of the tomb!

HOUSE OF HORRORS / Universal Pictures - 1946

It's a hot and humid summer day, here at the Dungeon... Anyway, here's a rare treat for us, all about a struggling expressionist sculptor who enlists the aid the notorious Creeper to model for his newest creation and to pay back the critics who rebuffed his work.

I have a sound clip for your approval, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button located there by our mad sculpture lab, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula!.. Here's... HOUSE OF HORRORS!

Here's sculptor Marcel De Lange played by Martin Kosleck, he's having dinner with his little pal. My little pals like to lay right in the middle of everything when I'm working on my art. Martin was also in Dungeon favorites like THE MUMMY'S CURSE, THE FROZEN GHOST, THE FLESH EATERS and AGENT FOR H.A.R.M.

After being insulted by an art critic and losing a sale, Marcel grabs a big old knife and chases the two out of his studio. He's so distraught that he plans on committing suicide at the docks...

But, as luck (or unluck) would have it, Marcel rescues The Creeper from the drink instead. He helps him to his studio and brings him breakfast and tells him of his plan to use him as a model for a new sculpture.

Here are Virginia Grey and Alan Napier as reporter Joan Medford and her editor, F. Holmes Harmon. She's interested in the Creeper case...

Here's glamor artist Steven Morrow working on a piece with his model. Robert Lowery plays the artist and Joan's boyfriend.

Marcel sics Rondo on this art critic in his paisley smoking jacket!

Meanwhile, Marcel is hard at work on this large bust of the Creeper...

Joan has stolen the sketch of the Creeper to give to the newspaper, but unfortunately, Rondo was hiding in the background and saw her take it. When she returns to see Marcel, the big guy rats her out!

But, in the heat of the moment, Rondo turns on Marcel and finishes him off over the sculpture, then goes after Joan...

The police have arrived and shoot the Creeper through the window, bringing our tale to a sad end. Check back in on Wednesday for more from The Dungeon gang!