Zombie Finger Exchange Rate

In The Quick and the Undead (2006) — an Old Western/Modern Zombie mash-up that spins the tile of 1995’s The Quick and the Dead — YET ANOTHER viral outbreak results in 75% of the world’s population being recycled into skin-snacking zombies. Bounty hunters roam the land collecting zombie fingers as a means to pay the rent. How these things are considered a medium of exchange is beyond my financial grasp.

The bounty hunters look like they came from the Old West, with one guy doing a pretty decent Clint Eastwood impression. Everyone is wearing leather chaps, old time cowboy hats and packing six-shooters. Only thing missing is a zombie stagecoach and/or saloon with swinging wooden doors.

He lures the undead with fresh human meat and picks ’em off as though shooting at carnival ducks. But another bounty hunter and his gang of three is upset because their hunting territory has been infringed upon. So they shoot him, cut off his finger (hey, it counts) and take his hat and cool leather cowboy coat. But the guy isn’t quite dead despite being shot in the gut area and having been bitten by a zombie.

It’s not explained, but he developed a resistance to the viral infection. Harder, though, to build up resistance to bullets. So he tracks his “killers” down to shoot them and reclaim his money fingers.

Along the way hordes of zombies follow the kitchen-fresh scent of the living, with both situations converging for a classic old style showdown. One unlucky meal/human, gets chewed into while still alive, and before he expires, utters “choke on it,” an homage to the same line in 1985’s Day of the Dead. Thank you for remembering.

P.S. Even though she took the title, author Kimberly Raye’s meh-selling book The Quick and the Undead (2014) has cowboys, but no zombies. Instead, she frames vampires as the protagonists.

P.P.S. Kimberly meh or meh not have gotten the “idea” from 2010’s Cowboys & Vampires (aka, Dead West).

P.P.P.S. Just to be safe, do NOT let Kimberly sit behind you in class.

Monster Bugs and Monster Monsters

Upcoming camptacular movies like Monster-Zilla and Bugs 3D are like prepackaged snacks: cheap, momentarily satisfying and very cheesy. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. If you walk around being smart and brain-like all day long, it’s nice to park your particulate matter every once in a while and just live in the moment.

So in the immortal words of Sir Clint Eastwood, “Was I in focus? Then let’s move on”…

In Monster-Zilla, easily the worst if not laziest titled movie of the year, “two Navy SEALS are sent to an abandoned island in search of a “package,” but instead of being the hunters, they find they are being hunted by a creature that’s big and hungry.” I guess the island isn’t quite abandoned after all.

Bugs 3D, with no more effort put into its title as well, is a little more promising: “In the near future, due to huge demand for protein, synthetic protein is rapidly developed around the world. A fanatic geneticist has managed to raise super bugs that can provide high-quality protein at low-cost. But the bugs break out, devour scientists, and turn into giant monsters. Numerous monster bugs hankering after flesh and blood swarm into the sea and wait to rage a holocaust.”

They’re not far off on that whole “bugs providing protein” thing; watch Snowpiercer (2013) and tell me you’ll continue eating protein bars. Sure, the package lists the ingredients as grains, fiber and chocolate chips. But according to the future, it’s all ground up dung beetles mixed with flavor.

That should bother me, but it doesn’t. I’ve probably eaten worse.

There Is Only One Vampire

While there was a diaper-smudging scary vampire movie that came 15 years prior (Les Vampires/1915), Dracula, made in 1931, is the gold bar standard for ALL vampire movies since. And they did it without blood, fangs, a movie soundtrack or the Internet. All it took was an awesome story, spooky ass atmosphere, a few rubber bats, and Bela Lugosi’s famous arching eyebrows, which McDonald’s ultimately stole for their logo. True that.

Renfield works as a leasor for Count Dracula, and travels overseas with some papers for Carfax Abbey, his new rental digs in bloody, bustling London. Once in town, Drac steps out for a bite, then off to a symphony (regarded as a metal concert back in those days.)

Dracula needs Renfield to do minion bidding for him, so he unleashes the now-famous Drac stare-down, the evil equivalent of a Clint Eastwood cowboy squint. (Squint Eastwood. Heh.) This turns Renfield into a minimum wage employee who eats company bugs.

And here’s where a second star is born. Renfield’s maniacal stare and ultra-creepy smirking laugh STILL freaks one out to this day. No one since has managed to goon people out the way he did. You should know the rest of the story from here.

Dracula sucks on Mina, the movie’s hot chick, although Drac’s three vamp brides back at the castle are creatures with some nice features. Now Mina has permanent crampy “woman” problems.

Van Helsing, a guy holding a doctorate in doctoring, discovers Dracula’s vampire tendencies, and along with Mina’s boyfriend Johnathan Harker (cool name, even cooler suit) track Drac back to the coffin and…chop, chop, fizz, fizz.

Curiously, this classic ended abruptly, with Van Helsing serving up Dracula a nice stake dinner, while Johnathan and Mina walk slowly up the stairs in grief relief. Van Helsing opts to stick (sorry) around. (I bet you anything he was gonna steal Dracula’s wallet.)

To revisit the legacy of the modern day (OK, that sounds odd) vampire is pretty dang cool. So, like, I command thee to watch it.