Full Moon has seen fit to release ten titles from Charles Band’s early days: Auditions, The Best of Sex and Violence, Dreamaniac, Famous T&A, Filmgore, Mutant Hunt, Necropolis, Savage Island, White Slave and Zombiethon. The reason why this collection of both theatrical and direct-to-video release is labeled “Grindhouse” will be revealed later, but first here’s a look at three of the films:
Zombiethon is a collection of clips from Zombie, Zombie Lake, Oasis of the Zombies, Fear, The Invisible Dead, A Virgin Among The Living Dead and The Astro-Zombies interspersed with original sequences featuring zombies chasing people into a zombie-filled theater playing the clips. The back cover mentions White Zombie, but no clips from that are present in this (or the original VHS version). The seemingly unrestored VHS quality transfer admittedly does help capture the “Grindhouse” look of the films, although the fulscreen transfer doesn’t. There’s some print damage and the occasional shifting colors, but it’s definitely watchable. While it mostly shows condensed “only the best parts” (and thus chock-full of spoilers) versions of the films (reminding this reviewer of 8mm releases by both Castle and Ken films), there is one point where only a single lengthy clip from A Virgin Among The Living Dead (aka Christine, Princess of Eroticism) is shown. I think that’s for the best, as the film does start to drag by that point and the film in question is easily the worst zombie film I’ve ever seen.
The original zombie effects, created by Joe Reader and Dr. David Lady, are neat-looking and appropriately match the film’s somewhat comedic tone. I particularly liked the armored cyborg zombie. Zombiethon does cheat at times, as Fear (aka Murder Syndrome) only has a single shot of a zombie and The Invisible Dead (aka Dr. Orloff’s Invisible Monster) doesn’t actually feature any zombies, only an invisible gorilla! Otherwise, Zombiethon is a fun way to spend a little over an hour.
