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The Dead Hate the Living

The Dead Hate the Living

List Price: $9.98
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Ironic...
Review: ...that one of the most complete and definitive special edition dvds I've come across is for a low-budget Full Moon horror movie. This dvd has everything: production art, photos, a making-of featurette, outtakes, cast retrospectives, a music video, a trailer, and a commentary with the director and the cast. And the biggest shock: it's a great movie! Well, perhaps those who aren't die-hard Italian horror fans won't like it as much, but I am a die-hard Italian horror fan, and I loved it. Great script, clever dialogue, appealing actors, killer low-budget make-up and effects (the cgi shots are cheese defined, but they work), and a surpringly well-composed score (along with a few fun punk songs). So what are you waiting for? it's loaded with features, and it's a killer horror film.

Highly recommended for horror fans.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Interesting idea, killer soundtrack
Review: A group of aspiring horror movie filmmakers are making a low budget horror flick in an old hospital, when they come across what seems to be the ultimate prop in the basement. A giant coffin like device, complete with the dead body of Dr. Eibon (who suspiciously looks like Rob Zombie) inside!

They are of course, thrilled to death, and decide to put it in their film. To their horror, the device calls forth what I only can describe as a paralell world of the undead. From there on out, it's a fight for their lives against an undead world.

I found the film is very entertaining, and is chock full with in-jokes and tributes to some of the famous horror filmmakers, most notably, the dearly departed horror king, Lucio Fulci.

The film has a killer soundtrack, which the highlights of is music from the deathrock band Penis Flytrap (fronted by Dinah Cancer, of 45 Grave fame). The music adds to the creepy frenzied quality of the film, it's a winner.

All in all, a good flick for Zombie fanatics!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: And the living hate horrible movies...
Review: Add another stinker to the zombie horror pile....

Plot - Some dude is trying to make a low budget horror movie in an abandoned hospital, when he happens upon a real corpse. He uses it in the movie which causes various freaks from a parallel deadworld to infiltrate this one. Of course they come in and wreak havoc etc etc..Then the movie ends with an ending ripped straight out of Fulci's "The Beyond" (Note-There is a difference between paying homage and ripping off).

I must say the effects were well done, that why this gets two stars and not one. Its just too bad they were wasted on such a boring movie. Another thing that annoyed me about this moive was the constant little "in" jokes. While this might be funny or cool to others, to me it was just annoying. Yes I know who "Romero", "Savini", and "Fulci" are and I don't need the makers of this movie to remind me. This might be good in a big budget movie where real horror movie fans could get a chuckle when mixed with the mindless hordes that think Scream "was like totally the scariest movie eva" - here it dosen't work.

My other gripe is with the horrendous soundtrack by ... Flytrap. This band reminded of a gothic GWAR, only with less musical skill (if that's possible). Worst songs ever.

I intend to use this DVD as a frisbee. Do yourselves a favor and don't buy this, unless you like shiny, expensive coasters.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Heyyyyyy, not tooo badddd.
Review: At first I saw the cover and thought, "cool". then I started watching it and thought, "oh no, an indie zombie movie.." So, thinking I was going to hate it, but was completely surprised. Even with the sad acting, this movie rocked! It ended up in my "keeper" zombie movie collection.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Heyyyyyy, not tooo badddd.
Review: At first I saw the cover and thought, "cool". then I started watching it and thought, "oh no, an indie zombie movie.." So, thinking I was going to hate it, but was completely surprised. Even with the sad acting, this movie rocked! It ended up in my "keeper" zombie movie collection.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Dead may hate the living, but this movie loves 'em anyway
Review: Bottom of the barrel budget and lack of genuine scares aside The Dead Hate the Living is actually quite a nifty little movie. It also serves as a love letter to the late, great b-gore epic filmmaker Lucio Fulci. His name appears on both a bumper sticker and a gravestone on the film within a film's graveyard set. The movie also loads itself down with in-jokes to assorted movies...The Beyond most blatantly but City of the Living Dead, The Evil Dead, The Fog, Dawn of the Dead, Make them Die Slowly, and numerous others get playful nods as well. I haven't seen this much love for a genre and its cult icons outside of a Joe Dante's movie Matinee and it made The Dead Hate the Living all the more refreshing and endearing. And keep your eyes on the guy that plays the make-up effects artist to the comic hilt. That kid is going places!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Gem!
Review: Dave Parker scores big in his debut as a director. Once again Charles Band finds new blood for his Full Moon Production company. Parker presents his viewers with a homage to Lucio Fulci with a unique twist that is all Parker. From the opening to the wild cliffhanger ending this is a winner and a must for horror fans. The DVD is loaded with extras (this is always the case with Full Moon). You get a behind the scenes documentary, music video and more. I look forward to more of this guy's stuff. And finally, look for Parker's cameo as a drugstore clerk.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Low budget is clear in this movie ,but well done!
Review: Depending wheather you are a horror fan or not will be if you like this film or not. It shows it is low-budget and corny ,but I think it was good for the budget. I would compare this the The Convent in which it is better if you watch it more then twice to really like it. I like it...

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: MEDIOCRITY PERSONIFIED
Review: Enjoyable in it's own tired way, there is very little in this film to either love or hate. Renting this particular flick would be more fiscally practical than buying it, as you certainly wouldn't wear it out watching it over & over again.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Actually, the Dead Love the Living
Review: Ever since Bela Lugosi began the zombie genre back in the 30s, Hollywood thought of the idea that the dead might walk the earth solely in terms of gothic and serious horror. The zombies of that era were usually centered in Haiti and were under the mind control of a demented shaman. It did not occur to anyone that zombies might have a gentler, even humorous side. Certainly, when George Romero brought out his LIVING DEAD trilogy, the notion that the walking dead must be the height of seriousness was etched in stone. Yet, in the 80s with the EVIL DEAD series of director Sam Raimi, Hollywood saw an opportunity to inject some much needed life into a moribund genre. Now, by 2000, director David Parker continues this tremendously amusing, albeit gory, trend with THE DEAD HATE THE LIVING. The plot can be seen as a humorous version of the 'young kids get their comeuppance' so popular in slasher movies of the 80s. Other,less understanding critics simply label this film and others of its ilk as unabashed ripoffs of earlier, better known walking dead movies. The truth is that both approaches have merit.

TDHTL is a funny satire on the making of walking dead movies, exactly like this one. Director Parker uses unknown youthful actors who play actors in a zombie film. Thus, as in HAMLET, you have a movie-within-a-movie. But unlike HAMLET, the events of TDHTL present the inner movie as far more interesting than the outer. A nearly financially broke and probably bereft of talent group of teens are shooting a walking dead movie in a spooky house that is actually a conduit to another dimension from which its walking dead now find ready passage to the world of our dimension. One of the more subtle ironies is that it takes some real talent to portray actors of no talent. Eric Clawson and Matt Stephens are convincingly and humorously horrified as the leads. What Director Parker presents is yet another variation on the consequences of attempting to Go Where Man Is Not Supposed to Go. The results are gory, spectacular, and quite unnerving. The difference between TDHTL and its more serious ancestors--say ZOMBIE--is that the viewer has nearly as much fun watching the ketchup fly as do the actors tossing that same ketchup around. The fun is contagious, and this I suggest is what an entertaining movie is supposed to do.


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