Zombie 5: Killing Birds (1987)

"Genius", "still manages to fill me with girlish glee every time". Is that what the critics are saying about Zombie 5: Killing Birds? ... No! That's Steven from Corpse Eaters writing on this blog, thank you very much! See his post on the exciting writing that makes up the warrenzone/bloodbath horror blog.


Zombie 5: Killing Birds from Claudio Lattanzi and allegedly, Joe D'Amato
Zombie 5: Killing birds is not that bad, but by no means is it epic or apocalyptic. I guess I have to give you guys the background on the Zombie series in case you are uniformed. Did you know that Romero's Dawn of the Dead was called Zombie: Dawn of the Dead in Europe? It was, and over there they have a Dario Argento cut of the movie that has a soundtrack by Goblin. It's true. You know the Fulci movie Zombie? Well in Europe that one is called Zombie 2. There is no American Zombie 2, we skip to the European Zombi 3, also directed by Fulci, until he turned it over to the team of Bruno Mattei (Rats: Night of Terror, recently reviewed here) and Claudio Fragasso (Troll 2 - here). Fragasso then made Zombie 4: After Death, which came in the Zombie Pack ($15 at Best Buy) with Zombi 3 and the unrelated Zombie 5: Killing Birds. By the way, there are other Zombie 4 and Zombie 5 movies out there, from other directors including Jess Franco.

Put that confusion behind you. This movie has maybe two zombies in it, but they do some serious damage to the researching college kids on the bayou, staying in the same house where The Beyond was filmed. The birds? One of them rips the eye out of Robert Vaughn's socket. I was not familiar with the actor, but there is an interview with him as a DVD extra. I'll break my policy of not reviewing the extras. Vaughn does not remember this movie much at all so he barely speaks of it, instead telling stories from various Corman movies that he stared in. All of this commentary is spliced in with the kill scenes from Zombie 5 and we get a chance to to see the eye plucking scene two more times. Nice.

Now for cub speaks:



Why were you happy when the blind man put on his sunglasses?

I was finally able to watch the scene and see what was going on when he put his sunglasses on to cover up his gouged out eye. Cub, you know I can't watch movies that show people's eyes gouged out. It's grotesque and makes me want to faint and vomit.

Were you mad when I said that guy's portable 1988 laptop reminded me of your old computer?

Yes, you were quite rude when you made a smart mouth remark about his laptop looking like my old computer that looked like it was made in the 70's. Ok so I was not with the times and had an oldy moldy computer. As you already know I am not technologically advanced darling, which is why I have you for that!

What kind of bird was your favorite? you liked one of them...

I did like the white cockatoo very much. Can we get one, so it can sit on my shoulder as I bring it to different places with me? Please bear, please.

Are you excited for George Romero's Land of the Dead will Phil Fondacaro and Asia Argento?

I am thrilled for Land of the Dead, and I can't wait to see how sexy little Asia Argento has all grown up. She will probably look hot, what do you think? This may end up to be a masterpiece, who knows. I am hoping for it though.