House by the Cemetery and Pyramid Thunderhead

This week’s unpolished turd of a movie is Lucio Fulci’s House by the Cemetery.  I have this strange Love/Hate relationship with Fulci’s work.  Some of it is really good; City of the Living Dead (I don’t know why I like this movie so much).  Some of it is okay; Zombi 2, The Beyond.  And some of it sucks; Zombi 3 and The House by the Cemetery.  I got the movie and a case of Pyramid Thunderhead at the ready.  It’s time to plow through this shitty film.  Here we go.

I started my drinking an hour before during dinner.  I knew what projects I had on tap for the evening and I knew I couldn’t go in cold.  So I started with a couple of Thunderheads (love the name) and some turkey dinner.  BOOM.  Ready to go!  The movie starts out at a break neck pace (pun).  There’s a topless girl in a dusty, cobweb covered mansion (the ultimate aphrodisiac) getting dressed presumably after doing “the deed”.  She ties her shoes, buttons up her blouse (exit the movie's only nudity), and searches for her man toy who is playfully hiding from her…..or is he.  Dun dun dunnnnn!  She goes searching the house and eventually finds him hanging at the back of a door with his face removed.  She screams but it’s too late!!!  She takes a knife to the face!  I guess technically she takes a knife to the back of the head and it comes out her face.  It seems that Fulci has figured out that people don’t like stuff happening to their faces and exploits that.  I for one do not want to get stabbed in the face or have a tarantula eat my face/tongue.

Now that I’ve got a little nudity and violence in the bag I think it’s time to talk about Pyramid.  They have grown exponentially in the 27 years since their inception.  They began as Hart Brewing in Kalama, WA in 1984 (my birth year!) and eventually changed names to Pyramid (hefeweizen anyone) in 1996.  They have a wide array of beers but only a few “imperial” type beers, only two of which reach past 7%.  Not that alcohol is everything.  I don’t relish a high alcohol content for its intoxicative properties but rather for its indication of a thicker, fuller, more complex brew.  I know this isn’t always true but for the most part if you’re sipping on an IPA with a wimpy 5.3% (no names here) or a full 7.6% you’re drinking a very different beer.  I realize that I need to step down my misguided beer snobbery a bit.  I realize the value in a well crafted hefeweizen that’s only 5% or a guez that doesn’t reach 6%.  In fact I was inspired by Samuel Smiths’ low alcohol/high flavor English ales.  With that denunciation of my own misguided elitism I try to love the smaller beers.

Thunderhead is a respectable 6.7% abv and 67 IBUs.  This is significant because they use a textbook Gravity to Alcohol to IBU ratio which is supposed to help craft a well balanced beer.  As you know this type of blanket formula can’t work for all styles of beer and the distribution of the IBUs (between bittering, flavor, and aroma) is more important than the total number of IBUs in the beer.  That being said the ultimate  in IPA producers (Dogfishead) uses this formula (60 min IPA=6%abv and 60 IBUS, 90 min IPA = 9%abv and 90 IBUs).  The website says the malts used are 2-Row Barley, Munich 10L, Caramel, and Carapils.  The 2 Row is the base malt and makes up most of the beer.  The Munich malt adds the slight orange hue and imparts a nice malty flavor.  Caramel malt (crystal 10L probably) will give a light sweetness.  The Carapils is for mouthfeel and head retention.  The hops are CTZ?  Extensive googling revealed that this means Columbus also named Tomahawk or Zeus, and Nugget.  Now had I known these were the hops they used I probably would not have gotten this beer.  Nugget is supposed to be floral and resiny, used mostly for bittering.  Columbus (CTZ) is one of the big American C hops.  It’s citrusy and resiny but without that nice polished character that Centennial or Cascade have and without that biting bitterness of the Chinook.

Enough background.  Here’s the beer.  It poured a deep yellow with just a slight orange tint to it.  It was perfectly clear until I emptied the last bit of sediment from the bottle.  Now it’s a mostly clear beer with a little cloudy sediment.  It’s got a white here it is/there it goes head and a slight lacing that follows.  The aroma is mild.  Floral hops and slightly sweet malty notes are present.  Muted citrus, apricot mostly.  The flavor matches the aroma.  Nothing really going on here.  It’s an IPA for people that don’t like IPAs.  It’s mild mannered and not overly bitter.  Medium mouthfeel with the same old same old barley flavor and muted hops pushing on your tongue.  It’s calming and coaxing.  You have a few of these and say to yourself  “wow I think I might like IPAs!”  So you go out and buy a Stone Ruination and spend the rest of the night dry heaving into a bucket while your significant other cradles your sobbing head in her hands praying that it will pass.  Yea…..that’s about right.

As for the movie.  It’s a lot like the beer.  There’s a lot of drawn out suspense scenes where a door is squeaking or the floor is creaking and people are really scared but nothing happens.  There are also a lot of very long murder scenes which are signature Fulci.  But nothing is so new or so well done that you’re surprised.  There’s just a lot of flesh colored plastic being cut and torn from necks.  A solid effort, but at the end of the day its still flesh colored plastic.  The idea is that this family of three moves into this giant mansion that has a zombie living in the basement.  It was some doctor that was barred from the medical field for his unorthodox experiments.  That S.O.B. found the key to immortality!  All you have to do is wear a skin mask that covers your entire face and start eating people.  How am I not already doing this!  So yea three people (5 if you count the babysitter and realtor) all get hacked up by a skin face zombie.

Fulci focuses a lot on the neck in this movie.  Three big death scenes that I can remember.  All of them involved the neck!  One is a fire poker (I think that’s what that was) that after a couple jabs to the chest is sent deep into the neck artery.  Wow does that blood gush.  This was very well done!  It’s inspiring gore if I’ve ever seen any.  Next was the babysitter who is this weird mix of evil or not evil (it’s never really explained).  She gets her head cut off…..S-L-O-W-L-Y!  Then it rolls down the stairs.  Lastly and my least favorite, after accidentally cutting off the zombie’s hand then stomach stabbing it on purpose (the head damn it!), our main male character stands frozen with knife in hand as the zombie rips his throat out with his giant lizard hand.

Is this a zombie move?  At first I thought no!  It was a haunting movie.  But after a lot of consideration I think it is a zombie movie.  The fact that it only takes place in this house is a matter of convenience not some kind of ghost spell.  There is a zombie in the basement that need live flesh in order to survive.  It’s definitely dead and definitely eating people.  Check and check!  It’s a zombie movie.  Now I will say that for a zombie movie there sure is a lot of tools used instead of some teeth ripping action but that’s okay.  The plot of this movie jumps around more than my two year old.  And at the end I’m left baffled but not enough to really care.  Maybe some of it was lost in translation.  Those damn Italians.

The Beer:

Aroma – 9/12

Appearance – 2/3

Taste – 16/20

Palate – 4/5 

   Overall – 6/10

Total = 37/50

  

The Movie:

Production – 3/5

Plot – 3/5

Gore – 2/5

 Zombies – 2/5

  Overall – 2.5/5

Horror Rises from the Tomb and Flying Dog IPA

There's good zombie movies, bad zombie movies, and then there's the "so bad they're good" zombie movies.  This one teeters on the edge of bad and so bad it's good.  Bad acting and terrible special effects can be funny, or it can be terribly boring.  I'm still not sure which one this is.  This movie was made in Spain in 1973 and then released in the US in 75.  I believe i read somewhere that one of the heroes and the villain are the same actor.  They do look pretty similar now that I'm thinking about it.  I don't know a lot about the 70's.  I was alive (although pretty young) for some of the 80's and I've read and seen a lot about the 60's, but the 70's was a decade that i just never learned about.  Ok so there was disco and coke, but there had to be more to it than that.  So i dug a little further.  Now you're talking!  The birth of punk rock and sleazy drive in style horror!!  I had no idea the 70's were so great.  But that's not all....these boozy, drugged out disco maniacs were having sex like the world was ending.  There wasn't a lot of full on sex scenes in these movies but everyone was naked.  Not just this movie either.  In Zombi you get a taste of it.  Who scuba dives naked?  I'll touch on this more later.

I picked up a mix pack of flying dog in an effort to make further amends.  It appears that i was wrong about flying dog.  But if it weren't for Hunter S. Thompson i would never have realized it.  I picked up his book on sale at some book store in Colorado.  I had heard of him and it seemed like something i would like so i picked it up.  I'm really interested in rebels.  I love punk rock  and all it's rebellious grittiness so i thought it's quite possible i would like Hunter S. Thompson.  In the book it referenced Flying Dog a couple of times so I thought maybe i should give them another go.  I'm glad i did.  I realize after doing the math that i tried my first and only flying dog mix pack 5 years ago when i was 22.  I had just started drinking beer and hadn't yet worked up to the refined palate that i now possess.  So i picked out my most despised beer of 5 years ago... their Snake Dog IPA.  It poured a clear dark gold into my Sam Adams glass.  It had that typical American nose of big citrus hops.  But the first sip surprised me.  It was bitter without being biting and had a nice toasted malt back.  It finished clean and smooth without that puckering bitterness that i look for.  It's absence in this case was appealing.  There was still a big citrus flavor with green resinous hops all over it.  But it didn't bite my tongue the way most of my IPAs do.  Well done Flying Dog....well done.

The movie starts out in medieval France where this bloke is getting hung for being all buddy buddy with Satan.  Not big fans of "freedom of religion" those Francs were.  Before they cut off his head and bury them separately he places a curse on his executioners.  His wife was hung upside down tortured and killed, topless none the less.  Fast forward five hundred years or so and you've got a rich guy that thinks the body is buried in one of his estates.  They have a seance to see if they can't figure out where the body is.  I'm not sure if they were looking for some type of treasure associated with said body or if they are just gore hounds.  The seance goes terribly wrong as is typical of at least one other 70's zombie movie.

They all travel to the rich guys house where they find a buried chest.  It's locked so even though it might be treasure and three other people know about it they decide they should just keep it in the basement.  Well I'll be damned the poor servants tried to open the chest.  They find the head and become possessed.  Two out of the three don't make it out of the basement.  The remaining guy (possessed) does some killing of his own.  Here's where it gets interesting.  Every woman who gets killed gets her shirt ripped off before hand.  In one case it looked like the killer realized there wasn't enough boob in the shot and adjusted her ripped shirt accordingly.  Another thing while I'm at it.  Judging by this movie everyone in Spain in the 70's slept naked, men and women.  Not only that but the first thing a naked sleeping woman does when confronted with a resurrected French devil worshiper is throw off the covers.  The director must have realized he didn't have much of a plot and the actors weren't great so he just stripped them down and got extra boobie shots.  I'm surprised it beat out One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest!

So our Hero is rocking a textured turtle neck tucked into his jeans.  Not exactly fitting by modern standards.  Not a lot of films with Vin Diesel and Jason Statham running around with textured turtle necks on.  The hero's girlfriend (wife maybe? no idea?) gets possessed and becomes part of the "Final Ritual".  It doesn't really explain what the ritual is but it does involve a lot of boobie touching???  Highlights of this movie include a scene where the undead wife rips a mans heart out.  That's about it.  There are a bunch of okay scenes and i learned a lot about the oversexed seventies but nothing stands out as amazing.

There are zombies in this movie.  At first i was worried it would just be possessions.  Those pre-Romero White Zombie type.  But in fact when the possessed people die they become honest to goodness zombies.  So technically it counts.  The only protection from these zombies and the unholy couple is a necklace of Thor's hammers.  Why the Greeks have anything to do with this I have no idea.  But it works.  The naked sleeping Spaniard keeps safe only because captain evil saw the necklace hovering above her bosom.  His wife isn't harmed by the necklace and needs a silver needle through the heart???  Whatever.  Our main characters end up slaying the evil duo but not before our hero hunk takes an ax to the chest.  And he almost made it!!

All in all this wasn't a bad movie.  Only because i assumed it was going to be a terrible movie.  It moved well enough, had decent gore, a unique plot, and the acting wasn't the worst I've ever seen.  Would i recommend it?  Mer?  If you have a lot of time and a couple of beers than give it a shot.  If you want to snuggle with the Mrs. and watch a feel good film, look elsewhere.

The Beer:

Aroma – 7/10

Appearance – 4/5

Taste – 8/10

Palate – 4/5 

   Overall – 14/20

Total = 37/50

The Movie:

Production – 3/5

Plot – 2/5

Gore – 3/5

Zombies – 3/5

  Overall – 3/5

Night of the Living Dead (1990 Remake) and Flying Dog Double Dog

Tonight i feel like filling in the gaps in my reviews a bit.  I will be watching the Night of the Living Dead remake.  This film came out in 1990 and was directed by Tom Savini.  For those who don't know Tom Savini I'll fill you in on a little of his resume.  His special effects work can be seen on the original Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Creepshow, and the wonderful Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.  He also has done some extensive acting, mostly cameos, in tons of horror movies.  He's in Planet Terror, From Dusk Till Dawn, and if you look close Machete, Land of the Dead, and the Dawn of the Dead Remake.  What did i decide to pair this movie with?  Flying Dog Double Dog Pale Ale!  This is my post to redemption.  I received a slew of hate mail from the Flying Dog Brewery after i wrote my Diary of the Dead and Gonzo post.  I have received numerous death threats saying if i don't review more Flying Dog beer then i will be hastily dispatched.  Actually none of that's true. 

I wanted to confess that i've been feeling a bit of guilt after my Diary of the Dead/Flying Dog Gonzo post.  Perhaps I never gave Flying Dog a real chance.  I keep passing by the Double Dog Double Pale Ale and wrinkling my nose at it as I search for Avery's Dry Hopped Barleywine.  That's no way to treat a beer, with neglect, contempt, and an unfair stereotype.  So i decided to try and make amends by picking up a bottle with a mix your own six pack at our local specialty beer and wine shop La Bodega.  It sat waiting in the fridge as i pecked around in nervously.  First the Leffe, then the Celebration.  By this point it knows I'm avoiding it.  Finally i can hide no more.  I pop it open and pour it into my 12 oz snifter.  It's a crystal clear light copper/orange color with a one finger white head.  The initial aroma is not the blast in the face i expected.  Definitely a lot of piny, resiny hops but not nearly the American Double IPA experience i was expecting.  Not that this is a bad thing.  But it sure was a sign of things to come.

I swirl to see if i can't unlock more hop goodness.  More of the same!  Maybe a little more grapefruit from the background but by and large the same!  So i dive into my first sip, keeping my nose deep in the glass.  Not bad!  It's got a big bitter backbone but not that barbs on the tongue slap that most IIPAs have.  In fact this beer is extremely well balanced.  There is a nice sweet caramel malt back that splashes my taste buds with the nostalgia of tiramisus gone by.  This beer isn't boozy at all.  And at 11.5% abv that's saying a lot.  Careful fermentation and brewing processes have smoothed this bad boy out.  It's a very drinkable beer for it's strength.  With medium mouthfeel and medium carbonation it goes down very easy....too easy.  Would i but this again?  Maybe?  Was it worth the $1.50 for the bottle?  Hell yea it was.  Another page in my beer adventure book printed.

I forgot how good this movie was.  I know it’s in bad taste to say this, but I think I like the remake better than the original.  The quality was much better than I remembered from my parents 27 inch tv as a kid.  The movie followed closely enough to the original to please the lovers of the classic but also threw in enough new twists to surprise people.  The cemetery scene comes as close as any Romero Movie gets to explaining the outbreak.  A man stumbles up to Barbara and keeps saying he’s sorry.  So maybe he did it?  That’s not bad right?  I like how subtle it was and it still left the questions of legitimacy and didn’t give away any specifics.  Unlike the 3-D remake which I would like to poop on.

The first scene at the farm house has got some nice new additions.  Barbara is still terrified and hysterical for the first part.  But unlike the original movie she snaps out of it.  All of the sudden she’s bashing Hershel the farmer zombie to undeath with a fire poker.  Director Tom Savini would like you to meet the new and improved Barbara now with balls.  She ditches the church sweater and trades her ankle length skirt for a pair of the farmers old trousers.  Now she’s ready to rock.  She’s not just the master of her own destiny she’s also taking charge.  She grabs the rifle and is Anne Oakley.  She nails headshot after headshot without blinking.

The Ben character has also seen a few changes.  He’s not as cool and deliberate as he was in the original.  He’s more affected by the zombies this time showing frustration, fear, and hate as he curses god for bringing this upon them.  Ben has more flaws than the original but at the same time he’s also more powerful of a leader and an overall stronger character.  But there is no Ben without Cooper.

I’ve tried to find his side.  I’ve watched this movie and searched my heart for some sort of impartiality.  But I can’t rid myself of the bias.  You’re already on Ben’s side after he helped Barbara and took charge trying to figure things out.  It’s hard to change sides at that point.  Cooper enters abruptly as Ben and Barbara are trying to board up the windows.  First impressions aren’t great as he lies right off the bat saying that they couldn’t tell if it was zombies or people upstairs.  But good old Tommy fesses up that they were just scared.  It’s official, Cooper is an asshole.  From there things get worse Cooper won’t help secure the upstairs and claims the basement as his.  When Ben needs to get into the Basement to get doors (that Cooper isn’t using anyway mind you) Cooper won’t let him in.  The sides are drawn as distinctly as they are in the American political system.  The thing that frustrates me most about Cooper isn’t his obtuse nature, or the way he refuses to contribute to the efforts of the group.  It’s his language.  Who calls people lame brains?  That’s just poor.

The zombies are well done in this film.  The zombie with the broken back on the lawn and the autopsy zombie are two great ones.  The gore is graphic but not over the top.  My best example being the girl with the teddy bear that Barbara shoots in the head.  When the girl gets shot, instead of her head exploding it just sort of pours out the back.  Much classier.

The Beer:

Aroma – 7/10

Appearance – 4/5

Taste – 7/10

Palate – 4/5

   Overall – 16/20

Total = 38/50

The Movie:

Production – 4/5

Plot – 5/5

Gore – 4/5

Zombies – 4/5

  Overall – 4/5