Zombie Flesh Eaters and Russian River Damnation

Vinnie Cilurzo is an inspiration to us all.  Women want to be with him, men want to be him, and animals everywhere bow down to him with obedience.  He’s as close to being “The Beastmaster” as a man can be.  Anybody that’s ever thumbed through any kind of beer literature in the last ten years has heard of Vinnie Cilurzo.  Vinnie is the owner and head brewer at Russian River Brewery in Santa Rosa, Ca.  Located in a place where you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a snobby half drunk wino, Vinnie has created a Mecca for the disciples everywhere.  It wasn’t until 2008 that Russian River (RR) began bottling and even then distribution was limited.  Vinnie has opened things up a bit allowing for some of his “special” beers to be tasted by those without the ability to make the trip out to wine country.  Of the 12 “-ion” beers that the website claims to bottle and distribute I have only seen 3.  These are expensive puppies.  $12 for a corked 12 oz bottle expensive.  It was a very hot Seattle day so I decided to start off with TEMPTATION leaving the other beers for a cooler evening.

There is a four pack of movies sitting on my shelf that I cringe every time I look at them.  It’s the Horror Rises from the Grave DVD set.  Film #2 was supposedly called Zombie Flesh Eaters.  That’s strange.  Any real zombie fan will know that that’s also the alternate title for Zombi 2.  When I looked into it more there are 2 or 3 English titles with just as many in Spanish, all with different cover art.  Several different titles on file for this bad boy "The Blind Dead 3," "The Ghost Galleon," "Ghost Ships of the Blind Dead," "Horror of the Zombies" and "Ship of Zombies".   It’s part of the blind dead series which I’ve never seen but heard good things about.  A dead giveaway that the movie is terrible is when you pop it into the dvd player and not only are there no previews but no extras of any kind.  The two options are “Play” and “Chapters”.  Hold on this is going to be a bumpy one.

I take off the wire cage, beside myself with anticipation.  What kind of concoction has Mr. Cilurzo dreamed up?  According to Beeradvocate (bastards) it’s a Belgian Strong Pale Ale.   Hmf?  Never heard of that one before.  It’s 7.75% (thanks for carrying it out to the extra decimal place) and just 25 IBUs.  It’s a vibrant yellow and just a little hazy with a brilliant white head that floats like a lily pad.  There’s some sediment swirling around in the glass but that’s okay.  It feels more authentic that way.  It doesn’t have the big nose that I expected from a Belgian.  There’s moderate Belgian yeast character, bread dough, and slight green apple tang.  The warmer it gets there is hints of oak and vanilla.  First sip reveals a light sweetness with some clove, slight banana and apple.  It’s highly carbonated and finishes dry with a spicy bitterness.  Very mild flavors on this one.  I would venture to call it delicate!  Very drinkable and enjoyable but not what I expected.  For me this beer doesn’t have the strong and distinctive character that I’ve come to expect from oaked Belgian Strong ales.  This beer has a place for sure, maybe just not with that price tag.  Quaffable but far from transcendent.

This movie is one big unpolished turd.  It was so bad that I finished the Damnation and had to pound a couple Dead Guys (hahah that sounds bad) just to finish it.  It’s nothing like the first movie on the disk (Horror Rises from the Tomb) which has tons of gore and lots of nudity.  Instead this movie has a lot of slow walking mummies and the constant threat of nudity (though it never comes to fruition).  The movie starts out with three women modeling bathing suits.  Several times they make like they’re going to undo their tops but…….never happens.

The whole premise of this movie is absolute doo doo.  The CEO of a sporting goods store decides to do this crazy publicity stunt where he sends two models into the Atlantic Ocean on a 16 ft boat.  I didn’t fully understand but I guess the idea is that they pretend to be stranded and then the two hotties get rescued and put on the news.  None of this ever happens because the two girls get hit by a 15^th century sailing ship.  Happens all the time.  Then there’s this weird thing where the boat brings fog and that makes the girls sleep?  Then they’re in another dimension?  Mr. Sporting Goods CEO, the head of the modeling agency, a weatherman (weird), and the missing models friend decide to rescue them in their sail boat.

So the zombies are more mummies.  They are the nights of templar?  No idea.  I was drinking heavily at this point.  What I can tell you is that the whole “They survive on the flesh of beautiful women” quote that was on one of the covers is total bullshit.  In fact when these undead nights get their skeleton like hands on the one girl they carry her across what seemed like the entire boat, just to throw her in the water.  That was the most terrifying thing the director could think of.  Just throwing her in the water?   Booooooooo.

Then for some reason a flaming cross made of pieces of the ship defended them from the zombies.  Then shit caught on fire.  Then they dumped the coffins (containing the zombies) into the ocean.  And decided to swim for it.  I don’t remember the ending expect that it sucked.  Whole movie is one giant piece of trash.  If it wasn’t for Living a Zombie Dream and I, Zombie I would have been really upset, but I know it wasn’t the worst movie by a long shot.

The Beer:

Aroma – 7/12

Appearance – 2/3

Taste – 13/20

Palate – 4/5 

   Overall – 7/10

Total = 33/50

  

The Movie:

Production – 2/5

Plot – 1/5

Gore – 1/5

 Zombies – 1/5

  Overall – 1/5

C.H.U.D. and Deschutes Obsidian Stout

Tonight’s movie is one I’ve never seen before.  I picked it up at FYE in the bargain bin (we currently have a truce now that I have The Mad) for just $3.  As the cashier, a dark haired and overweight teen with bad acne, rang me out he started laughing at my purchase.  And without me prompting him he went into why he was laughing (I don’t care).  He said “Man I’ve been waiting for someone to buy this movie.  I knew someone would!”  His excitement sickened me.  Without acknowledging his comment I grabbed my DVD and left.  I had a sinking feeling of doom as I left the store.  Had I just been duked in a horrible purchase?  We shall see acne boy!

Before talking about the beer or the movie plot I would like to talk about something I found out while on the C.H.U.D IMDB page.  It’s something I like to call three degrees of  Macaulay Culkin.  More specifically home alone.  Go ahead and try it.  Run through the actors in C.H.U.D. and you will see what I mean.  Just watch.

John Heard

George Cooper (C.H.U.D.)

Peter McCallister (Home Alone 1 &2)

Daniel Stern

The Reverend (C.H.U.D.)

   Marv Merchants (Home Alone 1&2)

And though I can’t find pictures of him from home alone, Christopher Curry is credited in both films.  He's Captain Bosch (C.H.U.D.) and Agent Stuckey (Home Alone 3).

This is unusual isn’t it?  Perhaps it’s something worth looking into.  At the very least it makes me want to have a beer.  Just thinking that people went through the effort to make 3 Home Alone movies drives me to the bottle.  And today’s bottle is Deschutes Obsidian Stout.  Black as my heart and richer than premium gasoline this beer is the best widely distributed stout you can buy.  Deschutes is famous for its Black Butte Porter but the real gem is the Obsidian Stout.  It pours black and slightly viscous with a full, fluffy dark brown head.  This is the best head on any stout…period.  It’s like a mini chocolate Duvel.  This beer oozes aroma that kicks your ass like the slime from Ghostbusters 2.  It’s thick with roasted malt, burnt toast, and warm oats.  It has a raw husky aroma that is pungent enough to cut through any meal.   For example I paired it with the hot wings I had for dinner and it was the perfect contrast to the hot and acidy buffalo.  It has a full and almost milky mouth feel that’s incredibly smooth.  There is a rich malty sweetness buried under the roasted and charred malt.  This beer lays brick upon brick of full roasted flavor.  Originally a Stout was called a Stout Porter.  This beer exemplifies the STOUT part.  It finishes clean and long and leaves a slightly oily luster on your tongue that comes back strong with each sip.  All this from a $8 six pack.  Money well spent.

 The movie on the other hand is not money well spent.  The lead in is a woman walking down the street with her dog when…..oh no!!!!!!!!!! Something reaches out from underneath a manhole cover and grabs her.  This thing can be assumed to be the C.H.U.D.  What is a CHUD you ask?  It’s a Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller.  I’ll run through the entire movie in a couple of sentences.  A photographer (John Heard) familiar with the homeless (undergrounders), a grief stricken cop (Captain Bosch whose wife you might remember from the beginning manhole cover scene), and the homeless Barack Obama (Daniel Stern).  There’s some talk about toxic waste being disposed of underneath NYC and for some reason instead of the police having jurisdiction the head of the company has it.  And there’s this big power struggle as the company tries to cover it up.  Something something, flamethrowers…..mutant homeless people…..fill the sewers with gas…….explosion…..revenge…..poop poop poop.  Then it ends!

So there’s the film.  There were a couple of cool parts.  Did anyone else notice that the CHUDs looks just like The Creature from the Black Lagoon?  So the acting in this movie was absolutely atrocious.  In fact I had to rewind one scene and watch it again because I didn’t believe that directors and editors would allow that type of performance to leech into a final product.  I’m talking about the scene where the Reverend goes into a meeting with the heads of the company dumped the waste and he’s trying to convince them there are creatures in the sewer.  They don’t even bother to clean him up.  And he’s not just homeless, he’s 80’s homeless, which is way dirtier than any other homeless.  I mean these guys look like they just climbed out of a coal mine.  And in the 80s the most homeless of the homeless were in New York City.  It was like a giant homeless Mecca.  So Marv…I’m sorry wrong movie…the Reverend starts interrogating the company head demanding answers so that he can help.  When the company refuses to give answers to the homeless guy (a reasonable decision) he freaks out.  Did he think he was the homeless superman that could wipe out the mutated homeless population single handedly?  I’m not sure but it did make for a very comical scene.

A woman cuts one of the CHUDs heads off.  Green slime oozed from the neck…..awesome.  This picture isn't the CHUD head, it's just another severed head i thought was cool.  It's the cop's wife and when he saw the head it was more funny than sad.

Blood exploded out of the bathtub drain.  Never explained why.

I don’t buy that these were zombies.  They were cannibalistic as said in the title but that would imply that they are human.  It never specified the undeadness of them?  They were more mutants than zombies.

This movie was okay.  I’m glad I had a good beer to contrast with the shittiness of the film.  Oh and one last bash about the 80s.  Why is the goon always wearing a polo shirt and glasses?  The asshole boyfriend in Night of the Comet, C.H.U.D. and countless other movies all portray the tough guy as these funny preppy jocks.  The guy walks after the reverend, clicks the receiver (thus returning the quarter), then he fishes it out and eats it.  All without saying a word.  It was poetry for the steroid using, short shorts wearing, 80s good.  Why on why!!!!!!!!!!

Oh and i almost forgot.  Our hero George Cooper is talking to his girlfriend and she announces she's pregnant.  He thinks it's pretty cool but he's not really feeling it one way or the other.  In fact he asks her "so are you going to get rid of it?" in the same way someone would say "so are you going to finish you're pizza crust?"  She giggles..."no no i don't think I'm going to get an abortion.....oh my that is unless you want me to".  He replies with something like "naaa it's cool.  We'll just have it.  Whatever."  Amazing depth in the script writing. 

The Beer:

Aroma – 11/12

Appearance – 3/3

Taste – 18/20

Palate – 5/5 

   Overall – 8/10

Total = 45/50

  

The Movie:

Production – 3/5

Plot – 3/5

Gore – 2/5

 Zombies – 2/5

  Overall – 2.5/5

Flight of the Living Dead and Southern Tier Jah*va

Southern Tier is the Rocky Balboa of breweries.  Located in Whogivesashit, NY this little giant is fighting against all odds to pump out their premium brew.  Just when you think they're going to get knocked the F out they come back and beat some Russian ass.  Years ago I tried a poorly handled Belgian Tripel I bought at a "shady as hell" Salisbury, MA liquor store.  I believe it was called XXX (not the Midnight Sun one).  It was at the beginning of my beer drinking days so I wasn't the polished uber nerd I am now.  However, checking the website there is no sign of it so maybe it was a onetime dud.  But that beer gave me a serious aversion to anything Southern Tier until I tried their Oak Aged Unearthed IIPA.  POW POW!  I was back against the ropes as sip after sip of sweet malt and unabashed hoppy flavor kicked my ass.  Southern Tier, TKO, you win.  Okay enough boxing references.

Here's a picture of the expanded brewerey.  They're pumping out more beer than ever trying to meet the high demand for thier product.  Unearthed and oak aged unearthed are worth the $10 all day long.

My wife has been craving Espresso Oak Aged Yeti for almost a year now but it's nowhere to be found.  As a substitute I grabbed Southern Tier's Jah*va Imperial Coffee Stout.  I poured us a couple of snifters and put on a zombie movie.  Flight of the Living Dead!  With her snifter 2/3 of the way full of thick black beauty she excused herself from the undead carnage that I was about to witness.  (She doesn't have the stomach for that much awesome).  I read through the label of the beer as the movie starts and I’m happy to see that they're using high grade Jamaican coffee roasted locally!  Now alcohol ranges depending on where you look.  I'm not going to dig the bottle out of the recycling but I believe it was 11%.  (The websites say anything from 10.8-12% depending on year).  It looks all of 12% with a deep black hue with a brown fluffy head that breathes deep roasted malts and tons of coffee.  This beer is highly aromatic with caramel and something like rich chocolate covered bacon (a hint of bacon).  I wish i had this beer as a scented candle, that's not weird is it?

This beer is perfect for this movie in the way that any strong beer would pair nicely with this movie.  You need to be a little liquored up to truly appreciate this movie.  The beer is so delicious and so strong that by the time I get through previews and credits I'm feeling pretty good.  I'm filled with the satisfying sloshing of a beer that is so good it brings tears to my eye.  It's full and rich and covers the tongue with its oily resins.  The flavor is powerful with bit hits of roasted coffee and caramel.  There's this little lingering bitterness at the end of each sip which is similar to a pat on the ass after a great play.  That a boy!  This beer is so malty you almost have to chew it.  And the alcohol warms on the way down and really settles the spirit.  I feel like I should be wearing a velvet robe next to a fire.  Buy this beer.

Here's a look at the zombie women of this movie!

There was really only one thing missing from this movie.  That's my friend the autopilot!

Flight of the Living Dead is one of the best straight to DVD zombie movies I own.  What an accolade to achieve.  "Best straight to DVD zombie movie".  It's got some decent actors Kristen Kerr looks like one of those women who's in other movies you've seen...but she's not...other than Old School.  Kevin J. O'connor was the brother in There Will Be Blood and also starred in one of my favorite films Deep Rising!  There's also that creepy guy from the Mummy.  He really gives me the creeps.

After snakes on a plane somebody had to release a spin off and zombies seemed like a reasonable alteration.  Changes snakes for zombies.....new movie?  Sort of.  A couple of

The Beer:

Aroma – 12/12

Appearance – 3/3

Taste – 18/20

Palate – 4/5 

   Overall – 8/10

Total = 45/50

The Movie:

Production – 4/5

Plot – 4/5

Gore – 5/5

Zombies – 4/5 

  Overall – 4/5

The Mad and Rogue Dead Guy

Before I can review this movie I have to tell you the story about why this means so much to me.  But before I can tell you that story I need to tell you another story.  The story of the Jack Bull.  In this movie John Cusack loses his wife, his farm, everything he owns, including his own life in order to get repaid the two horses that were mistreated by a wealthy landowner.  The story showed the length a man was willing to go to in order to defend what is right.  It’s a story of justice and obsession.

Now my story.....

In March of 2010 I received an FYE gift card, which I later spent buying three used DVDs online.  Because I lived in Alaska they could not ship to me and I had to have them sent to family in Massachusetts who then paid to have them shipped to me.  Everything worked out okay until they came in the mail.  "The Mad" was missing.  The case was there, but the DVD was not.  Shhhhhiiiiitttttyyyyy.  I called FYE and they wanted me to ship the case back and “eventually I would get reimbursed”.  They said they would send me a new DVD, but not to Alaska where I was living because they don’t ship to Alaska.  Instead they wanted me to ship it to Massachusetts again where my family would have to pay again to have DVDs shipped.  This was a cost and inconvenience that I was not willing to endure.  I told FYE that this extra trip all the way to the post office and the extra money spent was all due to the fact that FYE had not shipped me the DVD in the first place.  I told them to ship it to AK and endure the extra dollar as compensation for the frustration caused trying to negotiate.  In the meantime i spent hours researching the evil nature of FYE and the following were all things i've found.

Notice the armband.....that's strange FYE.  I don't seem to remember this on your website.

I knew you were evil, but i didn't think you were training satan's army in the pits of hell evil.....that's not cool.

Cobra Kai?  Or is it Cobra Fye?

At this point an honest company would have shipped the DVD.  But not FYE.  Those bloodthirsty sons of whores strung me out for 6 months with dozens of e mails and repeated phone calls that were never returned.  So I took it up to the boss.  Corporate FYE (Transworld) would now bear the brunt of my fury.  They were highly apologetic and promised a 25$ gift certificate to compensate the trouble I had been caused.  The catch….the DVD would be sent to The Commonwealth.  I decided it was worth the ten bucks I would throw to my dad for rerouting the DVD to me.  But the gift certificate and DVD never came.  FYE claimed to have no record of the event in the system.  Transworld then claimed the same thing.  Then I broke.  I sent a scathing e mail where I demanded to know whether FYE was deeply evil…or horribly stupid.  I stole the comment from The Daily Show but it fit well.  I told them if they were not as evil as I thought they were then they were STUPID.  I mean potatoes with mouths.  That one got me a returned phone call and then 14 months later, after all of the fighting and disappointment, The Mad came in the mail.  The following is my review.

Without a doubt, one of my favorite actors of all time is Billy Zane.  The guy embodies the meaning of the word diversity.  He’s not only been in every hack-job low budget horror movie in the last 15 years, but he’s also been on such serious dramas as; Murder She Wrote, Back to the Future, Titanic, and the mantastic Tombstone.  My movie watching life changed when I was 11 and saw Tails From the Crypt: Demon Night.  Life changing!  Anyway this is a funny movie with a serious actor.  From start to finish it’s as if they take the entire movie and overact it around Billy Zane.  There is crazy blood squirting and “Doghouse” looking zombies using tools but somehow Billy stays cool.  Not cool in a Clooney in From Dusk till Dawn but more of a cool like…..well no one else does cool like Billy Zane.  It’s cool like Billy Zane.  Billy plays Jason Hunt, a widowed father of one on vacation with his girlfriend, daughter, and her boyfriend in cow town New York.  While eating at a local po-dunk restaurant that serves local “organic” burgers everyone turns into zombies or as Billy so elegantly puts it “Mad cow people”. Damn cows.

I am drinking a cliché beer tonight.  I got a case for $24 at Costco.  Rouge Dead Guy Ale!  It’s featured on numerous zombie movies.  The only one I can think of off the bat is Awaken the Dead but I’m going to make it my new task to find all Zombie movies with a Dead Guy cameo.  It’s a wonderfully clean beer.  It’s also the first Maibock that I’ve reviewed.  It sits at 6.6% ABV and 40 IBUs.  I used my Dead Guy pint glass to showcase this beer.  It’s a light amber color with a small off white head that dissipates pretty quickly (although I will admit I didn’t get a great pour).  The aroma is very mild and delicate; light caramel, soft sweetness, slight hint of hops and some stone like neutral yeastiness (yeastiness amazingly a real word).  The flavor is fantastic.  It’s wonderful as an easy go to beer with plenty of body and character to fill the glass.  There are big splashes of grapes and some dried fig layered over a nice fluffy malt cake.  No husky bitterness here.  All smooth fruity beer goodness.  There is a definite lager aftertaste that lingers on the back of the tongue with a gentle bitterness and almost sour tang.  It’s got a medium body despite the slightly higher alcohol level and is very drinkable.  Well crafted Rouge.  Well done!

Billy Zane steals the show in this slightly boring and very predictable zombie flick.  It’s similar in nature to Dead Meat.  Cows are to blame!  The cows and all the steak eating red necks that industrialize the farming industry.  If you think there was a slightly leftist, hippy, vegetarian war cry with this movie….your right.  This movie did something no zombie movie has done before.  Instead of having zombies as the enemy, the meat itself could eat you. Zombie hamburgers were eating people in this movie.  Weird!  There were a couple of great scenes in this movie.  It’s as if the director understood that there were several holes in the plot so he decided to throw in a couple of random group discussion scenes to clear things up.  Overall there wasn’t a lot of zombie ripping scenes but there still manages to have a big bloody appeal.

The Beer:

Aroma – 10/12

Appearance – 3/3

Taste – 16/20

Palate – 4/5 

   Overall – 8/10

TOTAL= 41/50

 The Movie:

Production – 4/5

Plot – 3/5

Gore – 3/5

 Zombies – 3/5

  TOTAL – 3/5