What do you get when you throw in ‘The Night of the Living Dead’ ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ , ‘The Evil Dead’ Parts 1 to 3, ‘The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue’ , ‘City of the Living Dead’ , ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’ , ‘Braindead’ , and a Hurley stick ? The answer simply is the Irish undead flick ‘Dead Meat’ . This is a glorious take on the zombie genre, having more eye goings and decapitations than the Fulci films it pays homage to, and seemingly the first from the Emerald Isle.
Conor McMahon not only gets his comeuppance as several battered zombies, but he gets in duties in as director, writer and editor. For a low budget flick and a debut movie from the young lad, this is an assured piece of gory fun that heralds’ good times are ahead from the Irish film community.
With an outbreak of mad cow disease covering the countryside, the animals are starting to munch away at their owners. Cows have the appetite for human flesh and in doing so their victims get up and cause more mayhem. Thrown into the mix are happy couple Helena (Marian Araujo) and Martin (David Ryan). Touring in their car until they have an accident with a pedestrian who ends up sinking his teeth into the neck of the doomed Martin. Helena flees to a seemingly deserted farmhouse (where have I read that bit before) and comes across gravedigger Desmond (David Muyllaert) who is mighty handy with a shovel.
Desmond and Helena flee from the increasing zombie masses but not before some wonderful over the top cartoonish gore, which includes an eyeball sucking vacuum cleaner that would make any Fulci fan jump with joy and howl with glee. Eyes are poked, heads are either lopped off or split in two, but while the gore plays it in cartoon shades the actors keep their faces straight throughout. There are lots of similarities here with the Ozzie splatterfest ‘Undead’
They then bump into a small child, a deranged, Hurley weilding and almost incomprehensible Cathal Cheunt (Eion Whelan, starring in the short ‘Braineater’ , also on this disc) and his wife, Francie (Amy Redmond). The five head off but disaster strikes with zombies at every turn and even one of the flesh eating cows acts like a rabid St Bernard. With the undead closing in around the dwindling survivors we end up in the ruins of an old castle, harking to everything between the ‘Blind Dead’ movies and ‘The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue’ and throwing in Romero’s ‘The Crazies’ for good measure to finish things off.
What this lacks in originality it makes up for in its passion, pacing and enthusiasm for the genre it is paying homage and becoming part of. There are some very slick and dizzying camera moves that give you fond memories of the shakycam through the woods in 'The Evil Dead'
On the DVD side of things, this is packaged very well indeed. Not only have we an audio commentary from director McMahon joined with pals and co-producers Michael Griffin and Edward King, citing their favourite bits from their favourite flicks for each blood drenched happening, but we have McMahon’s previous filmic vision in the short ‘Braineater’ which again is fun and as subtle as the title suggests. A trailer, a making of (effectionally entitled ‘Mad Cows and Zombies’ ) and some black and white stills finish off this impressive debut.
Well done guys, and show us more of the red stuff !
'Dead Meat’ is out to own now and available via Amazon , on its own or as part of Fangoria's Fright Pack, it is also available for pre-order at AmazonUK .database .
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