THE DEAD HATE THE LIVING (2000)
By hazy memory recall, I think I read about this flick in Fangoria before eventually renting it at Blockbuster. I wasn't bowled over by it, so I approached this rewatch with some trepidation. I had forgotten that it was a Full Moon production. Thankfully, it has a little more oomph to it than, say, Ragdoll. The premise centers around a low-budget horror movie being shot at an abandoned hospital. The crew gets decorous mileage out of the spooky set. The question is, do I credit The Dead Hate the Living for having hair-raising Spirit Halloween visuals or do I credit the movie in The Dead Hate the Living? Either way, everything looks scrumptious. Back to the plot...our raggle-taggle band of budding auteurs unwittingly open a portal to another dimension. Of sorts. All you need to know is that the characters contend with zombies. Said zombies are lead by the ghoulish Mr. Eibon, a bargain basement Rob Zombie that might have been a mad scientist in a former life.
I realize that my synopsis sounds like guesswork, but The Dead Hate the Living is "style over substance." To be exact, it's all style, no substance. That isn't necessarily a deal-breaker. I love the neon lighting, in part, because it's excessive. The script? I love a little less. It takes an interminable 50 minutes to get to the main event monsters. I will say, I really dug the late Matthew McGrory (a.k.a. Tiny in House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects) as Gaunt, even if I didn't learn his name until the end credits. I remember reading interviews with him, and he seemed like a cool dude. Well, I'm sad now. Great. I'll wrap it up by recommending The Dead Hate the Living if you don't mind lower-tier Full Moon. Also, it reminded me of 1997's The Convent, which is better by leaps and bounds. So take that however you want.
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