The notorious schlockmeisters Troma released this 1987 zombie splatterfest, the title of which leaves you in no doubt as to the kind of film you’re in for. The plot sees a bunch of hillbillies discovering a misplaced barrel of nuclear waste and deciding to use it as a container to brew up some moonshine. It’s not long before the toxic concoction has turned them into the titular creatures and they’re munching on a bunch of unlucky city slickers who are lost in the nearby woods.
Pericles Lewnes, the excellently named director, actually shot this film on weekends (32 in total) over the course of a year and then went about trying to sell the film to various distributors. He went on to work as a special effects technician on several subsequent Troma productions. Apparently, the film was one of the first to be released straight to video, made even easier since it was entirely shot on video tape.
This quote from a review on IMDb gives you an idea what kind of film you’re in for:
There’s plenty here for fans of the horror genre (including some hilarious Texas Chainsaw Massacre parody scenes), and (of course) fans of Full Moon and/or Troma won’t be disappointed. My personal favorite scene involves the genuinely creepy Tobacco Man. To this day, at work or in social gatherings, I’ll occasionally pull out the line “Dark times is comin’.” And when everyone looks at me like I’ve just vomited human excrement onto the rug, I know deep down that I am the coolest person in the room.
Note the text on the bottom declaring that it was filmed in ‘Entrail-Vision’ and that ‘Repeat viewing of Redneck Zombies has been shown to cause insane laughter in laboratory animals’.
The original trailer is on YouTube.
Great Bob Peak artwork on this poster for the third in the original series of Star Trek films, The Search For Spock. For some reason, despite Peak having done the poster for the first film, his artwork wasn’t used for the USA one sheets of the sequel or this film, but it did appear on the international posters for The Wrath of Khan and this film. The studio then went back to using Peak artwork on the US posters for the fourth and fifth films.
The Search For Spock picks up where the second film left off and sees the surviving crew of the Enterprise returning to Earth after their fight against the superhuman Khan. Before long Captain Kirk and the rest of the crew are hijacking the decommissioned Enterprise and racing to save the spirit of Spock, who was previously feared dead, from the clutches of a Klingon commander near an unstable planet created by the Genesis device from the second film.
Seen by many as the start of the ‘all odd-numbered Star Trek films are bad’ rule, the film was fairly well received by critics, but many fans reacted negatively to its talky script and poor production values, particularly the effects used to realise the Genesis.
The original trailer for the film is on YouTube.
A classic piece of Bob Peak artwork on this poster for the fourth in the original series of Star Trek films, The Voyage Home. For some reason, despite Peak having done the poster for the first film, his artwork wasn’t used for the USA posters of the second and third in the series, but did appear on international posters for The Wrath of Khan and The Search For Spock. The studio then went back to using Peak artwork on the US posters for the fourth and fifth films.
The Voyage Home is memorable for its extensive use of location-filming, which took place in around the city of San Francisco, as well as for its humorous, knowing script and barmy plot in which the crew must travel back in time to 1986, find two humpback whales, and transport them into the future so their calls can be used to save Earth in 2286. The film marked the culmination of a storyline that began in The Wrath of Khan.
The rather odd international one sheet for the film can be seen here.
The original trailer for the film is on YouTube.
