Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.
First, my apologies to those of you expecting to see the latest installment of Summer of ’78 in this space. It will not appear this week due to technical difficulties beyond my control. And by technical difficulties, I mean it’s Netflix’s fault. They had to ship this week’s DVD from their Outer Mongolian branch for some reason, and it won’t get here until Saturday. Honestly, I think Netflix is just very disappointed in me. Until recently, it recommended only the most respected classics and toniest arthouse fare for my viewing pleasure. Then it noticed I was ordering the likes of It’s Pat and Battlefield Earth on a regular basis. “Oh,” Netflix sniffed. “Just another dumbass after all. Here – perhaps you’ll enjoy Encino Man.” If only I could explain to Netflix that I am, in fact, performing a valuable service for the Screengrab readership. But Netflix doesn’t listen. Anyway, the point is: look for a double dip of Summer of ’78 next week.
On to the next order of business, in which we find ourselves in a situation similar to the recent Levottomat 3/Soccer Dog: The Movie imbroglio. As you may recall, Levottomat 3 was number 81 on my version of the IMDb Bottom 100, but I was unable to locate a copy of this 2005 Finnish movie about sex maniacs. So I was forced to make a substitution from a later version of the list, and that turned out to be Soccer Dog: The Movie. As it happens, number 78 on my list is Dis - en historie om kjærlighet, a 1995 Norwegian film that also eluded my grasp. I can only assume that movie fans in the Nordic countries are particularly vigilant about voicing their displeasure on the IMDb. In any case, I was forced to make another substitution from a later iteration of the Bottom 100, and it turned out to be 2006’s The Quick and the Undead (#66 on the list as of this writing).
What we have here is your basic meat-and-potatoes (but mostly meat) post-apocalyptic zombie western. (That reminds me, someday I’m going to have to tell you fine people about the zombie western I wrote. Have I ever mentioned that I invented fast zombies? I should be a gazillionaire by now and instead I’m doing this. Not that I’m bitter!) More specifically, writer-director Gerald Nott (who really should reconsider the name of his production company, Nott Entertainment – that’s just asking for trouble) has conceived The Quick and the Undead as a Clint Eastwood/Man With No Name zombie picture, and then cast another guy named Clint. It is in fact Clint Glenn who stars as zombie bounty hunter Ryn Baskin, who goes up against his rival Blythe Remington (Parrish Randall) in a town infested with the walking dead.
I’ll get right to it: I have no idea what this movie is doing on the list. Presumably, most folks who sat down to watch it knew it was going to be a zombie movie, and that generally entails entrails being eaten and plenty of heads exploding. The Quick and the Dead delivers on both counts. It even has a reasonably clever twist on western conventions: instead of collecting scalps, the bounty hunters remove fingers from their victims and save them in a bag in order to collect their reward. Remington hits on the bright idea of infecting towns previous spared from the zombie plague and then killing all the residents to pad his finger count. Okay, maybe it’s not ingenious, and Clint Glenn’s Eastwood impression is not the most inspired, but The Quick and the Dead at least flirts with competence. There’s a world of difference between this and a genuinely worthless piece of shit like Anus Magillicutty; I do believe that Mr. Nott set out to make the best zombie western he possibly could, given his limitations. I can’t say I recommend it, exactly, but I’ve seen far, far worse.
Previously on Unwatchable:
79. Anus Magillicutty
80. The Smokers
81. Soccer Dog: The Movie
82. American Soldiers
83. First Sunday
