Friday Pairing: VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES and the Zombie Cocktail

Why HELLO there

 

Or, as it’s known in the original Spanish, LA REBELION DE LAS MUERTAS. Or, as it’s known chez raincoaster, “another extremely hot Paul Naschy movie.”

For weedy, consumptive contemporary zombie fans (why do even the zombies look anorexic in Hollywood? Oh yeah, no brains there!) who think zombies are caused by some sort of contagious cooties and don’t differ all that much from the people you see staffing the till at gas stations in the wee small hours, this movie is a true shocker. You see, it has real zombies. And real movie stars.

Paul Naschy, one of my favorite (reluctant) movie stars, wrote, directed, and/or starred in an all-too-forgotten series of horror movies throughout the late 60’s and up as late as the 90’s. His heroes were flawed; well, actually they were generally homicidal werewolves who, when in human form, were consumed with complex self-hatred. So, less flawed than some of the people I’ve dated.

Really, Naschy’s Wolfman would be perfect for Marvel Comics, because he didn’t do as much Getting On With Things as he did Coping With Things. His was really one of the great humanitarian supernatural creatures in cinematic history, and besides, he was damn sexay! So it’s a shame his movies don’t get the attention that some other Euros’ do.

Unfortunately, his Wolfman oeuvre is only sketchily available on YouTube, so we’re going with the significantly lesser but still enjoyable in a B Movie way VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES. I enjoyed it, but your mileage may vary. For one thing, it has tangential Lovecraftian allusions, with the guru (Naschy) occupying the house of the Whateley family, and various Whatelyisms occurring later (no spoilers!).

It has to be said that the foley artists should have been taken out in the back 40 and sacrificed to Cthulhu. It’s the only decent thing. Outside of a shopping mall I’ve never heard more irrelevant footsteps.

The plot runs along two lines: the conscious, high-toned, fashionable Mahareeshi London theme and the low-rent, no-count, Whateley Satanistic small town theme. Not entirely canonical, as in Lovecraft the Whateleys were armigerous and quite posh, never descending to the level evidenced by the dude in the strange Groucho glasses and fake stache. So unlike the Naschy wolfman movies, this is just a straight up piece of schlock, and should be enjoyed as such.

The Meat Locker sequence is extraordinary!

The most precious detail is that the Scotland Yard detectives all speak with broad, even ostentatious American accents.

Does the plot make sense? Well, no. Is it fun? Well, yes. Is the sound track swanky and swingy and awesome? Well, YEAH! \

So, that’s good enough for me. Add to that Paul Sexeh Naschy as an Indian guru with heavy guyliner and I’m in. Totes.

We are going to pair this nonsensical pastiche with the Zombie cocktail. Because OBVIOUS and also you’d have to be pretty wasted for this movie to make any sense, but if’ you’ve got a good, strong buzz going, this movie is just FUCKING AWESOME!

1/2 oz Bacardi® 151 rum
1 oz pineapple juice
1 oz orange juice
1/2 oz apricot brandy
1 tsp sugar
2 oz light rum
1 oz dark rum
1 oz lime juice

Blend all ingredients with ice except Bacardi 151 proof rum. Pour into a collins glass. Float Bacardi 151 proof rum on top. Garnish with a fruit slice, sprig of mint and a cherry.

It’s a Spanish star, in a zombie (Haitian) movie, in a plot set in the rural UK referencing New England Cthulhu Mythos. So what the hell to drink with this pan-cultural mashup, extremely poorly dubbed into English? A cocktail mashing up Haitian rum, Hawaiian pineapple, Floridian orange juice, apricot brandy from (the Okanagan) wherever apricots come from, sugar from Dominica, and lime from wherever in the tropics isn’t devoted to a more profitable crop…it’s like “It’s a small world” in a glass. With added colonialism!

Holy crap, “Guru cocktail recipe” returns one result in Google. That’s insane. That’s as close to a Googlewhack as I’ve gotten in years. No wonder I went with the Zombie. Note to bartenders: The GURU is an opportunity.

And now, to our cheesy movie that DOES NOT DO JUSTICE TO PAUL NASCHY BUT STILL SHOWCASES HIS HOTNESS: Vengence of the Zombies.