Island of the Living Dead

Just looking at the title, Island of the Living Dead must be an old school zombie ripoff of the famous George Romero films, probably made in 1960 something… [blows dust off of year on tombstone] 2007?? Island of the Living Dead came out in 2007? How? How?? [blows off more dust] Ohhh, it’s an Italian movie. That explains it — anything can happen in an Italian movie!

Despite its release in this century, Island of the Living Dead has a nice and simple vintage plot: A ragtag group of treasure hunters, led by a man with the poshest English accent ever dubbed into a zombie film, find themselves on an uncharted island full of treasure, and, you guessed it, all kinds of dead folks with a hankerin’ for BRAINS.

There’s a convoluted backstory about a Spanish ship full of stolen gold, leading to a whole curse-type situation, some conquistador zombie guys, some much more generic zombie guys, and monster makeup that varies wildly from “graphic” to “whimsical rubber mask.”  There’s also a treasure-hunting woman who turns almost every line into an expletive-filled rant, like she’s in some kind of Charles Dickens “paid by the word” deal but only gets paid for swears.

But the main thing, the most important thing about Island of the Living Dead, is the treasure hunting guy in the Snoopy t-shirt. Not since Asahi Guy in Radical Jack has a character’s shirt brought us so much joy. This grown man fights and smokes and sweats his way through zombie after zombie, all while Snoopy dances happily on his torso. And the kicker, when you finally learn the name of the Snoopy shirt guy… we won’t give it away here, but suffice it to say, it had us dancing like the Peanuts kids on Christmas.

Pour yourself a glass of worm wine (you’ll see) and hop on a boat with Mike, Kevin and Bill to defile the sanctity of the Island of the Living Dead! What could go wrong?

Written by: Mike Nelson, Conor Lastowka, Sean Thomason, Jason Miller, and Zachary Shatzer