Tuesday, November 3

Some quick thoughts on ROLD 5: Rave to the Grave (2005)


Let's face it, after the limp Part 2 threw continuity to the dogs, for better-or-worse this series was damned to loose, namesake-only entries. Either by design or happy money-grubbing accident, John Russo created the Trash Bag Bunch ('member these awesome mofos?) of zombie flick devices. Just drop a Trioxin tank into a horror flick, eventually it'll crack open, and bang--instant ready-to-eat zombie. So when I read about this and Necropolis pissing on the "ROLD" brand, please people, Ken Wiederhorn shot it in the face before there was any chance to spread its blood soaked wings outside O'Bannon's original.

I can remember first watching these two as many others on Sci-fi's world television premiere double feature a few years ago. Negative waves immediately rolled across message boards like thunder in-between commercial breaks. I was actually fairly impressed considering these were shot in the Romanian DTV dumping grounds back-to-back. My second visit with Necropolis on disc wasn't as surprising, but what about this re-visit to Rave to the Grave?

Well, it's still firmly crap, but it's innocuous partially-watch-while-doing-something-else-and-run-in-upon-hearing-screaming crap. Like Bio-Dome meets your so-so zombie programmer meets Uwe Boll without that prick at the helm. I can roll with that, despite the choruses of boos and probably never watching Rave again (dunno, get into weird moods). Though Elkayem, the two writers, the ten producers, the in-both-films cast, and presumably countless investors really should have just stuck to doing one sequel well (or trying) instead of splitting duties between middling zombie "action" and "comedy" efforts. Here's some captures with dumb captions since I feel this is the only way to appropriately critique without the film making me as stupid as itself.


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5 comments:

Jenn said...

While I particularly enjoy the LOL-horrors in this post, um, yeah, RAVE was pretty goddamn awful. Why I netflixed it and watched it in its entirety is really actually beyond me. Oh well, call me a completist.

J. Astro said...

Ha. Glad I skipped these.

Drunketh said...

Huh. I forgot all about those "trash bag bunch" figures. They came in bags that melted in water right? I had quite a few actually, along with battle beasts and I did as a kid probably steal every single micro machine out there(the electronic ones were tha best)... out of the tbag bunch though, from those pics, #1 I had black robot with missles. #2 orange monster with fur sweater. #3 the crab guy. Definately those, but more... wonder if mum has em stashed away somewhere. Hmm.

Unknown said...

did not know about these extra films... first and third great additions...

thanks, i am going to look for them... good is bad or the other
way around...

Anonymous said...

Well, apparently I'm the only one who liked this movie, and the original RotLD is in my top ten non-porn favourites of all time. My partner assured me Rave to the Grave was a piece of shit, but I still remember liking it.

...do you dare tread upon the staircase?

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