Curse of the Cannibal Confederates (Curse of the Screaming Dead) (1982) - TCC Japan VHS

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In a word, horrendous. Tony Malanowski's Curse of the Cannibal Confederates might be the worst zombie movie I've ever seen. Yes, even worse than John Russo's attempt to piss on George Romero's Dead legacy with his offensive Children of the Living Dead (2001). There's amazingly not one aspect worth mentioning here. Every terribly edited scene drags like an old mule with a bump leg while bland characters inaudibly blather in piss poor lighting. A few laughably dressed zombies bathed in flour rise in near pitch blackness and meekly attack while you ponder the benefits of doing laundry instead.

If I had to compare this junk to another zombie movie, it actually reminds me somehow of Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1973). However, that would be a great disservice to the late Bob Clark's earnest picture that's always great fun while possessing real atmosphere (more fleshed out thoughts here). So don't take that as a recommendation even if I love ol' dead Orville and his soon-to-be-dead-too living friends. You'll just end up coming back here to send hate mail. The best Cannibal Confederates can muster is to remind you that no-budgeters with no redeeming qualities existed back when it was harder to pull off such a feat without the aid of today's cheap digital camcorders and pirated editing software. I'm so easy on zombie flicks that to fuck up one this badly is like fucking up a cup of coffee. It's that bad.

At least the movie's distribution history is a little more interesting. Malanowski pulled a Raimi and initially made the similarly themed Night of Horror in 1981. Then the filmmaker immediately quasi-remade that effort into Curse of the Screaming Dead which made its home video debut from Mogul Communications. Later in 1987, Troma picked it up, changed the title to Cannibal Confederates, and placed a scene of the zombies rising from their graves from the middle of the movie before new opening credits (and the scene later repeats in its proper place). Toxie's home appears have this one in their permanent catalog as they've released it to DVD a few years ago in a triple feature.

This is who Tokuma Communications Japan got the clearance to release their 1990 VHS release below (title translation, "Food of the Dead") . It's one of the rarer of TCC's titles, especially in this condition, presented in English with small Japanese subtitles. Check out Bruce Holecheck's Cinema Arcana VHS Archives entry detailing the Mogul VHS and more. Also I'm going to contact Bruce so he can swap out that poor, faded image of this VHS that's on his post with this nice scan.