A MONSTROUS CORPSE (1980, original title Goeshi) is a film I hadn't even heard about before yesterday, but it's just been added to Youtube so I checked it out last night. It's a South Korean remake of THE LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE (!), sticking very closely to the original but relocating the situation to rural Korea. A couple travelling through the countryside stumble upon reanimated corpses rising from the dead as a result of an experimental pest-control experiment, and it all kicks off from there...
A lot of us know the Spanish classic already (and if you don't I implore you to get hold of it, as it really is that good), so how does this remake hold up? Inevitably being Asian it's a very different beast; for example, gone is Arthur Kennedy's bigoted cop, replaced by a rather more amiable chap doing his job (due to the political situation at the time there could be no criticism of right-wing characters). There's also no gore either, the zombies prefering to break the necks of their victims instead. The good news is that it's still atmospheric, and the zombies themselves are creepy creations. It's not going to hold a candle to the Spanish film but it's a nice attempt and a lot better than many of the various American horror remakes of the past couple of decades.
A lot of us know the Spanish classic already (and if you don't I implore you to get hold of it, as it really is that good), so how does this remake hold up? Inevitably being Asian it's a very different beast; for example, gone is Arthur Kennedy's bigoted cop, replaced by a rather more amiable chap doing his job (due to the political situation at the time there could be no criticism of right-wing characters). There's also no gore either, the zombies prefering to break the necks of their victims instead. The good news is that it's still atmospheric, and the zombies themselves are creepy creations. It's not going to hold a candle to the Spanish film but it's a nice attempt and a lot better than many of the various American horror remakes of the past couple of decades.