A cinematic treat, Joe Dante’s film Burying the Ex paid tribute to numerous sci-fi and horror movies from the past, being also a humorous, playful film and sadly one more reason for us to miss the late Anton Yelchin who’s playing Max, of collector of horror film memorabilia which are affluently shown.
We start with the poster on the fridge. Double the Terror. Double the Shock. The films are Eddie Romero’s Beast of the Yellow Night (1971) and Alfred Vohrer’s Creature with the Blue Hand (1967).
Behind Evelyn (Ashley Greene), an Italian film poster is visible, Steno’s Tempi Duri per i Vampiri (1959, aka Uncle was a Vampire).
In the shop where Max (Anton Yelchin) works, lots of posters and DVDs are shown, also films are featured on TV. Here, from the left, French poster of Jesús Franco’s La tumba de los muertos vivientes (1982), Edward D. Wood Jr.‘s Bride of the Monster (1955), Mikhail Karzhukov & Aleksandr Kozyr’s Battle Beyond the Sun (1959), Sam Newfield’s The Monster Maker (1944), Bill Warren’s book Keep Watching the Skies, about the American sci-fi movies of the 50s and Miguel Morayta’s El Vampiro Sangriento (1962).
DVD covers of Jack Hill’s Spider Baby (1967) and Francis Ford Coppola’s Dementia 13 (1963), poster of Ray Kellogg’s The Killer Shrews (1969).
More posters. Bert I. Gordon’s Tormented (1960) and Beginning of the End (1957), Joseph Green’s The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962), Phil Tucker’s Robot Monster (1953) and Roger Corman’s Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957). On TV, the glorious House of Haunted Hill (1959, dir. William Castle) is shown.
Down at the shop’s basement, Max calls Evelyn to check the new naughty nurse costume, while Alan Gibson’s The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973) is on TV – also DVD cover is visible. Another poster in the background, Antonio Margheriti’s Battle of the Worlds (1961).
Back at home, two amazing italian posters. Roger Corman’s The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) and Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires (1965).
Thank you. Go to hell.
Richard E. Cunha’s Missile to the Moon (1958) is playing on TV.
After the tragic accident of his girlfriend, Max finds solace with Edward D. Wood Jr.’s masterpiece, Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959).
He’s also going to the New Beverly Cinema for, undoubtedly, one of the greater double-bills that ever shown in films, Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People (1942) and I Walked with the Zombie (1943). Theatre’s legendary marquee is shown when Max meets again Olivia (Alexandra Daddario) and they talk about Val Lewton’s contribution to cinema.
Back at the shop, we can see Joseph Green’s The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962)…
… and Mario Bava’s The Whip and the Flesh (1963).
Near the end of the film, it’s Halloween night and Max goes with Olivia to a cemetery for a special screening of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968)…
…while his friend Travis (Oliver Cooper) tries to protect them from Evelyn. He’s watching Herschell Gordon Lewis’ The Gore Gore Girls (1972). Also lots of DVD covers are visible. Some of them are the following: William Berker’s Zamba (1949), Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack’s King Kong (1933), Jim Wynorski’s Not of this Earth (1988), Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), Uwe Boll’s Alone in the Dark (2005), William Dieterle’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s 28 Weeks Later (2007) and Don Sharp’s Rasputin: The Mad Monk (1966).
At the end, Max finally starts his own business at the same place where Olivia has hers. While talking, a great french poster is visible behind them, from Terence Fisher’s The Curse of the Werewolf (1961).
Images from Joe Dante’s Burying the Ex (2014).
