Director: Brett Leonard
Year: 1989
Country: US
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Zombie
Plot:
Found wandering the streets, a woman is admitted to a mental health facility where she refutes her case of amnesia and begins to have crazy nightmares about a former doctor who practiced medical experiments to reanimate the dead and must race to stop him unleash a horde of the undead into our world.
Review:
This here is one of the very best 80's cheesefests ever made. One of the main reasons for that is the rather great story to this, as there's much more to this one than what's expected. The fact that it throws in much more than normal, from the nightmarish dreams to the therapy sessions and her connection to the doctor's past through the flash visions that pop up, this one does manage to stay interesting for the seemingly disparate story elements are nicely woven together into a rich story that has a lot of twists and turns to keep it going. When it hits the second half, there's as much goodness from the action as the first half, which includes the zombie massacre on the staff and patients that offers up some great moments, and there's also the big scenes in the basement of the facility where all the zombies are kept and operated on. There's also the greatness of the finale where the film goes for a larger scale than expected and really makes this fun as there's some solid chasing around the abandoned buildings as well as the complete destruction of a water tower and the resulting flood it unleashes manages to employ some nice action into the proceedings to make it come to an end.
The other really big part to this is that there's so much bloodshed in the film. This is an incredibly bloody film, packed with loads of gore and messy features, and there's a ton of both in here that makes this one as bloody as it is. The kills make this one worth it, as there's literally no end to the ripped off limbs, a lobotomy pick through the eyes, scores of decapitations, brain surgeries where the top part of the head gets cut off to expose the brain matter within gets exposed, and there's also a ton of really great gunshots to the head. Even the dead on here are bloody, full of wounds, all slimy and blood-streaked, many of them bald in spotted and mildewed hospital gowns. They shuffle and stutter their way up the spiral staircase to wreak havoc. There's many great scenes of them coming for the main characters lit from behind in an awesome setting which just makes them that much more impressive-looking.
Frankly, the acting is as you would expect in such low-budget fare. As the lead Jane Doe, Cheryl Lawson is certainly decent enough as there's not much for her to do other than switch between hysterical screaming during her visions or looking sane during the other times. She definitely has the proper physique for all the running around she does which is a great asset even if it doesn't help her out any further. The kindly psychiatrist Dr. Gerald Swan, played Jeremy Slate, comes off rather nicely as there's a move away from the corrupt leader putting her in there against her will and he seems genuinely interested in helping her which makes for a nice enough character her gong away from the cliché. His counterpart, the evil Dr. Colin Ramzi, played by Danny Gochnauer, serves as an admirable main villain if only through his actions as he doesn't do much beyond laughing hysterically at her and really only springs into action at the end with his on-screen procedures which is a great sequence but beyond that doesn't have much else to do. Beyond them, no one else really serves notice one way or the other.
Alongside the mental hospital setting, which is completely creepy, offers up some unnerving atmosphere and just gives the whole thing a really uneasy feeling, these here are what make the film worthwhile as it doesn't have a whole lot of flaws to it. The main one is that the plot is rather hard to get into. There's a lot of things going on in here, from the amnesia victim to the past relationship that's remained hidden and the rather clichéd manner in which it all manages to occur at the end, and while all of these make the film feel smart, trying to piece together the way it all unfolds is just plain exhausting. Trying to connect all the different reasons offered into his resurrection which makes no sense regardless of the official explanation which does hold it back. Worse is that the whole cliché spook of the main character that can only see the main villain's ridiculous vanishing act ploy is entirely too played out and not too effective, as there's not a lot of them, but what they lack in number they make up for in groaning ability. Otherwise, there isn't much wrong to this one.
Overview: *** 1/2/5
One of the better 80's-era cheese-fests around, this one does a decent job with it but beyond that there's not much else going on the film. See it only if you're a big fan of the style or in the mood for a really nice zombie film from the time, otherwise there's not much else to recommend something like this to.
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