Director: Amerigo Brini
Year: 2014
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: Beautiful People
Genre: Zombie
Plot:
Looking to get their enjoyment, a group of depraved and demented crooks barges into the home of a doctor and his family where they proceed to torture them, only to find his experiments on a zombie virus in the basement below to have gotten free and forces them to try to get out of the house alive.
Review:
This one ended up being rather enjoyable overall. What works well for this one is getting right to the point and offering a rather brutal and depraved opening. Watching a couple engage in sensual, passionate love-making before realizing they’re being forced to do so by the demented group who are looking to ensure the payment of a debt between each other starts this one nicely. To see the depraved treatment here involving their sexual-based torment and abject cruelty in how they treat the family gets this off to a great start that’s carried along with the rest of the film.
The main aspect of the film, with the home invasion they undertake on the family, is where this shines. The manner of them barging in and taking control of the situation is great to watch unfold, setting up the series of expected tropes where they begin to torment and torture the family. There’s a lot to like here in how that plays out into the resulting interruption of the invasion where the escaped zombies and deformities as they get loose, turning the human sadism into a full-on charging burst of gut-munching entrails, chasing through the woods and a fantastic apocalyptic finale that’s quite chilling and dark. Alongside the gore effects and make-up, there’s a lot to enjoy from this one.
There are some flaws to be had here. The most pressing and obvious issue is the complete lack of explanations for anything here. Despite their penchant for depravity, the purpose of the home invasions means nothing here as we don’t know how they go about their business, how they pick their targets or why they put up with the weaker one who’s clearly ill-suited to be around them. As well, the idea of performing experiments on zombies and other deformed beings in the unsecured and fortified basement of a suburban house where no one is aware of what’s going on despite living a few feet above them is ludicrous to think would play out here without saying why it occurs in that manner.
The other problem here is the entire final half that ends this on a weird note. The idea of having the creatures appear from inside the neighbors' house off in the woods is not only a confusing issue but can also be seen coming a mile away which completely ruins the intended shock. The battle between the two in the forest comes off as rather weak and bland, and with all the damage inflicted on both party’s here to think the survivor would come away with enough energy to then rape the person he was defending during the fight for no reason as everything we’ve seen until then was based on saving them. There’s so much at fault here in this segment of the film that it lowers this somewhat.
Overview: ***.5/5
While there’s plenty to enjoy here in terms of this one being just a simple, messy home invasion/zombie-on-the-loose effort that has a lot to like, the few flaws do come off as somewhat distracting which holds this back. Give this a shot if you’re looking for a simplistic shot of ultra-violence or looking for a dark, depraved genre effort like this, while more demanding genre fans should heed caution.
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