Director: Antoine Pellissier
Year: 1998
Country: France
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Zombie
Plot:
After learning of an inheritance nearby, a family travels through the woods to accomplish it only to stumble upon a Satanic cult offering a series of sacrifices that result in a ravenous horde of undead zombies emerging out of the forest and chasing after the family, forcing them to find a way to safety out of the area.
Review:
This was quite an impressive and enjoyable splatter effort. Among the films’ great points is the maddeningly bonkers storyline that serves as an excuse for the gore effects to come forward. The initial idea of the family traveling through the woods looking to inherit a piece of land nearby and stopping at the site of a Satanic ritual being conducted on various victims who are being mutilated and sacrificed to prepare for the arrival of Satan on Earth through a zombie apocalypse is a fantastic way to go about setting things in motion. The various rituals being performed by the cult in the woods, tying victims up to huge stone slabs and then gruesomely killing them one-by-one, which after each successful ritual allows a new swarm of zombies to be revived and swarm the forest and eventually bringing everyone into contact with each other, bring a lot to like here with some creepy concepts and visuals.
Even with that, though, the film serves itself incredibly well as an onslaught of over-the-top gore. The mutilations that occur at the ritualistic ceremony, from being nailed through the hands and feet to having red-hot pokers shoved through their eyes, slit throats, and stabbings set the stage for the big zombie feast that occurs as the creatures hungrily and messily devour the remains once the sacrifices are finished. That carries over into the later scenes of the undead roaming the forest looking for the family, with the genuinely terrifying and rotting zombies that ooze slime and dirt rather effectively which becomes all the more effective when mixed alongside the graphic gore found in the group being massacred and ripped to pieces before being devoured. That carries on nicely with the escape into the castle and the encounters there, from the underground tunnel escape, the battle in the vampires’ lair, and the finale featuring the return of the cult for another sacrifice provide this with even more action and some indie thrills, making for a genuinely enjoyable effort to hold up over its flaws.
There are some slight problems featured with this one. The main issue here is a wholly simplistic and somewhat scatterbrained story that keeps everything rather ambiguous and undefined for the most part. Since we’re dropped immediately into the family traveling through the woods with narration providing us with a clue of who they are and where they’re going, the whole concept of their journey is a mystery much like what the cult is attempting to do with unleashing the zombie plague on mankind. While unleashing them is clearly established, why the zombies are revived in the first place, what they’re doing by unleashing them, or whether they’ll be safe from the creatures with the way they continually stay around the outskirts of the action isn’t explained since this just goes through these scenes without explaining anything. There’s also the low-budget limitations on display, from the presentation and effects to the padding and much more, which stand out but don’t lower this that much.
Overview: ***.5/5
An enjoyable over-the-top zombie gorefest featuring a lot to like in that regard but stumbling with its chaotic storyline and low-budget limitations at times, there’s enough going on to be watchable even under the flawed presentation. Underground gorehounds, or simple splatter fanatics in general as well as those who can appreciate the style and approach here should give this a watch while those unwilling to forgive its limitations and approach should heed caution with this one.
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