Director: Andrea Bianchi
Year: 1981
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: Le notti del terrore; Zombi Horror; The Zombie Dead
Genre: Zombie
Plot:
In a remote mountainside house, a group of friends arriving for a weekend of fun find the house under attack from some type of strange walking corpses unearthed from a tomb nearby and realize they are trapped in the house with the living dead forcing the ever-dwindling party to escape.
Review:
This is one of the better Italian zombie films out there. Frankly, one of the best aspects of this one is the really fast pace, which also means that you are rarely bored with this film as something is always happening. It gets started off almost immediately with the opening resurrection in the catacombs that takes great advantage of the underground catacombs. There are also several great scenes in here that really work, with the resurrection of the zombie underneath a patch of grass being really spine-tingling as it's a slow, drawn-out sequence that leads into the fantastic battling throughout the courtyard as well as the fun scenes in the garage. Once inside the house, we are treated to some more highlights in the assault to break into the house, the first attacks on the people inside, and the attack in the bedroom are tense scenes that drive up the scare factor of the film due to the fast pace here.
Generating some creepiness to the attacks every now and then, as well as the series of assaults they undertake here throughout the house really delivers some terrifying moments due to the relentlessness of the zombie attacks. As well, the film has some of the best-looking zombies ever seen in the genre, going beyond looking rotten as there are several that have their faces reduced to near skeletons with small amounts of flesh on the skull. Some have barely any skin on there, and with their grotesque faces, they strike quite an imaginative and scary look upon first viewing with their tattered clothes, shuffling walk, and the very creative makeup used on their faces to create a nearly-perfect zombie. Even better, the film utterly wallows in a decidedly sleazy atmosphere that comes off quite fun here with the sexual shenanigans as well as the overtly sexualized behavior including one of the most legendary sequences in the genre.
Alongside the relentless gore on both sides with great, brutal deaths against the humans and zombies, these here are more than enough to hold it up over the few minor flaws. The main issue is the sheer and utter stupidity displayed by the characters who continually display bad decision-making to keep themselves in danger or fail to recognize ways out of the situation that would keep them alive. This happens frequently and it does become somewhat of a sore spot with this one with several scenes easily able to be rectified by characters not being so dim-witted. Also, this movie destroys some zombie laws in a couple areas by having them grab utensils such as pitchforks and saws and actually use them in certain scenes which is something that may upset true zombie fans. While there are a couple scenes that are clearly homages to other movies of the time, and they are spotted pretty easily, they don't distract too much overall.
Overview: *****/5
One of the best in the genre, this is an absolutely stellar Italian zombie effort that has far more going on for it than some would expect and is quite enjoyable for what it is. Give this a shot if you're a fan of this style of genre effort, appreciate this sleazy style of European genre fare, or are just zombie fans in general while most others turned off by these features should heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment