Director: Claudio Fragasso
Year: 1989
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: After Death (Oltre la morte); Zombie Flesh Eaters: After Death; Zombie Flesh Eaters 3
Genre: Zombie
Plot:
After hearing about a deadly disease, a small group of soldiers heads to a Caribbean island to look for answers, only to find a gang of survivors from the army of voodoo-unleashed zombies running through the jungle and trying to stop the voodoo curse responsible for the attacks.
Review:
This was a massively fun cheesy genre effort. One of the better features here is how this one sets about its storylines which keeps this one going at a fast pace. The initial introduction of the voodoo clan running over the community as we’re dropped immediately into the ceremony that resurrects the main zombie who targets the group of scientists on the island looking into the strange disease said to be over the island only for it to be revealed as the voodoo curse taking shape that brings them into construct with the deadly forces at their disposal. The second group coming to the island and checking out what’s going on but getting involved just as much as the main group of survivors makes for a solid secondary storyline that brings the gang into contact with zombies at a feverish pace throughout the jungle. We get almost no scenes about the virus and concentrate the most on the zombie assault as it's just a wall-to-wall film with zombie attacks, dead bodies, and more that's great to see a movie like that.
Seeing as how this is an Italian zombie film, the focus is also on the zombie make-up and gore, and once again, they rarely fault here. Tons of blood is shed here and it works in the film's favor including a particularly brutal face-rearranging and peeling, a countless amount of bites and scratches, and the gory mess each body is left in. There's a generous amount of damage from gunshots as well as blasting bodies to pieces or blasting heads apart so there is enough here for any gorehound to get into. The zombies themselves are great, being the usual Italian decayed-looking creatures while making them even more scary-looking is the fact that they all have a special look to them hardly any of the zombies look similar to another one, so they all have a distinct look to them. They all have differing body scars, dress, and overall appearance, with their clawed hands and teeth, make for a great effective creation. As these come about through a great bit of action to allow for everything to come about, this has a lot to enjoy about it.
There aren't too many flaws here but it does have some factors. About the only thing to fault this film with is its total cheese-filled atmosphere with a setup more concerned with delivering action than anything else. The look of the zombies, the type of action featured here where everyone comes to continuously put themselves in danger to keep the film going, and what the storyline ultimately means for everyone with their storylines focusing on some banal reasonings that ultimately mean nothing with all of the different outcomes bringing about some flimsy setups. Given that it’s all so goofy-looking and has a strange series of outcomes featured here, it all seems so silly and cheesy with its low-budget atmosphere which gives it a cheap overall impression. It's not the smartest film ever made, and it seems to be made only to appease the fans of the genre. That's about all wrong with this one as being made only for a select group isn't the worst thing in the world.
Overview: ****/5
Okay, so it's cheesy, so it's easy to see where the filmmakers are coming from. That still doesn't diminish that it's an action-packed gory zombie film that is pretty entertaining if you give it a chance. Not exactly essential viewing, but all interested parties of cheesy genre cinema or Eurohorror zombie fare should give it a look, it's not that bad.
Comments
Post a Comment