Director: Pupi Avati
Year: 1983
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: Zeder: voci dal buio; Revenge of the Dead; Zeder: Voices from Darkness; Zeder: Voices from the Beyond
Genre: Zombie
Plot:
Desperate to continue his writing, a budding novelist receives a typewriter belonging to a disgraced scientist who published theories on select ways of reviving the dead from the ground, and soon, a group of extremists following the scientist’s work contacts him to finish the work.
Review:
This was an intriguing if somewhat problematic genre effort. Among the better aspects to be had with this one come from the unique and immensely unconventional starting point that has some fun elements present. The whole idea of the fringe scientist working on ways to provide the means of resurrecting the dead and the obscure occult methodology that accomplishes that task, which is saved on the ribbon of the typewriter he just randomly happens to acquire while trying to follow his dreams of being a writer, gives the film a generally strong and enjoyable starting point. This sets the film up with the kind of stylistic approach where it operates more as a means of searching for the truth behind his writings, as the attempt to decipher and decode what was on the device means this one focuses on the series of investigative exploits to figure everything out.
That provides the film with a series of intriguing genre elements to focus on the search for the whole truth behind the writings. As he gets help from the cult that is more tied to the writings and different meanings behind the original work of the scientist, this allows for some strong back-and-forth moments where it all starts to be worked out, involving how the specific soil of a certain location in the country might be the key to everything behind his writing. With that meaning that the film’s travelog sequences of him and his wife going around looking into what’s going on and how everything operates, this nicely leads him into the series of encounters with the more notorious members of the order and the actual truth about what he developed as there’s a series of fun encounters with the reanimated corpse that proves everything was true. With this allowing for a multitude of sequences focusing on the atmospheric sense of dread conjured up by the storyline, with what the intent behind everything is, there’s quite a lot to enjoy here.
There are a few drawbacks holding this back. The main detriment to be had here is the sluggish and generally underwhelming pacing, where it doesn’t make the threats all that obvious until so late in the film that it hardly ever feels like a genuine genre effort. There’s barely much in the way of hardcore zombie action within here due to the majority of the film going for an investigation into the mysterious teaching of the scientist and the road trip that goes on into the various locations where the possible clues reside, and that keeps everything rather slow-going for most of the running time. As the main zombie is only released in the final minutes and never participates in traditional genre activity like swarming, devouring entrails, or even stalking victims, this might be a potential source of discernment for some expecting something else. While that might not be a genuine issue, the fact that so much of the film is reliant on coincidence to keep the guy safe until the end, resulting in the cult of followers looking more inept than threatening and somewhat lessening the impact of what they’re about, keeps this one down overall.
Overview: ***/5
A curious enough if slightly problematic genre entry, this one keeps itself intriguing for quite a while and only has a few genuine issues that might hold this down. Viewers willing to go along with this one, aware of what’s in store here, or who are genuinely curious about it, will have the most to like, while most others out there should heed extreme caution.
This review is part of our ongoing series of reviews for Italian Horror Month, every November on the site:
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