L'abîme des morts vivants

those expecting a gory blood bath will be disappointed, which is probably why everyone hates it, but i think it's pretty good. the zombies are really cool looking, and the attacks are directed with some style. Daniel White's music adds a certain flavor too. unfortunately, the slow pace will put some viewers to sleep, but i think it adds to the atmosphere. not a great film, but a good one.

With the legendary stinker reputation that this Jess Franco fable bestows (together with Jean Rollin's 'Zombie Lake'), I just could help myself to see what all the fuss was about. To tell the truth I was expecting something much, much worse when I got to the end of it, while viewable (think along the lines of a crash car taking place and you simply having trouble taking your eyes off it) I still couldn't deny just how uninvolved, flat and dull it was despite being compelled.

This leery zero-budget schlock never captures the premise's promising idea (where it has Nazi zombies protecting the gold from anyone who enters the oasis in the African desert) and doesn't go anywhere we haven't already been before. The lack of money for the production wouldn't have helped, but the execution is clunky and tame on all fronts for something that needed to be more risqué (no gore or nudity). A repetitively slow-going mess with incoherent story-telling and woodenly wordy script is what comes about. It's hard to get excited seeing the same lingering zooms, ponderous actions and having to listen to Daniel White's lousy score of cringe-induced skews being dragged out.

The ultra-cheap FX work for the threatening zombies (who seem to like to croak and shuffle) look like there done up in scrappy papier-mâché, but it has a decaying quality to it that's effective. Murky, washed out photography and lack of lighting doesn't make good use of the exotically bone-dry locations or helping to figure out just when it's night or day. Atmosphere is non-existent, but there's one decent creepy image Franco pulls off involving zombie silhouettes' moving down the dunes with the sun setting (or was it rising) in the backdrop and an well-organised explosive war set-piece during the sequence we're learning about the history of the Oasis and it's dead protectors. Acting is poor (but there are some stunning women about), and the character's they play (mainly the college kids) are plain stupid.

A doggedly uneventful zombie film that just manages to hold a spell over you. I don't know how though?

"Oasis of the Zombies" is the irrefutable proof that you should NEVER purchase horror movies judging by their cool-sounding titles and/or appealing DVD-covers! Lucky for me, I gained enough cynics (and Franco-experience) over the years in order to keep my expectations towards this one low, and I can only advise people to do the same. This movie is boring, poorly made and very UN-Franco! No sadism and a total lack of sleaze??? What's the matter, Jess? We follow the totally uninteresting treasure hunt of some youngsters in the African desert. During WWII, a Nazi-squadron carrying 6 million $ worth of gold supposedly got ambushed and the loot is still there. So are the Nazis, though, only they're rotten walking corpses now… The little bit of gore and the zombie make-up effects are very OTT and the complete opposite of scary, yet they form the only mildly entertaining aspects of the entire movie. The undead look filthy and disgusting but their attacks appear to be filmed in slow motion! So incredibly tame! "Nazi-zombie"-flicks isn't a very rich horror sub genre, but at least the 1977 "Shock Waves" can be considered a modest classic. Heck, even that dreadful "Zombie Lake" is ten times more entertaining than this turkey. That movie might be retarded but at least it contained some exciting moments.

I first saw this film when I was about eight or nine. It was at a "99 Cent Video" store in Hesperia, California, and I went there with one of my parents. I always liked to comb through the horror section of video stores (and I still do). I guess I have always had some kind of (morbid?) fascination with that section of the store. Seeing all the horrific video box covers, old films and new, sitting their on the shelves -- I had more fun and more chills reading the back of those video boxes -- films such as "The Seven Doors of Death" (and, yes, I know that is actually a heavily cut version of "The Beyond" by Fulci) or "Zombie Lake", "Slaughter High", or another ghastly title (a lot of them hard to find, and ones that you'll probably never find again) -- and imagining what the particular film would be like to watch then actually watching the film itself. It was in this store that I came across Jess Franco's "Oasis of the Zombies". It was the Filmland distribution copy, and the brief, paragraphic summary on the back of the box was just as said. I don't know how, but one way or another I (conned?) my parent into renting it for me. I got home, popped it in, and began watching it. Let me diverge from the track for a minute by saying that lots of commentors on this film have said that is was "boring".

Now, I can't recall it being boring -- of course, I was only eight or night, and this film was one of those ghastly oddities from the horror section, and I had the luxury of actually being able to view it... so I was hooked. I didn't remember a lot about the film -- that is to say, about the story -- but what I did remember of it was what would come to be a graphic standard of the genre: a scene where the star zombies were making blue plate specials out of some campers in the desert. It was stomach churning, it was gruesome, yet at the same time I was covering my face with my hands, was I was looking between my fingers, I continued to watch it with that same, weird fascination.

That was also when one of my parents walked in, took one look at the movie and scene I was witnessing, said "Unh-ugh,", and turned it off, and that was the end of that.

Ten years passed before I would be able to find and watch that movie again. I didn't remember the title, and I didn't remember the story -- but I had always remembered what the box looked like, and that gory zombie luncheon scene had definitely stuck with me in the back of my mind. So, armed with that much knowledge, I had always searched different video stores during those ten years just on the chance that I might find it, and, low and behold, in August of 2001, at a video discount store in Simi Valley, California (you know, one of those places that has racks and racks of all different kinds of films for low prices), I found it without even looking for it. Same box, same everything.

I bought it for a couple of bucks, popped it in, and watched it. And I didn't see what was so bad about it. Sure, it had a very low budget, and perhaps the acting was at times mediocre, but, all in all, I still felt it was a nice effort by an apparently notorious director -- I was just as intrigued watching the film as I was ten years earlier at any rate. As I said, many have said it was boring -- particularly the "flashback time-filler". I've come to attach these type of comments from this and other films of the genre to those persons that I like to refer to as "gorehounds". They like zombie movies, they LOVE zombies movies, but the only thing they love about them, apparently, is the gore, and that's all. Now, perhaps I'm wrong here, but I felt that there was a decent attempt at concentration on the STORY here. Sure, there was a long flashback sequence -- but I don't see how it could be boring. Most of it depicted a heavy gun battle. What's boring about something like that? And so what if it did have a flashback sequence? "The Green Mile" and "The Bounty", as other films, were both told in flashback for the entirety of them. I'm not comparing this film to those wonderful cinematic events, but why don't people give old Jess a break? He gave it his best with what he had. Which is what most filmmakers do -- otherwise they wouldn't be taking the time to do it. Yes, by today's standards, this film probably is boring. But this is a foreign film, remember, and it's also twenty years old, and people had longer attention spans then.

Give this underrated film a showing if you have about an hour and a half to spare -- and don't be a gorehound and watch this film for the blood and guts; watch it for the atmosphere, which I feel it's loaded with. Pay attention to the story, because there just so happens to be a little one whether you like it or not, and you might just find yourself getting drawn into it. I quote the man on the camel at the end of this film. He asks one of the survivors of the zombie attack: "Did you find what you were looking for?" The survivor replies: "Yes... but I think I mostly found myself." Maybe you'll find a neat little gem of a movie here. Give it a chance. Granted: It's not Romero, and for all you gorehounds out there it may not be a Fulci... but I think it's worth a look.

Okay, I'll just assume I'm entering a comment for the version of the movie I saw (though who really cares about accuracy with something like this?). "Oasis of the Zombies" has a sketchy, multiple-version history that is finely indicative of director Jess Franco's low-budget, schlockmeister style. I have never really cared much for this Spanish horror hack (though I do think "The Awful Dr. Orloff" is a well-done chiller), but what can I say..."Oasis" holds a weirdly special place in my genre heart. The reviews across the board are mostly condemning if not outright cursing this POS' existence, and I can see where they're coming from--make no mistake, this IS the bottom rung of the zombie ladder. Yet at the same time, this film engages me in some odd way--yes, it is two movies spliced together (sometimes quite badly), but I don't find it boring, or even all that bad. Granted, I've never seen a decent print of the film, the night scenes are either too muddy or too bright (yes, a few take place in broad daylight), the characterizations poor, and the zombie 'action' less than stunning. In the small subgenre of Nazi Zombie Films, "Oasis" falls between the Good ("Shock Waves") and the Ugly (Jean Rollin's "Zombie Lake"). 74 minutes into this 85-minute film, we get the signature image of zombies shambling up a dune against an orange sunset (or sunrise?), and it's the only moment of atmospheric artistry to be found. Still, for those who are inured to this kind of low-end Euro-dreck (myself included), "Oasis" is worth a look--in many ways, it is conceptually interesting enough to be a good remake candidate.