Zombie Night

Within the first 5 minutes I was struck with arrogance. You know how some movies begin with a quote or piece of poetry by some famous scholar or writer? Well this one starts with a quote, from one of the movies creators.

Then the movie really begins, a generic zombie film revolving around a group of survivors and their valiant efforts to survive the movies 90 minute runtime.

Full of the usual cliches but taking them considerably too far especially the one about the "Bad apple" of the group who jeopardises the safety of the others.

It gets stupid, we have a character who continues to be a liability from stealing to sabotaging to straight up murdering and yet our "Heroes" do little to prevent him from carrying on with his behaviour.

The bad acting, poor sound editing and writing which several times throughout the film made me cringe. It defies belief just how stupid this film is and to be clear I watch a lot of hyper low budget zombie affairs and this is one of the worst.

Even the most hardcore zombie fan will struggle with this embarassment.

The Good:

Nope

The Bad:

Laughable acting

Awful writing

A hero simply called Dave, really?

The god monologue is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

I would have shot Derek in the face, twice

If a man falls down it's best to talk for a while then shoot him in the head to save him from getting bitten

Even a person killed via a shot to the head will rise as a zombie

I don't really want to give this movie any stars at all because it was so bad that I have to own it. Yup, one of those that has so many things wrong with it in terms of story, dialogue, acting, plot holes and yes, editing, that it earns a place on my list of Most Fun Bad Movies Ever. It's up there with SHOWGIRLS and FEMALE MERCENARIES ON ZOMBIE ISLAND. MST3K was made for movies like ZOMBIE NIGHT. You could definitely drive a Humvie Limo through the plot holes and the way some of the people apathetically strolled away from the equally apathetic zombies reminded me of KIDS IN THE HALL's zombie sketch. And you gotta love an 'impenetrable barrier' made of a few wooden crates tied together with two pieces of rope. Heh. I'm gonna watch it again with friends.

...but I can't imagine how...

This film is misguided, to say the least. I felt like I was watching a high-school produced video (as in VHS) presentation. Devoid of anything that makes cinema magical, this humourless train wreak of a film was painful in most parts and laugh-out-loud awful in the rest. And not even the fun kind of laugh... The so-bad-it's-great kind of laugh that we all love so much. This is a "this makes me angry" kind of bad.

I dare anyone out there to watch three minutes of this film without finding one major, fatal flaw in the scene. From the characters who appear and disappear at random, to the "Hey man, you've always wanted to act" casting, to the horrible camera work and lighting, this isn't even on par with second unit material from a porn shoot.

About the only saving grace is that every now and again you can see something, a faint hope... and I'm not sure if it's a glimmer of respect from one Zombie movie fan to another... a tip of the hat to the genre by stealing ideas from other, greater zombie films that shows through from the screen. Or is it a nugget of original thought that's actually somewhat provoking? Naw... It's probably ripped off from something else.

If you're thinking of renting Zombie Night, do yourself a favour. Skip the video store. Pick up your video camera. Grab some fake blood and old clothes. Find an old school or a garage or a field. Shoot your own movie. You'll have a far better time.

Just don't make the same mistake that they did and try and SHOW IT to anybody.

Okay. Just follow me for a minute... It seems there's an off-screen nuclear war and now human-hungering zombies are overrunning the world. (I don't remember reading about this phenomenon after they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.) Okay, now we meet a married couple with a kid who are driving home from a couple of at a remote cabin where, conveniently, there was no television or radio. When they turn on the car radio they listen to various television broadcasts (!) about the war and the zombies. Then the war breaks down and they decide to hide in a building, and... and... who cares.

I was predisposed to hate this movie because it began with an arty graphic treatment of a poem, which seemed inappropriate to the subject matter of the film. I didn't recognize the name of the poet. Then the credits began, and lo-and-behold, the poet was none other than one of the producers of the film: Amber L. Francis. Now, I'm thinking that this, rather than just being a backyard production, is a pretentious backyard production. However, at the end of the film, you discover that Ms. Francis, who was also a writer and actress in the film, died after the production. My condolences. Now, I understood the poem, and, in retrospect, I found it very poignant and moving. It was the best thing in the film.

I hadn't reviewed a film in a while on the IMDb, but, as I was watching this film, I knew I had to return. I couldn't wait to tear this thing apart. Now, out of respect for the late Ms. Francis, I will resist the urge. In fact, now I will actually try to compliment it.

Good things:

1. Some of the gore wasn't bad -- compared to films of a similar budget level. 2. The picture was in focus more often than it was out of focus. 3. Having the zombies only come out at night was a unique twist on the normal Romerian zombie world-view. 4. It wasn't the worst horror film in the world -- that would be "Ax'em." 5. The poem was touching (in context).

I cannot justify even giving this movie a single star.

It is bad.

No, even worse than bad. There is no adjective in the English language that appropriately describes how awful this movie is.

I will admit that there are a couple of good zombie kills, but the acting, sound quality, video quality, plot, continuity, believibility, and setting are all really bad.

Somehow, they even managed to do a bad job with the nudity scenes.

If you want to get drunk and make fun of this movie with your buddies, then this movie will serve you a purpose, but if you want to enjoy watching a scary movie, look elsewhere.