Night of the Zombies

The plot of Joel M. Reed's "Night of the Zombies" concerns a group of investigators searching for the bodies of missing soldiers.They encounter a group of undead WWII soldiers who've apparently been kept alive by some chemical gas called Gamma 693 or something like that.Deadly dull and uninteresting horror film that is as dreary as they come.The action is utterly lifeless and there is not enough blood-in fact the film is pretty goreless.I can't believe that the same director directed outrageously sleazy "Bloodsucking Freaks"."Night of the Wehrmacht Zombies" is far from the worst horror movie ever made,but I was bored senseless whilst watching this low-budget atrocity.You have been warned.3 out of 10.

My late wife, Debbie Jackson, was an assistant editor on NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES. Several years later, I found it in - of all places - a supermarket. I brought it home, but for some reason, Debbie refused to watch. That always puzzled me, but I guess the memory was just too painful. Years after that, the tape disappeared from our house. I can only assume she threw it away. My only memory of the movie is a chase scene shot in Europe, with pickup shots in Greenwhich Village, in an area that sorta looks like Europe.

Debbie told me stories about meeting Jamie Gillis and how the producers were always running out of money and bringing new investors to the editing room. There was a similar movie called SHOCK WAVES, also about revived Nazi Zombies, and according to Debbie, there was some talk that their priceless idea had been ripped off. Oh well.

This horror movie production of very, VERY questionable quality opens rather peculiarly, with German marching music during the opening credits and a bunch of seemingly drunk actors with heavy German accents talking incomprehensible nonsense to each other. You either have to put the movie on stop straight away or accept these poor productions values immediately, because the incoherent plotting, weak dialogs and trashy incompetence go on for the rest of the movie. A handful of researchers are investigating a remote and forestry German region because, allegedly, there was held a secretive chemical warfare battle near the end of WWII and since then the place is a breeding ground for rotting Nazi zombies. Well, with more than 30 years after the end of the War, I'd say it's about time the military decided to investigate the rumors! If you manage to get the boring and inept first hour and ten minutes, during which there's absolutely not a single zombie in sight, you'll be "rewarded" with perhaps two or three zombie attack sequences, but still they'll all be scare-free and with terribly lame make-up effects.

The term "so bad it is good" doesn't even apply here anymore, as "Night of the Zombies" is a truly bottom-of-the-barrel horrible, trashy, tasteless and imbecilic Z-grade exploitation effort that cannot even remotely entertain the most hardened fans of bad cinema. Everything about the film is hideous to percept, from the characters' ugly mustaches to the nauseating Tiroler soundtrack. And just when you think it couldn't possible get any worse, writer/director Joel M. Reed comes up with a couple of the utmost retarded plot twists. Obviously there's also some random and totally gratuitous female nudity and a couple of embarrassing attempts at humor. I have honestly no idea what Joel M. Reed thought he was accomplishing here, but it's a miserable piece of junk that can't hold a candle to that other sordid little cult effort of his; entitled "Bloodsucking Freaks". I'm a big fan of that particular movie because it's so extreme and offensive, but "Night of the Zombies" is one of the most boring and pointless waste of film I ever voluntarily endured.

The first time I saw this picture was during the era of "Elvira: Mistress of the Dark's Movies" in the early eighties.(around the age of 13 or so) It really seemed a lot more interesting and suspenseful at the time but I guess THIS WAS THE FIRST TIME COMMERCIAL BREAKS ACTUALLY ENHANCED THE VIEWING OF A FEATURE FILM ON TV!!!! After buying the movie for a few bucks in a drug store a couple years back I have to say that this film has a lot going AGAINST IT. Bad European actors, bad special effects, and Jamie Gillis. (Boy, I don't know how this guy NEVER became the next Bruce Willis!)This movie started with a great idea but never developed anything cohesive out of it. If you're really bored or drunk or just want to watch a bad piece of cinema check this one out, if you want a good scary German zombie flick check out "Schocktroops".

Night of the Zombies (1981)

* (out of 4)

Nick Monroe (Jamie Gillis) leads up a team of investigators who are looking for some missing soldiers. They end up finding a group of WWII zombies that were apparently brought back by a deadly gas and soon the team are fighting for their lives.

This here was director Joel M. Reed's follow-up to BLOODSUCKING FREAKS and it seems as if the director wanted to get as far away from that film's subject matter as he could. The film shares some similarities with THE FROZEN DEAD but if you're expecting any type of blood, gore, violence or shock matter then you're going to be mighty disappointed. In fact, this falls well below other zombie-war films from this period like SHOCK WAVES and ZOMBIE LAKE but it was still slightly better than Jess Franco's OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES.

There are all sorts of problems with this film but it's obvious that they weren't working with too much money. I say this because the zombies don't even turn up until the forty minute mark and when they do show up their make-up is less than stellar. The make-up might have been okay in the early 70s but after the work of Tom Savini and what was being seen in the Italian horror market, what's here is just lame. There's also not any gore to be found and in fact the one major attack sequence happens in a long shot so that you can't see anything! The performances are pretty much what you'd expect and nearly every scene appears to be shot on the same set. The lighting is extremely dark as I'm guessing this was done to hide how cheap everything was. The only thing that keeps NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES from being a complete bomb is the fact that, somehow, director Reed manages to build up a rather strange atmosphere. Yes, that same low-budget and nasty atmosphere that he brought to BLOODSUCKING FREAKS can also be found here.

NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES has pretty much been forgotten through time, although it never really got a good release anywhere. It's been listed under at least six different titles but without the shock value of Reed's previous film there's really no point in searching it out.