Zone of the Dead

This little film was able to capture something that many, many horror films haven't been able to capture since the late 80s/early 90s - it's so bad, it's good.

Nowadays in the horror genre, many aspiring young filmmakers make a conscious effort to make their film "so bad, it's good", but fail miserably. This film achieves this because it's genuine. The same reason so many campy horror films of the 80s were able to achieve this, they 1.) didn't take the film too seriously, and 2.) made a real effort to do their best without trying to make it so bad, it's good.

There are some just frightfully terrible scenes that will have you rolling, there's a fair amount of violence, the acting is atrocious, the script was just amazingly horrid. Put these together with a desire to make a decent "B" zombie film and you get magic.

It made me a bit nostalgic actually. If you're an old-school horror fanatic, you'll definitely find some entertainment value in this. Don't let your kids and teenagers watch terrible, pompous remakes of old Romero classics, let them see what we saw all those years ago - a genuine attempt to make a compelling zombie film that fails terribly due to a lack of money and talent in every category.

Seriously, this movie gets a 7/10 simply because it did what movies are initially intended to do - entertain.

This movie is a fun, popcorn flick. It's not the best zombie movie ever made, not by a long shot, but I had a great time watching it.

Ken Foree (from the original Romero's Dawn of the Dead) is one of my favorite horror actors. I will watch anything starring Foree, and he does not disappoint here. This is his movie - all the way. And I liked Kristina Klebe very much as well - she's very good with the shotgun.

The other actors are in the movie for the body-count, but this is a zombie movie after all - we need to have some victims, don't we? The death of Yovana (Iskra Brajovic) was the best kill in the movie, Miroslav Lakobrija's special effects are top notch considering the budget.

A must see for all zombie fans out there.

3/5

This is a cheap, poor, unoriginal direct-to-DVD ultra-low budgeter that will satisfy only the most undemanding. If you liked the ugly, careless Italian zombie flicks from the early 1980s made by Claudio Fragasso and Bruno Mattei, this is a perfect match to that kind of dated, barely competent attempt at exploitation. It is not entirely without its saving graces: Ken Foree is as good as the silly, uninventive script and laughable dialogues allow; make-up efx are solid, but barely visibly because of the overuse of shaky-cam which spoils every action scene. Photography is dark, grainy and shaky, and the Tarzan-English spoken by the Serbian actors can be compared to the Engrish found in Miike's SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO. Solid potentials are largely wasted in this silly little flick.

Definitely a throw back to the "old school" of zombie film making. The acting, direction and dialogue are rather wooden and stilted for the most part as with Romeros classics but that said it does give this film the look and feel of the originals and thus makes it an entertaining way to spend your viewing afternoon. There are some rather irritating moments when the main protagonists whilst running from hordes of pursuing zombies still find time to stop mid flight to engage in some rather meaningless and throwaway conversation and one liners but not enough to spoil the movie. This movie, although low budget and with flaws does on the whole entertain albeit in a predictable fashion with few surprises. If you like the old school feel, this movie is worth a look and will satisfy your blood lust, if you prefer the more high end, special effect type of movie, it's probably not for you.

I'm not sure if this even counts as a review, but I'm a hardcore zombie flick fan. If its been made and it has zombies in it, chances are I own it. So I've come across my fair share of low budget movies and cheesy acting in my time, but absolutely nothing compares to this film.

Straight up, I couldn't sit through the whole film. The acting is so wooden, and the dialogue is so forced, that watching it seems like you're indulging children putting on a once-rehearsed play. Apparently it was translated from Serbian by a brain-damaged hamster. The average guy on the street could give a better performance than almost every single member of the cast, with a few "yeah okay" exceptions.

If you're a fan of zombie movies, don't rent or buy this piece of crap. It scores nil on all draws. I give it ten severed thumbs down.