Night of the Zombies

Imagine a movie with a completely nonsensical plot, something about zombie soldiers left over from World War II. Now slap a bit of blue make-up on someone's face and call them a member of the undead. Not convinced? You ain't seen nothing yet. Wait till you experience the face melting of one of these creatures, you won't know whether to laugh or cry. Special effects? I could have done better with some crayons and a piece of paper. And how's about the out of synch sound, the outrageously fake Germans and the not entirely convincing stabbing scenes?

As you can guess, this project was probably made with the change at the back of the director's sofa. Still, it wasn't all bad.. I did catch up on some sleep the first hour it was on. Sadly, duty bound to review it I had to rewind. You should be proud of me, I lasted for all of 50 minutes before fast-forwarding the rest. From what I gather, there is a big ACTION CLIMAX near the end involving those stunningly realistic cadavers attacking a bunch of hapless humans. This is shot and acted so ineptly that it quickly becomes a comedy masterpiece. There's plenty of unintentional laughs before that, but this scene really takes the cake. My final thought when the mess was over was "What were they thinking?!" Nothing else needs to be said really.. 0/10

...by booking yourself in for an unnecessary proctological examination.

This truly is one of the worst movies it has ever been our sad duty to sit through.

The acting, direction, editing, lighting, cinematography, scoring, and pretty much everything else is among the very worst you will ever experience. If you thought that some of Jess Franco's lesser movies were painful to endure, then, to quote Jolsen "you ain't seen nothing yet" This movie has more aliases than the aforementioned Mr Franco, but whatever name is travels under, it is always appalling.

If you have truly lost the will to live, then you will want to head toward the light after watching this abortion of a movie.

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.

Filmed in 1979 as "Gamma 693", Night of the Zombies is a failed horror film that has an unusual premise but not enough budget to carry it out. Writer-director Joel M. Reed (whose earlier gore opus "Bloodsucking Freaks" continues in release) has included oddball humor but doesn't deliver the scares. Picture displays an "R' rating, but has never been rated according to the MPAA.

C. I. A. Agent Nick Monroe (Jamie Gillis) is sent to West German to investigate the murder of two NATO officers and to find missing canisters of Gamma 693, a U. S. experimental gas developed in 1944. Teaming up with scientist Dr. Proud (Ryan HIlliard) and his niece Susan (Samantha Grey), her ventures to a remote, snow-scaped Bavarian village where local legend claims zombies now inhabit the site of a W. W. II battlefield.

Far-fetched science fiction premise maintains that the missing Gamma 693 was invented to put wounded soldiers in a state of suspended animation, attempting to prolong their lives. In practice, it has been used to extend the lives of unaging U. S. and German W. W. II soldiers, who prey on human flesh in order to counteract the decaying side-effect of the gas. The opposing troops are supposedly still fighting the war, a corny gimmick that reflects "Zombies" having originally been set in the Far East about an isolated Japanese regiment before a budget-induced rewrite switched locale and lessened story credibility.

Disarmingly silly dialog and spoofing of the international intrigue genre makes this slow-paced picture watchable. Cheap makeup on the soldier zombies plus too-bright lighting renders fright scenes ineffective. Reed's conception of light-hearted zombies, who lack the expected catatonic stare and like to joke around, bears little connection to earlier screen versions, though an expert notes authoritatively: "Zombies don't devour human flesh -ghouls do".

Location lensing in Germany is attractive, but lengthy, static exposition scenes and lack of convincing action footage betray the film's low budget, financed by legit theater produce ("George M.", etc.) Lorin Price. Familiar porn star Jamie Gillis is physically right as the tough-guy hero bht too laid-back for the role. Supporting cast is unimpressive and features many of the behind-the-camera personnel doubling as performers.