After Death (Oltre la morte)

I bought this on re-release from a video shop being a lover of zombie flicks and all. I was expecting maybe a boring low-budget but gory flick. I was absolutely shocked to find this being one of most outstanding zombie flicks that I'd seen in a long time! The start involves a man sacrificing his wife so she will live again on earth. (um...Makes sense) A group of scientists with Uzis confront him and kill him in a mad rage. The mans wife then returns as a horrifying demon who rips the faces off the scientists and goes in search of the rest. A woman scientist tells her daughter to run and leave the island while she goes back to fight an army of Phillipino ninja zombies! Yes, its true! We cut very quickly to about 15 years later and get involved with some likeable characters and the girl who are going back to the island to investigate. We have the young Tommy, a handsome former soldier. Dan, your everyday best friend. Mad, a great white hunter and soldier of fortune and Rod who is also a soldier of fortune. Along with the main girl and a chick who fancies Rod. We also have a trio of explorers on the island who are searching for the lost scientists and find a cave with dead reviving powers. In the trio we have Chuck, the other handsome but daft city boy, A girl who's name I forget and David, the smart leader played by Massimo Vanni who appeared in 'Rats:Night of terror' and 'The last Hunter'. After they revive the dead from reading a book they are attacked. David, however, looks like a nerd and the obvious first victim. Instead, he takes on about 10 zombies at the same time using a torch and various martial arts skills. He kills all of them and even snaps ones neck! David is definitely on my list of top zombie ass kickers. Uncle Les from 'Braindead(Dead Alive)' and Roger from 'Dawn of the dead' are among them. In the meantime, Chuck escapes and joins forces with the other group. They find a stash of Assault Rifles and begin to kick ass! There is a lot of gore! The movie really scores though on being an unrecognised gem. It has fog for a spooky atmosphere, Cool characters, gore, a great soundtrack, suspense, action and above average acting. It moves at a fast pace and tells the story well. There isn't any comedy though which is a downer but you won't care with as much spectacular stuff as this! A fearsome 9 out of 10!

A boatload of people run into `technical difficulties' and are forced to dock on a strange island where the dead are heard screaming. They join up with some survivors running from the zombie hordes infesting the island. It seems that some odd years ago the island was a research center where the world's top scientists gathered to defeat man's worst enemy…death. But during the experiments it seems that the scientists tried to cure a young girls' disease and end up killing her instead. Unfortunately for them her big bad voodoo daddy takes it personally and opens the third doorway to hell. One girl survived the zombie onslaught and now as a woman must unlock the secret that will close the gate to hell.

The script in the end is way too disjointed. It seems that whenever the scriptwriter came up with something he would just half hazardly throw it in and hope for the best. The action/ adventure element was a nice touch and kept the pace flowing nicely. As what seems to be a common factor in Italian zombie movies we get a soft-focus look that to me is quite annoying at times. Add to the mix a rather lush jungle, at times a choking (and blinding) fog and a synth score that owes a great deal to John Carpenter and you get a above-average but rather plain (and sometimes funny) zombie flick. The makeup effects aren't anything to write home about but the zombies are relatively intelligent (they even shoot and talk) and chew the scenery with mucho gusto.

'Zombie 4' AKA 'After Death' AKA 'Zombie Flesh Eaters 3' is your typical sleazy 80's Italian zombie b-movie that features lots of gore, terrible dubbing, cheesy dialogue, and plenty of outrageous moments combined with a jumbled mess of a plot. The 3rd (or 4th) flick in the 'Zombie' series is not a good movie by any means, but it does have some atmosphere and enough disturbing and disgusting enough to satisfy gore fans, other than that there's not much else.

The plot = Jenny (Candice Daly) goes back to the island where her parents were killed many years ago where they had been working on a cure for cancer and accidently raised the dead by angering a Voodoo priest. Along with Jenny is a group of mercenaries and researchers who again raises the dead and all hell breaks loose.

Despite a promising highly stylized opening featuring some cool action and gruesome kills, it's a shame that the rest of the film doesn't maintain the same energy and flair, thankfully the movie moves at a breakneck pace that bombards you with constant action and mayhem, but its devoid of any intelligence or thrills. The zombies themselves looks very cheap and uninspired; they just look like a bunch of extras with white makeup caked onto their faces. The gore effects are pretty good for such a low budget production. The direction by Claudio Fragasso is fine and the movie is shot quite well, but the plot is just pure nonsensical, and the dialogue is stupid and horrendous. This entry is definitely lacking when compared to the other 2 movies in the 'Zombie' series.

The acting performances are really hard to judge when the movie is dubbed. Jeff Stryker gives a likeable performance as the male lead and emotes quite well. The rest of the cast range between average and over the top for this kind of film.

Overall 'Zombie 4' is a somewhat dumb yet entertaining Italian zombie flick, but there's much better out there and don't waste your time with this one.

While working in a research for the cure of brain damage, a group of scientists are attacked and killed by a horde of zombies unleashed by a voodoo priest, and only a little girl saves. Twenty years later, she returns to the island with a group of mercenaries, while three researchers find a Book of the Dead and release the flesh-eater zombies again.

The lame and cheesy "After Death" has an awful screenplay with a terrible development of characters and their motives; the acting is laughable with histrionic movement of lips of the ham actors and actresses; the dubbing in English is unpleasant; the cinematography and locations are very poor and the soundtrack is annoying. The gore special effects are reasonable considering the extremely low-budget of this flick. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

I would like to thank all who left comments here, good or bad.After all publicity of any kind is good publicity! For those of you who enjoyed the film, I have a blog where i am working on a book called Fish Heads and Rice. I have written a short story about the behind the scenes of Zombie 4 - After death. http://nicknicholson.blogspot.com/ It was fun to work on this film, and I am sure a lot of viewers found it funny to watch. None of us had a script to work from, but what the heck, when you know you will be probably be dubbed in another language you don't really care. It was the only film of the Horror genre that I have ever worked on. I wish i could do another one as these are a real gas to do!

If you are bored and want a funny read, please do visit! Thanks to you all!