Zombie Night

Zombie Night was always going to be one of those movies that people shouldn't expect that much from, but even when judging it for what it is you do want evidence of some sort of fun. You don't get that with Zombie Night, instead you get a complete failure on all levels with unintentional humour that gets more increasingly frustrating than anything else. The best thing about the movie is the make-up for the zombies, even when the least amateurish asset it still wasn't that good. With the rest of the production values you could tell that Zombie Night was made in a rush- especially in the editing- and with little signs of care or love. The dialogue is vomit-inducing in how inane it is, the timing is also sloppy and the line delivery flat. It does provide some unintentional humour to begin with but very quickly hearing so many what the...? gets frustrating, plus it does get needlessly convoluted at times. There is no real narrative to speak of, what there is shows lots of predictability, endless ridiculously dumb moments(the bunker and cemetery scenes for examples), no signs of life and the thrills, fun and horror elements are so empty and scrappily done with no signs of surprise that they feel non-existent. The less said about the dull and abrupt ending the better too. The characters are either irritating(Nana) or infuriatingly stupid(Karen), at no point do we root for them and their actions are so stupid beyond belief makes them even less likable. If there are any characters we do root for it is the zombies, unfortunately that is not saying much as they are under-utilised and personality-less. The actors don't or can't do anything with their characters or dialogue, very amateurish. It is ironic that the Oscar Winner Shirley Jones ties with Jennifer Taylor as the worst acting performance in the movie, and Anthony Michael Hall and Daryl Hannah are pretty much wasted. In conclusion, if you want any delights with Zombie Night you will be disappointed. It is not quite as bad as the abysmal Vampegeddon(doubt that many people have seen it and for good reason) but there is a big emphasis on the quite. 1/10 Bethany Cox

Zombie Night (2013)

* (out of 4)

The Asylum are back and this time they're brought an Oscar-winner with them. The "story" is pretty simple as a zombie outbreak happens but the good news is that people just have to survive until the sun comes up. It turns out that these zombies are just out for one night so a group of people must try to survive not only the zombies but each other. ZOMBIE NIGHT certainly isn't NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD but I personally didn't expect it to be. You've gotta have rather low expectations when it comes to these films to appear on SyFy but there's certainly no excuse for a film to be this bad. There are all sorts of issues with this movie but the real criminal is the screenplay, which is just downright confusing and boring. The "plot" deals with about three different families who find themselves battling the zombies and then each other. I'm guessing this was originally meant to tell three separate stories and then bring them together (ala PULP FICTION) but it fails horribly. The entire film is just very sloppy in regards to the story and quite often you're sitting there dumbfounded trying to figure out what's going on and why so many humans are acting so stupid. Horror movies need characters to do dumb things but these here are just too dumb for their own good. The direction really doesn't add any excitement as the entire thing just has a rather slow feel to it. The shocking thing is that even the zombies are rather lame because they just don't have anything that sets them apart from the countless other films in the genre. The gore level is pretty high and there are a few nice death scenes, which at least keeps the entertainment going a little. Daryl Hannah and Anthony Michael Hall are the main stars here and it's nice seeing both of them even if their talents are wasted. Oscar-winner Shirley Jones (ELMER GANTRY) appears here briefly and even gets to spit out some blood. Rachel G. Fox rounds out the cast and is fun to watch. ZOMBIE NIGHT is about as bad as you can get but sadly it doesn't reach a "so bad it's good" level like many other films from The Asylum.

Zombies come out at night and two families must survive until morning.

By now, I think we all know to expect bad things from the SyFy Channel and the movies they show. And if you are familiar with the Asylum, who makes these movies, you know that they spare every expense in order to pump out low-grade, low-budget fluff. Some of it is entertaining (I confess), but none of it has ever been good.

Somehow they managed to get some real actors on board for this one. Not just one washed up actor (I am looking at you, Eric Roberts) but some decent names -- Anthony Michael Hall and Daryl Hannah. Alan Ruck may not have the name recognition, but everyone recognizes him from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" or "Spin City".

The most unfortunate thing is that the director is John Gulager, who is a legitimately talented man -- "Feast" was incredible, and I absolutely loved "Piranha 3DD". Somehow not even he could save this picture... how did they all get roped into working for the Asylum?

I wasn't going to write a review but I just wanted to comment on what one reviewer said.

He said he only watched the first 15 minutes of movie then went on to mention about the car blowing up near the start, well that car was around 65 minutes into the movie no where near the start and obviously he watched more than the first 15 minutes if he saw that lol.

He also mentioned about he couldn't sit through 2 hours of the movies, well... he is right no-one could quite simply because the movie was only 85 minutes long lol.

Oh well, I have to say that Asylum do seem to make decent zombie movies probably because the other movies in this genre are usually very low budget and Asylums 1 million budget is one of the bigger ones compared to other Zombie movies so they tend to look quite good in comparison.

Anyway I do agree with one comment the reviewer made and that was Shirley Jones playing Nana was very annoying. Overall there was plenty going on in the movie, the Zombies were quite good even though the acting and story was little cheesy I was entertained.

That's another Zombie/Infected movie seen and added to my ever growing list. :)

3 stars for the gore effects, quite obviously the majority of the limited budget went into them. If the writers would have tried to make this a humorous affair, the appalling acting, script writing and storyline might just have worked. In fact, it could have been good if the film didn't try to take itself seriously. The film almost titters on the brink of humour before you realise it's a very serious affair failing badly.

Even Zombie fans should be upset with the film. We all know Zombies don't care, they just amble directly at their target. No moving obstacles out of the way or bypassing defenses or defending themselves from attack. All of which the Zombies do in this film... ruins the 'Mindless Zombie Killer' effect we all know and love.

In the end we are left with a film that has you thinking "that would have been funny if...." and "some of the effects are not too bad" and... "Wow ! I could drop a piece of paper in a cage full of Monkeys and find a better script written on it ten minutes later. Then hire the Monkeys to act it out".