Night of Something Strange

Saw the movie at the Phoenix Film Festival, where it won for Best Horror Movie. We were wary that it was going to be predictable and cover the same well-trod ground as many similar-sounding movies. Teens celebrating graduation, attacked by a monster out in the country. Dying one by one.

No reason to fear that. The director, who spoke at the end of the movie, along with a couple of the actors, said he wanted to make this one exactly as he wanted. He had made a couple of other movies in which the content had been constrained by others. He decided to take this one over the top and throw everything into it. He mentioned some other effects that they couldn't get right, so they didn't get in.

They weren't necessary. It turned out to be interesting and inventive enough without them.

Be warned, you may cringe a few times and it might make you a little queasy if you have those types of problems. But it is a lot of fun if you can stand it.

Not knowing what to expect from this one I saw it was supposed to be a funny horror. Funny horrors mostly doesn't work out but there are exceptions like this one.

Let me be straight, this is a no-brainer. Just sit and enjoy. For some people this will be over the top because it's all about teens eager to have sex and terribly going wrong but you will see if you watching this flick. The flick starts immediately with pure horror and before you know it you are into a funny ride full of gore gore ,a bit of nudity and gore.

I can't spoil what is going on but it all starts with necrophilia. From there on the virus is on his way to conquer the world.

And just when you think that this flick is falling down on humour when a guy is having sex in the dark with his girlfriend, you're in for another ride of...well, just pick this up if you do like for example Tucker And Dale (2010) or the Ash vs Evil Dead series.

I enjoyed it a lot and had a smile throughout the whole flick.

Gore 3/5 Nudity 1,5/5 Effects 4/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 2/5

I was amazed by how the people driving vehicles got from afternoon to after dark, but not out of the town where the people with the virus were. The gasoline/ food store was a major infection center, where the local people infected could walk to the motel, that took people hours to drive to. From afternoon to after dark. Those are extremely fast zombies, when they are not shuffling around. The virus is extremely fast acting also. Very little growth time. It varies a lot. Sometimes it's, give me a second and I'll be right on that. Other times, it's a long slow car ride from afternoon to night. This review was 2 characters too short. BTW The teacher was a famous Scream Queen.

I think the movie is exactly what it set out to be: a completely over the top gory comedy, a zombie movie inspired by the likes of Army of Darkness and Cooties and Braindead and Zombeavers. I mean, it starts with a necrophiliac who gets infected from a corpse and proceeds to turn and rape his mother. It only gets more disgusting from there.

Overall it was fun, but you've got to be in the mood. It's not for everybody and if you think your girlfriend could watch this with you, you are probably wrong. It's nothing really special, but it was original and fresh.

A morgue janitor decides to rape a female corpse that died from "radiation exposure/STD? - some living cells." Back at home he suffers from groin pain, turns into a zombie, and attacks his partner, rapes her, and rips some of her insides out. She too turns into a zombie and attacks a mail man who also becomes a zombie. The janitor zombie is run over by two guys in a truck and ends up in the truck bed.

Meanwhile seven kids leave for spring break--a couple separately and 5 together. Everyone ends up at some point at some gas station, including the janitor and later at a motel where they are attacked by these sex-crazed zombies.

In addressing the issue, what if zombies were into sex?, Night of Something Strange aims to be extreme, vulgar, gross, adolescent, obscene, nasty, etc. And it succeeds at that. Most horror, even, or especially R-rated, is sanitized to death and boredom. Then there are movies like this one, which relish in being graphic. In addition it's supposed to be a teen comedy so you have all bodily functions and all body parts involved. It's not particularly funny but it does rely heavily on outrageously gross situations the actors and actresses were willing to put themselves in. There are countless nods to horror movies as one can tell from the character names: Jason, Freddy, Christine, Carrie, but also to other great movies like Heat.

I appreciate graphics horror movies, not so much graphic comedies, but Night of Something Strange blends the two well to create surprises and shocking scenes at every turn. You'll be amazed by the stuff they come up with here. So it's an entertaining movie no doubt. And if it's true that the budget was as low as shown on IMDb, then the movie is quite an accomplishment. You can't help but like a movie that's so enthusiastically outrageous.