|
|
 |
|
Review
by
Brian Lindsey
|
 |
|
1
|
|
 |
|
6 |
|
10
= Highest Rating |
|
|
The
last Italian zombie movie of the cycle begun by
Lucio Fulci in 1979 also has the distinction of
being one of the absolute worst. It seems impossible,
but yes even Hell
of the Living Dead is better. Dumb story,
dumb characters, dumb dialog... dumb zombies,
too. A nonexistent budget is partly to blame but
the main credit for this abomination lies with
director Claudio Fragasso (a protιgι of exploitation
hack Bruno Mattei) and his screenwriter wife,
Rosella Drudi.
The film actually starts out rather promising
in a cheesy sort of way; it certainly doesn't
waste time getting straight to the mayhem. On
a remote Caribbean island, a voodoo priest is
conducting some kind of ritual in a dungeon-like
cave to bring his deceased daughter back from
the dead. He blames a group of altruistic white
scientists who operate a cancer research center
on the island for her death. They failed to heal
her sickness, so Voodoo Man wants vengeance. He's
reciting some mumbo jumbo from the Book of the
Dead (though the cover reads "Book of Death")
when the scientists burst into the grotto carrying
automatic weapons. Through expositionary dialog
we're told that terrible things have been happening
on the island of late; the dead are coming back
to life and killing everyone. The chief scientist
tries to reason with Voodoo Man while others in
the group threaten to shoot him. The witchdoctor
tells them that if they kill him he'll only come
back to life and eat their intestines! As it is,
they're all doomed to die and become zombie chow
no matter what they do. By invoking spells from
the book he's opened a doorway to Hell on the
island that will engulf them all. One of the scientists
decides to forego negotiation at this point and
drills the priest full of .45 caliber holes. The
group is then attacked by Voodoo Man's possessed
wife, who bursts up from the ground
looking exactly like a creature from Lamberto
Bava's Demons
and rips the shooter's face off. The survivors
wisely haul ass but more are killed during the
escape from the tunnels. (This extensive cave
system, by the way, looks like the catacombs one
might see in a gothic horror tale. No doubt a
common enough structure on primitive Caribbean
islands...) Cut to two of the scientists, a married
couple, fleeing through the jungle while carrying
their young daughter. Zombies are in pursuit.
They adults are killed and eaten by the ghouls
but the little girl
told to run really fast by her mommy
somehow survives and escapes.
So far, so good... Silly and derivative to
be sure but still entertaining. But immediately
after this opening sequence the film shoots itself
in the head on full auto, pausing to reload with
fresh magazines at regular intervals. The story
picks up 20 years later though at first pass
this won't be obvious to the viewer. (For one
thing there's no '20 YEARS LATER' caption. Secondly,
the scientists shown in the prologue were wearing
1980s clothing and sporting Reagan Era hairstyles.)
Anyway, a boat carrying a group of vacationing
mercenaries (!) and two women winds up stranded
on the zombie-infested island. One of the gals
is Jenny (the Linda Hamilton-ish Candice Daly),
lone survivor of the previous massacre who's all
grown up now. She starts getting bad vibes about
the place as the boat skirts the coast, telling
the others that something's not right. Then the
boat's engine dies and the steering wheel jams.
(Though moments later we see the motor put-putting
along just fine, the driver steering the craft
easily enough up to a dock.) The group decides
to move inland and look for some vestige of civilization.
Meanwhile a trio of researchers has also landed
on the island, seeking answers to the mysterious
disappearance of all those scientists decades
earlier. They stumble upon the cave containing
the witchdoctor's voodoo temple. One of them insists
on reading aloud a few passages from the Book
of the Dead. Within moments the three are attacked
by flesh-hungry zombies. Despite putting up a
pretty good fight only one of the researchers,
pretty boy college kid Chuck (gay porn star Jeff
Stryker, in a rare 'straight' role), makes it
out the cavern alive.
Our other 'tourists' are beginning to realize
they're up the proverbial creek when one of their
number is attacked and bitten by a zombie. They
locate the scientists' long-abandoned compound,
where they treat the wounded man with medical
supplies they find there. By the time night falls
the island's zombies begin to congregate around
the building. Jenny's prophecy of doom is coming
true...
Prophecy certainly isn't required to divine
that the remainder of this movie will suck as
badly as the first half does. The dialog is retarded;
characters do incredibly stupid things
that guarantee their demise. The gore effects
start out rather good and then degrade rapidly
in quality, becoming laughably cheap. The signature
scene of any Italo-Zombie flick worth its salt
the good ol' fashioned intestinal pull never
comes to pass. (Some ocular damage at film's climax
is supposed to be horrifying but just looks pitifully
fake.) As for the ghouls themselves, I was surprised
to see so many comments about this movie refer
to its "ninja" zombies. This is simply not the
case. Yes, many of them are costumed in black
pajama-like outfights with face-obscuring scarves
but, per director Fragasso in his interview for
the disc (see below), this motif was derived from
the garb and funerary practices of the Filipino
natives on the island where the movie was shot.
Apparently folks became confused by some of the
rather energetic zombies on display, who do leap
around like ninjas at times. (There is no 'zombie
fu' in this flick, however.) Herein lies another
big problem... There are times when the zombies
run, jump, fight, etc. with the speed of a normal
human, only to be shown shuffling lethargically
along Romero-style the next. There isn't really
any elaborate zombie makeup on display either.
A few facial sores and copious amounts of drool
periodically changing colors from red to black
to green is deemed sufficient. The wretched,
oh-so-'80s pop metal theme song is perhaps the
most horrifying aspect of the entire film. Or
maybe that one mercenary's teeth...
|
|
|
|
The Shriek Show DVD looks and sounds pretty darn
good considering the film's thrift shop origins.
There's some heavy grain but blacks and colors are
well rendered. (The 1.85:1 widescreen transfer is
anamorphically enhanced for 16x9 TVs.) Audio quality
is fine. As for extras, the disc provides a nice
slate of goodies. Three separate video interviews
are included, of director Fragasso and stars Candice
Daly and Jeff Stryker. The brief chats with the
actors, while amusing, are more or less fluff while
the 17-minute conversation with Fragasso is more
in-depth. He discusses the Italian zombie genre
in general and After Death
in particular, relating the difficulties of shooting
on location in the rural Philippines on a shoestring
budget. (To his credit Fragasso dismisses the film
as the piece of junk that it is, on-the-job training
for his better funded works to follow.) Though not
listed on the packaging the DVD also includes 4
trailers, for After Death
as well as recent Shriek Show releases Eaten
Alive, House
on the Edge of the Park, and Zombie
3. A fifth trailer, for Lucio Fulci's Zombie,
is featured as a hidden (though easy to find) easter
egg. Brief onscreen liner notes are provided by
Ian Jane and Ed Samuelson of DVD
Maniacs. 2/19/03 |
HOME
| REVIEWS
| TOP
|
