Review of Night of the Zombies (1980) by Anthony C — 15 Oct 2009

If I've learned anything from "Hell of the Living Dead," it's that if people get attacked (by pretty much anything--zombies, guys with guns, etc.), only about 1 in 10 of them will actually, you know DO something. The other 90% will just stand there, and let themselves be eaten or shot or whatever. It's also taught me that a bad English dub can go from hilarious to outright painful surprisingly quickly. The voice actors rarely display any real emotion, and when they try to, it's usually ridiculously at odds with how the characters onscreen are supposed to be reacting.

But if I could sum up "Hell" in one word, it would be "exposition." Huge chunks of backstory will be dropped at one time, almost entirely being revealed through a character's monologue. By about the third time this happened, I wanted to strangle a few of them.

So, why two stars? Well, there were a handful of scenes so ludicrous that they provided at least a little bit of entertainment: namely stock footage of wildlife with unbelievably wrong sound effects attached to them (whooping cranes do NOT sound like turkeys! Also, I'm pretty sure there are no freaking ELEPHANTS in New Guinea), or the scene where the female reporter hears the drums of a "native tribe" that she spent some time amongst in years past, and says she should head off alone to talk to them before the military guys come along. How does she do this? By smearing fingerpaint all over herself, and stripping down to nothing more than a skirt made of leaves. I'm dead serious. But sadly, such laugh riot moments as these are always quickly derailed by lackluster action scenes, boring monologues, or sequences that are outright offensive. Such as the 10-15 minute scene of the "natives" doing what old white men believe that "natives" do: mainly banging on drums and dancing around wearing masks. (And not much else.).

There's marginal entertainment to be found here, but chances are the horrible voice overs and glacial pace of the film will leave you wishing you'd sat down to watch any of the hundred or so better zombie movies out there.