leeper@ahutb.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (04/08/85)
NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Ever since DAWN OF THE DEAD turned out to be a boxoffice bonanza in
Europe, the dead have not rested easily in Italy. Virtually anything seems
to wake them up--industrial wastes, voodoo, mad scientific experiments, air
pollution, And they always wake up with the munchies for those of us who are
still alive. In NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES the wakeup call comes from nuclear
radiation. Some sort of weird experimental radiation is released from a
reactor. And suddenly there are a bunch of dead people whose faces have
turned black and who are walking around with a gait resembling the
Frankenstein monster looking for human snacks.
Now if that premise sounds absurd, wait till you hear the next one.
This all takes place in New Guinea, where an American SWAT team is
vacationing together en masse--without families or friends outside the
team--but with their uniforms and their guns. There they run into a
glamorous TV reporter who enjoys running bare-breasted while communing with
native tribesmen. Not that it has much to do with the plot; there isn't
one. The film is just a string of attacks by black-faced zombies. At the
conclusion, there is a minor surprise ending that makes no sense.
The film is directed by someone hiding behind the name Vincent Dawn.
(Somebody ought to compile a cross-reference of Italian horror film
directors and the Anglicized names they use.) In any case, this is not the
Lucio Fulci NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES, but the Vincent Dawn film of the same
name. Not much entertainment value here. Rate it -2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
No surprise there, I guess.
Mark R. Leeper
...ihnp4!ahuta!ahutb!leeper