Devouring the flesh of the living

Also posted at http://www.revenantmagazine.com/)

AKA Death House

Zombie films set in prison are not as uncommon as I first thought.  I earlier reviewed the reasonably decent Dead Men Walking, and also have “Shadow : Dead Riot” on my shelf awaiting a viewing.  There is great potential in the whole ‘locked in a large building filled with the undead’ idea, as was recently shown to great effect in the superb [REC]. 

Zombie Death House seems to be a mixture of the zombie prison idea combined with a truly awful mobster tale. 

Derek, driver for mob boss Moretti, has been boffing the bosses lady on the sly, which doesn’t go down too well with the boss and his cronies.  They decide the best course of action is too knock off the young lady and frame Derek for the crime.  Using handy quick edits Derek is framed, tried, convicted and sent to Death Row all within the first 15 minutes. 

Unfortunatly for Derek the prision he ends up in is one where the government are secretly trialing out some injections in order to breed a super soldier.  (Hmm. An original idea that one).  Naturally one of the test subjects breaks free during his own execution and starts a mass killing and riot spree infecting most of the prison population.

Derek, despite being a blonde prettyboy and only having been resident in the slammer for about a week takes on the role of the prisoner in charge and instead of trying to find a way to escape uses the riot as an excuse to get Moretti to come to the prison so he can get his revenge, all the while trying to help a blonde female scientist work on a cure for the zombie-ism.

It’s all pretty daft cheesy stuff, particularly all the scenes with Derek (Dennis Cole – who appears to be on some vanity ego project – bedding cliche 80’s blonde women, being both the bad guy and the hero, and then saving the day almost singlehandedly).

The zombies themselves take a while to appear, but when they do they put on a reasonable performance, although light on the actual flesh munching.

The film scores bonus points for a totally shoe-horned in dream sequence where Derek imagines one of the females naked in a field, all in slow-motion, just for an excuse to get some nudity on display.

Gore Score C-
Norks Score C
Originality Score D
Overall Score C-

Also posted at http://www.revenantmagazine.com/)
It’s a new year, so why not start the year with something unusual – a South American zombie film.  Going to show that Zombie cinema has never really been geographically specific, the Argentinian Plaga Zombie is the forerunner to the more popular Plaga Zombie : Mutant Zone, a film I have yet to watch but judging by this effort I am particularly looking forward to doing so.

A pair of students are chilling out in their flat when a strange noise summons one of them up to the roof where he is promptly probed in the belly by a very rubbery looking Alien.  This very sadly leads to his stomach exploding causing him to become one of the undead.  At the same time it appears that there are further zombies cropping up around the neighbourhood and it is up to Bill the remaining flatmate, and his wrestler buddy John to take on the hoards of the undead with a little help from some syringes filled with zombie killing potion, and some kick-ass wrestling moves.

There have been numerous zombie movies that compare themselves to Braindead / Dead Alive, but this is the first one where that comparison is justified.  Utilising the same style of filming and buckets of slimy goo, Plaga Zombie is very much the Braindead of Argentina.  A bowl of minced zombie limbs is eaten by another zombie (a probable nod to Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste), and a human is mauled by no less than a lawnmower (yes, more nods to Peter Jackson), but despite these obvious references there are plenty of original touches here.  A zombie with fake teeth swallows his dentures which are then swiftly removed from his own gut via a punch to the stomach.  Multicoloured Zombies spew multicoloured vomit over – and into – their victims.  Syringes of zombie repellent are thrown.  Zombies phone out for Pizza.  There is much to enjoy, but particular credit should go to the spectacular garden massacre that closes the film, where the nerdy scientist kid, the wrestler and the pizza delivery lad chop and mutilate numerous undead with glee.

All this lowbudget zombie action clocks in at just over 1 hour, but it is a wonderful hour.  Ripping off Peter Jackson has never been so much fun.

Gore Score B+
Norks Score F
Originality Score C+
Overall Score B