Also posted at http://www.revenantmagazine.com/)
I had thought that the world became colour in around about the 1940s, so I guess this 1960s film used old historical tape that was still black & white to record this flick, because everything looks grey-scale and surprisingly cheap.
A sleazy romance novelist is in Miami trying to bone as many blondes as is humanly possible when his editor turns up and suggests he relocate to ‘Voodoo Island’ because the zombie quotient will make for a great new novel, but more importantly the Female to Male ratio is about 6:1. “Hell yeah, i’m in” says sleazeball, so off they jet in some crummy plane that stupidly doesn’t have enough fuel to get to the island. Luckily Mr Sleaze knows how to fly a plane even better than his own pilot, so takes over the crashing duties and plummets onto the beach. Surprisingly having caused no casualties or injuries whatsoever, General Greasy takes it upon himself to go adventuring around the island, which involves perving on some lass swimming in a pond and being chased by a sandy-faced ‘zombie’.
This island is apparently home to many more of these dusty-faced undead, whose job is apparently to capture all of the (at rough count) 3 blonde ladies who call the island home and sacrifice them to some God or other, and it is the job of Captain Creepy and his pals to stop this from happening.
Surprisingly for a pre-Romero zombie film this is reasonably decent stuff, in spite of the title being an outright lie – Not one ounce of skin eating is seen or even hinted at! The enjoyment doesn’t really come from the effects or makeup either, as the ‘Zombies’ look more like they’ve had their faces dunked in some wet sand and had cucumber slices placed over their eyes. The story is pretty interesting though, and it’s quite fun to see how 60’s Miami cocktail society contrasts with today’s standards. Plus we learn that Zombie-ism is caused by injecting microwaved snake venom. Who would’ve though it?
Gore Score D
Nork Score F
Originality Score D
Overall Score C
Apparently two versions of this film were shot at the same time, one in French and one in Spanish. There is a different cast, different music score and various alternate scenes across both editions. I believe that the French one is the most commonly available, and is the one that was dubbed in traditional ‘comedy’ EuroHorror style into English, and is the one I have in my collection. This is the one with less gore and a worse soundtrack, but apparently it does have more nudity than the Spanish edition, so that’s something at least.
Jess Franco delivers a trashy eurozombie horror, with good old Nazi Zombies causing mischief, although this time they do not seem to live underwater, which is unusual for this particular undead foe. (For example refer to Shockwaves and the Franco penned Zombie Lake).
A bunch of Nazis are transporting an unseen amount of gold across some random desert in Africa, but are intercepted by a mustachioed army dude and his platoon. A big battle ensues involving much tank and explosion stock footage. This ‘tashed chap gives the Nazis a right good ‘running away from’ leaving both his troop and the Germans dead on the oasis battlefield while he goes off to collapse in the desert. He’s rescued by some sheik who lets his daughter revive him back to health. To thank the sheik for his hospitality (and for saving his life) Mr Moustache takes the daughter out to the desert and promptly knocks her up good-and-proper before returning to war.
Cut to several decades later and we find that the offspring of this romp is living it up in some fancy school, when he gets a letter informing him that his father has died off (well murdered, but he doesn’t seem to concerned). He decides to read up on his fathers war antics and discovers about the battle in the Oasis and the big fortune of gold that is probably left behind. Now we begin a big adventure following this kid and his mates as they try to track down the Oasis and the loot.
Maybe it is something to do with the hot climate, but the oasis they are looking for seems to have turned all the dead bodies into flesh hungry (and in one case insanely googly-eyed) zombies. When the kids stumble upon this oasis they have to deal with all these dead Nazis, but luckily they were all taught how to make Molotov Cocktails in school. (Presumably they all did a course in homemade weapons instead of the more appropriate acting lessons).
Oasis of the Zombies is an incredibly boring affair. The zombies are only ever on screen for about 10 minutes and the whole rest of the plot revolves around these kids going to local markets or wandering around and collapsing on a sand dune. Plus there are the numerous dull flashbacks to the stock footage war. The zombies are the undoubted highlight, as each one is hilariously made up with clay, fake skin and false eyes. There are also a few nork scenes but nothing like the usual standard of Jess Franco movies. It’s just a cobbled together and incredibly slow paced build up to the Zombie Oasis, which is quite decent when it happens but I’d long lost interest in the film by that point. Next time I’ll get my Nazi Zombie fix from Zombie Lake.
Gore Score D
Nork Score B-
Originality Score D
Overall Score D
Damn you eBay. Instead of easily buying the 18 Rated UK version I go over to eBay and pay for the Unrated DVD from the US, get it shipped over here and what happens? The damn eBay seller just shipped the R-Rated version instead. I couldn’t be bothered waiting another month or so for a disk that might not actually be any different, so I just stuck with this one. Hope I’m not missing out on any top-drawer-gore.
We’re back again with a horror movie staple; Rednecks. Some cute looking blonde lass living in a trailer park is off to meet her boyfriend, but the pair of them get hassled by the local hicks and this poor chap gets the brunt of the ruckus – by being killed and impaled on some metal railings. Ouch. Naturally the young lady is rather miffed at this slightly over-the-top behaviour and decides the best course of action is to get a shotgun from the nearby Lucifer character and head back to town to shoot and kill all the trailer park residents, followed by herself. Cripes, that’ll certainly stop any further mischief befalling this little hicks ville setup.
Obviously no. Several years later a truckload of bible-school kids crash their bus nearby and rock on up to this trailer park in search of a tow-truck and bed for the night. Some woman who looks strangely like the shotgun toting murderess welcomes them in, and after some scary stories the kids all head off to separate trailers to get some sleep. They don’t stay asleep for long though as the dead residents return back to life to get up to mischief with these young scamps.
Rednecks killing off teenagers has been standard horror-fare for decades, but Trailer Park of Terror still seems fresh and fun. The effects are really good here, and some of the deaths are grimacingly well done (the jerky scene in particular). Plus the rock-n-roll soundtrack really added to the enjoyment. There’s nothing particularly new here, but the what would you expect from a film with rednecks and zombies? Just sit back with mates and beer, each pick a character and whosoever dies off first loses and has to down their drink.
Gore Score B+
Norks Score F
Originality Score C-
Overall Score B
AKA Night Shadows
I think it’s about time for a change of scenery around here. Time to start reviewing RomComs… Ha ha, yeah right. I’m not even going to veer away from Zombies into standard horror! No, the change of scenery comes from a change of blog layout. With new decor it’s only appropriate to go with a nice new film to kick things off. Well, it would be new if it were 1984…
I wonder if we were all aware at the time just how cheesy the 1980’s actually was? In fact it has forever left its mark on cinema as we now have a whole genre – ‘The 80s Film’, a feat not matched by any other decade.
Mutant shows two brothers are driving around off for a holiday somewhere in redneckville and are spotted by some truck driving locals who take it upon themselves to ram the out-of-towners off the road and into a ditch. This forces the brothers to stay in the town while they await a mechanic to help haul their truck back onto the road. They nip into a local bar and again encounter the locals, and a big ruck kicks off. Poor rednecks, they always get a raw deal in movies. I’m sure there are plenty of moonshine swillin’ inbreds that are perfectly accommodating and friendly! Anyway, the towns alcoholic policeman is called and takes the kids off to a little old lady’s house to stay for the night. However this lady seems to be harbouring some mutant demon or something because one of the brothers is dragged off under his bed by it in the middle of the night.
His brother decides that he should probably go and find his sibling when he doesn’t show up in the morning, but there is nobody in town to help him, having all died of an unexplained illness, or come down with a bizarre flu-like sickness. Eventually he does manage to hook up with a local schoolteacher girl and the pair toddle off looking for his brother. However, it appears that this flu is actually due to a zombie chemical that is turning everyone into melty-handed undead, so the brother and his lady friend have to escape the town while at the same time trying to find a cause of this outbreak
.
The zombies take a little while to show up, and are pretty cheap looking, (although i’ve seen much worse!) and the acting is dubious at times. Also the lead actor ‘Wings Hauser’ is kinda creepy looking, which makes him come off more sleazy chancer than hero. There is much to like here though, particularly the school siege and the zombies using their toxic hands to melt through glass windows. All-in-all though it was pretty average, and although it passed the time well enough it doesn’t have anything in it i’d crave seeing again.
Gore Score C
Norks Score F
Originality Score D
Overall Score C-
AKA Les Revenants
While many people view the zombie genre as pure low-brow trash all the way, those of us in-the-know are well aware that there is a lot more to the undead than just gore and nudity. Sadly, this pretentious French number is in the latter category, with not a trashy gore shot in sight, and nudity that is far too tasteful and ‘relevant to the plot’. Urgh.
‘They Came Back’ chronicles an unexplained phenomenon in a French city when those who have died within the last 10 years return back, and the effect this has on those they had originally left behind. Although there are hundreds of these recently deceased the story focuses on 3 of these characters – a young boy, a 30-something man and a crusty old lady. These dead chaps, along with all the other zombies are held in a refugee asylum-type building by the city council until the relatives come to collect them. The parents of the young boy come for him at some point, but the ex-wife of the gent isn’t too bothered so he just potters around and eventually decides to go back to work at what appears to be the town planning department. The old lady seems to belong to the city mayor or something, but he too isn’t too excited about her coming back either.
After a (long) while and plenty of council meetings it emerges these dead people are, predictably, pretty rubbish at more or less everything, which is a shame because the families of these people seem to be getting attached to them again. Actually, one thing the dead are reasonably good at is escaping their relatives in the middle of the night and going for meetings with each other. They’re all planning an excursion out to an unmentioned place, presumably back where they came from. How will the relatives that have just come to terms with the returners cope with this upheaval? Well the answer to that question, as well as all the others thrown up in this movie is… whatever you want.
Everything is so open to interpretation it makes the film almost meaningless. There is no discussion as to how the families actually feel about their relatives coming back from the dead, nor how they felt about them while they were still alive. There is no comment made about the relationships between the relatives of each of the returnees, and no analysis of death itself. The whole film seems structured to leave every possible question open to the viewer to decide. If the film makers didn’t have anything to actually say about death then why make the film in the first place?
It would have been better to concentrate on one of the families and the relationship between those still alive and the actual impact that the dead relatives’ re-appearance has on their whole lives, rather that the endless council meetings and irrelevant scientific discussions about body-temperature.
Gore Score F
Norks Score D
Originality Score B
Overall Score C-
