(1987, colour, 90 mins)Director - John Saxon
Starring - John Saxon, Dennis Cole, Anthony Franciosa, Dana Lis Mason
Let's face it: when a film's called Zombie Death House you're not exactly expecting The Godfather. You're expecting, at best, some gory deaths and some hilariously cheesy acting. Thankfully, this delivers on both counts.
The film's first half-hour would have you believe you'd mistakenly bought a cheesy '80s action movie instead. The lead character Derek (a Vietnam war veteran and all-round hero) has been framed and sent to death row for a crime he didn't commit. So far so straightforward.
The problem is, the prison he's been sent to is also home to a dodgy science experiment being conducted by the government. They're testing a highly dangerous drug on the inmates, but when they start turning into zombies the prison is quarantined, leaving Derek and some of the people he meets along the way (including the expected love interest) trying to find a way out.
What ensues is a lot of atrocious acting, a lot of hilarious "tense" moments which are about as scary as a hamster sneezing, and a lot of stupidly gory deaths which tend to bump the funny bone rather than churn the stomach.
The key moment for me is the world's slowest decapitation, performed by a Jamaican zombie who seems to put his victim in a sleeper hold and slowly ease their head off.
Zombie Death House is complete rubbish, but it's fun rubbish. It's worth a watch if you want to be entertained for 90 minutes, but don't expect to be putting it alongside The Shawshank Redemption in your list of favourite prison movies.
Check out the trailer below, under the film's original title of Death House, which promises nothing to do with zombies at all. Imagine the shock people got when they expected a rubbish prison movie and got a rubbish prison movie with extra deadly Jamaican sleeper holds.
3.5 out of 5
OMG! You said "me"! What happened to all your talking saying "the most important thing about writing reviews is to use "we""?
ReplyDeleteStill, good review! :-D
(well, that's not really saying anything seeing as you write reviews for a living and all that... although I suppose that people from Total Film would be better at reviewing films seeing as that's what the magazine is about... and the cover of issue 150 was really cool because it has the flashing lights... and I'm talking complete rubbish now...)
As I said. Good review! ;-)
I can say "me" here because it's a personal blog, not the voice of a magazine. :-P
ReplyDeleteYeah... After all, it's called "Thoughts Of *A* Scot". Saying "me" goes together with the singularity.
ReplyDeleteThe other possibility would be to change the name of the blog to "Thoughts Of *The Scots*". You can do that when you become the Prime Minister and can speak for everyone in the UK. :-P
(Yeah, my comments are often random when I can't think of anything "normal" to say.)
Have you ever seen the SAW films? I'm sure you have, they come out every halloween. Also I hope you remember me from ONM :D
ReplyDelete@redterror: You were SOTM once, weren't you? You made an SMB sig with a coin hiding from Mario behind a pipe. Epic. :-D
ReplyDelete