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Mediocre be thy name: John Gulager's Zombie Night

 Anthony Michael Hall, Daryl Hannah, Alan Ruck, Shirley Jones. Dir. John Gulager, The Asylum, 2013


For those unaware, The Asylum is a film production company specializing in cheapo horror and action titles, most subgeneric ripoffs of whatever horror/scifi/action titles are popular that year. Referred to as "mockbusters," these low budget achievers look like their big-money brethren, often featuring solid B-list casts, as Zombie Night does.

Though The Asylum has attracted a following, the more serious, hardcore fans of el cheapo horror (et al) tend to turn up their noses at most Asylum product. Marc Edward Heuck, Our Man in the Valley, summed it up thusly:

"I don't watch much Asylum fare, because frankly they're not awful enough, they're just mediocre. Like, they're not content to just have the monster or the topless girl and the requisite scenes therein and otherwise leave talent alone to be unique like Roger Corman was, they micro-manage all the personality out so that it's competent and reminds you of bigger budgeted fare but doesn't have any *fun* left in it."

That makes a perfect description of Zombie Night. A retelling of George Romero's original Night of the Living Dead, only featuring new dialogue and characters, Zombie Night, while a competently made no-budget horror picture, never manages so much as a jump scare. As for real horror, the moments of visceral dread in most zombie movies, from Dawn of the Dead to World War Z, that point where the audience realizes the reanimate dead hopelessly outnumber the living, none ever arrives. A major reveal concerning a cemetary the survivors can't seem to escape ought to be accompanied by gooseflesh and the slow-growing realization things are about to get much worse, but it just lies there, limp and unaffecting as the rest of this competent, boring mess.

To be fair, director John Gulager (Feast, Pirhana DD) tries to inject some Romeroesque social relevance in the form of entitled neighbors who refuse to share their panic room, sort of a Hell-is-the-neighbors riff as Ferris Bueller's Ruck descends further into self-interest, to the extent it costs his and his son's lives, but again, there's no heat, no self-awareness, no anxiety, never mind real terror.

The best no-budget horror replaces expensive effects and set pieces with gonzo action, ludicrous gore and well-choreographed, clever kills, compensating for their lack by going as far over the top as they can. The Asylum, in its desperation to produce a competent piece of product, robs Zombie Night of all the spontaneity and giddy, goofy charm it might have had. Mrs. Partridge turning into a Walker ought to be high hilarity. In Zombie Night, it is not even tragic, just dull. A horror movie can be many things, but not dull. Zombie Night, alas, is nothing but. 

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