Skip to main content

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. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No Return:Stanley Kramer's IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD

 IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD. Spencer Tracy, Ethel Merman, Milton Berle, Mickey Rooney, Sid Caesar. Dir. Stanley Kramer, MGM, 1963 I do not generally write about films I stop watching halfway. What's the point? I either have nothing positive to say about it or was in the wrong mood. In both cases I'm ignorant of its full length to perhaps do it justice. In the case of Stanley Kramer's 1963 comedy smash, however, I feel compelled to make an exception.  My problem with the movie is not my mood, nor disappointment because it's not the movie I once heard. In fact, my biggest problem is that I haven't heard it described in glowing terms, or any, since I was about 9. See, IAMMMMW used to air anually on one or another of the networks, often in December. My parents didn't care for it and never watched it, but my friends watched anytime it aired and talked about it in rapturous terms. Until about 9-10 years old, when it seemed to drop out of conversation, or conv...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fill in the '80s: Peter Bogdonovich's Mask

 Cher, Eric Stoltz, Sam Elliott, Laura Dern. Dir. Peter Bogdonovich, Universal, 1985 As I've noted, my movie addiction starts with my parents taking me to see Disney's Bedknobs&Broomsticks when I was four years old. I spent the '70s seeing any movie I could, mostly Disney and other kid-friendly fare, peppered by notable exceptions like The Sting, Jaws, and The Outlaw Josey Wales. In the '80s, my teenage and young adult years, I began to see more adult-themed movies and started watching with a somewhat more critical eye. I have since compiled a list of every '80s movie I've seen.  It's a long list. All the usual suspects are on it. The classic '80s fare, the Purple Rains and Red Dawns and Top Guns and so forth predominate. Whenever I go out scavenging, I always keep an eye out for '80s titles I have not seen or have but do not own. I regard the unseen ones as pieces of a picture puzzle I've been filling in for 40 years. Last night, I fitted ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fraternal Twins:Michael Mann's HEAT & THE INSIDER

  HEAT Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voigt, Tom Sizemore, Diane Venora. Dir. Michael Mann, Warner Bros., 1995 On twitter I'm one of a few dozen people tweeting their four favorite movies for a given year, one year per each successive day. We started, as far as I know, at 1959. Today we're tweeting for 2014. (Mine:BOYHOOD, LEGO MOVIE, FURY, INTERSTELLAR.) No one says much, but years perceived as especially good get shoutouts, which means 1999 got its share of love. IN '99, as I recall, THE INSIDER made all the critical lists, did the awards-season tour, & movie fans, those I talked to, waxed rhapsodic. I also recall establishment critics of the time loving THE INSIDER & being divided on HEAT. In the '99 lists I saw, THE INSIDER is no longer part of the 1999 discourse. HEAT never goes out of style on twitter. Everyday I see tweets of action stills, onesheets, whatever, leading me to tweet the movies I wish film twitter would STOP talking about ten d...
Post a Comment
Read more