This Asylum zombie flick has a little bit better pedigree than your typical low budget gut-muncher. It was directed by John (Feast) Gulager, features music by Alan (the Halloween sequels) Howarth and boasts a pretty solid cast for this sort of thing. We have Anthony Michael Hall as the family man trying to keep his clan safe during the zombie outbreak, Daryl Hannah is his wife, and The Partridge Family’s Shirley Jones is her blind mother. We also have Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’s Alan Ruck as the asshole neighbor who won’t let anybody into his heavily fortified panic room.
If you want to see an endless barrage of zombie cliches for eighty-eight minutes, Zombie Night will make for an evening of undemanding entertainment. Characters have to watch in horror as their loved ones are bitten, turned into zombies, and then they are forced to shoot them in the head. There’s the scene where people keep shooting zombies in the chest until they finally realize shooting them in the head is the only way to stop them. There’s the lovelorn teen who keeps wanting to check on her boyfriend who’s almost assuredly Zombie Chow. It’s all here, and it’s solid for the most part. The stuff with Jones stumbling around in the basement is almost laughable at times though, and the finale where the family makes their final stand kinda fizzles out.
As a regular movie, it sort of falls short when it comes to things like plot, characterization, and suspense. As a zombie flick (especially one made by The Asylum), it works as well as could be expected. Gulager stages the action in a competent, workmanlike fashion. He also wastes no time cutting to the chase, which is always appreciated in something like this. The pacing overall is fairly brisk, and while he brings nothing especially new or memorable to the genre, it’s far from a bad film.
There is something to be said for the three-chords approach. Do I wish Gulager and company aimed a bit higher? Kinda. However, there’s nothing wrong with aiming low as long as you can hit the target. (Or at least shoot them in the head.)
AKA: Dark Night of the Walking Dead.
No comments:
Post a Comment