Reviews

It didn't seem to have much going for it, from what I heard--I'm not big into "teen-horror"--but reviews from others piqued my interest, and I'm so glad I checked this out. I could totally relate to the "outcasts" who were dateless for the prom and ended up saving the day. The characters were almost believable, if they weren't so over-the-top (Kyle, Mr. Hammond, Coach), but that adds to the fun! The gore was sufficient enough to keep the horror angle intact, and I'm glad the filmmakers kept the current "fast zombie" trend going--definitely more scary! Some parts made me cringe (one zombie sounds like he says "Brains!" while reaching for a girl--that belongs to only ONE zombie franchise, TYVM. Also, what's with the zombies BURSTING from the graves???), but other than that it was quite the pleasant surprise. I actually watched it twice in a row--I almost never do that with a new movie--and can't wait to add this to my collection. This goes alongside "Shaun of the Dead" and "Night of the Living Dorks" for classic zom-com!

Even though the "zombies" don't appear until well after an hour into the film, this movie still is able to hold its own as a b-grade "sword and sandal" flick. The high priest of a "goddess of gold" is amassing an army of slain Roman soldiers that he brings back to "life" to fight against their former comrades (hence the title). Subplots include romance for a noble centurion and a virtuous maidservant under the control of the goddess, treachery amongst the Roman nobility, lots of swordplay, and the "zombies" are more like ghosts--the Roman army cannot hurt them, but they lay some serious casualties on them. Only one who is brave enough to face the goddess can break her curse and defeat both the evil high priest and the army of the undead and free the lovely maidservant from the spell. It's no "Ben Hur" or "Spartacus", but I wouldn't shun it if it came packaged with similar flicks. A fun watch.

I had been forewarned by those who have gone before into this unhallowed ground of what to expect, but I had no idea it would go as far as it did. There wasn't an ounce of credible acting to be had throughout the entire film. Thank God it came with English subtitles or I never would have caught on to the meager plot. If you're looking for genuinely scary, suspenseful horror, look elsewhere, because it won't be found here. What you WILL find are four women walking around a hotel naked for most of their screen time, and when they're not WALKING around naked, they're...err...hmmm...ummm...doing other things that people do when they're naked--more often than not, with each other. And the term "living dead" is horribly misused here--Mr. G. A. Romero should be able to sue them for libel. What we do see are white-robed men, most of whom are in skull-face masks, who are part of some cursed demonic cult that hangs out in an old monastery that three of the four "hotties" (their word, not mine) wander into one at a time. Upon arrival, they are branded whores and gang-raped--the third one, however, is allowed to "join them" and goes back to kill the fourth. Oh, yeah, then there's the poor girl on a chain in "the best room in the hotel". But that's another subplot that doesn't need much exposition. All in all, if you're looking for some lesbian porn, you came to the right place. But horror--nope, not here.

I admit, the fact that this was co-made by the WWE and starred "Stone Cold" Steve Austin kind of put me off to this. But when my daughter rented it and brought it to me with rave reviews, I decided to give it a try. And I was pleasantly surprised. I'm not doubting the effectiveness of WRESTLERS as actors, mind you--it was the whole "WWE" thing that threw me. But I should have realized that, being the master showmen that they are, Producer Vince McMahon in particular, this would be more than a tossed-together mess just to give a star-wrestler some extra screen time. My favorite part, admittedly, was the "behind the scenes" portions, watching the creation and maintenance of the whole show, and watching these characters evolve and devolve just as much as those on the other sides of the cameras in the jungle. Being a mediaphile, I love movies that show the interpersonal workings behind the making of movies and TV, and this did not disappoint. Plus the almost non-stop action of the 10 condemned convicts fighting for their lives on the island--and then the commentary close to the end about how people like to watch violence--all I kept thinking was, if this was real, those numbers of viewers probably wouldn't be far off. Such is human nature, whether we like it or not. Hey, we watched THIS, didn't we? "If it bleeds, it leads"--and this leads by a mile.

First of all, I need to enter my personal disclaimer--I only watched this movie because I am on a quest to watch every zombie movie possible, good or bad. And believe me, this was bad. Not because it's "not intended for the politically correct"--I can deal with that. It's because my definition of humor extends past the bathroom, whereas this movie's humor almost literally STARTS there. Too much time is wasted on unfunny dialogue, and there's not even enough scene cuts to make it interesting. The "offensive" humor would have worked if it was remotely funny. Most of it involved various bodily functions and watching them in action. Someone said this was supposed to be "Girls Gone Wild" with zombies. On the one hand, the zombies don't show up until well after an hour of the aforementioned dialogues, and on the other, guys looking to spot some female nudity of any kind are in for a serious disappointment. As a "zombie purist", I got a big problem with gorgeous women who are normal by day, and turn into zombies (that can carry on dialogue) at night--and then they stay zombies for the rest of the film. Speaking of film, where did these people learn how to do it? I was puzzled as the outdoor scenes went from morning to dusk in less than 5 minutes, then broad daylight, then nighttime, then morning again. And the ending is one of the cheapest cop-outs I have EVER seen in ANY film, although it did provide a few genuine laughs. And don't let the "cover art" fool you--the hottie and the sword never meet. All in all, there's not a shred of truth in any advertising of this movie. Avoid at all costs, unless you like wasting time and money.

As a parent, this episode made me sad. I couldn't help but feel for the parents who lost their son at such a young age, and to watch each of them fall apart in different ways was fascinating, especially since (I personally) would expect their reactions to be switched. I truly felt bad for the father, and I understood where he was coming from, feeling so isolated, with no one understanding. I didn't find it horrifying at all, but that's a good thing--it was still an excellent story. I got a sense of respect from the makers of the film for the original story, like they wanted to give a proper representation of it and not exploit it simply because it's being shown on a "horror series". Not having read the original story, I hope they did.

This could have been such a much better movie in much more capable hands. But it's too obvious this was done on a shoestring budget--I take that back--shoestrings are more expensive than that. Grainy, dark film quality does NOT make for an eerie atmosphere--in fact, it's downright annoying. Especially when you can't understand 90% of the dialogue, and what you can hear is the same lines over and over. Put these in Memorable Quotes: "What, no kiss goodbye?" "You're home early." "Do you still love me?" And put "repeated line" over each one. That's pretty much it for the only female in the movie. And the plot has one major hole: how does the lead male become a zombie? I can understand the others, but it's like he just woke up from his "zombie dream" and decided to start eating people--he never died! Too bad, so sad, I'm glad it was a free rental. Remember, folks, a good plot is a terrible thing to waste.

In my current quest to seek out and view every zombie movie ever made, when I saw this on the shelf at Blockbuster, free rental coupon in hand, I figured, what the hey? Guess what? I was pleasantly surprised. And NO, I had NOTHING to do with the making of this film! I never even HEARD of it before I saw it in the store! OK, so it's obviously an indie flick, and it rips off from just about every other zombie and/or western ever made. But I was intrigued by a future populated with zombies, and the remaining survivors resorting to living like the old West, complete with hats and six-shooters. Only problem I had was the plot twist--at first, I thought, Ingenious! But then, I'm like, OK, this is supposed to be the post-apocalyptic future, where zombies take over (ala "Land of the Dead"). So if they're running out of zombies, why aren't things getting back to some semblance of normal?? The acting WAS kinda shallow as well--I kept looking at the hero as a poor-man's Hugh Jackman (leather, scruffy, smokes a stogie, tough guy with a heart of gold, that kinda thing). And the bad guy (Blythe) reminded me of a young Dennis Hopper. But for a free rental, it wasn't that awful. A pretty good plot, a few clever camera tricks, half-way decent zombie gore (without going overboard)--not bad for a free rental.

I checked this hidden gem out in my quest to watch every zombie movie ever made. Not only was I slightly disappointed to learn these were NOT Romero zombies, but come to learn the title is misleading--NO ONE was a Zombie for the FBI. A campy romp down memory lane to the "g-men" and "sci-fi" movies of the 40's and 50's, 2 straight-laced FBI agents are on the trail a pair of gangster brothers supposedly lost on their way to prison. When the prisoners' plane crashes into a UFO, they become the pawns of evil aliens that are "zombifing" the local residents of Pleasantville by tainting their cola drinks. With the help of a lovely reporter (who is also the fiancé of one of the g-men) and a brilliant scientist, the g-men race against time to stop both the gangsters and the aliens from escaping justice. The "zombies" are the local townspeople--the aliens "zombify" them with the "Z-ball", and those who cross their paths meet up with the dreaded "Zmonster". If it weren't for the CONSTANT music in the background, I might have enjoyed this a bit more, but it was a valiant effort nonetheless. One of those movies that "could have been SO much better."

As a fan of the zombie subset of the horror genre, I am very upset that this tried to play itself off as a zombie flick. The back cover of the DVD even says, and I quote, "A city is forced to face its worst nightmare when a *deadly mob of zombies* and flesh eating monsters emerge from below the streets and begin to feast on anyone in their path. Now, it is up to one man to battle the darkness and try to save the few remaining souls..."

O---M---G. I *dream* of writing FICTION this good. Disappointed viewers like myself should be able to sue whoever wrote this copy for misrepresentation. First, we need to clear something up here. ZOMBIES, by popular definition, fit certain criteria:

1. They are dead 2. They eat the living 3. They are senseless--they have one mission and one only--to eat the living. 4. They don't care about each other, they don't sleep, they don't defend themselves, they don't care about light, day or night, clothing, or other things.

The aggressors in this film only meet the second criteria. This does NOT make them ZOMBIES. It also doesn't make them GHOULS--again, by definition, ghouls are grave-robbers--they eat the ALREADY-DEAD. So now we don't know WHAT these people are. Just cannibalistic freaks living in the sewers with an aversion to light. The city seems to be blissfully unaware of the flesh-eating menace among its ranks, and the ONE person Our Hero finds who DOES know, has known for sometime, and doesn't seem to even care (so the part about them "begin"ning to feast doesn't hold, because they've been doing it for years)!

Second, we need to deal with this "one man", Our Hero, who seems to need to deal with his own inner darkness before he can battle what lurks the streets at night. And how does he battle it when he first finds it?? With his trusty CAMERA. Like others have said, the question the filmmakers are trying to raise here is, who is the TRUE ghoul here? He hears a woman scream for help, and gives chase--with his CAMERA. He arrives on the scene of a double murder, with terrified children in the background, and FILMS IT. His girlfriend dumps him because he filmed children in a burning building rather than try to save them, and after telling her a few thousand times that he loves her, he calls her a "b*tch" and puts a gun to her head in front of her daughter. Oh, yeah, Our Hero is WAY flawed, but not in any good, redeeming, "I can relate to him" ways. I especially felt sorry for him, when he beat up a guy that wouldn't help him, and left his unconscious body in the alley for the "flesh-eating monsters" to get, just so he could FILM IT. The saddest thing about this movie is, he never sees his own sickness until it's too late, and then he chooses not to do anything about it. Too much gore I can handle if it's part of the plot--it wasn't here. I can work around the profanity if it makes some kind of sense--it didn't. And it was bad enough two murder victims were naked--did we have to get close-ups? And it's nice to know Our Hero's fondest memories of his girlfriend while missing her involve close-ups of her various body parts. The definition of "gratuitous".

Becky's comment to Grandpa Tomson's question of "Why is all this happening" pretty much sums up my feelings about this gosh-awful flick, which rips off so many other decent movies it's hard to keep track. The cover had me fooled--perusing through the rental store, I thought I'd stumbled upon a zombie flick I hadn't seen yet (always a good thing), but it's NOT a zombie flick at all--zombies EAT people and traditionally don't talk, and that didn't happen here, so it can't be a zombie flick. Rather, it seemed to want to be a version of the far-superior "The Fog" (1980--not to be confused with its abominable wanna-be 2005 version). I'm a big one for an engaging plot and characters I can understand--this had neither. Even the guilt trip that Becky had as a result of her parents dying the ONE night she goes out in how long, made no sense. And about understanding it--I couldn't follow the line of logic, if it even HAD one. OK, the ghosts come back every 13 years--why?? Oh, wait, that one guy killed his dad 13 weeks after the little girl drowned, which was 13 months after someone else died...???? And the "death sequence" got totally messed up--OK, the dead couple dragged the young couple off the beach, then the young couple took the car-crash couple?? Does the newly dead person get to take another live person right away, or do they have to wait 13 years, or WHAT??? By the time the cop died, I stopped caring and just wanted to see how it played out. I should have listened to my DVD players, which started skipping about 1.5 hours into the flick. I finally got it to play to the end. Boy, that was a relief (insert sarcasm) here. The awards should all go to whoever designs the video covers--THAT was scarier than the entire film.

The meaning of my heading explains it all. What "Spider-Man" did for movies-made-from-comic-books is the same as what "Resident Evil" did for movies-made-from-video-games. It took the general plot, stayed true to the spirit of the source, and yet made it its own living entity--you didn't have to be part of the back-history in order to enjoy the film. I never played "Resident Evil" in my life, but I am a rabid fan of the films--I find them intriguing, exciting, enjoyable, and yet I can still watch them with my daughter (if she was into zombie flicks). The movie stands apart from the game, yet gave sufficient nods to it to satisfy most gamers (see comment for said movies) "Hulk" and "House of the Dead", however, try too hard in the wrong ways to pander to their source bases. Like "Hulk"'s many well-intentioned but sorry attempts to actually LOOK like a comic-book, so too "House of the Dead" tries way too hard to LOOK like the video game (I don't know how many topless females there are in the game, though). This movie, like "Hulk", could have been SO much better, had it taken better notes from its predecessor. Too many what I call "Matrix-shots", where they circle around the subject until you're almost dizzy, especially when you're looking up at them, too many clips from the actual video game that make NO sense to the movie plot, and too many lines taken from a dozen other movies that make the actors sound like they're reciting rather than acting. You can almost tell what each person is going to say or do, based on what the others just said or did. Take out the unnecessary nudity and profanity, lose the Gorton's Fisherman and German U-boat characters and replace them with more realistic people you can actually care about, and lose the teen heartthrob stereotypes and give us real people who can really act, and maybe this movie would have had a chance. As it stands now, it deserves the fact that only the Sci-Fi channel would dare try to make a sequel out of it (and this is no compliment to the Sci-Fi channel). Bottom line, wait until it gets to free cable, but personally, I'm glad I didn't rush to the theaters when it came out.

OK, it's not "Night of the Living Dead" (but then again, what is?), but it's not THE worst movie I've ever seen. The acting wasn't TOO bad--the WRITING, however, left a lot to be desired. The camera work was kinda poor--I could have done without the reflection of the actor's faces in several instances, and it looked like they were going for the "Blair Witch" effect by having the actors run while holding the camera on their own faces--never a good move, especially by amateurs. I was especially surprised to learn this was made in 2001--having indulged myself in relatively recent "MST3K" DVD's, it looked like it was made either A. in the late 70's, or B. by a college video club. I did enjoy the stories, however, surprisingly enough. A writer gets lost on the way to a remote town famous for its ghost stories, and picks up a mysterious hitchhiker on the way. When they stop "to rest a spell", he tells her (I only counted 2?) stories of horrible deaths connected with the town. That part is predictable enough, but the stories the hitchhiker tells are pretty good. If this were given to a more professional cast and crew, it might rise up to the level of "Creepshow"--maybe. The ending made absolutely no sense, sadly, and it ended too soon. I watched the "2-D" version, and it was over in less than 1.25 hours, and the hitchhiker only told two stories. If the third was supposed to be "the wraparound" story, that was pretty lame. I wouldn't run out and buy it, but it's not as bad as most MST3K fodder.

I have read the other comments about this film, and while I might agree with them from a critical point of view, the fact remains that this movie was NEVER meant to be a critic's favorite! We are not talking Oscar-material here, not even for special effects. OK, so it's nothing like the originals, and it has a skimpy little plot and no cinematic depth. But y'know what--WHO CARES! I went to this movie to be entertained, and I wasn't disappointed. It's loud, it's quasi-scary, it had explosions and giant lizards, it had cheesy characters with cheesy names and all sorts of good stuff you expect from a fun, no-brainer movie. C'mon, were its predecessors any better? No sex, no graphic violence (unless you count the poor thing's demise at the end), minimal profanity--I was able to take my daughter to see it and not be embarrassed! Today you can pop it in your DVD player or VCR on a rainy Saturday, make some microwave popcorn (just keep your pet lizard away from it!) and kill about 90 minutes with the family. The only part I had a problem with was, they made the beasty so personable, so NICE (it never INTENTIONALLY kills anyone, y'know), I couldn't help but feel sorry for it when it died at the end. They even gave it KIDS, for Pete's sake! As a fellow parent, I actually sympathized when it found out "they trashed the Garden". I was hoping for a sequel with the hatching egg at the end, but sad to say, that got scrapped. Anyway, my final word is: Get over it, folks! It wasn't MEANT to be taken seriously! Once you get past that, you can enjoy it for the cheap theme-park-ride it was meant to be. I love it!