THE DEAD TIMES

RATING:

ZOMBIE RATING:

DESCRIPTION:

For one night only, a small Californian town is besieged by Zombies, rising from the grave in uncontrollable numbers. Desperate families struggle to survive until sunup.

MY VERDICT:

This movie surprised me - it's actually not that bad. There are many negatives on the face of it; there's no story other than the weak 'Zombies break out for one night and are all gone by the next morning' theme, the characters surviving by not much more than simply running around until the sun comes up. The acting is also pretty far below the bar. However, the major highlight - and, unfortunately, the only highlight - is the Zombies themselves; their gruesome make-up, their slow, shambling gait and their clear mindless stupidity combined with the fact that some individuals have limited tool-use skills, reminds me fondly of the original ghouls from Night of the Living Dead. There are some exceptions. For example, towards the end of the film, set in a graveyard filled with hundreds of the flesh-hungry walking corpses, a woman seems to keep a Zombie at bay by pointing a sharpened stick at it - not a survival tactic I would recommend when faced with an attacker that has no sense of self-preservation. So, if you're 'one-foot-in-the-grave' in love with Zombies (like me) then you'll find Zombie Night a decent escape from the hum-drum world of the real. If you are looking for story, plot, intrigue, memorable characters… look elsewhere.