JUNK
PLOT-A gang of jewel thieves hides out in an abandoned military base that becomes overrun by zombies.
VIOLENCE-Loads and loads of juicy head-shots, mucho zombie splatter, gut-munching, flesh-eating, decapitated heads, severed limbs, maggots...basically a nice huge buffet of nasty shit.
SEX/NUDITY-One naked female zombie that shows up several times. She was decent, but she was no Linnea.
WHY I WATCHED IT-On the back of the box, this movie was compared to RE-ANIMATOR, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, and RESERVOIR DOGS. I love all those movies, and I'm a fan of Japanese horror films as well.
THE DOPE-I'll be damned, this film really does play like a combination of those flicks after all! Very well-made, scary, tense, and extremely gory. I liked, I liked a lot. It's easy to tell what the influences were (I wouldn't have needed a box to tell me that), as the movie opens with a doctor injecting a naked dead woman with a mysterious green liquid that turns her back to life. After the jewel thieves pull their heist, the one among them who got injured does a great Tim Roth impression when he's bleeding and screaming in the back seat. And I swear, the music that plays when the zombies all stand up and start moving around is the exact same that was used in the opening of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. But unlike another recent Japanese zombie flick, STACY, this one keeps the humor to a minimum and the intensity almost non-stop. It's more old-school Romero style than anything else, but has a definite modern feel. The acting is great, and most of the gore effects are convincing. I lost count of how many times I saw splattering zombie brains against the wall! I agree with the quote on the box, this is a must-see for zombie fans. You won't be disappointed. The zombies eat lots of guts, and there's a hell of a lot of gunplay.
MEMORABLE SCENES-In one homage to EVIL DEAD, a woman fights with a zombie that, when stabbed, spurts out a milk-like substance that goes all over the woman's face.
NOTES-There are 2 versions of this disc (which has no extras besides a few trailers and a still gallery), a rated and unrated. I've seen both and I couldn't tell the difference really. They were both gory as hell. Here's the cover of the rated version (unrated is at the top of this review):
(August 2003)