Zombies: The Beginning

Bruno Mattei's latest and last flick brings more zombie madness to our bloodthirsty mitts. I for one am not the biggest fan of zombie flicks, but I respect a movie with loads of gore and with a high level of cheese. And yep, Zombies: The Beginning delivers just that.

The story revolves around some cuteass Asian babe who plays a scientist of sorts. She's the lone survivor of a zombie rampage which left her entire crew/team dead. Events lead her back to the island where the zombies live...unlive. And as you can guess, loads of zombies and gore follow. Some weird turns in the story take place, but really, you're only really expecting the next scene of violence. Which basically, this film is fine for.

Z:TB was pretty fun, but ultimately it was a tad too tedious, and just really amateurish. For example, in the first 20 minutes they show a nightmare our lead lady has been suffering from three times. No biggie if it's quick or cool, but nope. It's long and stupid....but understandable. Of course if you love cheesy, foreign zombie flicks, this shouldn't bother you in the slightest and you should feel right at home.

If you're a die hard fan of Mattei or zombies, there's no reason not to check it out. It delivers the red stuff, the awful (good thing) dubbing, and a ridiculous story. Just don't expect our leading lady to shed any clothing. Even with those nice boobs....no nudity. Oh well, at least there were some zombie boobs.

The swan song of exploitation legend Bruno Mattei, Zombies: The Beginning starts with Dr Sharon Dimao being airlifted to safety, the woman claiming to be the only survivor from a salvage ship that ran aground on an island of zombies. After a week in hospital, she goes back to work but loses her job, her employers disbelieving her story about the reanimated dead. The next six months are spent recuperating at a Buddhist temple, but Sharon still suffers from terrible nightmares (well, the same nightmare several times over).

When a man from the Tyler corporation visits Sharon, telling her that he believes her story and that he wants her to act as a consultant on a mission to another island that might be overrun by the living dead, she decides to confront her fears. Accompanied by a platoon of tough, gung-ho marines, she travels to the island where she once again comes face to face with the ravenous zombies (which look a lot more like Lamberto Bava's demons than anything to be found in a George Romero movie).

In short, Zombies: The Beginning is James Cameron's Aliens, but with zombies (that look like demons).

This might be the final effort from a director whose career has spanned four decades, but Mattei proves that he has lost none of his magic: his last film is just as clumsy, cheesy, gory and downright hilarious as anything from his heyday. Sure, it's got a nasty shot-on-video aesthetic that makes it look even cheaper than 'classics' like Rats Night of Terror and Hell of the Living dead, but all of the director's trademarks are there: dreadful dialogue, terrible performances, unconvincing special effects, and lots of unintentional hilarity.

The real fun, however, is in spotting the countless ways that this film apes Aliens. Mattei has zero shame in copying everything he possibly can from Cameron's classic: marines equipped with motion detectors, a tough female soldier, flamethrowers for roasting the enemy, a stomach-burster, a treacherous company man, and an ending that sees Sharon strip to her vest to destroy the zombies' nest, where people are being used for breeding.

In a last-ditch effort to inject just a smidgen of originality, Bruno throws in some cone-headed zombie children with bug eyes, and a disembodied brain in a jar that has been planning to take over the world. Dumb doesn't even begin to describe it.

A tough one to rate: it's embarrassingly bad, and unlikely to appeal to the average Joe, but fans of Mattei's particular brand of trash will have a blast. I'll play it safe and give it a middling 5/10.

Rescued from the Pacific Ocean, Dr. Sharon Dimao tells the story of the zombie infested island she escaped. Persuaded to return to the Island with a commando unit, she uncovers worse horrors than she encountered before, and must fight to survive.

Bruno Mattei's final movie hasn't the b-movie charm of its predecessor. Aside from the flashbacks of Island of the Living Dead (2007) and the same actress playing the same character it has little,if any logical connection. Like Shocking Dark (1989) this is also basically a rehash of Aliens, right down to Antonio Tentori and Giovanni Paolucci's screenplay lifting its lines of dialogue, only the here Xenomorphs are replaced by mutant zombies. We get to witness alien cone-head zombies, fanged and little person zombies. There's exploding heads, gut chomping, dangerous explosions and all the low budget Italian production short comings you'd expect from something made in the 2000s that looks from the 80s. Sub-par acting, sound design, dubbing, editing, lapses in logic, misplaced music, recycled footage-you name it Mattei delivers it.

From the commando unit to the boardroom extras, it really has to be see to be believed unless you're familiar with Mattei's work you know exactly what to expect. Lead Yvette Yzon as Sharon gets to show off her acting chops regurgitating (maybe unknowingly) lines from better films.

Overall, it's wild, it's wacky, it's poorly executed. While not as good Mattei's penultimate DTV Island of the Living Dead, in a weird way this still manages to encompass the staples synonymous with his outlandish work.

Unless you live in another planet, people that watch this type of movies have seen Alien II This story line and progression of the movie, it's that other way better movie.

I like low, low, low budget movies, and I think this one actually had a few dollars, just to bad they forgot to pay the writer some money to come up with something original.

Asian Zombies, I'm cool with that, but please, better dub would not have hurt.

The movie in not even worth renting, but it was fun to see this people's version of the space marines.

They indeed used the script of alien, its like the movie alien 3 but much worse. but for the effort i gave them a 2. so if you expect a good movie full of action packed horror don't watch this one. on the other hand if you like crappy movies this is the one.

things i learned form this movie:

explosives used to blast a door open, the blast impact works both ways.

zombies have teeth which are similar to vampires

an eyeball can be attached on the top of your head where your hair is supposed to be.

motion detectors make a distinctive sound

i really can fall a sleep watching a horror movie