I see a whole lot of 8 and 9 star reviews for this movie. Now, I certainly understand that each of us has their own opinion and I probably like movies that others would wonder about my own rating. Where's the sense of scale, though? If this movie is an 8, then what exactly constitutes a 5 for those people, or god forbid, a 2? The general praise I see is it's "historical significance" being an early precursor of the European zombie movement and, for that, I can see it deserves some credit. However, simply being a museum piece does not equal being a quality movie that most modern viewers will enjoy, does it? Charlie Chaplin may be important to comedy, but very few of us still find him funny, but I digress. Yes, This comes right after Night of the Living Dead and, I would include, Tombs of the Blind Dead, and seem to have inspired Fulci a great deal, especially in the look of the zombies.
After watching the movie, I was left thinking of Val Lewton, to some degree. If I removed the monsters from this movie altogether, do I still have anything entertaining left? The answer is a resounding "NO". Yes, the scenes will the zombies (all 15 minutes that you'll get) are indeed well-done. They have that slow, languid quality like you're in nightmare that you just can't escape from. The rest of the movie is a big, gigantic mess though. The actors are just not good, despite other reviews, especially the male lead. The dialog comes off like something I wrote in junior high creative writing. It's overwrought and just really laughable in parts, especially from the Sheriff. For me, that sort of stuff just pulls me out completely and eliminates any tension because all I'm concentrating on is how bad the writing is in this movie.
I do give cred for giving some explanation to the zombies besides the usual virus, and the means of killing them differs from most other zombie genre movies, but those things don't make up for the rest of the weak points.
If you are a completest, like me, just working your way through the catalog, so to speak, then this is worth a view (if only for it's historical significance), but if you're a zombie enthusiast looking for your next fix, then you can do much better than this (try the aforementioned Tombs of the Blind Dead first).
