Zombie Hunter Fire (Android)

WHAT IS IT?

Zombie Hunter Fire is yet another single-player offline Android game where you destroy waves of zombies, in between upgrading weapons and acquiring other items.

UI

The UI is…interesting. It’s very ugly, actually. I can’t put my finger on why, but it’s not very inviting to look at. Maybe the size of the lettering? The font? The fact everything else in the game is disgusting so it’s just guilt by association? 

The main menu

Navigating the menus is generally pretty easy. Weapons are displayed on the side of the main menu; tapping on any equipped item will take you to the weapons page to upgrade them or to purchase new ones. “Stage” can be selected to take you to where you left off in the single-player campaign. Alternatively, you can hit the red “Quick Start” button underneath the weapons on the right side of the screen to jump right into the heat of battle.

There are also options to get free gold (by watching ads), a menu for upgrading skills, and a “message center” that occasionally grants free coins and items. All of these are clearly labeled and easy to access. The only misleading one is the “gift” icon, which merely offers three additional games to download from the same studio.

Outside of its general tackiness, navigation is pretty clear and straightforward. That’s not always the case with mobile games, so I guess we will consider this a slight “win”.

GRAPHICS

The graphics just look and feel outdated. Actually, the whole game has the feel of being tossed together over a weekend for some 24-hour game competition. The zombies seem to float in the air rather than walk, and the ragdoll physics are just godawful. Destroyed monsters will contort themselves into impossible positions as they fall into their final death pose. Some even stay standing, making it seem as if they’re still “live” enemies.

The “blood” is cheap and generic, with odd glowing red orbs emanating from each bullet strike. Outside of that, there’s no other evidence of physical damage to attacking creatures.

Look at those convincing blood droplets.

Zombies aren’t the only things looking for some fresh meat; other monster types make frequent appearances, as well. There are fat chainsaw wielding maniacs; axe-wielding zombies - in both male and female variants; and shield-carrying undead whose exposed heads are their only weakness. And…well shit, that’s about it. Seeing the same creatures over and over again quickly wears as thin as everything else. 

The visuals combine to create a feeling of grunginess that rubs off on the player. It’s akin to the way I felt watching horrible old Italian zombie movies like Hell of the Living Dead and Burial Ground. While that might have sounded enticing to me prior to this experience, I can assure you that playing a Z-grade zombie game isn’t nearly as fun as watching one.

AUDIO

Proving the developer’s clear lack of commitment to every facet of the game’s design is the game’s godawful audio. The main menu music is ultra-corny rock music that doesn’t set any sort of appropriate mood. In fact, it feels out of place. I can almost guarantee it was lifted from some library of public domain tracks.

The in-game sounds don’t fare much better. During battle, there is no music at all. This could actually be an immersive decision, as it forces focus on the action. Except that the sound effects also feel incomplete. The gunshots in the game are basic and tinny, probably sound effects from a “free sounds” website. Outside of that, there’s the sound of metal when you hit an airborne ax launched from a zombie; a generic “uh” when your character dies…and that’s about it. 

No, literally, that’s it. The monsters themselves make no sounds whatsoever. It doesn’t matter what they are doing: attacking, moving, getting hit…they are completely silent. Including the chainsaw-wielding psychopaths, who swing their weapons around so quietly, you could hear a pin drop. Pro tip: If you know your game isn’t going to have the proper budget or time to add sound effects, you probably shouldn’t feature creatures carrying the loudest possible weapons. 

CONTROLS

The controls have a familiar setup to other games, with the left side controlling your character’s movements and the right side handling the weapons. The game uses a “stationary” mechanic where your character is apparently paralyzed; the movement pad moves the crosshairs in the direction specified. Movements beyond that are handled by the game. 

The controls are straightforward and marked on the bottom of the screen.

A large “fire” button handles gunfire. Firing the weapon is completely unsatisfactory, and feels too slow. I can’t tell if it’s a control issue, or if the gun just needs to be upgraded in order to perform better. Either way, I don’t even care.

Grenades and other items are centered in the middle of the screen. This is an awkward location that requires moving the hands to reach, lest you have a long thumb. The distance is especially obvious during the “heat” of “battle”.

Overall, the controls are sufficient, I suppose. But not enough to overcome any of the game’s other notable issues.

GAMEPLAY

The base game is like any other zombie hunting game: You play in levels that consist entirely of killing all the monsters that appear on screen. That’s all there is to it. Once you complete a level, you are then tossed into the next one, which looks quite similar to the one before it. 

This is not an issue in and of itself. There are plenty of monotonous games that manage to be fun, at least for a little while. The issue with Zombie Hunter Fire, besides the nonsensical name, is that it has the feel of being thrown together in the dark. 

My new gun, which apparntly deals 14.4 damage per bullet...

Take the weapons system, for example. Newly purchased weapons are often way weaker than older upgraded weapons. Yet the cost to upgrade the “new”, “stronger” weapons is notably more expensive. This becomes more obvious in later levels, when it can take an entire clip to dispatch one zombie with weaker guns. 

...and my old gun, which deals 20 damage and is cheaper to upgrade.

Gold can be used to upgrade “skills”, like headshot damage and overall weapon power. The latter is incredibly expensive, and don’t really seem to have much of an effect. My main gun sucked before I upgraded, and still sucked after the upgrade. “Shields” are ridiculously cheap (1 gold bar) and block up to three strikes per round. These are a great deal and are really helpful; they represent the best value in the “upgrade” department.

The game is “beginner heavy”, which is a lame term I made up for games that are easy in the beginning, but then quickly ramp up difficulty. I’m stuck on level 53 because both of my guns suck, and my “skills” need upgrading. The problem is, upgrading requires playing the game to earn resources. And I have no further desire to play this game. 

Randomly, the game employs an “energy” mechanism, but it doesn’t work the way it does with most games. This is both a welcome change, and also an unnecessary annoyance. Instead of each level costing “energy” to play, it’s only the boss stages and “endless” game modes that require the use of batteries. Alternatively, you can use your available energy to open up supply boxes. Opening one costs 3 batteries, while 5 can be opened for 10. This is a much better “deal”, but the issue is, the contents are always underwhelming.

Wow, look at this great five-crate haul.

Coin amounts in each crate seem to max out at 1,000, but are often much less than that. That means it’s all too common to get fewer than 1000 coins in five crates. Total. The chests can also contain useful items like shields and XP boosts, but don’t feel worth it at all. (Especially since shields only cost 1 gold in the store). 

GAME MODES

To break up the monotony from the single player campaign, Zombie Hunter Fire offers up a couple of other monotonous game modes. The main one is “Survival”. This is a standard in many zombie games. Instead of playing short levels, you square off against endless waves of zombies, seeing how far you can progress before dying. I hate game modes (and games) like this. I don’t like knowing I’m going to die. That’s not something that’s interesting to me. Sure, I die all the time in regular games with an ending, but I like knowing that there’s the possibility of actually ending. Going on and on indefinitely does nothing for me.

Plus, the longer you survive, the longer the game goes. I like games where I can just pick up and put it down whenever. The idea of setting aside time just in case I make it far is another thing that doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest.

Test your tolerance for the game in "survival" mode.

The one plus is some games reward players handsomely for progressing far in this mode. Here, you get your score in coins (I believe it’s 20 coins for every zombie killed), and then have the option to triple that by watching ads. I made it to wave 21, and managed to bag over 16,000 coins for my effort. It can be used to raise funds in a pinch, and is helpful in earlier levels.

The problem is, once weapon upgrades start costing upwards of 48,000, even that amount won’t do much to help. And each “round” costs five “batteries” (representing the aforementioned energy). Since you only get 10, you can play twice before being required to wait 2.5 hours to earn enough to play again.

“Boss” levels are also handled similarly. Each boss takes five “batteries” to fight. Defeating these monsters results in higher cash payouts, but I nevertheless avoid them. Maybe that’s the reason I always find myself short on funds for everything.

ADS/GREED

You're always greeted with one of these first thing.

“Zombie Hunter Fire” is guilty of one of the most annoying practices in mobile games: Pop-up ads. And I’m not talking about third-party ads: I’m talking about the ones that offer upgrades requiring real cash. Right off the bat, every single time the application is loaded. Clicking out of them is easy enough, requiring a tap of the standard “X” in the top right corner, but it’s the principle. It’s the mobile equivalent of panhandling on a street corner. 

Outside of that, the ad load is actually pretty standard. Completing levels results in the forced viewing of a skippable ad. Users can watch videos for additional gold bars. Past levels can be replayed to earn extra in-game currency (though at a reduced rate), which can further prevent the need to spend money for upgrades. Hell, there isn’t even a way to replenish energy “batteries” quicker, whether by watching ads or paying real money. 

The game might feel “scummy”, but at least it doesn’t feel scammy; at least, no moreso than similar games.

FUN

Here’s one of the few areas that truly matter; the one area where many downfalls can be redeemed. I’m sure we’ve all experienced those games that we have a strong affinity for, despite there being one glaring, or several minor flaws. That guilty pleasure we all turn back to, even though we know we shouldn’t. 

Get used to seeing these words.

This is not that game. Nowhere close. It’s a steaming pile of shit. It feels like a college student’s first attempt at coding their own game. Actually, if this were the case, it would be impressive. But as an “official” full release, it’s nothing short of embarrassing.

There’s nothing entertaining about it. The levels and enemies are ultra-repetitive. The weapons are often weak and underpowered. Maybe I played the game “wrong” and wasted gold on the wrong things. But that’s the thing: Even if I was easily blasting through every level, the game would suck. I made it to level 52, and the most exciting thing about the experience is the knowledge that, soon, I can delete it from my phone.

IN CONCLUSION

Zombie games seem to be pretty popular these days, and there are certainly many good ones. Zombie Hunter Fire is one of those copies that seem to be thrown together just to “cash in” on the popularity of such games. There is no imagination or inspiration behind it, besides earning money. But it even misses opportunities on that front. There’s no way to pay for extra “energy”, which is required for “boss” and “survival” modes. It’s so half-assed that it can’t even accurately succeed as a cash grab.

I really try avoiding this score. I really do. The cynic in me doesn’t mind giving them, but I want the ratings to at least have some sort of personal consistency. And if I’m giving zeroes left and right, that makes me seem like some person who can’t be impressed. Like some royalty scoffing at the peasants. That’s definitely not me. (Well, not usually, anyway).

Images can't convey how terrible this game truly is.

The issue is that I’m struggling to find something that I like; some aspect of the game I don’t entirely despise. And I’m coming up with nothing. Just the very thought of playing the game makes me cringe; that probably tells me everything I need to know. 

There are so many things wrong with the end result that you’d swear the point was to get people to avoid playing it. It’s hard to imagine making something this bad without intending to make something this bad. 

I got more satisfaction out of deleting it from my device than actually playing the game could ever provide.

OVERALL: 0/10.

Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)

Director: John McPhail
Writer(s): Alan McDonald and Ryan McHenry
Starring: Ella Hunt, Malcolm Cumming, Sarah Swire, and Paul Kaye

Just about every time my wife and I decide to watch a movie, that begins another set of specific decisions that often take longer than the movie itself: What genre? What style? Something funny, or serious; scary or lighthearted? Violent or not? The list goes on and on until, inevitably, a fight breaks out, and we finally just settle on something neither of us really care to watch all that much.

And that’s what made Anna and the Apocalypse such a refreshing change of pace: the moment I read it, I decided we were watching it. (While that came off as controlling, it was simply because my wife was at work, and I knew it was something that would be just as down her alley as it was mine.) A Christmas-themed zombie-holiday musical? How in the world could that possibly fail?

The plot is simple: as members of a high school rehearse for a Christmas play, under the watchful eye of the evil, aptly-named Arthur Savage, who also happens to be both the play’s director and school’s vice-principal, a zombie attack occurs in real life, leaving the school’s inhabitants to fend for themselves. As we can gather from the title, the focus is on Anna, a cute teenager who had a much-publicized fling with a cocky student, much to the chagrin of her best friend, John, who not-so-secretly wants her.

The whole project reminds one of the Hulu show “Freakish”, if that were written and directed by people with actual talent, and with random musical numbers thrown in for good measure. I say that not to poke fun at that awful show (although I did), but because that’s the feeling I got during the school scenes—even the sets look very similar (although I guess all schools look pretty similar on the inside). There’s also the movie’s similar focus not on the zombies, but on the characters themselves, who are all normal teenagers going through “normal” issues all on their own, to some extent.

It has all the makings of a true Christmas classic—and maybe even a zombie classic—but it's partially done in by just how serious it takes itself. The musical numbers are upbeat and lively, and there's a good amount of humor, but it inflicts a lot of pain on its characters, both physical and emotional, to the extent that, despite all the polish and razzmatazz, it all just stops being fun. I was reminded, at least in story arc, of American Pie, a movie that also wanted to explore emotional themes, and apparently felt the best vessel for that was in a movie that featured a character fucking an apple pie. The same idea holds true here: are people really going to go into a sing-song zombie movie wanting, or expecting, to come out feeling somewhat depressed?

The production values are obvious here, with great choreography in the dance sequences, polished music tracks, and solid acting across the board, especially from Ella Hunt as Anna, and a deliciously over-the-top Tony Kaye as Arthur Savage. Unfortunately, it seems to have the same identity issues as many of the characters it portrays, trying to do too many things in order to appeal to as many kinds of people as possible. It's like the intelligent geek who refuses to accept his seat at the nerd table, and instead desperately attempts to fit in with the popular bunch—and we all know how that ends up.

RATING: 6.5/10

TRAILER

Train to Busan (2016)

Director: Sang-ho Yeon
Writer(s): Yeon
Starring: Yoo Gong, Soo-an Kim, Yu-mi Jun, and Dong-seok Ma

There are some movies that start off so ingeniously and unique that you just know they're going to be good; Yeon Sang-ho's Train to Busan is such a film. A man driving an urgent package to an urgent destination drops his phone and, while attempting to retrieve it, hits something in the middle of the road. It's a deer. He surveys the damage to the front of his truck, and looks a little upset, but the package is too important to care about anything else. He gets back in his car and drives off.

But the slow tracking shot back to the deer, along with the ominous swell to the soundtrack, tell us that something is not right. The animal is still, blood surrounding its body, just as we would expect. Then, it starts to twitch, then violently—and ever so awkwardly—jumps to its feet, the camera lingering closely on its face at which point what we already knew is explicitly verified: this deer might be moving, but it's not alive.

It's really quite an in-your-face open that sets you up for the “anything goes” world that you will be inhabiting for two hours. But there's also an ugly side to Train to Busan, one that's in direct contrast to the popcorn atmosphere that the film is trying to achieve. And it, too, is foreshadowed right from the outset.

In the very next scene we are introduced to Seok Woo, a businessman for a large corporation who seems deeply involved in his work. As it turns out, he is, to the point that he has to ask a coworker what to get his daughter for her birthday...after being reminded that tomorrow is, in fact, her birthday. Not surprisingly, we later learn, that selfish attitude is the main reason behind his impending divorce. Nothing in this movie can be that simple, though, so naturally, there's some collateral damage in this situation: their young daughter, who also happens to be celebrating her birthday the following day. And, of course, her only wish is for Seok to take her to Busan, to see her soon-to-be-estranged mother. Seok, ever the businessman, tries to use the “I'm too busy” excuse, but finally caves in to his daughter's request.

And that, even more than the occasionally amazing action scenes, becomes the film's trademark: It's all covered in a cloying saccharine coating, where every event feels like little more than a reason to beat us over the head with more emotion. Yes, we already get the strained relationship between father and child, because it's instantly made evident in several of the opening scenes. We already get that the child, who cannot be more than ten years old, is innocent, and sweet, and pure, and merely a victim of her father's workaholism. Yet the movie still rubs our noses in just how angelic the daughter is, even at the common sense cost of safety: After his father, a high-ranking executive, is tipped off about a route to avoid that would lead to guaranteed quarantine, she tries rushing off to tell everyone else. But when she is stopped, her father informing her that it's every man for himself in this scenario (a sad, but hard, truth), she accuses him of being selfish. Sure, stupid kid, it's only a good decision if you agree with it, even if your stupidity leads to the deaths of everyone around you, right? It's a movie that so desperately wants us to take it seriously, that it's impossible to feel anything but utter annoyance, especially as the painful outpouring of emotions continues to be a story device until the very end.

Now, don't take this rant the wrong way: there are movies that have successfully pulled off the difficult combination of emotion and horror. The Orphanage is a phenomenal example; it scared and moved me almost in equal measure. Even B-movies can do it: Trollhunter is unexpected proof of that, a film that had the audacity to “humanize” its monsters, something Hollywood would never have the guts to do. But the problem is the way Busan tries going about it: in the most formulaic, mundane ways imaginable. Each “heart-tugging” scene feels like it was ripped out of a Hallmark channel film, and with the same amount of conviction as you will find in those, which are themselves, tired retreads of one another.

Then there are the group of survivors, which are completely generic in mind and action. We already have “indifferent businessman who will change his ways and become a hero”, and “completely angelic little girl” covered, but there's also “popular cheerleader/athlete combo”, “rough-around-the-edges man who turns out to have a heart of gold”, his wife, who ticks the box marked “pregnant”, “homeless man who turns out to be okay after all”, etc., etc., etc. Bringing the groan-inducing cast of characters to completion is the “whiny rich man who will survive at all costs”; he also doubles as the film's central living villain, as if the overwhelming hordes of the undead aren't enough. It all becomes too much, and it eventually comes falling down under the weight of its own half-assed (though admittedly ambitious) ideas.

The title pretty much sums up the plot, in which a zombie outbreak befalls a train, leading the dwindling number of survivors to stay alive as long as possible against the growing hordes of the undead. That's it. And within this context, there are certainly some fantastic action sequences that show director Sang-ho Yeon can be a force to be reckoned with....no matter how much of a seasoned horror or action film fan you are, there's virtually guaranteed to be at least one scene that will drop your jaw to the floor. Along those same lines, I can't chastise him for lack of ambition, and many of the special effects are very well done. And the zombie movements, as well as their intense desperation to kill, are some of the best I've ever seen in a zombie movie, period.

It just becomes a problem when you're more dreading the obligatory banter between scenes, than you are looking forward to the action. And the longer that went on, the more I found myself disappointed with many of the “fight” sequences, which are largely bloodless (or only lightly bloodied), and in which it becomes clear just who the screenplay is favoring at any given time. If tired predictability is your favorite trait in a horror film, then you will have a great time riding this train; it's just an English-language audio track away from a multi-million dollar run at the multiplexes.

RATING: 5/10

TRAILER

Zombie (1979)

Director: Lucio Fulci
Writer(s): Elisa Briganti (and an uncredited Dardano Sacchetti, who asked for his name to be removed following the death of his father shortly before the film's release)
Starring: Tisa Farrow, Ian McCullough, Richard Johnson, Al Cliver, and Auretta Gay

I am usually of the mindset that a movie cannot truly be considered “good” unless it excels in several different technical categories. I mean, really that’s just common sense; a movie with great cinematography but poor everything else should not be rated highly, nor should a movie with a solid soundtrack and little else to offer. The truly great works of art, at least in the film world, are ones where everything comes together to deliver a mesmerizing all-around experience, one that can delight your audio/visual senses in equal measures.

But Lucio Fulci’s Zombie is one of the few films I’ve seen that shatters that whole ideal; come to think of it, it is the kind of film that shatters the whole idea of “critique” altogether. It is an ugly film in many ways, with visuals that revel in drab colors and a storyline that focuses on a poverty-stricken island where the villagers are being killed off by a mysterious plague…one that also happens to bring the dead back to life. It gets much use out of an old, grungy church-turned-hospital, which is slowly filling up with dying and diseased villagers, the only sounds that of dozens of flies hovering around the victims. Just seeing the setting enough is almost nauseating, the griminess of the locales adding a sense of scope and urgency, while also working as a direct contradiction to the (mostly) clean, (apparently) sterile hospitals that we often take for granted in the United States.

It doesn’t do much right, at least not in the way of what we would normally think of as “technical standards”: the acting, which is kind of hard to take at face value thanks to the dubbing, seems mediocre at generous best; the cinematography is straightforward but rarely anything more than average; the story gives the illusion that it was thrown together solely as a shaky foundation for which to throw in as much gore and bloodshed as possible, which probably isn’t just an illusion.

And that discardable plot starts off with an abandoned boat surfacing in New York. When the Coast Guard goes to investigate, they find more than they bargained for: a zombie, who attacks and kills one of the men, before getting shot off the ship by the other. A newspaper catches wind of this, and assigns a reporter, Peter West (played by Ian McCullough), to start following this story. The reporter catches a young woman, Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow, sister of Mia, who retired from acting in the ‘80s to be a nurse in Vermont), as she is being interrogated by police; it would seem that the boat belonged to her father, whom she hadn’t seen or heard from in months.

So Peter and Anne team up to find out what happened to her father, who last she heard, was going to a small Caribbean island called Matul. They happen to catch two American tourists, Brian Hull (Al Cliver) and Susan Barrett (Auretta Gay), just before they depart on a two-month tour of the islands (based on a tip from a taxi driver, who apparently knows everything that is happening in his city at any given moment), and talk them into allowing them to tag along.

As is standard in these films, it turns out the island is so small that it doesn’t appear on any maps, but they manage to find it anyway. Also standard is that Susan and Brian just plan on dropping off Peter and Amy, then continuing on their own way, but are forced to join them when the boat is damaged. Couldn’t see that one coming! It is around this time that we are treated to one of the film’s most (in)famous scenes, in which an underwater zombie squares off against a bloodthirsty shark. It’s poorly edited and comes off as rather clumsy, but it still works, simply because there hasn’t been anything like it in the annals of cinema (so noteworthy is this scene that Microsoft used it in a television advertisement for one of their tablets).

They meet up with Dr. Menard (Richard Johnson, who was an actor, along with Ian McCulloch, at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the early ‘60s, where the two first met), a doctor who is trying to figure out what is causing the dead on the island to rise. It turns out that the doctor had worked with Anne’s father, who eventually passed away from the island’s disease. There we go…the whole main mystery of the movie is solved, which now allows the film to focus entirely on zombie grue and gore!

And the gore is exactly what Zombie gets very, very right, which shouldn’t be too unexpected given the fact those have always been a Fulci standard. But what elevates them into another stratosphere is just how amazing a vast majority of the effects look even today: the infamous “eye scene” is agonizing in its gradual build-up, but just when we think it’s going to cut away, it does the unthinkable, by getting in even closer to show us every little graphic detail. It was a stomach-churning sequence in 1979, and it’s a stomach-churning sequence now; that it has lost none of its power to shock is a huge compliment almost forty years later.

Ditto that for the slow-motion jugular bite, in which blood flows in slow motion after a woman has her neck bit by a zombie. As usual, Fulci sets the camera in tight, even as the zombie is tearing the flesh away, like he’s daring us to find fault in the effect, and while a second shot a second later does reveal a mass of slightly-miscolored skin (which is clearly the added fake flesh used to pull off the effect), the initial bite is painfully realistic.

Credit for these shots goes to Giannetto de Rossi, who was an effects artist for predominantly Italian films in the ‘60s and ‘70s, with a filmography that alternates between exploitation fare (Emanuelle in America), Westerns (Once Upon a Time in America), and even work with a cinema great (on Fellini’s Casanova, as makeup artist to Donald Sutherland). Eventually, he had a relatively brief career in Hollywood, working with fellow Italian Carlo Rambaldi (who would go on to design the alien heads in Ridley Scott’s Alien) on David Lynch’s Dune, covering the makeup effects for Dragonheart, partnering with Sylvester Stallone for Rambo III and Daylight, and designing the mask for The Man in the Iron Mask.

De Rossi actually pulled double-duty here, as he was also the makeup effects artist—again, this is another area where Zombie shines. The zombies featured here are, quite simply put, some of the greatest ever committed to film. What makes them even more memorable is the amazing attention-to-detail paid to the length of decomposition, something that we would expect would mainly fall on the shoulders of de Rossi himself. The film features both a mysterious disease wiping out members of a village and causing them to return from the dead almost immediately, as well as long-dead Spanish Conquistadors rising from their centuries-long slumber. Realistically, the freshly-dead mainly utilize the actors’ real skin, with some gruesome blood or skin effects to show us that they are zombies; the Conquistadors, on the other hand, are completely made up to look like walking, mummified skeletons. Would it have really made a difference if de Rossi used similar templates for both kinds of zombies? Absolutely not. Nevertheless, it’s an inspired decision that allows de Rossi to show off the breadth of his ridiculous skills as makeup artist.

I would be doing the film a great disservice to not mention the famous score by Fabio Frizzi and Giorgio Casco. Even though the brunt of it can be reduced to just three main cues (the “theme”, a Caribbean-style number, and one utilizing tribal drums), it still somehow manages to be versatile. For example, the main theme is used (for the thousandth time) during the characters’ final showdown at the end, with some of the action timed to the music; when paired with the images, the music actually sounds heroic, and becomes the perfect background accompaniment to their “last stand”. It is also used when the Spanish Conquistadors slowly rise out of their graves, also to strong effect. It became so popular, that Frizzi clearly used it as an inspiration for his own theme to City of the Living Dead, also directed by Fulci.

Zombie is a film that doesn’t really have much to offer its viewer, besides a great soundtrack and excellent special effects, which would normally relegate it to the sea of mediocrity. Yet under Fulci’s direction, the effects are handled with such care and conviction that they don’t just become the focus of the movie, they become the movie itself; everything else takes a backseat to the mayhem. And when those effects not only hold up today, but also manage to put our modern overreliance on obviously-fake computer-generated trickery to shame, then you have that rare gore film that functions both as a throwback to film’s glory days, as well as a shining example of a forty-year-old film that still holds the power to shock and disgust.

RATING: 7/10

TRAILER