Horror movies are my thing. If it's horror, I'll watch it at least once, even if I know it's going to be dreadful, because usually there's something to at least make fun of--bad acting, not-so-special effects, absurd plot twists...that sort of thing. I kept my expectations extremely low for the dated, poorly-dubbed, heavily-edited version of this movie known as "Horror of the Zombies". When I say "low", I mean "barely above bargain-basement level" here.
My expectations were still not met.
It's not fair to judge the performances of the original actors in the film because this was a Spanish film dubbed into English by audio actors who obviously thought they had better things to do than actually pay attention to the movie for which they were providing voices. The term "phoned in" could have been created for these performances. Seriously. The plot--what there is of it--is silly and meandering. "Oh, hey, let's strand two models in bikinis in the middle of the Atlantic to be rescued by some passing ship as a publicity stunt! What, we lost contact with them? Okay, let's drag one of the model's girlfriends along with us as well as a second-rate college professor to see what happened to them! Oh look, it's a spooky deserted galleon--let's go exploring!" It just gets more ludicrous and improbable from there. The effects are special only in the sense of "riding the short bus" special--a ship that wouldn't even look convincing in a cheap souvenir bottle, a ripped-out throat that consists of fake blood smeared across someone's collarbone, and "zombies" that look about as scary as a ten-year-old's Halloween costume. To top it all off, there's not a single likable character in the bunch, so you find yourself rooting for the satanic zombies.
Do yourself a favor--skip this movie and watch "Carnival of Souls" instead.
My expectations were still not met.
It's not fair to judge the performances of the original actors in the film because this was a Spanish film dubbed into English by audio actors who obviously thought they had better things to do than actually pay attention to the movie for which they were providing voices. The term "phoned in" could have been created for these performances. Seriously. The plot--what there is of it--is silly and meandering. "Oh, hey, let's strand two models in bikinis in the middle of the Atlantic to be rescued by some passing ship as a publicity stunt! What, we lost contact with them? Okay, let's drag one of the model's girlfriends along with us as well as a second-rate college professor to see what happened to them! Oh look, it's a spooky deserted galleon--let's go exploring!" It just gets more ludicrous and improbable from there. The effects are special only in the sense of "riding the short bus" special--a ship that wouldn't even look convincing in a cheap souvenir bottle, a ripped-out throat that consists of fake blood smeared across someone's collarbone, and "zombies" that look about as scary as a ten-year-old's Halloween costume. To top it all off, there's not a single likable character in the bunch, so you find yourself rooting for the satanic zombies.
Do yourself a favor--skip this movie and watch "Carnival of Souls" instead.
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