The Zombie Dead - Creepy, but not necessarily how you might think

If ever a film could be described as a 'car crash' then it has to be 'The Zombie Dead' (or whatever it's called in various territories).  I think that I'd be hard pushed to it to find something positive to say about this 1981 low budget horror film.  In fact, I could probably write pages dedicated to all the things wrong with it.  However, because I'd say that there's absolutely nothing good about this film at all, it slips all the way round the spectrum into that 'so-bad-it's-good' category.  And, because of that, I'm ashamed to say that I own a copy among my DVD collection.

With a title like 'The Zombie Dead' you probably don't need a huge explanation regarding its plot.  Nutty professor.  Brings the undead back to life.  Carnage ensues.

I've mentioned it's 'low budget' and it really is.  Sometimes today we associate 'low budget' with bad CGI special effects.  We should be so lucky here.  The budget is probably less that the cost of the Sunday newspapers.  The 'actors' (notice the quotation marks?) can't act.  And, if they could, it probably wouldn't matter as their lines are dubbed over anyway.  The film was made in Italian and the English lines dubbed by voice actors who also can't act.  These are the people we're supposed to root for as they run around a mansion doing every stupid thing you've seen idiots do in every other bad horror film.

The only thing more cheesy than the actors are the zombies out to get them.  You're probably used to seeing - what amounts to - humans with bleeding wounds, shuffling about moaning on about brains (or something).  Not here.  Instead, the film-makers try and make the zombies into more monster-looking creatures with masks that sort of look a bit like a fleshed out skeleton.  In reality, I don't know what they look like.  I only know that if I saw one staggering towards me, I'd probably be too busy laughing to run away.

We meet our 'heroes' - about three or four couples of over-sexed thirty-somethings, either with a receding hairline, a moustache, or both (and that's just the women! - joke).  There's not a single relatable or decent trait among them and, when they do start losing body parts to our slow-moving 'walkers' we really won't care.  But, none of them are the stars.  I'm saving the real reason anyone watches this film until last - it's the 'little boy.' Now, we're all used to child actors sometimes not being up to the task of starring in a film.  Maybe that's why the production team used a middle-aged dwarf to play the child.  Why?  Don't ask me.  But if that isn't weird enough, he has an - er - 'odd' relationship with his mother.  No matter how creepy the zombies are and the prospect of being eating alive, it all pales in comparison compared to some of the scenes between 'boy' and mother.

This is a bad film.  You should be aware of that.  The only reason you should watch it is if you're in one hell of a forgiving mood or are looking for a film that is so bad that you won't be able to turn it off, just because you're trying to see if it can get any worse.  And it probably can.  A guilty pleasure to be sure.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights