Zombie Night (2003)
(Release Date: October 16, 2003)

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J.C. Maçek III The World's Greatest Critic! Amber Lynn Francis, Co-Writer, Producer, bit actress and wife of Co-Writer, Director, bit actor David J. Francis (who played "Jesus" in the Dracula 2000 series) died before their film Zombie Night could be completed. Even sadder, this took place only days after the birth of their child. Call me a softy, but as a Sarcastic, Skeptical, Cynical critic, this pretty well stops all my zingers and one-liners, right in their tracks. A great deal of what struck me as egotistical and vain (like using a quote not from Poe or Lovecraft, but from Amber L. Francis to kick off the film) now strikes me as a loving and fitting tribute. Of course we, the viewers didn't find all this out until right before the credits rolled. Therefore, I had planned a scathing indictment of the film makers, their egos and their film, just before I was stricken by sympathy and had to rein myself in again. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! Scroll Down for the Complete Zombie Collection: Part of the 2006 Summer of Horror! This is too bad, really because, Sympathy or not, Zombie Night is one of the very worst films I've ever seen. It feels poorly imagined and executed at virtually every turn. This film manages to fail as a nauseating gore film and succeed greatly as a nauseating example of poor film making, acting and almost everything else. Still, it's at least three-hundred times better than Corpses Are Forever! The acting in this film is terrible. Not "bad" but "Terrible"! How bad? Worse than any soap opera, worse than any low-budget porno, worse than a used car commercial produced by and for a local public access TV station. The themes, dialogue, mythology, situations, plot and even certain scenes are directly taken from the Romero Zombie movies! We even start with a cheaply produced TV News montage to set the stage for us. Once the audience has accepted the set-up (as I never did) of a post-World War III world (that looks exactly like the year 2002 to me) where Fallout has caused Zombies to walk the Earth, we're introduced to our goofy cast of characters (two of whom are named "Dave" and "Amber"). So, you have to accept the concept that this is the future (VERY hard to do), that the superpowers have fought each other with nukes and that this has allowed Zombies to rise... and you must then accept that almost every one of your main characters has NO idea that this has taken place. Guys... CNN, watch it! What follows is barely memorable characters being played by really bad actors in a really bad movie, acting out scenes better done by other people. There really is just about nothing original about this movie, from the lines to the action, there's really no reason to watch it, and if you've started it, no reason to finish it, or even continue it. Even the Title is derivative!!! Romero took a low to no budget and made Night of the Living Dead and Raimi took a similarly slim to none budget and made The Evil Dead. Francis seems to use his low budget as an excuse for the general poverty of this picture! It's miserable from Start to Finish! However, I will say this for Zombie Night, aside from an Undead Nude Scene that I could do without there are two really fantastic scenes featuring lovely topless actresses. I mean... Really fantastic. I now know the meaning of "Huge, yet Perfectly Formed" (actually, I didn't need this film for that... My wife's got it goin' on!). One more thing, while there's nothing truly noteworthy about the make-up, I will say that it's just about the only area that appears to be successful. It's not incredible considering the budget, but it's still pretty decent. Maybe the better idea might have been for the make-up team to get together with the hot actresses and we could just have a Margi-esque Naked Paint Party. Maybe have a whole load of post-apocalyptic lesbian nudists led by Sandra Segovic's Shelley and her right hand lady, Andrea Ramolo's Amber and they could bounce around from shelter to shelter until they find one to call their own, each night trying each potential home out with an Amazonian Sapphic passion. You wouldn't need a huge budget for that. You wouldn't even need Zombies. We could call it... Nudist Night, and we'd even hire women to write, produce, direct... it would be a feminist reclamation of sexuality. This is GOLD. Alas, instead we get Zombie Night, a derivative DOG. I sympathize, of course, and I'm sorry that this dedication isn't a better movie. It brings me no pleasure to state that this is one of the worst films I've ever seen. Still, to Paraphrase Swedish Rockers ABBA, Thank you for the Nudity, the Boobs were swinging! Thanks for all the Bells they were Ringing! I couldn't live without it, I scream in all honesty, what would I be, with out the glimpse or flash of mammaries? So I say Thank you for the Nudity... for showing it to me... Man. I'm a trained writer and critic, with a degree in English Literature and experience in critiquing the classics of Shakespeare, Coleridge, Blake, Milton, Wordsworth... and now I'm doing this. This... Reviewing bad movies, re-imagining them as pornos and re-writing ABBA songs for the score. Man... Mom and Dad, I think I wasted an education. Sigh. See you in the next reel.