Review: Zombie Night (2013)

Director: John Gulager | 90 minutes | horror, thriller | Actors: Anthony Michael Hall, Daryl Hannah, Alan Ruck, Rachel G. Fox, Shirley Jones, Jennifer Taylor, Daniel Ross Owens, Gibson Bobby Sjobeck, Zoe Canner, Tia Robinson, Diane Ayala Goldner, Rogelio T. Ramos, Hayley Derryberry, James Henderson, Destiny Hernandez, Keith Allan

If you see the very low score of ‘Zombie Night’ and wonder why this film is so bad, but don’t really feel like plowing through this piece of text, here is the answer: this is a production of SyFy channel. So. That was, in fact, a mini review in itself. The connoisseur now already knows enough. The layman probably isn’t and because this is a website for movie reviews, the merciless filing of this cinematographic monstrosity follows.

‘Zombie Night’ tells the story of a family who witnesses a zombie outbreak. Night falls in a small California town. The dead are raised in the cemetery and in the morgue. The villagers will have to defend themselves against the zombies until the sun comes up again. Among the villagers are relics from a distant past, as none other than 80s icons such as Anthony Michael Hall, Daryl Hannah and Alan Ruck emerge in secondary and leading roles.

Director John Gulager made his breakthrough with his ‘Feast’ trilogy, which got worse with each part. The B-film director managed to amass his fifteen minutes of fame with ‘Piranha 3DD’. This weak sequel to cult hit ‘Piranha 3D’ even ran in the cinema for a while in 2012. After this revival, it became quiet again around Gulager. The filmmaker was asked by SyFy channel to shoot a cheap zombie movie. That has resulted in terribly bad production. The characters are not presented and end up out of nowhere in the ‘action’ (as far as you can call cringing special effects that). There is hardly any narrative and the playing of the cast is woody and bored. This film was not allowed to cost anything and it shows.

The grime is a crime and the desperate cast is clearly doing everything to pay the rent. Anthony Michael Hall, Daryl Hannah, and Alan Ruck deserve better roles. It is sad to see how these once so popular actors have ended up in this desolate valley of tears. There is absolutely nothing good about this film. The story is told in a confused way, the narrative speed drops regularly and the special effects are painful.

SyFy has never been known for quality films, but previous productions have been nice for their incredibly dated CGI and disastrous acting. So bad it gets funny. That is by no means ‘Zombie Night’. This film consists of past glory. Despair radiates from it. The director has lost ‘it’ and so has the cast. This is decay captured on film. Ouch …