Audience Member
They should have left this microbudget "zombie opus" in its grave. It stinks.
To be fair, the first of the three stories isn't *too* bad. Set in feudal Japan, a samurai and a monk enter the forest of death in search of an artifact with the ability to raise the dead. The monk goes insane for some reason after he starts hearing an unspecified voice in his head that tells him that he can rule the world. The zombie makeup is about on par with a Halloween costume and the acting is barely better, but at least there's a little bit of originality at work. If this were the only thing on the DVD, I'd have given the whole thing two stars.
But the next two stories are so unmitigatedly terrible that I could barely make it through the second and had to stop watching just a few minutes into the third. The second story is "Shadows of Tomorrow." It's amateurish film noire-like video product that pits a female private eye against a crooked cop and zombies. The lead actress tries to sound like Mae West and it doesn't come close to working. She's awful. The actor playing the crooked detective tries to imitate Humphrey Bogart and is even worse. The acting and the story itself haven't got a single good quality going for them. But, OK, I'll drag through that derivative piece of junk. Maybe the third short will be better.
No, it gets worse. FAR worse. First, it's not even about zombies, but werewolves vs. vampires. On motorcycles. And the vampires call themselves mods, the werewolves rockers, and they're both being manipulated by a post-apocalyptic US government for some reason, which I never found out because the grade school play-quality acting, the creature make-up that looks like they weren't even trying, and the whole premise of "Underworld" meets "Quadrophenia" were just too bloody terrible to bear more than ten minutes of watching.
All in all, the best this collection had to offer was mediocrity, and it was all downhill from there. Leave "Exhumed" in the ground. Rest in peace.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
01/30/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Brian Clement?s Exhumed presents three short zombie movies that revolve around a mysterious object (loosely connected to Lovecraftian mythos) that can raise the dead. The three short stories are pretty entertaining and skillfully made, especially given the ultra-low budget background of the film company. Like Call of Cthulu, I appreciate the skill in making movies on low budgets. A few other thoughts:
* ?Shi No Mori? takes place in feudal Japan, following two warriors as they battle zombies in the forest. The film feels very Japanese, with excellent imitation of classic horror style (it felt like one of the segments from Kwaidan). Especially effective were the titles and the choice to use Japanese (rather than English).
* ?Shadow of Tomorrow? brings the film to the 1948s in classic noir style. The lines are delivered at a quick clip, and the mise-en-scene evokes classic B noir.
* ?Last Rumble? takes place in a post-apocalyptic future in which vampires and werewolves battle each other and some sinister human faction bent on maintaining their stranglehold on the world. I think. The style of this last film seemed, at first, to evoke the exploitation action movies of the 70s (like Human Tornado), but as the short progressed lost that flavor.
* All three films mix these styles with the expected low-budget practical special effects. In these, Clement makes good use of quick shots and some striking images?particularly in part 3. One sequence in which a soldier?s face gets ripped off is striking and amusing.
All three shorts are amusing and entertaining, though they work better as objects of art and style than as coherent tales. The complicated story weaving between the segments gets a bit confusing, but not so much that the film is hurt by it. The shorts use atmosphere and clever plotting to work well within the limits of the production. As such, they?re pretty satisfying. Overall, Exhumed is worth watching for fans of indie film and horror, but probably not satisfying for people expecting high-budget production values or vast armies of zombies.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/21/23
Full Review
Audience Member
If I could go into negatives, I would. What a steaming pile of....
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
01/13/23
Full Review
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