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"Zombie Nation" DVD
Ulli Lommel makes a zombie
film this time around, and manages to do more damage to the genre
than anyone before him. And what Ulli's dug up this time involves
a serial killing cop who's got a thing for the young ladies. It's
especially useful that his old army buddies down at the precinct
are always so willing to cover for him! Just as our killer cop thinks
he's in serial killer heaven, he lands what will prove to be his
last victim.
You may be wondering--I know I was--what if anything this has to
do with zombies. After all, in a movie called "Zombie Nation",
with what is clearly a zombie on the cover, you're expecting a whole
monster assload of walking dead. But since Ulli Lommel, who is rapidly
becoming direct-to-video's biggest disappointment (for reference,
go get a copy of "Black Dahlia", or one of 2006's contenders
for "Biggest Lack of Taste", "The BTK Killer"),
can't actually seem to make anything make much sense, there will
be an astonishing lack of zombies in the Zombie Nation. In fact,
there will be all of a half dozen, and it's going to take over half
of the movie to even see one.
First, wonder of wonders, the title crawl. Most times, you expect
a quick shot of the title, or maybe a little animation to with it.
Maybe the letters are built out of slashes just for jollies, okay.
But in this case, the letters are actually so big, they won't fit
on one screen. Rather, we get a series of four, and if we took the
title crawl literally, the movie's real title is "Ulli Lommel's
Zom Bie Na Tion."
Being that it's an Ulli Lommel movie, we're not going to get through
this miserable wreckage without torture aplenty. I don't know what
kind of issues this man has, but his body of work is so utterly
laden with pointless torture sequences. It's almost painful to watch
this stuff. Oh, and speaking of painful--for some reason, Ulli himself
is actually in this movie, playing the role of "Dr. Melnitz".
He almost manages to say absolutely nothing but the same line, "Is
it safe?", for his entire appearance. He does manage to break
out, "Childhood memories" and "Paranoiac infantilism.
We will meet twice a week." to mix it up a bit, but still,
it's pretty sad.
The ending is a mishmash of speedy torture, a last-minute plot element
that's never resolved and actually manages to leave the door open
for a sequel to this godawful waste of time.
The special features include English and Spanish subtitles, a commentary
track, closed captioning, and trailers for "Zombie Nation",
"The Descent", "House of Blood", "Dark
Harvest 3: Scarecrow", "A Dead Calling", and "The
Kumite".
All in all, Ulli Lommel, you're on notice--another movie like this
tripe and you're going to surpass Joe Castro on my list of crimes
against filmgoers.
Zombie
Nation
*
DVD
Directed by Ulli Lommel
Written by Ulli Lommel
Starring Gunter Ziegler, Brandon Dean, Axel Montgomery, Phil Lander
Produced by Nola Roeper, Ulli Lommel
R
82 mins
2006
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