Truly Dreadful Film

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

one of my absolute favorites!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

A group of rough'n'tumble marines led by Captain Jurgens (stiffly essayed with topmost cardboard aplomb by James Gregory Paolleli) are sent by the powerful company Tyler Inc. to investigate reports of a zombie outbreak on a remote pacific island where a series of secret medical experiments are being conducted. Dr. Sharon Dimao (woodenly played by the pretty Yvette Yzon), who's the traumatized lone survivor of a previous zombie rampage, accompanies the team on their desperate rescue mission.Boy, does this hilariously horrendous honey cover all the essential endearingly atrocious bases to rate highly as a real four-star stinkeroonie: Ham-fisted (mis)direction by legendary hack sleazemeister Bruno Mattei (his last film no less -- and no more, either!), laughably lousy dubbing, tacky excessive gore, terrible acting from a lame no-name cast, cheesy nightmare flashbacks, tin-eared dialogue (sample line: "You mean zombies like George Romero?"), erratic pacing, and ineptly staged zombie attack set pieces. The derivative script by Antonio Tentori and Giovanni Paolucci not only blatantly (and shamelessly) rips off "Aliens" right down to an annoying wisecracking jerk ala Hudson, but also tosses in a zombie midget, topless zombie women, hideous naked zombie kids with creepy big'n'black bug eyes, a giant talking brain, and even a grotesque zombie newborn baby (!) for extra supremely tasteless good measure. Ray de Leon's sharp cinematography offers a few neatly atmospheric compositions and makes occasional clumsy use of strenuous slow motion. The robust marital score does the rousing trick. An absolute schlocky hoot and a half.

Zombies: The Beginning (2007) * 1/2 (out of 4)Italian director Mattei ended his career with this sequel to ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD but don't expect a typical zombie flick. This film picks up right where the previous left as the sole survivor is asked by the government to head back to the island where her crew was killed by the zombies. That's pretty much all you need to know in terms of story as you really don't even need that considering this movie completely ignores what happened at the very end of the previous one. Yes, Mattei's final flick has a lot of zombies but it's actually just a direct rip off of ALIENS. This isn't the first time Mattei has ripped ALIENS and even though this movie is extremely bad, you can't help but somewhat admire how much ripping this guy can do. Not only do we get dialogue and scenes ripped from the Cameron flick but we get the typical stock footage stolen from other movies and this time it's CRIMSON TIDE. How Mattei got away with doing this his entire career is beyond me but quite a few of the sub scenes from that movie are lifted and used here. The movie actually looks like it had a fairly decent budget as the set design is actually pretty good and this is especially true at the end when we visit the alien/zombie tombs. Fans of gore will get quite a bit of that here as the red stuff is constantly flowing with various heads being shot off and parts being ripped or eaten. The CGI effects are quite poor but it adds a somewhat campy feel to the film. The performances, like the previous film, are hard to judge considering how bad the dubbing is but most people don't come to movies like this for the acting. The film doesn't mind ripping off other movies including dialogue from DAY OF THE DEAD and Mattei even rips off his own RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR. Fans of exploitation will probably want to check this out just for the cheese but the biggest problem is that it runs way too long and there's just not enough here to warrant the long running time. Mattei certainly went out with his comeback and this film contains all the bad stuff he'll always be remembered for.

Zombies:The beginning is not a beginning in any way. In fact is a sequel to Island of the Living Dead and also is the last movie from Italian exploitation director Bruno Mattei. Mattei made a lot of movies, more than 100, and he was famous for using footage from other movies, music from other movies and also plots from other movies, he was a professional rip-off director, but he managed to made some really entertaining movies (zombie movies, WIP movies, erotic, gore, action, nun exploitation,etc) . Zombies The beginning is his last movie and, fortunately, it's a good end for Bruno. The movie delivers the goods, is a blood packed action zombie movie, with the usual stock stolen from other movies and the complete lack of originality, but its very good in his own way. Lots of action, lots of zombies, good fx and good costumes, lots of torched babies and atrocities. The movie is shot on digital video and that's the only reason this one is not as good as mattei 80s zombie movies, the film look. But in action, gore and entertainment this one is as good (in terms of entertainment that is what matters after all more than cinematography) as those ones. Bruno is dead. Long Live Bruno.7/10

Wow, I don't know who the fanboy was that wrote the review that made me want to watch this but I feel I must warn everybody else what a stinking pile of poo this "movie" is. Let me start by saying I Love zombie movies. I also love the Alien series of movies. If you take the plot and characters and dialog of the Alien series, get a bunch of bad "actors" to recite the lines, replace aliens with zombies and great special effects with really crappy ones, that pretty much sums up this effort. I'm not saying they stole ideas from the Alien series, They literally stole entire scenes and dialog and just did it really crappy. There was not even an attempt to disguise the blatant thievery. Oh, they did replace the aliens with zombies. Did I mention that????????? Total crap, total waste of time and the worst effects I have seen since the 60's. If you love zombie movies, stay away from this one.