Morituris

An Italian horror flick that has a group of people heading up to a party at night. The night takes a drastic turn when the men start raping and beating the women. This is where the film might not be for everybody as the rape scenes are intense. Things take another turn when Roman gladiator zombies show up swinging axes and maces and they are after everyone not just the rapists.

The film takes about 30 minutes to get going and it takes an hour before we see the zombie dudes. You will have to read this one as it is Italian. A set back in the film is how dark a lot of the scenes are. In fact one scene a guy is screaming and you don't know for about one minute that he has stepped on a ball with spikes in it.

I think the director is giving his nod to the Blind Dead series as there is similarities galore. The violence is heavy at times with mostly heads being cut off or ripped off. They like to nail people to crosses as well. A head being smashed near the end looks a little cheese but other than that good special effects.

Overall not bad but could have been a lot sicker.

Even if I give the movie the benefit of the doubt and believe the sound mix was an issue the cinema I watched it in was having, it still wouldn't excuse the real problems this movie has. Sound issues aside (a friend who didn't think this was as awful as every single other person thought it was, said he thought it was artistic. That's a very special way of looking at an obvious mistake), the movie does not have any logic at all. And while you might argue that many movies do not have any logic (or little), this is a contender for topping anything you've seen.

I try not to give the 1-star rating, just because it makes movies appealing to some (as in so bad it's good category), but I can assure you, this movie does not fall into that category. Talking about gory: It does have its explicit moments, but even those shouldn't be enough for people who watch movies mainly based on the blood factor. The acting? I haven't seen the people involved in this in other projects so I will give them the benefit of the doubt. As in, the script is so bad, maybe they can sort of act, when they actually have a real role to play with. But what is shown here, is an insult. Mixing history and slasher might have sounded like a great idea, but the script does not really know what to do with that subject. I'm lost for words, as to how bad this is ...

"Morituris" is an extreme Italian horror film that has gained a bit of a reputation, so it's nice to see it finally get a serious DVD/Blu- Ray release.

The film is actually three films in one. After a bizarre "found footage" beginning that really doesn't make any sense, the film breaks into three parts --

The first 30 minutes or so involve these two Romanian girls who accepted a ride with three Italians. They spend the whole time riding in a car, chatting away about small talk, music, other inconsequential things. Seems like it might be a romantic flick. They decide to go to a rave, but when they get there, there is no rave. So they make a fire and start chatting and having a great time, dividing into romantic groupings.

Then, just as one of the guys is about to get laid by one of the hot girls, he decides he'd rather rape her. And then the film switches to its second part, where the two girls are raped and beaten by the three guys for a while. Strong, nasty stuff.

And then, after a while, it switches to the third part -- a bunch of "gladiators" appear out of nowhere and start to attack them. No idea who they are, why they show up, they just do. They're not avenging angels, so the girls appear to be in just as much peril as the guys (man, these gals are having a BAD day!).

No subtlety here. This is a throwback to the old 80's Italian horror films. Completely politically incorrect, loaded with violence, gore, and sex. If you're reading this review, you know right now whether or not you're going to like it based on my description. So if it's your cup of tea, then run out and check it out.

This movie was banned in Italy? It is hard to see why, and I mean that literally because 99% of the movie is so dark that you can hardly see what is actually happening on the screen.

The story does have some potential, but it wasn't properly utilized, and everything was just killed, pardon the pun, by the perpetual darkness that permeated the entire movie.

Two tourists catch a ride with three young men and plan to go to a rave in the middle of the dark forest. But the tourists find no rave, only a night of sheer torment and horror.

It just doesn't make any logical sense that gladiators suddenly come back to life and kill people. Especially when they showed no sign of having been dead for ages.

The only reason for this abysmal movie getting a two out of ten stars rating, and not a one star, is because of the blood and mayhem. But don't get suckered in as I did. This movie is horrible from start to end. I suffered through this so you don't have to.

It took me 4 years to go watch this one because it never had the subs I wanted, Italian spoken and that's a language I don't understand. So far I only found it with French subs, I do understand it a bit but...

On the other hand I knew that this was ultra gore as be spoken on so many forums. So I thought, well the talking will only be in the beginning and you immediately know were it's going. And clocking in under 90 minutes, well I put it on.

30 minutes later, the only thing we had was talking, seducing, talking, talk(yawn)ing. In fact, what you have the first 30 minutes could have been cut into 5 minutes. The love affair at 30 minutes, again way too long before things go awry, and I must say, I didn't saw it coming. From then on it can be offending for the faint-hearted and some will remember Last House On The Left (1972). Some scene's are shot in a house with Mark Of The Devil on the background and again, shocking for some. It doesn't become gory or whatsoever but the brutality used is what makes this flick. So far so good but of course what let people down was the ending, once they discovered some graves things go wrong a second time.

The overall problem is that this is a low budget and no extra lighting was used so long shots were too dark. On the second hand, it is a rather slow flick, should have been better to have made a short out of it.

But still, the brutality and the gore added will make it a must have for gorehounds.

Gore 3/5 Nudity 2/5 Effects 2/5 Story 1/5 Comedy 0/5