Hell of the Screaming Undead

Hell of the Screaming undead really is pretty great.

A really good time to be had, A crazy, fun cast of characters, and Robert Mukes steals the show.

Dustin nailed the atmosphere here, and Joshua Palace's music in this film is top notch, absolutely solidifies the tone and feel of the film.

Having watched this after his recent Grindhouse features - I can see that Hell of the Living Undead was a precursor of things to come.

The tone, the setting, the music... it's an extremely strong film in his filmography which led up to, in my opinion, his best works as of yet... (Eagerly excited for the Spider Baby remake!)

I highly recommend watching this as a prelude to the Grindhouse double features (both 1 and 2), these are the films, I believe, where Dustin has truly shined and grabbed 100% of my attention.

The story evolves two women wanting to have a little action after hours at a museum with their friend who works there, however before their party gets started two men break with guns to terrorize them.

Throughout the story zombies are seen taking the city and warnings from the news is notified to the public.

I felt I was more on a site seeing tour considering the many scenes of showing various parts of the city and less of the story. The story really has very little to speak of. Zombies a vaccine and victims. I do give props to the makeup up on the first zombie at the beginning of the film. The music tends to be placed in odd moments where it's hyped up but nothing majorly is happening.

It was also amusing to hear elevator music as the moment during a serious scene. There's various Day of the Dead vibes and Night of the Living Dead references that pay homage to the originals but mostly a Day of the Dead mock.

There isn't hell or screaming of the undead just a point a to point b zombie film with little story and it's image as stated before.

After an accident at a research lab, a deadly virus is unleashed upon Los Angeles trapping a woman and her friend in a retro museum with a pair of brutal thugs looking to hide out from the authorities, and when they find the virus has spawned a flesh-eating zombie plague must survive together against the creatures.

Overall, this one has a lot to like about it. Like most cheesy zombie efforts, there's a lot of fun to be had with the cheesy and goofy setup that gets the creatures out into the world. The early world-building that brings that group together, with the scientists holding their usual meetings attempting to uncover what caused the leak and eventual outbreak with the authorities that are unwilling to listen, the woman and her friend going on their trip out to the museum to take her mind off the upcoming job interview and the thugs trying to stay under the radar of everyone else as they plot their next move is all quite fun here. The sheer happenstance that causes everyone to arrive at the museum is quite fun and the exploits of holding the group hostage are somewhat cliched but not too detrimental overall. That leaves the film to feature a multitude of short but effective zombie ambushes to showcase the threat of the outbreak and their overwhelming numbers, which is quite enjoyable. Featuring a rather fun sense of indie-centered attacks throughout here requiring the horde to sneak up on individuals and result in several shock ambushes throughout the city, this provides a series of entertaining setpieces with the cheesy nature of the creatures appearing out of nowhere and grabbing victims. The encounters in the museum with the creatures breaking in and grabbing the scattered group are quite enjoyable and feature some decent make-up effects on the zombies throughout the sequence, which all told manage to give this one enough to hold it up overall. There isn't much that holds it back but it does have some issues. The main issue here is the usual assortment of guerilla-style shooting features that denote its low-budget origins that are commonplace in a vast majority of efforts in this style. The lack of urgency to the obvious zombie outbreak that's overrunning an entire city, the nonexistent backgrounds that showcase everything with the same point of view, and a repeat of the same characters in every situation should highlight their growing horde but also signals the origins of this one quite easily. That also applies to the majority of the attacks and gore which rely on the indie-styled confrontations that combined all make for an easy tell about the kind of film this is. However, there's also the films' utterly infuriating and maddening grindhouse throwback sequence with the missing-reel gag that has no place here and doesn't even have any relevance at all which brings this down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.