Zombi VIII: Urban Decay

The Zombi series is quite the confusing franchise. But this film claims to be a direct sequel to the two original Lucio Fulci films. Other than original music cues and reference to the original island the zombies are on, there is no connection.

Here we have a zero-budget film shot in the United States made for the Australian market based on two Italian films that were made as unofficial sequels to an American film (Dawn of the Dead) which was also a sequel to Night of the Living Dead. Which they show clips of in this movie because public domain even though they film it off a TV and looks like crap.

You'll be bored watching this even though it's 57 minutes. In order to pad the runtime as best they can, they put in minutes of footage where nothing is happening as characters are walking around a forest. But that's better than when the characters are talking. Not only are the actors bad, you can barely hear them as the audio was recorded straight from the built-in camera mic.

They also stretch the runtime by long opening credits, lasting about 3 minutes, and about 4 minutes of closing credits. Leaving virtually no plot, no character development, or any lack of care for what's happening.

This feels like an insult to the Fulci films. Those weren't great either and were low budget in their own right but at least there was real effort, talent, and charm to them. Especially if you're familiar with the making of Italian horror films of that time.

If you're going to watch anyway, don't pay for it. It is not worth the money. I was fortunate to watch it for free on Tubi.

After learning of her father's disappearance, a woman brings a group of friends to go with her to a strange island to investigate, and when they learn that he's become a flesh-eating zombie inadvertently brings him back to the mainline where he starts a zombie outbreak that overruns their town.

There was a lot to like with this one. One of the better aspects of this one is a rather fun setup that manages to bring this one into the universe. The introduction of the trip to the original island and the desire to find the missing father echo many of the same beats and storyline points from the original films and end up tying this together rather nicely. The outbreak that occurs with the residents getting attacked and turned into fellow zombies making for a lot of rather fun subtle highlights and homages to films of the past with either fun callbacks or re-creations of not just zombie attacks but just simplistic scenes in the middle of the sequence. There's a lot of that running throughout here and gives the film a rather solid old-school vibe which is quite enjoyable. That goes hand-in-hand with some fun zombie action that carries on throughout here. The rescue mission on the island that results in the capture of the main zombie and removal from there into the suburban landscape is quite fun and features some ingenious tactics to acquire that body in the condition they do. Likewise, the scenes of it going around the community taking out the victims in her living complex or the gang of partiers in the woods are rather fun as well with the creatures arriving out of nowhere and ambushing victims providing some decent gore-gags and deaths. Combined with the stellar indie gore and zombie make-up, these manage to give this one a lot to like. This one doesn't have much wrong but it's got some minor issues. The main element that would hold this back is the usage of all the background stock footage in the first half that features most of the characters reacting to footage of animals in a jungle environment rather than delve into any kind of zombie action. It does feel shoehorned into the action with the extended amount of time it takes up with them going through the jungle with the padding to the running time it provides. Likewise, there's also a rushed ending that just seems to end the film on a sudden beat, getting a certain beat across and then just ending which is a bit distracting but none of these are truly detrimental in the slightest.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, and Nudity.

The worst Zombie film I have ever seen. I enjoyed Zombie 2 & 3, 4 was Meh and 5 was lame. I haven't ever heard of the Director/Writer of this one before but he clearly doesn't know how to make a film. Every single boring scene was dragged out for 10 minutes. My favorite scene was where a girl dancing takes her top off, other than that there's nothing to see.

The movie is around 80% stock footage, 5% poorly shot original footage, 15% long shots of people walking to prop up the 70 minute run time, and 100% garbage. The writer/director makes Uwe Boll look like James Cameron.

Highlights include:

Taxi ride with in-camera audio to pick up more bumps than dialogue.

So much Adobe Stock they should get a credit in the film.

Characters walking through foliage between animal stock footage.

C-section stripper in the woods

Getting a bound, hooded, and blood-covered zombie through airport security off screen.

20 minutes of opening and ending credits in a 70 minute movie.

An 8/10 review by a friend or associate of the filmmaker.

Since half of the current reviews are obviously written by people involved with the makers of this piece of crap ,I decided to split the difference.

WARNING this isn't even a movie.

Don't waste your time please , and watch anything else with zombies in it , if you are a fan of the genre , and give this crap a pass.