Saturday 29 March 2014

ZOMBIE 2024 review

 
Zombie 2024 is the highly anticipated follow-up to the acclaimed 2010 web series Return of the Blooksucking Nazi Zombies (which can be found as one of the extra features on the Cameo Media DVD of Jess Franco’s Al Pereira vs. the Alligator Ladies). Howard Vernon, Dr Orloff and Dr Mabuse return in their struggle for world domination. Vernon is still in hot pursuit of Orloff, who is under strict orders from the mysterious Dr Mabuse not to fail in his mission yet again to have Vernon assassinated. Dr Orloff, who is notorious for his evil but shambolic experiments, has created an apparently new and improved android named Andros. Orloff requires a young woman to use in his latest experiment and commands Andros to find him one. But, to Orloff’s chagrin, Andros is ‘faulty’ – he has some human emotions. Will he able to complete his mission to find a beautiful Eastern European female disaster-free? Will Howard Vernon finally eliminate Dr Orloff, or vice versa? And there’s also the small problem of hoards of bloodthirsty zombies now running rampart across the continent to deal with...
Zombie 2024 was directed by ‘Mathis Vogel’ aka innovative and talented up-and-coming genre filmmaker Alex Bakshaev, and created and written by veteran scribe Robert Monell who has written for numerous books and publications including ‘European Trash Cinema’. This short film really is a polished, remarkable achievement, given the budget constraints (approx $300 USD) and limited resources. It both looks and sounds great, with an inventive use of attractive locations, vivid colours, visual effects and a wonderfully varied soundtrack, which flows from ambient to jazz to melodic guitar to menacing electronica nicely without ever sounding out of place or intrusive. Eurohorror aficionados will have fun spotting various homages to The Devil Hunter, Night of the Hunted, Burial Ground and more. Even the poster design is highly demonstrative of its creators’ reverence of the genre, combining both the vivid colours used in the film with that familiar, worn, ‘grindhouse’ look.  Zombie 2024 is a must-see short film, highly watchable and atmospheric and a perfect example of how so much can be achieved out of so little (and with much Hollywood fare now, it's the other way around).






Thursday 27 March 2014

Update - what's been happening?


It’s been quiet at the Inferno of late as I’ve been kept busy by quite a few other writing projects. Firstly, I’d like to say a big THANK YOU to Kate Flint of The Minted Beauty blog, who was kind enough to invite me to be a guest poster for her ‘Macabre Monday’ section of the blog (dedicated to all things horror, occult, true crime and macabre in general). She also did plenty of promotion for my articles, which I’m very grateful for. If anyone’s on the lookout for a top-class, entertaining and informative beauty blog, The Minted Beauty is it!!! And the Macabre Monday section gives it a wonderfully unique kick. Beauty, fashion AND horror – what more could I want??? I submitted two pieces – A combination review/article on the incredible Amityville 2: The Possession , and AN INTRODUCTION TO ITALIAN HORROR CINEMA (with selections aimed towards a young female audience, the primary readers of Kate’s blog).
Here’s the link to my Amityville 2 piece:


To Part One of AN INTRODUCTION TO ITALIAN HORROR:

http://www.themintedbeauty.com/macabre-monday-introduction-italian-horror-cinema/


Part Two of AN INTRODUCTION TO ITALIAN HORROR:


I’ve also written a tonne of new movie reviews for my page at Keith Crocker’s Cinefear blog – Doctor Gore, Formula for a Murder, Journey Among Women, The Vampire of Dusseldorf, Hydra: Monster from the Deep and The Corruption of Chris Miller – you can find all of those and more here:
http://cinefear.blogspot.com.au/p/chelles-inferno.html


And last but certainly not least are two new reviews for my other good friend Robert Monell’s Cinemadrome forums – a look at the Severin blu-ray release of the Ozploitation vampire gem Thirst (Australia's first vampire film), and the masterpiece of devastation Combat Shock (reviewed under my forum username RivaMarsh).
Review for Thirst:


Review of Combat Shock:

Also, I'd like to thank all my readers and your support, I really do appreciate it and it means a lot to me. Hope to be back here with new material soon!