I had successfully avoided all Ulli Lommel films before I was subjected to Zombie Nation. If you haven’t seen a Lommel film, count your lucky stars. If you have, you can probably relate to the pain I felt when watching Zombie Nation, which is one of the worst, if not THE worst, films I’ve ever seen (keep in mind that I haven’t seen any other Lommel films, so this might change.
A corrupt police officer is going around kidnapping and killing young women because he grew up with an abusive mother. His rookie partner grows suspicious when more and more women that the bad cop has pulled over go missing. Meanwhile, hoping to protect herself from the killer, a young woman has voodoo priestesses perform a ritual that will bring her and the killer’s victims back from the dead should she be killed. Sure enough, she’s the killer cop’s next target and when she is dead and buried, she and the other four victims rise to seek revenge.
Seriously, this was one of the biggest crapfests I’ve ever seen and is probably the only movie I’ve watched that has no redeeming values. The story is sloppy, illogical and hard to follow, all the acting is horrible, the direction is incompetent and the special effects are poor, to put it nicely. Add a nice misogynistic tone and you’ve got one awful movie, courtesy of still-making-money-off-his-crappy-movies Lommel. Plus, there are no zombies! And as for a “zombie nation,” forget about it!
The film seems to be split in two parts - the first part feels like a buddy-cop movie gone wrong, while the last part deals with the “zombies” and the revenge aspect of the movie. Neither of the parts flows smoothly and a two-year-old could tell a more cohesive story and one that actually makes sense. The story is bad enough, but the dialogue is even worse. I’ve heard smarter things come out of a drunken frat boy’s mouth than the crap I heard in Zombie Nation!
While the actors didn’t have much to work with in the story or dialogue departments, they could have at least delivered their lines with a bit more gusto or believability and developed their characters. The film is ripe with horrible performances, from the bad cop who is supposedly from Alabama but speaks with a German accent to one of the victims who’s performance (I’m using that word loosely!) is completely overacted and unbelievable. I didn’t care for anyone in the movie and the bad cop wasn’t at all intimidating or scary.
The film also has some glaring errors all throughout the production. The “police station” is very obviously just a warehouse, complete with exposed pipes, lighting that can be seen in shots and silly partitioned work spaces. No way and no how would that set ever be believable to anybody with a brain cell. The same warehouse set is used repeatedly for other locations, and while I understand budgetary constraints, at least try and make each set believable and look different! The cops also drive a bright red car. Now, anyone who is pulled over by an unmarked car is just a little nutty! There are way too many mistakes and while little mistakes in films don’t bug me too much, the ones in this film are so glaringly evident that it just adds to the smoldering rubbish pile that is Zombie Nation.
Speaking of zombies, there are none in this film. That is, unless you consider raccoon-eyed, walking, talking and car-driving women zombies. The zombie women don’t look like they have decomposed a bit, and the only sign that they are zombies are the large black circles around their eyes. Or perhaps the rough forest ground they were buried in didn’t allow them enough beauty sleep? Pay no attention to the zombie that is featured on the artwork of the DVD disc; it simply doesn’t exist in the movie. There is no brain eating in the film either and I don’t remember any gore at all.
Obviously, people are still having their eyeballs seared by watching Lommel movies, and he’s still making money off suckers who judge a book by its cover. He sure got me – after looking at the DVD artwork, for a split second I thought this movie might actually be cool…and now I will forever pay the price. My eyeballs are still aching from watching this total waste of time. You’ve been warned…
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