(Review originally written at 17 April 2006)
"Le Notti del terrore" is a typical formulaic Italian pulp zombie movie, that features all of the common ingredients; Lot's of gore, graphic sequences, bad actors, pointless nudity and sex and in this particular case even incest.
The movie is incredibly cheap looking. It's amazing, haven't the Italian movie makers ever heard of use of light or focus-pullers? The cinematography in the movie is incredibly weak and the editing and continuity is just totally wrong at times. Even worse is the script. There is very little story present and most of the events in the movie are totally ridiculous and most of the time they don't even make fully sense. The dialog is lame and the actors that have to deliver those lines make the lines seem even more cheesy. Yes, this really is a B-pulp horror movie that will only appeal to the true fans of the zombie genre and fans of Italian horror in general.
And there is plenty to enjoy in this movie for those fans. Yes, this might be incredibly cheap and stupid looking movie at times but it does all work out good enough and the movie serves its purpose. The make-up effects are pretty good and there are more than enough graphic, gory scene's present to please the fans. It's what distinct bad Italian horror from bad Hollywood horror movies and it's the reason why this movie still is enjoyable and has a certain appeal to watch it.
It's a sort of unwritten rule that Italian horror movies also must have nudity and sex in them. There's plenty here in the beginning of the movie especially but all those sequences serve very little purpose and only work out distracting. It makes the movie sort of tasteless. Especially because the movie even manages to put some incest scene's in it, that don't really add anything extra to the story or its characters. It only makes the movie weirder and more tasteless.
Most of the events don't really make sense that they happen and the story is just incredibly weak. I mean, instead of running as fast and as far away as possible (it shouldn't be too hard to outrun those slowly moving zombies) they decide to lock themselves into the villa instead. And instead of sticking together they split up inside the villa. You can guess how most characters end up after they all split up...It's like the writer was only busy writing one gory sequences after the other and forget about a real main storyline. Because of that the characters are extremely cardboard like and the movie never really becomes tense. The way the character react to the zombies is at times absolutely hilarious and highly unlikely.
The movie certainly does have its moments that are also quite memorable. The graphic sequences in this movie are also what makes this movie an original one to watch. It's quite disturbing at times and are simply the only reason why the movie is interesting enough to keep watching it. There is little else reason to watch this movie, besides its gore and graphic moments to be honest. This movie obviously ain't one for just everyone but if you're into these sort of movies than this one is perhaps a bit of an must-see and at least a very entertaining one. It's simple horror pulp entertainment with an almost non-existent and bad story and with the look- and actors of a B-movie in it but still with plenty of gore, good make-up and original moments to entertain and to keep the viewers watching till the end.
A very simple made movie that works out good enough. Plenty to enjoy here for the fans of the genre.
6/10
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