Movie Review - The Night Of Something Strange

The Night Of Something Strange

2016

Production Companies:  Hurricane Bridge Entertainment, Duke Studios, SRS Cinema, Virtual IntaActive Inc., White Lightning Productions

After all the Zombie films that are stagnating the genre it was a breath of fre... er... fetid and decaying air to watch this movie.  Zombies are now starting to move out of the horror genre and starting to appear in drama's like The Walking Dead - that's right I called it a drama, which it mainly is as it deals with everyday issues and the Zombies are just a secondary encumbrance for the survivors.   They have also appeared in sci-fi where once again they have been relegated from the scary to the infected.  So when this film placed the Zombie back on the major scary list I was over the moon.

I also have to give the writers Ron Bonk, Mean Gene, and Jonathan Straiton (who also directed) a big thank you for kicking the story in the political correct bollocks as this film makes even the darkest matters humorous.  These Zombies are driven by sex and not a hunger for eating flesh and brains.

All hell begins to break out when a caretaker at a morgue takes an interest in one of the females on the slab.  After a little necrophilic love, he goes to finish off his work for the night.  If he had paid attention to the medical chart he would've seen she had died from an unknown sexually transmitted disease.  From then on, anyone he bumps uglies with becomes infected and gets the sexual craving.  One of my favourite scenes is when one of the young men returns to his motel room and finds his girlfriend passed out on the bed.  The trouble is that it isn't his girlfriend but one of his male buddies.  The hilarity reaches fever pitch after the copulation has ended and a sheriff is banging on their door.  Unable to disengage himself he has to drag his friend across the bed.  I was laughing so hard I nearly wet myself.  The dark humour in this movie is superb.

One of the things making this an above average horror is the direction as Straiton creates a nice rollercoaster ride of pace and has a brilliant ability to give the comedic moments the correct timing to add wallop to the punchline; there are also some nice camera shots and differing camera angle which make it a visually interesting movie.  The other plus is the quality of the acting, which I was happy to observe was above average.  There are some scenes that are a little hammed up, though I believe this was intentional as it fits perfectly with the feel of the film.  Another plus is the special effects, which are more than possible.  The Syphilis that start to eat away at the zombies is pretty yucky to look at and is a great idea.

So if you aren't too worried about sexual and graphic content and love non-politically correct comedy with a lot of dark humour then this film is for you.  It's also nice to see the Zombies back in the horror seat.  This is now one of my favourite horror and comedy films, though I can understand why you will either love it or hate it.