Holy crap, this Russian rank-amateur backyard SOV "movie" makes stuff like Blood Cult, Violent Sh*t or hell even 555 seem like the height of wealthy capitalist productions. The technical ineptitude is amazing and matched only by the alleged acting and vague attempt at storytelling. The tacked-on opening and closing scenes are supposedly a Colonel sending a black ops guy on a mission to kill people. This is shot from one angle in a parked car with the Colonel in the driver's seat and the soldier in the back seat. It's supposed to be setting up the Russian stuff, but the black ops guy has a full head of hair and in the rest of the movie he is a COMPLETELY different guy with a shaved head! I thought "maybe that's his disguise." Nope! At the end they have him reporting back to the Colonel that the job is done.
Then we get the Russian stuff which is in a different aspect ratio, in lousy video quality that fluctuates from terrible to worse with every scene. After showing a guy in a gas mask dumping purple liquid (I hope that was a non-toxic dye) into a lake, the now bald black ops guy visits his brother who he hasn't seen in 20 years setting the stage for a "party" (a few bored people who sit and eat and drink in complete silence) where a zombie "infestation" breaks out around the village. Or rather a couple people drink water (which presumably comes from the lake) and vomit blood. One guy is shown agonizing on the toilet as he passes his heart. Yes, apparently pooping out your own heart not only can happen, but isn't necessarily fatal.
Most of the movie is 20something Russian people arguing and then turning into "zombies", which look like thin papier-mache face coverings that have been painted red and black. Man, it's such a home movie that the music abruptly cuts every time they cut to another scene and the make-up effects are what appear to be red food coloring mixed with yogurt dumped on people's faces. There are also what appear to be footage stolen from other SOV movies as the video and special effects quality are completely different and don't seem to match or even fit in with the rest of the movie.
After 50 minutes of its 70 minute run time the movie ends stating that the tiny zombie outbreak that consisted of a couple of people was caused by the ops dude just so he could have fun killing zombies. And THEN they have a long scene recapping the entire plot with Claudio Fragrasso on the telephone (insert phoned-in joke here)! This is clearly taken from what appears to be a DVD extra as there is a clapboard in the background for the 2005 Fragrasso film Concorso di Colpa and then dubbed over with Russian narration. THEN they have a long montage of clips from other SOV movies that actually put a tiny bit of effort into make-up (and I do mean tiny) and THEN they have the wrap around with the (other) ops dude reporting to the Colonel by a swimming pool that the job was done, at which point the Colonel gives him a poisoned drink and the ops dude falls dead in the pool. Roll credits!
I don't remember how I stumbled across this stunning display of ineptitude, but I know I grabbed it because of having advertised that Claudio Fragrasso, Andreas Scnaas and Harry Bromley-Davenport were in it. Of course the joke is on me as they clearly never signed on to this movie and to be honest I couldn't find Shnaas (credited as a zombie) or Bromely-Davenport (credited as a doctor) in the footage at all, though I suspect they are somewhere in the stolen footage montage section under some cheap make-up.
The interesting thing is that it shows how crap Russian life is. The main house that this is shot in is out in the middle of nowhere in a small village of tiny houses and the inside is smaller than a US apartment with cheap, rickety furniture that looks like it came from K-Mart in the '70s. Even the glasses they use to drink vodka are molded, not blown! Apparently blown glass is not suitable for the honest proletariat. It is hilarious to think that back in the '80s, America as a nation, thought that the Russians could not only invade America, but actually take it over! Man, Red Dawn is a freaking absurdist comedy in 2022.
Then we get the Russian stuff which is in a different aspect ratio, in lousy video quality that fluctuates from terrible to worse with every scene. After showing a guy in a gas mask dumping purple liquid (I hope that was a non-toxic dye) into a lake, the now bald black ops guy visits his brother who he hasn't seen in 20 years setting the stage for a "party" (a few bored people who sit and eat and drink in complete silence) where a zombie "infestation" breaks out around the village. Or rather a couple people drink water (which presumably comes from the lake) and vomit blood. One guy is shown agonizing on the toilet as he passes his heart. Yes, apparently pooping out your own heart not only can happen, but isn't necessarily fatal.
Most of the movie is 20something Russian people arguing and then turning into "zombies", which look like thin papier-mache face coverings that have been painted red and black. Man, it's such a home movie that the music abruptly cuts every time they cut to another scene and the make-up effects are what appear to be red food coloring mixed with yogurt dumped on people's faces. There are also what appear to be footage stolen from other SOV movies as the video and special effects quality are completely different and don't seem to match or even fit in with the rest of the movie.
After 50 minutes of its 70 minute run time the movie ends stating that the tiny zombie outbreak that consisted of a couple of people was caused by the ops dude just so he could have fun killing zombies. And THEN they have a long scene recapping the entire plot with Claudio Fragrasso on the telephone (insert phoned-in joke here)! This is clearly taken from what appears to be a DVD extra as there is a clapboard in the background for the 2005 Fragrasso film Concorso di Colpa and then dubbed over with Russian narration. THEN they have a long montage of clips from other SOV movies that actually put a tiny bit of effort into make-up (and I do mean tiny) and THEN they have the wrap around with the (other) ops dude reporting to the Colonel by a swimming pool that the job was done, at which point the Colonel gives him a poisoned drink and the ops dude falls dead in the pool. Roll credits!
I don't remember how I stumbled across this stunning display of ineptitude, but I know I grabbed it because of having advertised that Claudio Fragrasso, Andreas Scnaas and Harry Bromley-Davenport were in it. Of course the joke is on me as they clearly never signed on to this movie and to be honest I couldn't find Shnaas (credited as a zombie) or Bromely-Davenport (credited as a doctor) in the footage at all, though I suspect they are somewhere in the stolen footage montage section under some cheap make-up.
The interesting thing is that it shows how crap Russian life is. The main house that this is shot in is out in the middle of nowhere in a small village of tiny houses and the inside is smaller than a US apartment with cheap, rickety furniture that looks like it came from K-Mart in the '70s. Even the glasses they use to drink vodka are molded, not blown! Apparently blown glass is not suitable for the honest proletariat. It is hilarious to think that back in the '80s, America as a nation, thought that the Russians could not only invade America, but actually take it over! Man, Red Dawn is a freaking absurdist comedy in 2022.
