To many, John Saxon has become a living cult-legend And I myself quite like seeing the man doing his acting-thing on screen. DEATH HOUSE (aka ZOMBIE DEATH HOUSE), his co-directorial debut, perfectly summarizes what the man has been up to until 1987, DEATH HOUSE's year of release. From cheesy American crime movies to gore-drenched Italian flicks. So Saxon-fans should love this one. However, to casual viewers DEATH HOUSE probably will come across as pretty bad. And even if I enjoyed it a bit more than my rating suggests, I cannot deny the many bad aspects this movie has. The plot itself, though containing many implausible acts, wasn't the main problem. It develops at a steady pace, resulting in a decent, though clumsy staged pay-off. The first 20 minutes however kept me wondering what the hell kind of movie I was actually watching. I felt like a soft-erotic gangster-movie, the bad B-movie kind, complete with dire car-cases, a badly performed mafia shoot-out scene and even Vietnam flash-backs. It seemed like typical B-movie rubbish, but I soon learned that all this was one of the most elaborate ways to sketch and introduce the protagonist: Derek Keillor, an ex-Vietnam veteran, who finds out his new job is being a chauffeur for the local mob-boss. He then gets framed for the murder of his boss's girlfriend and ends up on death row. Enter John Saxon, a soldier/scientist who's illegally testing a new virus on the inmates. Given the movie's title it's needless to say what happens next...
Good thing about this movie is that it contains a fair amount of sleaze & gore and still manages to tell a story that hums along nicely. The acting maybe isn't the worst I've ever seen, but it certainly isn't top-notch either. And now for the bad things: John Saxon, regardless his on-screen charisma, isn't exactly giving it his best shot in the acting department. He comes off as routineous and wooden. The small scene where he speaks the line "I am a soldier..." over the telephone even caused me to chuckle. It was the one moment he briefly seemed to go for it. The cinematography is pretty awful and the editing is rudimentary. The sound-editing and sound-effects are atrocious and the musical score is simply bad and cheap. But somehow I managed to look beyond all that and found myself amused by this flick. The ravingly mad zombie-like infected persons of course added to the fun, as well as the occasional gore-effects. One shock-scene (though not really shown) concerning the sodomizing of an inmate by a guard left me a bit baffled. And there was even one jump-moment involving a meat-cleaver that actually worked. The final freeze-frame end-shot worked very well for me. And then came the final pleasant surprise for me: when the end credits started to roll, the song "Chemical Warfare" by DEAD KENNEDYS came on. How cool's that? It left me wondering if it was John Saxon or co-director Nick Marino who picked out that song for the soundtrack.
So in the end we have sort of a bad B-movie that is actually rather good because of some very enjoyable elements with a pretty eccentric look & feel to it. It actually feels a bit like an Italian Zombie-movie, even though it's an American production. And because of the involvement of John Saxon this flick very well deserves an underground cult-status. While watching this movie, I thought of another one (well, a few actually), and I never thought I would actually give the following recommendation: People who like this one, might wanna check out SHADOW: DEAD RIOT, starring Tony Todd. It's a pretty insane and rather very bad flick also dealing with zombies in prison: I describe it as a cross between BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR and LIK WONG: THE STORY OF RICKY, mixed with a solid portion of women-in-prison sleaze. But mind you, it's a tad bit worse than all the above mentioned movies.
Good thing about this movie is that it contains a fair amount of sleaze & gore and still manages to tell a story that hums along nicely. The acting maybe isn't the worst I've ever seen, but it certainly isn't top-notch either. And now for the bad things: John Saxon, regardless his on-screen charisma, isn't exactly giving it his best shot in the acting department. He comes off as routineous and wooden. The small scene where he speaks the line "I am a soldier..." over the telephone even caused me to chuckle. It was the one moment he briefly seemed to go for it. The cinematography is pretty awful and the editing is rudimentary. The sound-editing and sound-effects are atrocious and the musical score is simply bad and cheap. But somehow I managed to look beyond all that and found myself amused by this flick. The ravingly mad zombie-like infected persons of course added to the fun, as well as the occasional gore-effects. One shock-scene (though not really shown) concerning the sodomizing of an inmate by a guard left me a bit baffled. And there was even one jump-moment involving a meat-cleaver that actually worked. The final freeze-frame end-shot worked very well for me. And then came the final pleasant surprise for me: when the end credits started to roll, the song "Chemical Warfare" by DEAD KENNEDYS came on. How cool's that? It left me wondering if it was John Saxon or co-director Nick Marino who picked out that song for the soundtrack.
So in the end we have sort of a bad B-movie that is actually rather good because of some very enjoyable elements with a pretty eccentric look & feel to it. It actually feels a bit like an Italian Zombie-movie, even though it's an American production. And because of the involvement of John Saxon this flick very well deserves an underground cult-status. While watching this movie, I thought of another one (well, a few actually), and I never thought I would actually give the following recommendation: People who like this one, might wanna check out SHADOW: DEAD RIOT, starring Tony Todd. It's a pretty insane and rather very bad flick also dealing with zombies in prison: I describe it as a cross between BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR and LIK WONG: THE STORY OF RICKY, mixed with a solid portion of women-in-prison sleaze. But mind you, it's a tad bit worse than all the above mentioned movies.