OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES has to be one of the slowest-paced zombie flicks of all time, but it's still not the worst – that's an 'honour' that's been taken by the recent-ish, genuinely brain-dead likes of the DAY OF THE DEAD remake. This is cult director Jess Franco's idea of a zombie film, a French production set in the North African desert. The story goes that a shipment of lost gold is being hunted by all and sundry, who fail to realise that a horde of Nazi zombies are in fact protecting the lost treasure.
It's an idea that sounds good on paper, but poor production values serve to ruin the little fun there is. For a start, there's a distinct lack of zombies, apart from two 2 minute sequences. The first comes halfway through, the last at the end. These are brief, violent attacks by the living dead, who indulge in a little gut-munching before sinking back beneath the sands. Sadly, there's nothing to distinguish them as 'Nazi' zombies; they look pretty much like any other European zombie, although the static masks and bulging eyes at least make them look weird and more than a little creepy.
The rest of the film is full of exposition and, invariably with Franco, a little sex. There's nudity from some attractive young starlets and lots of riding around in jeeps. Although the odds are stacked against him, Franco manages to elicit a little atmosphere in his desert scenes, which stops this from being a total mess. There's a genuinely eerie feel to the isolated oasis locale and the scenes of hands rising from the sands are effectively done if nothing else. Otherwise, the acting is bad, although the script fleshes out the characters a little more than normal they feel like real people, with all their foibles, rather than just walking victims. You could do worse – a lot worse!
It's an idea that sounds good on paper, but poor production values serve to ruin the little fun there is. For a start, there's a distinct lack of zombies, apart from two 2 minute sequences. The first comes halfway through, the last at the end. These are brief, violent attacks by the living dead, who indulge in a little gut-munching before sinking back beneath the sands. Sadly, there's nothing to distinguish them as 'Nazi' zombies; they look pretty much like any other European zombie, although the static masks and bulging eyes at least make them look weird and more than a little creepy.
The rest of the film is full of exposition and, invariably with Franco, a little sex. There's nudity from some attractive young starlets and lots of riding around in jeeps. Although the odds are stacked against him, Franco manages to elicit a little atmosphere in his desert scenes, which stops this from being a total mess. There's a genuinely eerie feel to the isolated oasis locale and the scenes of hands rising from the sands are effectively done if nothing else. Otherwise, the acting is bad, although the script fleshes out the characters a little more than normal they feel like real people, with all their foibles, rather than just walking victims. You could do worse – a lot worse!