Take the lo-fi stalk-and-kill style of Halloween, including the ominous, rarely seen silent killer....take the premise of The Fog, with a small isolated group of people under assault on an island by zombie-like figures who rise from the sea...and you have the best John Carpenter film not made by John Carpenter. It's all here - the unglamorous characters, the oppressive, pervasive sense of evil, the lonely scenic shots, the clanging, doom-ridden synthesizer chords - even a veteran British actor (in this case Peter Cushing) pops up to provide the exposition and tell the characters just how much danger they're in.
The plot of aquatic zombie Nazis sounds pure B-movie, but it's dealt with in a surprisingly effective way. As is so often the case with horror movies, less is more. They are kept offscreen as much as possible, seen only in silhouette much of the time, and when they do appear, waking up underwater and rising to stalk their victims, it's genuinely unsettling. They say nothing, they don't emote, and they don't have any kind of exaggerated zombie movements. They just silently and efficiently go about their business. Their backstory is also wisely kept to a bare minimum, and the result makes them, like the villains of the Carpenter films, a mysterious force.
A solid horror flick, well-produced and with a simplicity that gives it a nightmarish quality.
The plot of aquatic zombie Nazis sounds pure B-movie, but it's dealt with in a surprisingly effective way. As is so often the case with horror movies, less is more. They are kept offscreen as much as possible, seen only in silhouette much of the time, and when they do appear, waking up underwater and rising to stalk their victims, it's genuinely unsettling. They say nothing, they don't emote, and they don't have any kind of exaggerated zombie movements. They just silently and efficiently go about their business. Their backstory is also wisely kept to a bare minimum, and the result makes them, like the villains of the Carpenter films, a mysterious force.
A solid horror flick, well-produced and with a simplicity that gives it a nightmarish quality.