SILENT NIGHT, ZOMBIE NIGHT (2009)

Streaming on Tubi!
Directed by Sean Cain
Written by Sean Cain
Starring Jack Forcinito, Andy Hopper, Nadine Stenovitch, Vernon Wells, Felissa Rose, Lew Temple

I went into this film expecting very little and though SILENT NIGHT, ZOMBIE NIGHT is a low budgeter, the filmmakers do a lot with the little they have. For no particular reason, zombies rise in LA right around Christmas time. Filmmaker Sean Cain wastes no time explaining why the dead are rising and chomping the living. Instead, he gets right into the action as two cops, a woman, and a handful of other survivors have barricaded themselves in a house.

Of course, there is drama between these three as one cop is married to the woman, while the other one is having an affair with her. The drama staged here is somewhat more complex than what one normally sees in zombie films, which at their core, serve to show mankind at it’s most ugly state; both as ravenous zombies and ugly living people treating each other in the same cannibalistic, yet more subtle ways. I was itching to get to more scenes of zombie fun, though, during the extended scenes where each cop has a chance to profess his love for the woman while the other is being chased by zombies. Jack Forcintino does a decent job of gritting his teeth and machoing up the screen as the lead cop who is being left by his hot Linda Carter-looking wife (Nadine Stenovitvh) for his rookie partner, played by Andy Hopper. For the most part, on a pure action movie/TANGO & CASH-like sense, the acting works. The film falters when the actors are asked to do more than kill zombies though.

The make-up is actually pretty great with full body appliances making these running corpses look the part. The actors behind them do a decent job of making the zombies stand out as characters; something most zombie films these days forget to do. Not much is needed, just a simple learned movement and maybe a distinct costume (a method used with great genius in Romero’s early DEAD films), to make these zombies distinct. Though, overly complicated at times and simplified to dumb standards at others, the action does make this film a lot of fun.

One thing that I think was a missed opportunity was to have these zombies attack in the snow. I understand this film was made in LA, but I could help but imagine a SILENT NIGHT, ZOMBIE NIGHT made in a snow-covered countryside and found myself longing for that film as this one closed. Though this one isn’t really doing anything new, it does do action and gore well. There are definitely worse zombie films out there.

Check out the trailer here!!