Rating: 2.5/5
Hooptober 8.0 | 17/34 | From birth year 2/2
Vietnam soldier and ornithologist Fred Brown returns home after his tour. He finds his wife in bed with another man. Fred goes on a rampage, killing the man, his wife, and his parents. He also kills a hawk, which causes the hawk’s companion to descend, ripping one of Fred’s eyes out and blinding the other eye.
Twenty Years Later
A group of college seniors receives an assignment to track down the ivory-billed woodpecker. Laura discovers the last person to spot the ivory-billed: Fred Brown.
They all go to Brown’s house. Brown gives them a map and other documents to help find, “whatever it is they’re looking for.”
They don’t find the bird, but they find Brown’s old home and set up camp.
Weird phenomena happen to them, especially Steve — pictures blacking out, doors slamming, and vivid visions that bleed into reality.
The gore effects are pretty good! However, saves all of its best kills for the end, which means a lot of running around and nothing happening.
I love the punchy electronic score and the lush gothic stuff. I’m not wild about the schmaltzy romantic score.
The audio mixing on this is exceptionally bad. They did not get a steady background sound, so ambient sound pops in and out during dialogue.
The movie has long birdwatching montages. They’re pretty boring.
The plot doesn’t make sense, but that isn’t that important if the movie is fun. This is fun in places, especially the last 20-30 minutes.
Overall, the movie is decent, but it makes such poor use of its runtime that it’s hard to recommend.
** Stray Thoughts / Spoilers **
- This movie came out under the title Zombi 5, despite having nothing to do with Zombi 1 through 4, which includes Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Fulci’s Zombie.
- They just used whatever bird sounds they could find, huh?
- Oh hey, Laura Wendel! I just saw her in Ghost House yesterday.
- Anne drops some papers. Her professor says, “Anne, a journalist’s work is done with quiet determination.”
- “I meant to frighten you. And I’m glad I did.”
- I guess Robert Vaughn took any offers.
- Why do they fuck around with the truck?
- — “It’s a generator.” — “Maybe it hasn’t been used for centuries!”
- 55 minutes in before we see our first official zombie.
- — “Something has happened to Jennifer.” — “What? Why?”
- Rob has just gotta go back for his computer.
- Zombie slowly pulls Mary’s head off. Fucking brutal.
- Necklace caught in the generator — they milked that. So brutal.
- All the effort to board up the doors and windows and the zombie breaks through the walls and ceilings.
- So, like, the birds reanimated the corpses to enact revenge on Fred Brown? Because it’s the birds that kill him in the end.