Zombie Nightmare: Jack Bravman

If I ever decide to make a low-budget zombie thriller, I need to remember to shoot it in Canada. Apparently, production costs in Canada are so low that a meager budget of only $180,000 is enough for an amateur film-maker to make a full 89 minute feature, purchase a soundtrack full of expensive, licensed music, and hire Adam West. That's a lot of bang for your buck. Of course, none of this guarantees that the resulting film will be any good. Such is the case with Jack Bravman's Zombie Nightmare. Don't let the Motörhead music fool you...Zombie Nightmare is an absolutely terrible film. It all revolves around a young teenager named Tony getting run over and killed by a group of drunk, underage hooligans. In her grief, Tony's mother does what any sensible person would do in this situation: hire a Caribbean voodoo priestess to resurrect Tony as a zombie so he can kill everyone responsible for his death. I guess it makes more sense than going to the police. After all, they're run by the corrupt, evil specter of Adam West. What does evil Adam West have to do with this story? Nothing, really. Oh, he has a big scene at the end, I guess. But his sub-plot is so foreign and forced that it seems like it was filmed and added only when Bravman realized that his film was about 70 minutes long. Zombie Nightmare has all the warning signs of a terrible, amateur production: a wandering narrative, pointless characters, bad special effects, and an inability to shoot scenes at night competently. I'll give Bravman credit for not relying on the old "day for night" trick for his nighttime scenes. But this praise is instantly invalidated by the fact that he seems to think that a single flashlight is enough lighting when shooting in a graveyard at midnight.

4/10