The Dead Next Door

"Welcome murderers, it's about time!"

STORY/HISTORY

Bookwalter's zombie masterpiece finally comes home on disc for the second time, but in English for the first (first effort was from Laser Paradise and was only in German), but is it any good? More on that further down.

Briefly, the plot revolves around a team called the "Zombie Squad" whom is brought in to mop up zombie infested America created by a wacky scientist. The plot is your standard fare, but the movie is a pleasure to sit through. Bookwalter clearly grasps how to please hardcore fans of this genre, which is quite a rarity. Another cool thing is all the hidden references to other horror films of the past ten years. People are named Raimi, Romero, King, Carpenter and even Savini. There is also a zombie named Vox who is a play on Bub from Day. There are tons of inside references and true genre fans will have a blast watching the film if for nothing other than picking them all out. Finally, Scott Speigel (director of Intruder and Raimi collaborator) is in this film, and that makes it rock even more!(I love Scott Speigel!). The effects are great and step up to the task at hand. Frankly put, they are damn good, and unbelievable for such a low budget project. J. R. Bookwalter not only wrote, directed, and produced this work, but also contributed to creating some of the effects. The violence is great and includes a zombie's severed head eating a finger and watching it fall out of the stump, as well as, an awesome throat ripping scene reminiscent of the great Fulci's Zombie throat tearing. A great romp treading back in the good old days that gave me a joy I had not felt in such a long time.

The film is campy and doesn't take itself seriously, and the acting is awful, but all these things add to the irresistible charm this film possesses. Some other films that try to include so many inside horror jokes and take themselves lightly (most notably "the Dead Hate the Living") don't work, but this one does, and effortlessly I might add. Bookwalter should be highly regarded and complimented for making a total blast. Newer horror film directors should watch this to see how to do this shit right, and on a tiny budget. Every fan needs to own this film in one way or another. But unfortunately, the discs does NOT live up to the film!

VIDEO

In complete contrast to the actual film, the video portion, simply put, is an absolute mess. To start this off, I just want to state it's shown Full Frame, but was shot and intended as such, just as Dawn was. With that said, the problems begin as soon as you start the movie. The image is unstable at all times and shaky. There is an unbelievable amount of grain and print damage that absolutely detracts from enjoying the film. The colors bleed, vertical lines intrude on the picture sometimes, and picture is soft and very sloppy. There is no sense of any contrast; nighttime scenes look uninterpretable with a very blue hue, and were not intended to be. I know the film had a low budget, but nothing, and I mean nothing, should look this bad; it looks like it was mastered from a video tape. Splatter Rampage better clean up their act, and have not been given an F below as this is their first effort, but it's the worst possible!

SOUND

The sound consists of a standard Dolby Digital 2.0 in English, so everyone can enjoy without the issue of subtitles. The audio is distinguishable, clean, and free of distortion. In many cases, I prefer a good stereo track over a redone and always matrixed 5.1 track, and this is definitely one of those times. The sound was great and, opposite to the video, work was done to ensure a quality listening experience. No problems here at all.

EXTRA FEATURES

The extras are nothing more than a trailer, which amazingly, looks worse than the film. The trailer is nothing special in terms of content; it's too long, sloppily edited, and really doesn't do the film justice. There is a ton of extras tied to this film, so why they didn't include them, is a mystery. Tempe Entertainment is already working on an SE here in the U.S., but are remaining tightlipped about the specific contents. J.R. is heavily involved to ensure the best results and I'm confident that they will treat their crown jewel extra special.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This is one of my favorite zombie epics and I don't need to tell everyone to run out and see this film, just do not get this disc - wait for Tempe's release which shouldn't be far off. This movie is fun, gory, and never drags and is very well paced. We can only hope that Tempe will do Bookwalter's zombie flick justice, and restore it from the original negative to remedy Splatter Rampage's worthless effort. Splatter Rampage's Gore Classics line has the catch phrase "we ain't happy until the the barf bag's full", and as refreshing as that sounds, one would have hoped they spent half as much time remastering the video portion of this film as they did picking up the rights to it. The barf bag is full all right, but from the awful treatment this movie received.

DISC RATINGS:

Film - A

Video - D

Audio - A

Extras - D-

Review by Dolph Chiarino

'minor edits (with apologies to Dolph) by Alan'