Yes, this film is truly shocking, but not for any gore or scares - it's just plain terrible. First of all, it isn't particularly gory and it certainly isn't scary - you'll get more of both in the remake of Texas Chansaw Massacre which is vastly superior to this trainwreck of a movie which is even more disturbing when you consider how bad that one was as well.
The acting is uniformly terrible - clearly most of the 7,000,000 budget went on..... that's a good point, what did it go on? Sheri Moon stands out as being particularly bad, however, they are all so terrible it's probably not fair to single her out. Karen Black should know better and it shows just how low an actor can sink without resorting to hardcore porno movies - incidentally, what was the point of the 50's stag films loops that kept popping up? The special effects certainly aren't special, the sets wouldn't rate above average.
The script is awful and the story isn't much better - how could a movie with a character called Doctor Satan be so bad? Some reviewers have commented on the last 15 minutes being "terrifying" - well, not only is it not terrifying, it's not even vaguely scary - the thing carrying the ax chasing the girl at the end is laughable and the collapsing tunnel supports disabling it was as pathetic as it obvious.
Over all, it seemed like a really, really, really long boring music video (some of the music was OK - but if you like industrial style music and blood/gore buy 'Ain't it Dead Yet' by Skinny Puppy and you'll get better in both respects)
Zombie is clearly strongly influenced by the original TCM, but doesn't have the talent to come even close (mind you, what other decent movies has Tobe Hooper made?). He tries to be creative with continual and multiple film effects and cutaway shots, different film stocks etc, however, it just looks like a real mess and comes across as someone who has just bought their first Mac with Final Cut and tried to use every effect that comes with it - Zombie should stick to drawing where he has some talent, but as a writer and director, he is utterly abysmal.
Don't be fooled that this wasn't released for three years because of rating worries - clearly the studio saw what an absolute stinker this film is and figured that the only way they'd convince anyone to see it would be if they held it back because it was 'supposedly' too extreme - well it ain't.
Another nail in the coffin of modern horror films (pun intended) 0/5
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