Zombie
2024 is the highly anticipated follow-up to the
acclaimed 2010 web series Return of the
Blooksucking Nazi Zombies (which can be found as one of the extra features
on the Cameo Media DVD of Jess Franco’s Al
Pereira vs. the Alligator Ladies). Howard Vernon, Dr Orloff and Dr Mabuse
return in their struggle for world domination. Vernon is still in hot pursuit
of Orloff, who is under strict orders from the mysterious Dr Mabuse not to fail
in his mission yet again to have Vernon assassinated. Dr Orloff, who is
notorious for his evil but shambolic experiments, has created an apparently new
and improved android named Andros. Orloff requires a young woman to use in his
latest experiment and commands Andros to find him one. But, to Orloff’s chagrin,
Andros is ‘faulty’ – he has some human emotions. Will he able to complete his
mission to find a beautiful Eastern European female disaster-free? Will Howard
Vernon finally eliminate Dr Orloff, or vice versa? And there’s also the small
problem of hoards of bloodthirsty zombies now running rampart across the
continent to deal with...
Zombie
2024 was directed by ‘Mathis Vogel’ aka innovative and
talented up-and-coming genre filmmaker Alex Bakshaev, and created and written
by veteran scribe Robert Monell who has written for numerous books and
publications including ‘European Trash Cinema’. This short film really is a polished,
remarkable achievement, given the budget constraints (approx $300 USD) and limited
resources. It both looks and sounds great, with an inventive use of attractive
locations, vivid colours, visual effects and a wonderfully varied soundtrack, which
flows from ambient to jazz to melodic guitar to menacing electronica nicely
without ever sounding out of place or intrusive. Eurohorror aficionados will
have fun spotting various homages to The
Devil Hunter, Night of the Hunted,
Burial Ground and more. Even the
poster design is highly demonstrative of its creators’ reverence of the genre, combining
both the vivid colours used in the film with that familiar, worn, ‘grindhouse’
look. Zombie 2024 is a must-see short film, highly watchable
and atmospheric and a perfect example of how so much can be
achieved out of so little (and with much Hollywood fare now, it's the other way
around).
