Zombie Brigade

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Zombie Brigade
Directed byCarmelo Musca
Barrie Pattison
Written byCarmelo Musca
Barrie Pattison
Produced byCarmelo Musca
Barrie Pattison
Starring John Moore
Khym Lam
CinematographyAlex McPhee
Edited byTang Thien Tai
Music by John Charles
Todd Hunter
Release date
  • 1988 (1988)
Running time
91 min
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
Budget$855,000 [1]

Zombie Brigade is an Australian zombie film. It was written, directed and produced by Carmelo Musca and Barrie Pattison. It screened at Cannes Film Festival in May 1988 but did not get a cinema release. [2] It got a video release in Australia in August 1990. [3]

Contents

Premise

In a small country town, Mayor Ransom buys up land to develop a theme park. Council officials blast a Vietnam War memorial, unleashing monsters.

Production

The script was written originally by Barrie Pattison who brought it to Carmelo Musca, who liked the idea of doing a genre piece with some social commentary. The state funding body Screen West refused to invest in the film. [4] It was shot in Toodyay, Western Australia. [1]

Cast

Reception

According to the filmmakers, "the film made back money four or five times over for the investors". [4]

Peter West of Horror Talk gave it 2 1/2 stars and called it an "amusing movie at times." [5] HorrorNews.net's Nigel Honeybone says "It’s definitely a zombie movie, but there’s a twist: these are good zombies with moral values, ethics, mercy and valor." and notes that "The two protagonists, for example, is an Aboriginal male and a Japanese female, which immediately challenges the viewer’s expectations." [6]

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References

  1. 1 2 Ed. Scott Murray, Australia on the Small Screen 1970-1995, Oxford Uni Press, 1996 p164
  2. Shelley, Peter (2012). Australian Horror Films, 1973-2010. McFarland. pp. 110–114. ISBN   978-0786461677.
  3. Visontay, Michael (2 August 1990), "At last an Aussie zombie movie with a conscience", The Sydney Morning Herald
  4. 1 2 Scott Holdsworth, "Zombie Brigade" at Murdoch University accessed 3 August 2013
  5. West, Peter (1 February 2009), "Zombie Brigade DVD Review", Horror Talk, archived from the original on 15 January 2016
  6. Honeybone, Nigel (9 May 2014), "Film review: Zombie Brigade (1986)", HorrorNews.net