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the intro to the dvd is some cheesy guy that you'd see hosting a saturday b-movie fest...he says you may want to smash you're tv in after seeing this movie. he's no salesman of any sort. what more curious about this intro bit is that the movie itself is pretty damn good. why the intro was added for the dvd is beyond me...i could've done without it.
the movie itself is odd but well done zombie flick. as many zombie movies were at the time, this one tries to add some "new element" to make it stand out from the rest. here its formaldehyde sniffing prisoners. prisoners would have been enough and the stoned on formaldehyde is a bit dumb. but as a means of turning the dead into "not so dead" its clever and workable.
the whole plot is somehow suppose to center on the warden and the prisoners being re-located. except that never happens and it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. its not even truly a subplot. instead the movie is about a group of prisoners in a low security backwoods work prison dig a tunnel to the other side of a wired fence. the fence is no were near intimidating but you'll ignore that detail. the group that plans the escape is also the group that is heavily into sniffing the formaldehyde fumes. perhaps a plan by the lead to make 'dumb' his cronies to benefit his own escape. a second group of prisoners is not down for the escape but play mostly peripheral parts to the story. the group breaks out but one gets a bit high before he escapes...hes also the one trusted with the gun. in modern movies you could imagine where that would lead...in a 70's movie he simply trips and fires off the gun letting the guards know they're escaping. a small slapstick sort've moment. then the car chase lead the prisoners...in a truck full of formaldehyde...to crash into a cemetery and the guards lay on their shotgun and pistol justice. the prisoners, dead, fall into the spilled formaldehyde which has the unfortunate effect of keeping them....well...undead eventually. pretty much as soon as they are trying to bury the guys they come back to life and proceed to "destroy the living."
the rest of the film is about the zombies taking their revenge on the gaurds, etc, and its pretty solid stuff. they not only go back to sniff the formaldehyde but lather it on themselves. they are "melted" by the search light...which is only accomplished once in the film. there's a woman who they call out for....."give us the woman" (worse part of the movie) there are also some unfortunate bystanders.
the zombies move quickly, are a bit dull but to organize and plan, and are pretty convincingly creepy without all the high end special effects (its fairly simple makeup that does the job here)
nothing profound but a thoroughly enjoyable zombie film well worth the addition to any horror collection and essential, i'd say, to a zombie collection.
7/10
