This has the distinctive feel of being two stories joined together . One being a violent and brutal though admittedly disturbing and effective home invasion movie and the other being an apocalyptic zombie film but the two stories as you can imagine fail to gel together , To give the film some credit the home invasion subplot is well done . Three violent , sexual sadists hit upon a good idea to rob isolated mansions in the Italian countryside after they've murdered the occupants . To be honest the robbery aspect is peripheral , perhaps to the point of being non existent but no doubt they enjoy raping and murdering the householders . These chaps aren't taking any prisoners and it's only a matter of time before they pick on the wrong house and being set in Italy there's bound to be a few zombies around the corner
It's definitely an unpleasant film but the scenes where the trio of bad guys enter the Pontecorvo home and subject the family to intimidation and terror does have a compelling power rarely seen in this type of subgenre and you almost feel sorry for the Pontecorvos' . I say "almost" because there is a major spanner in the works and that is Mr Pontecorvo is a mad scientist type and in his lab in the basement he's been conducting human experiments on behalf of the American government along with keeping his zombies fed on the occasional passer-by . Why the American government needs a villa in Italy to do this is never explained or how Mrs Pontecorvo and her children seem unaware of the zombie liar in their home is similarly never touched upon . Apparently the mansion up the road is also conducting the same experiments and just as the zombies are killing the residents of the Pontecorvo home and making their escape the zombies up the road are doing the exact same thing . It's as difficult to suspend disbelief as it is to feel sorry for someone carrying out human experiments along with characters obligingly turning a blind eye
That's a pity of sorts because if BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE kept faith in the first idea of totally amoral villains holding a family at gunpoint and inflicting needless and cruel violence upon them this would have been a memorable shocker , probably not for any good reason but memorable all the same . I was also somewhat surprised by the cast because looking up their resumes I'm led to believe at three of them are British , namely Cutler , Southern and Davies and I guess Italian horror has something of a tradition with this . It was something of a surprise watching the classic infamous ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS and seeing well known Scottish born actor Ian McCulloch in the lead role . I also take it these characters have redubbed their lines in their own voices which lends an element of conviction especially from Cutler though this is somewhat negated by the copy I saw online being slightly out of synch with the on screen action . It's negated even further by the dialogue being gloriously bad such as "You're going to be a great director one day . I bet Gus Van Sant would like to deep throat your c--k" . If nothing else lines like this lighten the mood in a depressing , nihilistic horror movie
It's definitely an unpleasant film but the scenes where the trio of bad guys enter the Pontecorvo home and subject the family to intimidation and terror does have a compelling power rarely seen in this type of subgenre and you almost feel sorry for the Pontecorvos' . I say "almost" because there is a major spanner in the works and that is Mr Pontecorvo is a mad scientist type and in his lab in the basement he's been conducting human experiments on behalf of the American government along with keeping his zombies fed on the occasional passer-by . Why the American government needs a villa in Italy to do this is never explained or how Mrs Pontecorvo and her children seem unaware of the zombie liar in their home is similarly never touched upon . Apparently the mansion up the road is also conducting the same experiments and just as the zombies are killing the residents of the Pontecorvo home and making their escape the zombies up the road are doing the exact same thing . It's as difficult to suspend disbelief as it is to feel sorry for someone carrying out human experiments along with characters obligingly turning a blind eye
That's a pity of sorts because if BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE kept faith in the first idea of totally amoral villains holding a family at gunpoint and inflicting needless and cruel violence upon them this would have been a memorable shocker , probably not for any good reason but memorable all the same . I was also somewhat surprised by the cast because looking up their resumes I'm led to believe at three of them are British , namely Cutler , Southern and Davies and I guess Italian horror has something of a tradition with this . It was something of a surprise watching the classic infamous ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS and seeing well known Scottish born actor Ian McCulloch in the lead role . I also take it these characters have redubbed their lines in their own voices which lends an element of conviction especially from Cutler though this is somewhat negated by the copy I saw online being slightly out of synch with the on screen action . It's negated even further by the dialogue being gloriously bad such as "You're going to be a great director one day . I bet Gus Van Sant would like to deep throat your c--k" . If nothing else lines like this lighten the mood in a depressing , nihilistic horror movie