All Souls Day (2005)

In 1892, Vargas Diaz, a murderous greedy villain, looted an Aztec tomb belonging to the goddess of death located in the town of Santa Bonita, Mexico. The many that died at Diaz’s hands cannot rest and continually demand human sacrifices. Today the town of Santa Bonita is a ghost town, and those who stumble upon the village never leave. A young couple, Joss and Alicia, are unfortunate enough to get stranded there and discover the town’s secret history. The only way to save themselves and let the dead rest lies with Diaz himself, but there’s no earthly way he could still be living today…

A Very Convoluted Zombie Holiday

It's 1892 in the remote Mexican village Santa Bonita. So remote, in fact, that English is commonly spoken there. An Aztec temple has been unearthed and town bad guy Vargas Diaz, played by why-am-I-always-a-bad-guy Danny Trejo, executes his sinister plan to take all the treasures for himself. Fast forward to October 1952. While vacationing, the White family stumbles upon the village and decides to spend the night in a no-named hotel there. The father (Jeffrey Combs) takes charge and checks the family in himself, despite the fact that there seems to be nobody running the place...despite the last person to sign the register being 5 years ago...and despite momma White (Ellie Cornell) overseeing a woman cleaning up what looks to be blood on the floor. Stop right there. Hold up. I'm sorry, I draw the line on pools of blood on the floor. Even stains of blood are a big no-no. Just walk out, people! I'm sure there's a La Quinta Inn somewhere down the road.

Their complete disregard for common sense ends badly for the family, but not before young polio-stricken son Ricky (Noah Luke) gets an earful of gibberish from an old hag-lady, and daughter Lily White (yes, that's really her name) shows off her lilly white...assets. Fast forward (AGAIN!) 53 years later. College couple Alicia (smokin' hot Marisa Ramirez) and her fast-talking spaz of a boyfriend Joss (Travis Wester), who's got to be on speed, are traveling to Alicia's parents' house. They're delayed after swerving through a crowd of people, overturning a coffin with a naked, tongueless girl inside, and running into a feeble-looking fence, which is enough to put Joss' piece of junk car out of commission right near the very no-named hotel we've seen previously. In an obvious attempt to gather some zombie fodder, two of the couple's friends, Erica and Tyler, drive down from the OC to meet them.

That's the overly inflated setup (which took two long paragraphs to describe) for an essentially simple concept with characters who look hot, but never really develop into anything. Not only do they not develop into much, their actions often are neither plausible nor genuine. The Joss character rarely ceases to annoy. Erica out of nowhere does some kind of crazy backflip onto the roof. Tyler, with a chance to escape the hotel, inexplicably chooses not the undead-free driver's side of the getaway car, but the zombie laden passenger side. And upon being attacked he yells out like a girl, "Put me down!" Oh...the horror...make it stop. It's a shame, because while the characters aren't the greatest, they're all acted out rather decently. Though, David Keith, Danny Trejo and the re-animator Jeffrey Combs are completely underused talents.

It's a bloated story with a little action, no real scares, and some talented actors that are off camera too much. Despite the decent production values and some decent-looking zombies, it's not quite a decent movie. June 8, 2008

Better than the most direct-to-dvd zombie flicks

All Souls Day: Dia de los Muertos is part of the wave of zombie movies flooding the direct-to-dvd (some even going as far as direct-to-cable). This particular zombie movie was written by mark A. Altman who also wrote the campy and very B-movie-like House of the Dead 2. A zombie flick which actually improved on Uwe Boll's own house of the Dead which is not really saying much. All Souls Day is Altman's second try at another zombie movie and while this second attempt wasn't as fun as his previous one it still manages to be a watchable and interesting zombie movie.

The movie is set in a dusty Mexican town that hides a dark secret from its past. A young couple (played by Marisa Ramirez and Travis Wester) happen upon what seems like an abandoned town. They soon come across a funeral procession and when they inadvertently interrupt the ritual all hell literally breaks loose. It doesn't help the two couple that the only person who seems to be real in town is the sheriff but whose own past ties in with the secret of the town. It was very good to see genre veteran David Keith in the role of the town sheriff. His limited time in the movie was pretty good. When the town's people (who by now have shown themselves to be zombies) begin to lay siege on the young couple in the town's only hotel the rest of the movie gradually shows more of what made this particular Mexican town a death trap for any passerby who happen to come across it on All Souls Day. Soon enough help comes in the form of the young couple's two friends who arrive in town only to get themselves stuck in the same dire situation the original couple find themselves in.

The resolution of the movie was handled well and it brought a nice supernatural origin and reason as to why the town's population has turned into flesh-eating zombies. The performances in the movie could be seen as being mixed. The more veteran performers like David Keith, Danny Trejo (as the town's manipulative patriarch) and Laura Herring perform their roles well without being too over-the-top. The actors playing the pair of young couples on the other hand go from very good to awful in the span of moments in some of the scenes. It's really this mixed bag in the cast's performance which keeps me from giving it that extra star to make all Souls Day a very good zombie instead of just being a good one.

The gore effects in the movie was pretty good in the small amount of sequences where the zombies end up doing what they do best once they get a hold of someone. While I was hoping for more of the grue in this particular zombie movie I wasn't too surprised why it didn't have more. Other than the pair of young couple there really wasn't much living people for these zombies to munch on. But for a low-budget zombie movie which had its premiere on the SciFi Channel All Souls Day has the look of a polished movie instead of one shot on someone's neighborhood with a digital camera.

All Souls Day: Dia de los Muertos is not a great zombie by any stretch of the imagination. This movie is instead just good enough to watch without wincing at how low-budget it is and at some of the hammier performances. I would definitely recommend it to be Netflixed for a slow night with nothing else to do but watch something. March 6, 2008

Worst movie ever.

Even BAD acting would have been an improvement to this 'film', in which you are lucky to see ANY acting.

Truly horrible, don't waste your time. Not scary, not funny, not worth watching. December 10, 2007

Vampire+Zombie+Voodoo Curse=Big mess

This is a movie that tries to cover a bunch of bases in one fell swoop. I would actually give it 2.5 stars, but don't get excited... this makes for either campy halloween viewing or super saturday cinema. There are some moments of cool dialogue and action, but it gets held down by a plotline that seems overly top heavy given the lack of substance. (if this doesn't make sense, watch the movie >wink<). A fair effort, but if you like this sort of movie, there are too many others out there that are cleaner, campier and easier to digest. October 8, 2007

This re-animation did not work

I like Jeffrey combs. He was a great Herbert West in the reanimator films and when he gets creepy, he makes a film fun. I also love Ellie Cornell and have from the first time I saw her in Halloween 4. I saw Jeffrey and Ellie together and thought that this was a can't miss movie. The movie started out okay then Jeff and Ellie got killed in the first 5 minutes and a totally unsympathetic cast ensemble took over. The film did actually have a plot however, and there was a real reason why zombies were running around the town so as far as that goes, it had a step up on most zombie movies, but I just could not get into it. The actors were not very good and the characters they played were not too bright. Oh well, it was diverting for a while so it is not a total waste of time. Rent it though, don't buy it. June 2, 2007

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