Review: The Final Night And Day
The Final Night and Day starts a bit chillingly: the driver of a prisoner bus is laying in the road, apparently being thrust through the windshield after hitting something. As everyone’s recovering, the guards access the situation and try to keep the prisoners in line, trying to figure out what to do (the bus is out of commission). It’s a well-paced, solid introduction that begins our tale. This is not a feel-good movie, and it’s not afraid to get a little dirty.
The prisoners and guards come to the realization that something incredibly wrong is amiss as they walk (prisoners chained up) towards the nearest town: it seems all the recently dead are coming back to life and eating the flesh of the living. The group quickly becomes chaotic and they split up (it’s about here, 20 minutes in, we learn who the main character is). Eventually some people make it to a high school where a leader with a god complex is holed up, to basically take him out and steal his weapons.
Unfortunately this is where the story peters out. The pacing was perfect and engrossing up to this point but it hiccups here. It’s hard to tell how long the characters are holded up in the high school, but one gets the feeling it’s supposed to be a bit of time. There’s a love interest that comes out of nowhere and a few botched (but at least one not so much) attempts at character development. The movie probably could have ended here but it keeps going past where it needs to, trying to cram too much in to it’s 76 minute runtime. I would have liked to have seen the first 45 minutes of the story stretched out and possibly the other 30 — which, frankly, seemed rushed and half-baked — made into a sequel, or dropped completely.
There’s a couple scenes that have really impressive zombie hordes, with I’d guess a couple hundred people or more (see second screenshot). The make-up is mostly just blood, but for close-ups the gore and zombification looks pretty decent. There’s some great character zombies, with great shambling walks; enough, I’m certain, to make Romero proud.
Like I said, this movie can get a little unclean sometimes, but it definitely helps. The first half I think makes up for the second half. I know that’s not exactly a shining endorsement, but that sums it up. Great zombies, some colorful characters, and a great premise make for an entertaining film that I would recommend to a purveyor of low-budget zombie movies.
I give The Final Night and Day 7/10 inmates.
It can be picked up at the DefTone Pictures Studios store
