Dead Inferno Review from TetroVideo!

Dead Inferno cover artwork from TetroVideo

TetroVideo are gathering a lot of varied and sometimes forgotten titles from ‘round and about to build up an army which will likely one day invade a wide and solid market place. Recently, I reviewed the 2017 title, Your Flesh Your Curse, which now sits comfy and secure under their blanket. Next up comes Dead Inferno, from 2014. Also known as Bombshell Bloodbath, it’s a low budget, very colourful zombie gore tale which succeeds on many levels, but especially in keeping itself fresh and watchable. Can you guess what will happen next? For sure you can, but so what? This flick is so damn entertaining and a lot of fun.

Dead Inferno begins with a red-eyed undead young lady sat staring ahead in a room full of corpses, whilst cradling a shotgun in her arms, this catches your attention. Cor blimey, the intro music is superb. It is so ‘80s, video tape in the machine memorable. Cut to an alcohol swigging hillbilly chap driving along who accidentally takes down a woman in the middle of the road. He gets out to find himself attacked by the lady, and the countryside is a mass of fairly convincing walking corpses over the credits.

After that gaggle of zombies milling about, we begin our film, a proper six days earlier. “Injection C-900,” says a tired and worn down Doctor after we witness a grave robbing sequence. “Today we will be putting chemical ‘Z’ into test subject three.” as two assistants stand nearby, he injects a dead rat. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” one of the duo shakes her head in disbelief as the rodent begins its rebirth. Excited by his achievement, Doctor Carter immediately tests his serum on a corpse. Stupidly he only waits a few seconds before pronouncing failure, since the rat took a while. So he presses a larger dose in with predictable disastrous results.

Bandaged and sat alone, Carter records his thoughts and reasons. We learn why he is doing this, plus his fascination in what will become of him since he was bitten but at the same time a needle filled with his serum went into his flesh. Meanwhile, he has kept his original zombie locked away, hoping to learn more whilst continuing on more test subjects.

We then meet his two daughters, Cara and Denise, who discuss how he does not leave his laboratory anymore. Denise heads out to the shack which contains his lab. She sees a few of his subjects. “I am the plague master,” he tells her, “And these are the plague!” After a brief discussion, Denise figures that her Dad has totally gone insane.

Let’s be introduced to the shitty cookie cut-out teens out for the ride in this horror. Two of them happen to stop late at night in the cemetery. Our good Doctor happens to be out robbing graves at the time, so has a bit of extra work to do. The morning after, a typical sheriff and deputies arrive on the murder scene.

Back in the lab, one of Carter’s assistants kicks off, causing Cara to end up with a palm full of serum, when they discover the graveyard girl chained up. For this, the Doctor feeds his helper to the zombies in a Fulci-style slow scene. Soon both assistants have died, jumped up, and been shot down. What shocks Cara more is the fact her deceased Mother is laid out on a table snarling.

I do hope Sheriff Parks has been written in to be a cliché on purpose, because he certainly is right down to blaming “dope smoking liberal college kids” for the grave robbing situation haunting his town. He sits at home ranting into a glass of whisky.

Meanwhile, Cara is beginning to transform. Her eyes are reddening, dripping blood, and the soundtrack has altered into a creepy electronic dull whine which is awesome! Ah, but ‘twas a dream. However, the cut on her hand isn’t looking too good. Hallucinations follow. We also catch a report on the local news about a research centre lab who has announced it is to re-open again after suffering arson, and theft of various chemicals.

As the plot thickens, the sisters have to get to a scientist who is linked to the centre, a guy who is pure goofy comic relief, but not in an unnatural way. (Look out for a great send up on his TV) Cara is gradually losing herself to the infection, as Denise struggles to try and keep it all together. As we know from the beginning, sooner or later the dead will get loose.

Brett Mullen is a young lad with a lot of producer and cinematography credits behind him, but he has recently finished a new film called Bloody Ballet to go with this one. He seems to be a guy raised correctly on the old-school and golden era of horror films. His style is very late ‘70s and early ‘80s in approach, lighting, and angles. I picked up so many influences, mainly from the Italian epics of old with a sprinkling of The Dead Pit, Vineyard (ala the make-up), etcetera – lest we forget a marvellous homage to Day of the Dead amongst the gut chow downs towards the conclusion. So a full on “Whooa!” shout out for the effects genius, who has more recently found a way into The Walking Dead TV series.

Matt Hill (aka Umberto) needs a paragraph of his own for the wonderful score he has composed for Dead Inferno. In this modern age of many looking back over their shoulders to the past, not all can capture a genuine echo of years long gone, but Umberto has for this. He has also supplied the music for Bloody Ballet, as well as for a load of shorts, but also for Portraits, a Carmilla vampire film from last year.

My big criticism with Dead Inferno is that everything muddles up from around two thirds of the way in due to way too many, almost play for laughs performances. A neighbour, the cops, Robert – the scientist bloke, one after another. Luckily things pull together again as Sheriff Parks confronts Carter and sees all the zombies waving their arms through the cage they’re inside. Sadly the damage was done for me. I still recommend this film for lovers of the shuffling corpses. Dead Inferno is not the greatest, it has flaws, but it is heartily a mighty romp through some really inventive bloodbaths.

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Dead Inferno Review from TetroVideo!

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