Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Rexanne It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Paul Magne Haakonsen Alright, well for a movie from 1987, this was surprisingly lame. I had expected somewhat more in the horror and perhaps even gore category.Now, the idea of having a zombie viral outbreak in a prison might have seemed good on script paper, but failed to shine through on the screen. Maybe that was because you never really buy into the prison atmosphere in this movie. Everything is just a little bit too cozy, and there are surprisingly few guards for a prison of this size.Anyway, the movie stands out from many other zombie movies, in an odd way, as the zombies here seem to be alive, but decomposing. They are capable of talking and acting fairly coherently. That sort of killed the mood for me. A zombie is not a dead person just behaving fairly much like when alive, except for having a hunger for flesh. No, a zombie is a shell of the former self, devoid of life and soul (if one believes in that). So I never really bought the zombie scenario presented here.As for the acting, well... Most of it was tolerable, but nothing astounding to be found here. Except for maybe the woman playing the lady they brought into the prison from the outside. Wow, it was physically painful to watch her performance.Moving on to the gore and effects. Well, given the movie is quite old by now, the effects are, of course, way out of date. But I am sure that by standards back in 1987, these were believable and scary to watch. Just keep that in mind, because today they are not really all that believable.The good part of the movie is that the story is fairly straight going, and keeps going at a good pace. It doesn't become overly dull so that you want to get up and leave.I had expected a tad more from this movie, despite it being old. I would have rated it as 2, but given it is a zombie movie, my heart gets all soft and mushy, so 3 out of 10. This is a movie that you sit down to watch if you are a hardcore zombie fan, like myself. Otherwise, you might be bored out of your mind sitting through this.

udar55 If you made a genre flick in the late 80s, you basically had a 50/50 chance it would either be set underwater or in a prison (sadly, we never got an underwater prison flick). Framed for murder by mafia boss Moretti (Anthony Franciosa), Derek Keillor (Dennis Cole) ends up on death row, right alongside the mob boss' brother Frankie (Frank Sarcinello Jr.). But this is the least of Derek's problems as rogue government agent (and mob stoolie) Col. Burgess (John Saxon, who also directs) is using the prison as a testing ground for a new supervirus. This is the only flick Saxon directed during his storied career. For a guy who has worked with tons of directors, it appears the only ones he picked up any tips from were the cheap-o Italian ones. Sure, it is low budget, but that can't excuse the stilted staging, shooting gaffes, or clumsy exposition in the first 15 minutes. To his credit, Saxon did make it slightly gory and he works in a hilarious nude scene (our lead falls asleep during a prison riot only to fantasize about a female scientist). Cole, who looks like a more rugged Jan-Michael Vincent, is decent as the stoic lead and Franciosa - sporting a really bad rug - gives it his all as the cliché mob boss. The end takes place at Marty McKee's favorite location, Bronson Canyon. Retromedia released this on DVD as ZOMBIE DEATH HOUSE.

Rautus When I heard about Zombie Death House I was intrigued about it, the one thing that interested me was that John Saxton had not only stared in this but also directed this, he's a great actor that's been in some classic movies like Enter the Dragon, Black Christmas, A Nightmare on Elm Street. So I decided to order it because I'm a fan of Zombie movies like the Dead Trilogy, After Death, Zombi 2, Zombi 3 etc, also being a fan of John Saxton was another reason I ordered this film. This film came with a $1000 dollar shock insurance, I thought that was kind of interesting since the box said that this film has been chosen to have this shock insurance since the movie is supposed to contain some really shocking scenes, I've seen Zombi 2 and that movie was extreme with the graphic violence so I thought that this movie must be like that but a little bit more extreme. When I was watching it I didn't find anything that shocking, it was entertaining but not shocking like that DVD said. One thing I found about this movie was, it's called Zombie Death House but there's hardly any zombies in it. There's hardly any screen time where you see loads of zombies, only a few and the scenes are quick. The film manly focus on the main characters in the prison, the film does have gore but it feels tame compared to the George A Romero movies and the Italian Zombie Movie. Zombie Death House actually felt more like a prison movie than a zombie movie, remove the zombie plot and this film could easily work as a prison movie. Maybe that's why it was just called Death House in some places so people didn't think the main focus was the zombies.Zombie Death House was entertaining though, the acting was fine but nothing amazing. John Saxton did a great performance, it was interesting to see him to handle the film has a director and actor. The gore was okay but it wasn't has graphic as the other zombie movies out there.The film sees a man named Derek Keillor who works has a driver for a mob boss named Vic being wrongly accused of murder after being found sleeping with the boss's wife. Derek is sent to Death row for what he's done, meanwhile a government agent is testing an experimental drug on the inmates to see the effects. One of the Inmates starts acting crazy and is sent to the medical bay to see what's happened to him. They find that his skin is starting to fall off, they then inject another inmate with it to see the effect of the drug. During the infected prisoner's execution he breaks out and beings to attack the security guards and soon the infection spreads. The inmates break out and start a riot holding the Warden, his family and a few officers hostage so they can escape, outside the army have the place surrounded so they can contain the infection before it spreads outside the walls of the prison since anyone who has contact with someone infected can catch it. The prisoners try to find a way out since the military won't allow anyone out. With the help of a woman who helped create the virus Derek tries to escape from the prison and clear his name.Zombie Death House is an entertaining zombie movie that may disappoint some who was expecting this to something be like Dawn of the Dead or Zombi 2. Fans of low budget zombie flicks, prison movies and John Saxton may want to check this out. It is a gem of an 80's horror flick. Check this out.

Vomitron_G To many, John Saxon has become a living cult-legend And I myself quite like seeing the man doing his acting-thing on screen. DEATH HOUSE (aka ZOMBIE DEATH HOUSE), his co-directorial debut, perfectly summarizes what the man has been up to until 1987, DEATH HOUSE's year of release. From cheesy American crime movies to gore-drenched Italian flicks. So Saxon-fans should love this one. However, to casual viewers DEATH HOUSE probably will come across as pretty bad. And even if I enjoyed it a bit more than my rating suggests, I cannot deny the many bad aspects this movie has. The plot itself, though containing many implausible acts, wasn't the main problem. It develops at a steady pace, resulting in a decent, though clumsy staged pay-off. The first 20 minutes however kept me wondering what the hell kind of movie I was actually watching. I felt like a soft-erotic gangster-movie, the bad B-movie kind, complete with dire car-cases, a badly performed mafia shoot-out scene and even Vietnam flash-backs. It seemed like typical B-movie rubbish, but I soon learned that all this was one of the most elaborate ways to sketch and introduce the protagonist: Derek Keillor, an ex-Vietnam veteran, who finds out his new job is being a chauffeur for the local mob-boss. He then gets framed for the murder of his boss's girlfriend and ends up on death row. Enter John Saxon, a soldier/scientist who's illegally testing a new virus on the inmates. Given the movie's title it's needless to say what happens next...Good thing about this movie is that it contains a fair amount of sleaze & gore and still manages to tell a story that hums along nicely. The acting maybe isn't the worst I've ever seen, but it certainly isn't top-notch either. And now for the bad things: John Saxon, regardless his on-screen charisma, isn't exactly giving it his best shot in the acting department. He comes off as routineous and wooden. The small scene where he speaks the line "I am a soldier..." over the telephone even caused me to chuckle. It was the one moment he briefly seemed to go for it. The cinematography is pretty awful and the editing is rudimentary. The sound-editing and sound-effects are atrocious and the musical score is simply bad and cheap. But somehow I managed to look beyond all that and found myself amused by this flick. The ravingly mad zombie-like infected persons of course added to the fun, as well as the occasional gore-effects. One shock-scene (though not really shown) concerning the sodomizing of an inmate by a guard left me a bit baffled. And there was even one jump-moment involving a meat-cleaver that actually worked. The final freeze-frame end-shot worked very well for me. And then came the final pleasant surprise for me: when the end credits started to roll, the song "Chemical Warfare" by DEAD KENNEDYS came on. How cool's that? It left me wondering if it was John Saxon or co-director Nick Marino who picked out that song for the soundtrack.So in the end we have sort of a bad B-movie that is actually rather good because of some very enjoyable elements with a pretty eccentric look & feel to it. It actually feels a bit like an Italian Zombie-movie, even though it's an American production. And because of the involvement of John Saxon this flick very well deserves an underground cult-status. While watching this movie, I thought of another one (well, a few actually), and I never thought I would actually give the following recommendation: People who like this one, might wanna check out SHADOW: DEAD RIOT, starring Tony Todd. It's a pretty insane and rather very bad flick also dealing with zombies in prison: I describe it as a cross between BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR and LIK WONG: THE STORY OF RICKY, mixed with a solid portion of women-in-prison sleaze. But mind you, it's a tad bit worse than all the above mentioned movies.