Zeder (1983)

That was an excellent one.

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Brilliant and touching

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

An unusual zombie film from Italian director Pupi Avati which receives mainly negative reviews due to the incorrect advertising of the American release, which markets it as a BURIAL GROUND-style Italian gut-muncher. Instead it's a deliberately slow-paced, action-free epic which weaves a complex, dark, and mysterious plot around the viewer and is indeed difficult to comprehend at moments. As for the zombies, well they pop up at the beginning and the end to offer some good scares, but the majority of the movie is simply an atmospheric and spooky detective-thriller as the lead investigates the mystery and becomes caught up in a conspiracy with lots of shady characters.The film begins as it means to go on with an apparently possessed girl attempting to dig up a basement. When investigating scientists dig in the earth they discover a coffin containing a skeleton, which has been wreaking havoc in the house in which it is situated. Avati makes good use of shadows and lighting for maximum atmospheric impact and his direction recalls the movies of the '40s that Val Lewton produced, and indeed there's a direct reference to CAT PEOPLE with a haunting scene set at a deserted swimming pool.It turns out that this is all a flashback and the film begins proper with the film's lead, Stefano, played by the greatly unappealing Gabriele Lavia (one of the movie's biggest flaws, it has to be said) receiving a decrepit typewriter. Reading strange text on the ribbon, he meets the previous owner, a priest at the local church. The priest denies all knowledge. When he returns later on that day to question the priest further, Stefano discovers that the man was an imitator and the real person he is looking for is dead. The plot becomes even more involved with the intervention of a shadow conspiracy who commit murder to cover up the secret of the K-Zones, geographical locations in which the dead can return to life. After a spooky interlude in a cemetery (which includes a fantastic shock in which he discovers birds living in a coffin), Stefano discovers the location of one of these K-Zones at a partially-built but as yet uninhabited hotel. The scene is set for encounters with the undead...Although with its very slow pacing and almost total lack of action or violence (a single stabbing is all the film can muster), ZEDER is definitely not a film for all tastes, viewers will be rewarded by the finale which includes some very frightening moments. The finest of these in my opinion is when the main character watches (via monitors linked up to a camera) a corpse wake up in its coffin and begin laughing in an eerie manner. This really sent the chills running down my spine. The sight of the dead pushing their way up from below the ground is also effective, as are hands emerging from walls, and the film's final downbeat twist may have possibly influenced Stephen King's PET SEMATARY.The actors are as poorly dubbed as usual and the cast is of unknowns (even for an Italian movie). Lavia is miscast as the boring lead and unable to breathe life into his role, although some of the supporting actors playing the bad guys aren't bad at all. The thing I liked most about this movie was the soundtrack, with emphatic music which recalls THE BEYOND and some very weird sound effects to add to the horror. These include distorted computer effects and heavy, distorted breathing. While I don't label this a masterpiece as some others have, I did find it to be a very unique and interesting film and watching it makes me want to check out more of Avati's directorial work.

Pupi Avati is doubtlessly a one-of-a-kind director, and while his contributions to Italian Horror cinema are not at all typical for their sub-genres, they are highly memorable. Avati's 1976 Giallo "La Casa Dalle Finestre Che Ridono" ("The House With Laughing Windows") must be one of the greatest Gialli ever made, even though very atypical, and low on sleaze and murders. If one wants to refer to "Zeder" of 1983 as an Italian Zombie Film, then it is even less typical for its sub-genre, as the film almost completely lacks the gore that Italian Zombie flicks such as Lucio Fulci's films are so famous and notorious for. However, it is a highly atmospheric and original cinematic experience, and a film that my fellow fans of Italian Horror definitely should not miss.The writer Stefano (Gabriele Lavia) gets an old typewriter as a gift from his wife Alessandra (Anne Canovas). By accident, he finds out that it used to belong to Paolo Zeder, a scientist who had been researching a gateway from the beyond in the 1950s...The film is sometimes said to have inspired Stephen King when he wrote his famous novel "Pet Sematary". And while I am not quite sure whether this is true (the film was released in Italy only months before King's novel) there doubtlessly are certain parallels. Avati's film is rather slow-paced, but it oozes atmosphere from the beginning to the end, and the plot is fascinating. Avati understands how to create genuine eeriness without constantly employing gore-effects. The beautiful cinematography, picturesque settings and wonderful Score by Riz Ortolani fortify the gloomy atmosphere. Gabriele Lavia, who is maybe most widely known for playing supporting roles in Dario Argento's films (most notably in "Profondo Rosso"), is a fantastic actor and he is once again great in his role here. Anne Canovas is drop-dead gorgeous and fits greatly in the role of his wife; the typically sleaze-loving Eurohorror audiences might be disappointed that she keeps her clothes on throughout the movie. Overall, it should be said that "Zeder" is not a film that should be approached expecting a gore-drenched Zombie massacre. However, those familiar with some of Pupi Avati's work wouldn't anyway. While the pace may be a little slow, the film is an intelligent, eerie and highly atmospheric wholesome that no true lover of Italian Horror cinema should miss. My rating: 7.5/10

This is a quite entertaining little horror-film, but by no means any major classic. I had expected a bit more, since seeing an image from the film in the wonderful Eyeball-Compendium, which triggered my imagination, Possible spoiler: A severed head lying on the ground of an endless and dilapitated corridor. It has a somewhat thin and confused story, but a nice atmosphere and some effective scares. Pupi Avati seems to be a director above his material in this case, and he does add to the dream-logic of the plot with some fascinating surreal imagery and compositions indicates that he could have done more with less lacking material. The acting is not too impressive but he has at least found some striking locations to work with to great effect, the monumental design of the institute for example. Some of the final shots are quite extraordinary, creating a sense of melancholy and loneliness with a simple yet very effective juxtaposition of imagery. That image alone is enough to push this film a bit above the rest. Next mission is to check out Avati's Arcane Enchanter.

...in an historical period like the end of the 70's/beginning of the 80's when the Italian horror panorama was dominated by gore and splatter cannibal/zombie B movies Avatu chose to make very different movie, not based on gruesome and cheap FXs, but on Gothic atmospheres and darkness.Surely the result was light years far away from Fulci's Zombie 2 or worse trash like Zombi Holocaust, not just in "philosofical" terms but also as final result: Zeder (I refuse to use the silly title used by the American distribution) is one of those rare movie that effectively creates a sensation of tension and a climax of fear and emotional cliffhanger from the beginning to the final scene, showing in front of the camera very, very, few. Less is more.From certain points of view the movie shows the typical weaknesses of the Italian production (especially Argento's) of that time: the series of unfortunate events that leads Stefano little by little to the central theme of the movie doesn't work well and it's totally unrealistic, performance of the two main characters, Stefano and Alessandra, not really persuading to be at the required level (Stefano is quite wooden and looks lunatic, I wonder why a "light" woman should be able to live with a man of this kind, while Alessandra never seems to realize what's happening and the dangers of their situation so she always reacts in a silly way), the music sometimes is disturbing but contributes to build up thrilling little by little.The most amazing fact behind this movie is without doubt the "coincidences" (not to use a stronger term) between Avati's plot and Stephen Kingìs "Pet Semetary", later in 1989 a movie but published in 1984. In certain points nobody cannot deny that the basic concept (a territory very well known in ancient times to be able to reanimate the dead buried there)and many scenes, especially the end when a desperate husband buries in the cursed cemetery the corpse of her loved one, that coincide perfectly.Just a case? Before watching the movie, I didn't believe this rumor, after this night I think uncle Stephen should give some..explanations about it.