Look up Watching Paint Dry in any film guide and you will find a review of this tale of WWII soldiers who encounter Nazi zombies in the African desert. Hiding under the pseudonym A.M. Frank is director Jess Franco, no stranger to plodding exploitation films, though here his direction consists of removing the lens cap. Oasis Of The Zombies is so dull, in fact, that the producers edited in battle sequences lifted from Heroes Without Glory (1971), a forgotten Italian war film. It didnt make any difference. Given the lack of craftsmanship on display, youd swear Franco set up the shot and walked away. In a succession of sequences so interminable youll be reaching for the remote, no-name actors spout meaningless gibberish about finding themselves while zombies in shoddy make-up lurch through the desert to an overblown musical score. At least Zombie Lake had some unintentional laughs.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
