The Night Eats The World MOVIE POSTER Frankly, I’m not sure how to rate the French-made zombie film “The Night Eats The World” — Green Ooze or Yellow Puss?!? From the looks of the set, the considerable number of zombie extras not to mention their make-up and training, there seems to be some money behind this. It mostly has just one actor, however — and he’s good, don’t get me wrong — but when a film does the artsy focal on one lone-character story … is that an artistic thing or lack-of-funding thing?

One man against the world … and zombies … armed with a drum.

So, the story starts out with this hipsterish guy in Paris showing up at his now ex-girlfriend’s big house-party to get his most sacred of personal effects (cassette tapes with noise-music he’s made) when she does the “Let’s Be Friends” thing with her new boyfriend with a better beard wrapped around her like corndog breading.

When she insists that he ought to stick-around and hang out (AKA brushing him off), hipster ex-boyfriend goes pensive and waits around for his stuff instead of dude’ing up, asking for his ~~STUFF~~ and NOW so he can GTF out of there and on with his sappy life. He locks himself in one of her rooms and falls asleep. When he wakes up the next morning he leaves the room to find that her flat is a wreck. He seems to be thinking “It must have been some night … but can I get my ~~STUFF~~ now and get on with my life, PLEASE.” Then come the zombies, he’s apparently the only one alive, and he locks himself in the building — surviving on the former tenants’ food stocks and a shotgun with an endless supply of ammo. But that’s only the beginning of the story …

He initially has one of those awkward “I’m secure with myself but no one believes it” beards … don’t worry, he later shaves it off … which might be a part of his character arc.

The film then becomes a touchy-feely interpersonal-view of one guy’s loneliness. In other words, it’s “Home Alone” but with far less laughs, more zombies, and one bought of shaving.

meow — See — even zombies get their heads cut off in pictures …

So was The Night Eats The World a
bad, okay, or a great film?

The DVD box touts on the cover …

“The most innovative zombie movie since Shaun Of The Dead“
– Indiewire

I’m not buying it! In content these are two very different films; in context … yeah, okay …. maybe. The quotes on the back of the case by Bloody Disgusting, AV Club, and Dread Central range from “possibly accurate” to “I think somebody got bribed”.

The film description on the back of the DVD case is blaughze’, poorly written, and arguably inaccurate. To me, the title doesn’t apparently have anything to do with the story. The promotional photos make this look like more of a straightforward zombie-fight gore-fest when in reality it’s more of … I don’t know, an art film?!?

In the end, all I can say about The Night Eats The World is … is it “Good”, yes …. but is it “Great” …. sorry, no. I think you’re better off getting a copy of my book followed by making some cookies, and re-watching Shaun Of The Dead

The Night Eats The World LINKS

Film by Bloody Disgusting
Notes by DPScobie

Okay, so here’s the explanation to hopefully un-confuse this review…

Usually I write my reviews as a film is ending or right after I watched it. Sometimes I’m busy and just write notes, maybe because the ‘what’ to write wasn’t flowing for me. It’s been long enough since I watched Exit Humanity I don’t remember what the situation was. A year ago (2016) I had a hard drive crash, and of the data I lost these notes (from 2014) survived. I didn’t go back and write these notes into essay form then and I’m not doing it now — so you figure it out.

The short of this is as IMDB puts it about Exit Humanity “A young man’s struggle to survive in the aftermath of a deadly undead outbreak during the American Civil War.”

Fighting zombies with a bad chest cold is unadvised

Starting out this makes me think of Asylum Films — ripping off other films and being screen-tests for wannabe actors … but better than Asylum … and better than SciFi channel films.
This particular story makes me think they’re ripping off the book version of World War Z … I haven’t read it all yet but I have listened to some of the spoken-book featuring a number of actors/artists/famous-voices … just this is a whole film that focuses on a historic occurrence of zombies outbreaks.
Not an ideal first date…
Think of it like this … you’ve seen films that feature the lone person surviving in the aftermath of a zombie-outbreak — living off of what remains from civilization, running from the undead and slaying zombies to stay alive. This film is that but set in post US Civil War period. There would still be certain problems, at least with the people of this film, they’d run out of bullets to scrounge.
Interesting that there is only narration for the first 23 minutes of the film, no actor lines/dialogue
The film looks like some that I’ve seen on YouTube — but then I’ve seen some rather well done DIY shorts there.
Surviving would be easier in a period where people already live closer to the land.
I like the personal experience this film gives.
SSSHH — I’m a Ninja!
There are period-incorrect details that become immediately obvious — clothing being the big one, the ninja poncho the main charactre makes for himself, gas can, and I am in question of the rifle (less obvious detail) the main charactre has following the Civil War.
Not to be confused with Rocky Horror Picture Show
Something about the start of this film made me think of the 1999 film “Ravenous” with Robert Carlye (IMDB and Wikipedia).
This is one of the few films I’ve seen without a sub-title option … but then that saves you from screwed up sub-titles … like my copies of Star Wars Episodes 4, 5, and 6 where Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker talk about their “life savers” — mmm, tasty! I wonder if it doesn’t have sub-titles because it is a low-budget film.
IMO some of the pacing or mood lacks making scenes drag.
I like that the film was able to go from a narrated personal account into a story-line, however I think I enjoyed what I was seeing as the narrated film and would have liked to seen the whole story experience carried in that same way.
I’ve noticed the lack of Indians and blacks — only white zombies and survivors. This is not an equal-opportunity zombie film.
The book and the Eve’s house makes me think of Evil Dead I & II.
Had this been kept as a narrated piece it would have made for a unique piece — period film and zombie theme prose. Frankly, I did what I often do while watching a film — kept myself busy with a project — so I did not give my full attention to this piece. Had this been the narration-only driven piece it could have been, as with the sections it does feature, that would have better commanded the attention of the viewer in my opinion. This film could be re-made into a stronger piece with more feeling and horror, however using this film as an example to a remake I’m sure someone with the money for a project would say that it’s not worth spending the money because you’d only be making this a bit stronger ultimately … but then it wouldn’t be the first time the wheel was re-invented and only slightly improved.
I don’t believe I have seen a z-film where there are people who have immunity to the z-virus
The ‘witch’ Eve could be more convincing … I think the problem is the charactre needs to be played by an older actress … maybe it’s just that her hair is too black … as-in dyed black not a natural ‘black’ … so if she had some gray hints or her hair was not as smooth, that might help me to buy in to her charactre. (This is peculiar to say seeing as this actress is the most experienced out of the whole cast – to clarify, my issue is with her appearance, it doesn’t match with her acting or the profile of the character.)
Despite this film’s short comings, I would strongly encourage zombie enthusiasts to see this piece.
Dinner will be ready in a minute….
The source of the zombie outbreak was a bit predictable but does have a slight twist that I haven’t seen before — SPOILER — this has zombie-virus coming from witchcraft or as they elude to Vodou. Once this is revealed the film takes a bit more of a World War Z touch.
I can think of 2 z-films I’ve seen that are ‘zombies in the old-west’, I would say that this one is arguably better than the both.
As zombie make-up goes I’ve seen better and I’ve seen much worse — for what this film is the zombies look great.
Something I really appreciate about this film came from the watching the making-of piece (titled “Blood Sweat And Tears”) in the special features — this film is low budget and very DIY. It was shot in a matter of weeks and many of the crew personnel were volunteer, including family members of the director. I’d be surprised if the Civil War solders at the opening of the film weren’t volunteer reenactors. (When you watch the film with the director’s commentary he indicates that these actors were reenactors, more interestingly they’re Canadians.)