The Day They Came Back – Review

Last Updated on July 28, 2021

A little while back we clued you into a free internet zombie horror short called THE DAY THEY CAME BACK. It appeared to have cool music, and the gore evidenced in the first three minutes or so was very cool. Now I’ve had a chance to watch whole 20 minute project, and The Arrow encouraged me to throw together a mini review for those of you who might want to check it out.

WHAT SMELLED SWEET: Well it’s a zombie flick for one. That’s usually a good time and the zombie makeup was outstanding. I really felt the decay and stench coming from those bastards. Plus there was no shortage of the undead at this party. Look left…Zombies! Look right…Zombies! Look at that strange lump on your
Johnson…Well you get the idea.

Along with the impressive legions of undead was the plentiful gore. Sure there are some unfortunate off-screen kills, but you also get decapitations, intestine munching, and nasty head wounds (one nicely self-inflicted).

I also have to say that director Scott Goldberg knows how to frame a shot and get maximum value from his locations. The camera work is great to look at and does an excellent job of bringing across the urgency of the situation.

WHAT SMELLED SOUR: The plot, or lack thereof was pretty terrible. It was essentially a recycling of Zombie Cliches 101 and had a twist at the end that was unearned, unoriginal, and uninteresting. It didn’t help that none of the actors involved made any impact at all, so you never feel any emotional connection to what the much larger than needed cast was going through. That is except for when you hate two of them for abandoning a young kid to the zombies. Cowardly f*ckers.

WHAT SMELLED LIKE A TRUCK LOAD OF ___ LEFT TO ROT IN A ___ IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ORGY OF ____ WITH LOADS AND LOADS OF ____ AND ____ SMEARED ON TOP: As good as the camera work was, the editing was atrocious. It made the already poor story even harder to follow. There were many instances of in scene cuts that simply didn’t match up, and quite frankly the pacing was way off. For all the positives they managed to inject into this project , the editing ultimately makes it nearly, not completely, but nearly unwatchable.

OVERALL BOUQUET: To me this was like a homebrew that got 75% of the way there but went rotten in the last leg. Loved the gore. Loved the zombies. Loved the skill behind the camera. Had trouble believing those things were in service of what turned into such a sub-par effort. Still, worth a look if you’ve got some free time and a bunch of
tequila.

SEE THE FILM FOR YOURSELF HERE