Customer Reviews

Night of the Living Dorks

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am on a lengthy mission to try to review every zombie movie. My latest entry is this odd little creation from 2004, "Die Nacht der Lebenden Loser" ( a.k.a. "Night of the Living Dorks"). A German Teen Romanic Comedy Zombie flick. Why not?

First, and most important, what strain of Zombie are these "Loser" Zombies? These are the voodoo created, dorky, stoner high school variety. Aside from when Konrad gets his glowing eyes and blood lust, these are mostly cognizant zombies. They have super zombie strength and x-ray vision, but are slowly decomposing and becoming victims to their hunger for flesh. This has the "Teen Wolf" vibe where being a dork makes them outcasts, but being confident monsters makes them popular. This film has a very 80's vibe, in that respect. Not much killing or fear from these zombies, but Zombie Konrad gives us some good gore. Wurt Zombie does a good job as a stoner zombie, but he still can't top Seth Green and Elden Henson as stoner zombies in the unfairly maligned "Idle Hands". Sill, I give this a decent overall zombie score of: 6/10

The gore is pretty good in this one. Not a lot of it, but a decent enough amount for a movie that is trying to be a comedy. The microwaved foot is a great gag, so for that I will give a gore score of 6/10.

Gratuitous sexism and nudity is in the mid-range. The goth girl is supplied with sexy goth lingerie for a ritual. The "hot" girl (who is not very attractive) takes her top off in the teen-sex-comedy "nerd is going to score in the bedroom" kind of way. The best is when Zombie Konrad suddenly gets x-ray vision, and can see through a girl's pants. After that he decides it's dinner time. A gratuitous sexism and nudity score of 6/10.

The movie was not very boring. The film is entertaining and kept my interest. I never found myself reaching for the FF button on the remote. Though, the film is filled with so many 80's and 90's teen-movie clichés that I was torn between comfortable nostalgia, and being annoyed at their lack of creativity. That being said, there was a great gag during and after the "sex scene" that led to some funny zombie twists on what I would have been some very "American Pie" moments. All in all, it was an entertaining flick and so on the boredom scale (0 being boring, 10 being Dawn of the Dead) it gets a 7/10. The dialogue gets a 5/10 for being a predictable teen comedy dialogue (you know the story: dork wants to date the "hot" girl who is dating the jock, while the cute outcast girl likes the dork, but the dork doesn't see her that way. Dork has two friends: a nerd and a stoner).

Overall, I think this is an enjoyable film, and worth watching. The end of the movie is very convenient and a little too easy; and as I mentioned above, the teen comedy clichés are endless (The kids clean the house after the party just in time for the parent to walk in the door. Oh no! The parents open the one door where they stuffed all the garbage! Wah-wah!). Of course, I am sure some of the experience is lost in translation while watching the movie with subtitles. I tried the dubbed track (in true "zombie movie" fashion), but the acting was too terrible to stomach.

There is no "zombies infecting and taking over" scenario, but in the extras there is an alternate ending worth watching where that was the plot, and the last 10-15 minutes of the movie are entirely different from the fuzzy/happy ending of the final cut. This movie is not going to stir up a zombie fanatic, but it is a movie a zombie fanatic could maybe watch with a date looking for a good chuckle. Though the realization that student dynamics in high school is somewhat universal across countries is far more frightening than any of the intentional scares in this movie, "Die Nacht der Lebenden Loser" still gets a solid overall rating of 6/10 (which is a pretty good rating for a zombie movie).

First off, watch it in German with subtitles. The dubbing is horrible. Which is fine with me, I almost always watch movies in their native language with subtitles.

So, on to the movie. Sure, it's simple and predictable. It's a teen zombie movie, it's supposed to be. But it hits all the right notes, and the characters are entertaining and engaging. For zombies.

I especially liked the cemetary scene with the frozen chicken, et. al.

I don't tell the plots or story lines of the movies I review but I do offer insights into production value, cinematography, acting and special fx. All of those pieces fit beautifully in this foreign zombedy. It's worth taking a look at.

2.5 starz-voice dubbing was adequate, NOT even close to Shawn of the Dead, but if you like Zombie satire-deffinately worth a watch n decent budget-suggest rent before you buy-

Three geeks get zombified during a voodoo ritual gone bad. The script was awesome and very funny. The voice over talent was a bit disconcerting but the voice actors really did a pretty good job of translating the humor. That said I was majorly disappointed with the fact that I had to watch it with the voice over at all.
This review is for the unbox rental version. The preview of the movie showed the cast speaking the german in which it was filmed, with english subtitles. This is how I wanted to watch it. I love listening to german, I felt thoroughly ripped off and disgusted that instead of listening to beautiful german, I was stuck with a cheesy voice over track. Like i said the voice talent actually did a good job and it was a funny, sometimes even touching movie. But if you advertise it one way then show it that way! XP

Three teenage losers become undead heroes after a voodoo spell goes horribly wrong. The guys head out to exact revenge on their high school tormentors using their new found powers, while trying to win over the girls of their dreams. DORKS is sure to become a sleeper hit overseas after seeing phenomenal success in its home country of Germany, inspiring an American remake that is due out in 2010. Its classic teen misfits are perfectly cast and played with excellent comedic timing by the three leads. While the cliched humor often sinks to outrageous lows, the script is cleverly written with a sharp wit and tons of bloody gags. The film also benefits from being entirely self-aware, poking fun at genre conventions while paying homage to staple Horror entries like DAY OF THE DEAD. Dinter strikes a strong balance between the laughs and shocks as well, never favoring one over the other and including plenty of both. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DORKS is one of the most enjoyable Horror Comedies in years that will get you rooting for the underdogs!

-Carl Manes
I Like Horror Movies

Go ahead, let yourself enjoy it. Celebrate the universal attraction of teen zombies and hot-chicks.

I found it a refreshing alternative to the standard zombie gorefests.

As a zombie aficionado, I enjoyed the filmmakers' depiction of the slow progression of zombism in the main characters. The makeup was in some ways whimsical, but it actually progressed more believably than many of the more hard-core mainstream zombie movies.

I agree with the other reviews in that the dub is horrendous, however it just made the film more unbelievably campy and enjoyable for me. Seriously, if you're watching an English dub of a German romantic zombie comedy - are you really all that concerned with the quality of the voice-acting? I loved it.

One more item of note: the ritual scene where the zombie curse is inflicted on our heroes is worth the price of this DVD all by itself. Six teenagers in a cemetery in the middle of the night, conducting a zombie ritual with a frozen chicken, a band-aid and "authentic" zombie ashes purchased off the internet... It doesn't get more realistic than that. :)

I kann deutsch screiben, aber fur Die Amerikaner Amazon, ich wurde im English Screiben. Fur meinen deutsches Freundin, dies ist ein sehr gut Film.

Having bought this movie for $[...] at a retail store, my expectations were extremely low. I was afraid I had bought yet another homemoad video reocrder disaster. Then when I learned it was actually a German film, my interest rose. German is my secondary language, and it was nice to be able to buy a German film DVD in Region 1. Now if America would only release Anok, I would be happy indeed. ANyway, back to the movie.

This movie is funny, very very funny. I loved it. You got a trio of misfits at a typical high school. You got Conrad, who looks like a studious, nerdy Marilyn Manson, a California looking stoner, and a dweebish sort of guy who isn't really a nerd, but isn't all that cool either.

Well after a voodoo ritual goes wrong (Dweeb really wanted a love potion for the blonde hottie Usi), the trio crash their van while pot smoking and end up in the morgue. They do pretty well as Zombies, but COnrad has a taste for human flesh now and eats his homosexual, disciplinarian gym teacher. Dweeb begs the girl next door for help. They make a potion and get back to normal.

However their is an alternate ending which I think was better. It is in the Extra bonus section and is in German only. However if you watch the movie, and then watch the alternate ending, you can pretty much tell what is going on, since it is mostly action.

As far as frights go, this movie has none, but if you want a laugh out loud teenage comedy, Night of the Living Dorks is a must.

This show was funny but ... The preview was in German which was false advertising, but even with a marginal voice-over I still watched it twice.
For the type of movie this was trying to be the only reason it didn't get 5 stars was the translation. They should have left it in German.

I'm surprised this movie took so long to be released on dvd in the U.S. Anyway, this movie is basically "Revenge of the Nerds" and "American Pie" with zombies thrown in. And it is very funny if you like that kind of humor.