Nefarious Films

Review by Matt Compton

Running time: 5 Mins

Where to see it: http://www.mediakiller.co.uk/filmzzz.htm

In an anonymous operating room a naked man lies strapped to a table while his lone surgeon busies himself tending to him. Of course this being the winning film in 2006’s 13 Day Halloween Horror Film Challenge this surgeon is a sinister whey-faced, sunken-eyed sadist whose chief surgical tool seems to be a large mallet. Needless to say, this does not bode well for the unfortunate ‘patient’ who is subjected to all manner of singularly nasty procedures which range from having his eye gouged out with a scalpel to having needles stuck in his toes.

ZZZ is a terrific looking film, the set is interesting and convincing and the lighting is first class. The standard of the make-up effects is fantastic and surpasses the standards of many feature length films. The wounds inflicted upon the poor nameless victim look realistic, gruesome and most importantly, very, very painful. The tools used to inflict these wounds are important in adding to the effect and mostly consist of horrifically surgical looking stainless steel contraptions with the notable exception of the afore-mentioned large mallet.

Everything ZZZ does, it does exceptionally well. The only problem is in what it doesn’t do. It doesn’t really do anything but show an extended scene of torture akin to anything you might find in Hostel or any of its like-minded brothers but without any of the underlying story. This is where this film really falls down, there just isn’t any real point to it. It does present an interesting situation which raises questions about who these people are and what they are doing but the film isn’t in any way interested in the answers to these questions and instead simply revels in its own blood drenched sadism.