An unusual zombie film from Italian director Pupi Avati which receives mainly negative reviews due to the incorrect advertising of the American release, which markets it as a BURIAL GROUND-style Italian gut-muncher. Instead it's a deliberately slow-paced, action-free epic which weaves a complex, dark, and mysterious plot around the viewer and is indeed difficult to comprehend at moments. As for the zombies, well they pop up at the beginning and the end to offer some good scares, but the majority of the movie is simply an atmospheric and spooky detective-thriller as the lead investigates the mystery and becomes caught up in a conspiracy with lots of shady characters.The film begins as it means to go on with an apparently possessed girl attempting to dig up a basement. When investigating scientists dig in the earth they discover a coffin containing a skeleton, which has been wreaking havoc in the house in which it is situated. Avati makes good use of shadows and lighting for maximum atmospheric impact and his direction recalls the movies of the '40s that Val Lewton produced, and indeed there's a direct reference to CAT PEOPLE with a haunting scene set at a deserted swimming pool.It turns out that this is all a flashback and the film begins proper with the film's lead, Stefano, played by the greatly unappealing Gabriele Lavia (one of the movie's biggest flaws, it has to be said) receiving a decrepit typewriter. Reading strange text on the ribbon, he meets the previous owner, a priest at the local church. The priest denies all knowledge. When he returns later on that day to question the priest further, Stefano discovers that the man was an imitator and the real person he is looking for is dead. The plot becomes even more involved with the intervention of a shadow conspiracy who commit murder to cover up the secret of the K-Zones, geographical locations in which the dead can return to life. After a spooky interlude in a cemetery (which includes a fantastic shock in which he discovers birds living in a coffin), Stefano discovers the location of one of these K-Zones at a partially-built but as yet uninhabited hotel. The scene is set for encounters with the undead...Although with its very slow pacing and almost total lack of action or violence (a single stabbing is all the film can muster), ZEDER is definitely not a film for all tastes, viewers will be rewarded by the finale which includes some very frightening moments. The finest of these in my opinion is when the main character watches (via monitors linked up to a camera) a corpse wake up in its coffin and begin laughing in an eerie manner. This really sent the chills running down my spine. The sight of the dead pushing their way up from below the ground is also effective, as are hands emerging from walls, and the film's final downbeat twist may have possibly influenced Stephen King's PET SEMATARY.The actors are as poorly dubbed as usual and the cast is of unknowns (even for an Italian movie). Lavia is miscast as the boring lead and unable to breathe life into his role, although some of the supporting actors playing the bad guys aren't bad at all. The thing I liked most about this movie was the soundtrack, with emphatic music which recalls THE BEYOND and some very weird sound effects to add to the horror. These include distorted computer effects and heavy, distorted breathing. While I don't label this a masterpiece as some others have, I did find it to be a very unique and interesting film and watching it makes me want to check out more of Avati's directorial work.

Novelist is given a second hand type writer as a gift and finds remains of previous owner's notes still on the ribbon. This leads to him investigating a man named Zeder. He finds out about Zeder's work and 'K-Zones', which I think are powerful zones where energy can be tapped into, to bring the dead back to life.It's an OK film but quite forgettable. Some of the ideas are good, about K-zones and all that but it's just a little bland overall. The ending doesn't make much sense when Zeder returns from the dead and hunts said Novelist but it doesn't explain why - is Zeder evil and wanting to kill anyone he comes across? Is he craving blood or flesh? It's as if he has a vendetta against said Novelist even though he has never interacted with him.The ending overall is an anti climax.

*Plot/ending analyzed*This is a very un-typical horror film which makes it quite refreshing and interesting. For most of the beginning I was quite enthralled by the pacing and the effort of the protagonist to reach some sort of conclusion. The start of the film shows us a house in Italy in the early 1920's and it is haunted by some horrendous and malicious ghost who has recently killed an old hag, next comes a clairvoyant and a scientist who walk into the basement where the girl clairvoyant assumes the identity of the dead man from a previous life. Once they find the bones of the man, they find a wallet and it reveals that the man was 'Edward Zeder', an albino, lunatic-philosopher who had believed in "Kai-zons", areas which were places where death had no value, this is an ancient idea which stems from the Persians and the Greeks. Arrive in Italy in the 1970's where a struggling writer who smokes too much is using a typewriter and he finds that the ribbon has some used text upon it and he types up a few papers from what he finds and has a mystery upon his hands. He goes through the usual odds and ends in an attempt to crack the mystery of the "Kai-zons" and he visits a small village where there is a cemetery and all sorts of weird people. The end of the film, in which his girlfriend dies and he takes her to a "Kai-zon" to bring her back, is a result from the lack of his willingness to have loved a living creature while she was alive and it is quite expected when she eats his neck. This is a very good film and the director is quite capable of pushing a story of interest along. For those of you expecting a zombie film, this isn't it.

Ignore Grade Z,he gave Blair Witch a good rating,any true genre fan didn't even waste their time w/ that dreck.But if yer big into Bava,Argento,Soavi,Baino and the like this film will knock you out.Genuinely creepy in a Very Italian way.American directors just can't get the atomosphere like these guys can.An incredible film that deserves to be Much more widely seen!!!So if Deep Red,Blood and Black Lace,House w/the windows that laughed and Cemetery Man are yer thing,ya gotta check this out!