ZONA 3

The entire humanity is threatened by the danger of a bacteriological attack carried out by the evil Dr. Kruegher. The army is unable to act and, at the doctor's request, a group of experts in the field, the Terminators, are called in. These six young soldiers have the task of sneaking into Zone 3, the epicenter of the contamination, and disarm three explosive devices hidden by Dr. Kruegher, which, if they were to explode, would release a gas that would turn the entire humanity into aggressive cannibalistic zombies. There was a time when Italy made films of any genre, from adventure to science fiction; a time when the most admired genre directors made low-budget films (often of questionable quality) that over time have become cult; films like "I Predatori di Atlantide," "Scontri stellari oltre la terza dimensione," "Incubo sulla città contaminata," films that have now passed into history for their inherent naivety and poverty of means that never hindered "ours" from competing even with the most famous examples from the new continent. Then, due to a total revolution in the way of making cinema in our country, these singular films gradually went extinct until their total cancellation from the current production landscape. However, there is an underground world in cinema everywhere, a dark world to most, made up of independent works, often self-produced and, for this reason, free to tackle any genre and any theme. "Zone 3" is part of this type of films: it is an independent film, made with a meager budget by a Piedmontese director, Roberto Loiacono, who, having improvised himself as the heir of Luigi Cozzi, tries his hand at an action/horror with science fiction tones. The film in question, it pains to say, is a real mess, not so much for the evident poverty that looms over any shot, but above all for the excessive presumption and seriousness with which this work has been completed. We are dealing with an improbable story that would have made any Uwe Boll in circulation drool, a story that, if treated with the right tones, could have appeared as absurd as it is funny; instead, Loiacono shoots everything with such presumption and takes himself so seriously, making his film even annoying. Firstly, if you do not have sufficient means at your disposal, it is not advisable to tackle certain themes and certain stories: for "Zone 3" the means were not there and hence providing a credible staging would have been unthinkable and so it was. Idyllic exteriors entirely shot in the Piedmontese countryside, very poor interiors, ridiculous special effects and...excessive makeup! Then, another major point of demerit concerns the duration, since the film lasts a full 135 minutes, two hours and fifteen minutes of nonsense and exhausting comings and goings in the suburban bushes, following the improbable adventures of improbable characters who have the psychological depth of a puppet built with Lego. The actors are not certainly bad (perhaps they are the best thing about the film), but they are used in the wrong roles and at the service of a screenplay (work of Loiacono himself) so poorly written and botched that it makes you miss the worst products of series C from the United States. The impression is that, all of a sudden, in the final part, too much was tried to be put on the fire, bringing together the science fiction theme of the deadly virus with delusions regarding original sin, demons, gods and government conspiracies, in an indigestible and overly boring mess. Add to this embarrassing action scenes (above all the double combat in the woods with two inexplicable monkey men dressed like the white twins of "Matrix reloaded") and poorly choreographed, poorly made special effects and plagiarisms right and left surely avoidable (what do the Barkerian cenobites have to do in the finale?) "Zone 3" had a very limited release in theaters in the city of Turin in the month of July and, it is said, that on the day of its debut it even surpassed "Silent Hill" in box office. If some distributor has the courage, it will probably be possible to rediscover "Zone 3" on DVD; I advise you to stay away from it and use the 135 minutes to take a walk, read a book or dedicate yourself to other independent products, since recently there are numerous and also of great quality.