Review: Legion of the Night (1995)

First I´d like to thank Matt Jaissle for sending me a screener.
Professor Bloom (Bill Hinzman) a renegade scientist, sells his expertise on reanimating the dead to Vansemie (Jeff Rector) a Detroit mobster. Soon an army of Cybernetic Zombie Assassins is unleashed upon Vansemie´s mob enemies, after one last hit, Vansemie destroys all evidence, including Professor Bloom, in a hail of gunfire. Coming back from Europe, Bloom´s son Taylor (Tim Lovelace)teams up with his father´s assistant Russell (Ron Asheton) and realising that the only thing that can stop the zombie killers is more of the same, they create their own version to bring down Vansemie´s army of zombies.  Unfortunatly the plan goes horribly wrong and anyone who gets in their way becomes fodder for the fueding super assassins in their wild rampage across  Detroit. Legion of the Night is written and directed by Matt Jaissle and is also known as Dead City and it´s a fresh twist to the zombie genre. The acting ranges from decent to pretty bad, the camera work and editing is ok. There are some lapses in logic, not sure if it´s due to script or editing but as usual I won´t go into details as I then would risk spoilers and I do try too keep my reviews free from spoilers. The soundtrack is good. There is some gore, it´s all practical gore make-up fx but it isn´t as gory as you might expect as the gore is mostly limited to gunshot wounds. By the way, the gorehound in me would have loved if the squibs would have been a bit juicier. The Cybernetic Zombie Assassins look pretty cool in their all-body black suits and masks, equipped with exploding throwing stars, spring blade battle claws besides handguns and shotguns. I actually think that they use real guns (firing blanks) in this film instead of airsoft guns that nowadays are very common in independent flicks.
This review is based upon a screener sent to me, Legion of the Night has earlier been released as Dead City in the UK on region 2 DVD but that release is now out of print and Matt Jaissle is currently looking for a distributor.
Rating: 3½ out of 7. Legion of the Night is fairly entertaining but it´s strictly recommended for fans of low budget horror/action.

/JL