Dr. Remzi conducted inhuman experiments with patients of a psychiatric clinic, for which he was killed by his colleague Dr. Swan in his underground laboratory. Twenty years later, a girl named Jane finds herself in the same clinic. She is not crazy, just her memory has failed. In the clinic the girl begins to have nightmares and visions, but this is only the beginning of the horror in which she will plunge. Dr. Ramsey is back! And he came back not empty-handed, but with his favorite tools and a whole crowd of his regular patients…

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Before us, perhaps, the most original zombie-movie in the history of cinema. Very non-standard, bringing a lot of new things with its deep contribution to the horror genre, while following the main canons with its highly original and unlike anything else.

In the center of the picture there is no main character, there are several important actors around whom the events revolve. In the foreground comes a doctor, a psychiatrist, engaged in restoring memory in patients, and not only. We are introduced to him in the prologue. However, his personality is gradually overshadowed by the heroine, who has just memory loss. Then the main villain takes absolutely full attention of the director, eliminating the hospital staff no worse than in various slashers about psychopathic maniacs. Soon one more of the patients, a certain former bomber, becomes the key character of the movie, together with some obsessed nun, pulling out the whole ending, when the rest (except for the villain) is no longer of any concern to either the viewer or the director of this picture.

The direction, by the way, is quite good, but by no means brilliant or perfect. Many scenes deserve different angles, different lighting, and changed emphasis of attention. And the scene with the bloody screaming nurse should have been filmed in detail in close-ups, with a sliding camera, and not in such a distant glimpse, as it is done here. But, as a whole, the video sequence of the movie was successful. The cameraman was also good, the camera doesn’t shake, doesn’t shake, doesn’t warp under all kinds of angles and tilts. The camera shoots very well and correctly.

The first half of the movie reminds very much of the best (second) part of HellBound’s ‘HellBound Rising From Hell’, and clearly smacks of Reanimator specifically directed by Gordon rather than B. Yuzna’s Reanimators, and you can feel it in the clear examples of the video sequence and bits of the script. Although here science is far behind and mysticism comes to the fore.

The zombie theory here is extremely delightful and original! No viruses, no voodoo, nothing popsy-romerovskogo, thank God, here is not and does not even smell of any ‘Nights, Days and Dawns’ of the dead. The plot is not thrashy at all, not silly, but very stylish and interesting. Completely lacking in any banality, except for the constant appearance-disappearance of the surgeon-villain figure (which is predictable). The zombies here are the most original of most movies about the living dead: they are limp but very agile, cunning and fast-moving, they look very dignified and creepy, zombies die from holy water, zombies serve their master faithfully and faithfully, zombies are raised by the mystical-unexplained cause of the awakening of an ancient evil! All of these elements make the zombies themselves in every way the best, most original and coolest in all of horror history.

The disadvantage concerning zombies here lies only in the fact of their presence only in the last 30-35 minutes of the movie, the rest of the hour is devoted exclusively to the hospital theme of mystical nature with elements of slasher, which in principle is no less interesting. And in the remaining 35 minutes of the movie these zombies are shown so abundantly and openly that you can forgive the scriptwriters for such a long wait for their appearance in the frame.

The movie’s effects are pretty awesome. Head ripping, brain ripping out, sharp objects thrust into the face, decomposition from holy water – all done marvelously, beautifully, creepy and frightening.

The atmosphere in the movie is held together by the mystique and mystery of what is going on, piecing together all the elements of the script: past events, the heroine’s memory, the characters’ stories, the zombie attack. All the different threads are eventually intertwined in a single tangle of events, interconnected and linearly laid out as a result on all the shelves.

We can’t ignore the music. It is very atmospheric, meaningful, suspenseful, suitable for all the scenes where it sounds. Creepy music is a great decoration of a scary zombie-movie, creating not just a background decoration of scenes, but participating directly in the fear of the viewer, due to the sound elements of what is happening.

The actors also played very well, maximally revealing their characters. And even insignificant characters of the third-fourth plan, like a black-haired stoner, a woman calling for a man-cat, a nervous psycho and hospital staff were remembered. Very vividly expressed characters, phrases, actions and colorful appearance. The images are revealed, the images are very densely memorized, imprinting in the memory of the most different characteristics and attitudes to this or that actor of the picture. Moreover, even some zombies are clearly imprinted in the memory, as it was with L. Fulci’s ‘Flesh Eaters’, where almost every zombie is original in its own way with its own peculiarities. So, practically, here too. But, of course, a bit weaker. Still, up to ‘Flesh Eaters’ and ‘City of Living Corpses’ of the master of Italian horror, this movie failed to grow up to full-fledged.

The ending of the movie is just super great. First of all, the shocking family twist, secondly the idea of the connection to the pit and how exactly the characters decide to save themselves. Thirdly, the visual aspect of the shooting: very cool and realistic. And, of course, the scene with the ring before the credits – above all praise! That was really awesome!

The movie ‘The Well of Death’ is definitely a masterpiece, even if it doesn’t reach such powerful representatives of the genre as the first ‘Resident Evil’ by brilliant P. Anderson, ‘Flesh Eaters’ by L. Fulci, but the movie doesn’t reach them just a little. And for fans of hospital-surgery themes, it may be even better than the above-mentioned masterpieces. One of the best zombie-movies in movie history, with the coolest zombies, great music, a great denouement and a very satisfying visual-effect part of the movie.

Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265 (78.0 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: HDR10
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Audio
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0
English: Dolby Digital 2.0

Subtitles
English SDH.