According to the box, today’s selection is the Best independent horror movie of the year. And The U.S. answer to Shaun of the dead. What those statements tell me is that 2004 must have been really shit year for independent horror films. And that if the Question is Shaun of the Dead, Americans certainly don’t know the answer. I took time out for the day to search Ain’t it Cool News's website for the quote comparing it to Shaun of the Dead. The closest I found was QUINT having seen the film the same week as Shaun of the Dead and telling us he wasn’t crazy about it. So I guess there really isn’t much truth in those little blurbs on the front of video boxes.
I was hoping for surprise here. Like when I watched Shaun of the Dead, Dog Soldiers or the Descent or Hatchet from recommendations by Ain’t It Cool news. Those are fantastic horror films, and I wish to god I was reviewing any one of those. Instead I bring you this shitfest. A movie that tried so hard with forced humor that it falls flat on its face. At one point a character slips on some blood for like 3 minutes of screen time, with goofy sound effects. It made sure it had all the goofy clichéd characters. The nerd, the jerk, the bitch, the know-it-all, I’m still not sure if it was on purpose or it was the result of bad writing. The acting is far beyond top notch either. Which is queer cause I’ve seen many of the actors here, like Portia Del Rossi, Bianca Lawson, Jeremy Sisto fare a lot better in other material, but the lame attempt at comedic writing just left every performance feel wooden, including the guest stars. Which included a bizarre turn from Diedrich Bader with a phony French accent. I almost turned the film off when Diedrich catches someone peeing in the bushes. “Don’t let me catch you with your Dick in My Bush again” That’s probably the genius writing that made them compare this to Shaun of the Dead.
We also get treated to a 60 second of screen time cameo from David Carradine. He’s so underused here I’m surprised they even bothered to get him. But his character is the one that sets everything in motion. It was hard watching David Carradine in this film, my first viewing of his work since his death. He played a weird old guy who runs a Bed and Breakfast that the Gang of friends of the film stay in. He also collects Asian artifacts, I scanned his room for a penis shrine. The film gets increasingly hard to watch when our gang of characters discover his lifeless body. Anyways the movie wastes more of our time figuring out the mystery of his death, when finally one of “the Gang” opens up an Asian artifact and unleashes a Zombie invasion on the town.
Of course they encounter a mysterious drifter who can tell them how to save the town and themselves, because he’s a master of all things Zombie related. And he informs them that these aren’t really Zombies, but people whoa re caught somewhere between the dead and the living. Sounds like Zombies to me dude. The film at this point has turned into an Evil Dead knockoff, with one of the bad characters channeling Evil Ash. At one point someone fights a chainsaw and I caught myself saying “Groovy.” and was surprised the character didn’t say it himself. And located In the same closed he found the chainsaw? An Evil Dead poster.
The movie is almost completely over when the zombie killings begin and finally almsot kind of save it. They did have some good old fashioned killing effects. No CGi here. One of the characters then yells, “This is like a bad horror movie.” I just wanted to yell It’s not self parody when your movie sucks, it's just a putdown then.
The film was also narrated by the Hillbilly Hellcats, a hip-hop square dance group, who go from bad jokes to decent sounding music. They eventually get turned into Zombies themselves and still manage to rock a musical number.
The movie always keeps shooting itself in the foot. square dancing zombies was funny. Thriller zombies not so much. Every time they take a stop forward they take two back. With bettwr writers this movie could have been good. It’s easy to make a Zombie flick. To make a funny one is another story.
For the decent gore effects, The musical accompaniment and one characters creative makeshift shotgun, I give the movie, 2 asshats.
Still if this is what passes as Zombie movies these days. Then I think I’m getting a little tired of them. There’s always Vampires to fall back on.
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