Zombie Movie Review: Zombiegeddon

Also posted at http://www.revenantmagazine.com/)

Vector image for movie Zombiegeddon

At last, a decent Zombie Movie! After a few weeks of boring unoriginal zombie flicks I felt I needed a reboot so turned to Troma to help me out of the lull. Thankfully Zombiegeddon delivers the trash I have been craving, and more.

The plot of Zombiegeddon is just some insane nonsense about the Devil summoning up a bunch of zombies to wipe out the whole population, but it is basically just an excuse to get from set-piece to set-piece, with a bunch of b-movie celebrity cameos thrown in for good measure. We have Jesus Christ (Tom Savini) in bed with Brinke Stevens, Lloyd Kaufman as a cowardly caretaker and Linnea Quigley as a school principal. There is a zombie hunter who takes his son and his pet zombie-eating tiger out on patrol with him, some incredibly corrupt cops who just murder innocent people for kicks and a cop vs zombie kung-fu fight!

The highlights for me were Lloyd Kaufman’s homophobic janitor who mistakes the zombies for some homosexuals, and runs off to hide in a closet for the remainder of the film, as well as a scene where the 2 cops pull over a carload of boys using some very suspect interrogation techniques.

If it were to be judged on technical merit then it would fail abysmally. The quality of the filming here is pretty dire, with some bottom-drawer acting, terrible sound recording and laughably bad gore (seriously, I swear I saw the bucket come into view when a load of blood was spurted\thrown onto a wall), but none of this matters when you’re watching a who’s who of trashy horror complete with a zombie-eating tiger in it.

For extra laughs I highly recommend reading some of the user reviews on the IMDB site for this film. Seriously, some people just don’t get it.

Gore Score C
Norks Score B+
Originality Score C
Overall Score B+

Zombie Movie Review: Poultrygeist

Also posted at http://www.revenantmagazine.com/)

vector image for zombie movie Poultrygeist

If there were ever a zombie film that was crying out to be made it is this zombie-chicken-lesbian-musical-romantic-horror-comedy movie, also known as Poultrygeist.  Yes, Troma come up trumps again with possibly the greatest Zombie movie of the decade.  Everything that you could ever want in a movie is present here.  Gore, Nudity, Horror, Comedy, Music, Dancing and Zombie Chickens.  Hell, even fat dudes pebble-dashing restaurant toilets in disgusting brown slurry.  This film has everything.  Sheesh, there is even a plot occurring here somewhere, if that’s what you’re into.

A new fast-food chicken restaurant is opening that happens to have been built on an ancient Indian burial ground, and the displaced Indian spirits are none too pleased.  To teach the owners a lesson the spirits decide to take over the carcasses of the dead chickens and cause havoc and murder towards both employees and customers alike within the new establishment.

Not everyone is overjoyed at the prospect of a new chicken snackery, in particular the local lesbian protest group; the College Lesbians Against Multiconglomorates (C.L.A.M).  One such lesbian happens to be the ex-girlfriend of local loser Arbie, who decides to teach his ex a lesson by getting a job in the chicken establishment and serving the dead birds to all who come along.

However, mearly minutes after beginning his shift on opening day the possessed chickens kick off their plan, killing off several staff members and splattering guts all over the walls.  This is just the beginning.

What follows are musical numbers, dances, naked lesbian romps, gore, satire, explosions, blood and even a truly disgusting toilet scene involving Troma favourite ‘Lardass’ which needs to be seen to be believed (or never EVER seen if you have a remotely sensitive stomach).

This is without doubt the greatest Troma film ever made, the greatest zombie musical ever made, one of the goriest zombie movies ever made, and the best undead chicken film that has ever seen the light of day.  Even to take a remotely serious note for a second (which is is almost heresy for a troma movie) this film hits every catagory any Zombie lover could ever wish for.  Social satire that is up there with Romero.  Gore easily on par with Savini.  Enough nudity to please even the harshest of 12 year old critics, and even a musical score that is genuinely inventive and impressive.

To put it simply, Poultrygeist is possibly the one film that could transform a Troma-hater into a Troma-fanatic, and that is quite an impressive achievement.

Gore Score A
Norks Score A
Originality Score A
Overall Score A

Zombie Movie Review: Redneck Zombies

(Also posted at http://www.revenantmagazine.com/)

Vector image for movie Redneck Zombies

So, from one end of the Zombie Film spectrum to the other. Redneck Zombies, possibly the trashiest zombie film i’ve seen in a long long time, and about as far removed from the Living Dead at Manchester Morgue as My Chemical Romance is from Quality Music.

To even remotely enjoy this movie you have to appreciate the glory that is Troma : independent cinema of the highest quality. Weighing in at about 0\10 on the acting, script, directing and intellect scale, Redneck Zombies isn’t even the slightest bit bothered about aiming for the mainstream, and all the better for it.

A family of Rednecks come into possession of a barrel of toxic waste (ie – they rob an army guy transporting it loosely on the back of his jeep) and proceed to use the contents to brew up their special brand of Moonshine, which they then send their gender-curious sibling off with to sell to the whole population of the surrounding village. Strangely unperturbed at drinking neon-green liquid out of jamjars that was brewed by inbreds, the locals quaff down the liquid and naturally become radioactive zombies. Unknowing of this turn of events the remaining redneck family decide to sample the brew themselves, which leads to a 10 minute zombie transformation scene, more akin to a cheap neon 80′s music video than a quality zombification (see 28 weeks later for possibly the greatest scene of this ilk).

While everyone is indulging in zombie-moonshine a collection of out-of-towners have descended on the area to go camping, unfortunately pitching up about 100 yards from the zombie chemical still. A couple of the ladies of this group get picked off buy the redneck family in fantastic Troma style (ludicrously over-the-top gore flying all over the place, rubber eyeballs sucked out of plastic skulls, blood and guts smeared all over the floor. You know the drill), leaving the remainder or the group to go hunting for them, discovering and attacking any zombie along the way, some successfully, some less so.

There are some amazing scenes here – the delivery boy discovering a gagged girl in a house of rednecks who is forced to watch a documentary on baby chickens being slaughtered – a couple of inbreds sat watching a close-up pair of norks on TV covered in cream and cherries while they chat in Beavis and Butthead style ‘I like knockers’, ‘yeah, I like knockers too’ – a local woman feeding the green zombie alcohol to her 3 year old son who for some reason is sat in a washing machine. Not to forget the ace Autopsy scene where one of the townies attempts an autopsy on a zombie while high on LSD, and proceeds to hallucinate that each of the organs are actually various props such as human shoes or plastic dolls, before realising what he’s doing and promptly vomiting into the corpses open chest.

Yes it’s trash, yes it’s god-awful, but it’s distributed by Troma so you should know what you’re letting yourself in for. Hell, it’s better than Buttcrack at least.

Gore Score B
Norks Score D
Originality Score C
Overall Score C