Zombie Bloodbath Review

How the ratings work:

Will more than likely cause head trauma.
Not a good movie.
Like your first sex experience. Some good but mostly bad.
Give it a watch. Pretty good if you have nothing better to do.
The cream of the crop of bad movies. Watch!

Director: Todd Sheets
Rated: UR
Runtime: 70 Minutes
Writers: Jerry Angell , Todd Sheets
Stars: Chris Harris, Auggi Alvarez and Frank Dunlay
Copyright: Trustinus Productions, Extreme Entertainment
Tagline: Unearthed! Unstoppable! Undead!

My rating:

**********************************************************************************

Who you’ll see:

Joey: Tubby, video maker. He runs away a lot.

Beth: Joey’s sister. Dumb enough to explore a “cave.” Falls in hole.

Larry: Joey’s dad, Loves his video camera, mullet master. Eventually has guts pulled out through his bum, Mullet remains intact.

Gwen: Joey’s mom.

Mike: Grunge kid, Joey’s friend. He get’s goaded into going with Beth to explore a “cave” Falls in a hole and almost off a bridge. He apparently hates the United States.

Ralph: Mike’s dad, Former military, ass kicker, Keeps long rope in his trunk.

Dave: Little brother of Mike.

Daria: Niece of Beth. She conveniently knows all the backstory.

Generic members of a girl gang: They fight each other and eventually are eaten by zombies.

****************************************************************************************

What we learned:

Nuclear melt downs have only two results: A.) Face melting. B.)Zombies

Children hang out at a nuclear power plants.

Always carry rope in your trunk.

Tennis racket not the best weapon against zombies.

When not eating people zombies like to sit very still.

Fences are the natural enemy of the zombie.

Some zombies just want to hug you.

Pushing zombies is the best way to fight them.

Everyone in Kansas City is related.

****************************************************************************************

Things you need to see:

Need to fake a power plant? Paint some air conditioning units silver. –1:00

Ice cream sundae anyone? –1:48

Greatest mullet of all time—8:20

Shameless plug of filmmakers other movie!—11:18

The Mullet has radar.—31:48

Is that his butt they’re pulling his guts out of?—33:00

They couldn’t try to disguise the mullet?—46:35

Did a zombie just laugh at her falling?—49:03

At least this time he’s wearing a jacket.—50:25

****************************************************************************************

What to listen for:

“If I can’t cut ya no one will!”—girl gang leader to rival gang leader.

“This sounds like a trashy zombie flick to me!”—Ralph (mullet guy) ding ding ding!

“Like we consume meat and so must they…only we’re the damn cattle.”—Old guy.

“I can’t even think its dead quiet.”—rocker kid.

*****************************************************************************************
What Happens?

Todd Sheets is a prolific if not quite successful make of ultra low budget b movies. The movies (as with many a low budget horror) use zombies. Sheets movies are generally tagged as zombie gore fests (and being that they have zombies in them rightfully so.) but they should more frequently be placed in another subgenre. The subgenre is known as “carnography.” It gained this name due to its porn-like method of taking graphic scenes involving bodily fluids (generally blood) and wrapping them in run of the mill storylines and dialogue. This is the area Todd Sheets and his movies hover, and he is nothing if consistent.

The movie begins with a boardroom full of suits in construction hats and a random military guy. They appear to know a nuclear meltdown is imminent. They quickly make a call to get the place shut down but the poor guy who answers the call gets a face full of steam. He quickly turns into a drippy ice cream sundae. Ice cream face is the unfortunate fate of a few people. The rest of course become zombies. As the few who haven’t melted or turned to zombies try to flee they are met with our first horde of zombies. The group that includes some children are hungry and quickly (not really) get to chomping. We shoot back and forth between zombies eating guts and faces being melted.

Shoot forward 10 years and a reporter informs us that a housing complex was built on the grounds. We meet the Mike (Auggi Alvarez), Joey (Chris Harris) and his sister Beth (Cheryl Metz). They are ready to go on an adventure with their father’s video camera. They go to a “cave” on the edge of town. After a few moments of goading Beth and Mike decide to explore while Joey films some trees. Beth and Mike fall into a hole and Joey does his best lassie impersonation. He runs home to mom and dad.

This is where we meet the true star of the movie. The parents are Larry and Gwen played by Jerry Angell and Cathy Metz respectively. The real star of course is Jerry’s amazing mullet! “Did something happen to the camera” screams the father when Joey cries there’s been an accident. They form a plan and meet up with Mike’s dad (Frank Dunley) at the “cave”.

Sometime between when the kids fell in the hole and the parents arriving great lighting was installed in the cave. Ralph (Mike’s dad) is an old military guy and of course carries the longest rope in the history of ropes in his trunk. He safely rescues the children and they plan to rendezvous at his place for a celebratory cook out. After stuffing themselves silly with hotdogs they agree the boys can go back to their place to watch a zombie flick.

Shameless plug alert: The movie “on tv” is none other than Todd Sheets’ Zombie Rampage!

The boys watch it and then all fall asleep on the couch—this may or may not be a statement about the quality of the above movie. A noise wakes them up and they go to investigate.

NEVER INVESTIGATE.

Suddenly there is a group of zombies at their kitchen window. They decide the best thing to do is to go hide in the basement, but magically there is a zombie down there. Maybe the parents kill hobos? They call their parents and the adults rush on over.

Once out of Ralph’s place they are met by a horde of ineffectual zombies. They easily (if not sacredly) push their way through them. Yes I said push. Ralph has a shot gun and shoots 1 dead but other than that they just wiggle their way through the hungry masses.

This is the main flaw of the movie. The main characters run and push through hordes of zombies who only seem to want to hug and hold them. The flesh craving deadies don’t even attempt to bite them. A few shoves or kicks and the heroes are free. Perhaps to throw us a bone we are given random characters that are quickly tackled and eaten. They are just walking like normal and bam zombie horde here to eat ya!

This is about the time we meet a random girl (Kasey Rausch) sleeping on her couch. She wakes up, checks her watch, grabs a gun and heads out the door. As soon as she is outside a group attacks her, but seeing as they just paw at her we know she is now a main character. She fumbles for her keys and gets in her car, only to be thwarted by her fumble fingers. She can’t get the keys in the ignition and on the third try runs out the other car door as the zombies just watch her go.

The next morning she arrives at Larry and Gwen’s house to find them all sleeping peacefully on the floor and couches. It’s now we find out that she is Daria, Gwen’s niece. We also learn that she is simply there to explain everything that is happening. They listen as she tells them about the nuclear power plant and the cave. Ralph decided it’s up to them to seal it off and he has the firepower to pull it off.

Meanwhile on the other side of town there is a “subplot” involving two rival girl gangs. No really I’m serious! One is mad that the other is encroaching on their turf and they intend to stop it. A fight ensues that we don’t see. Instead we get a cut away shot of the moon and dark sky. This happens a lot. After killing one of the girls and knocking out the other “generic girl gang A” needs to dump their bodies. Where? Why in the “caves” on the edge of town.

They say they’ll drop them in a hole (presumably the one our heroes fell in) but then end up burying one? They leave the other one to die unburied and leave. After they do we get a horribly comical shot of zombies climbing over/coming out of the dirt where they just buried the body.

The gang (3 girls) is confronted by the leader of the girls looking for revenge. They’re about to fight when a zombie horde attacks. They quickly kill the 2 girls of “generic girl gang A” and the two leaders run off together. After some exposition the two girls wander to the housing complex and are eventually devoured.
Back to our heroes who are slowly making their way to the old power plant. They’ve stopped at Ralph’s to arm themselves with dynamite and guns. Guns they never really use. As they make their way tragedy strikes! We lose Larry and his wonderful mullet. The zombies appear to pull his guts out through his bum and he dies with the mullet intact. Never fear the mullet will make several more appearances later on.

Finally at the cave and Ralph decides it’s best to leave his youngest son, Beth and the mother outside while he and the rest enter the ruins. He does leave them with one little handgun though. Ralph, Daria, Mike and Joey weave through the building that is still fully lit.

They meet some zombies. After running/pushing their way through them they walk some more.

And meet some more zombies and then some more.

Eventually they make it into a room that someone luckily left important papers on a desk to be discovered. Here Daria (of course) tells us the story of what happened. It involves Indian burial grounds and curses and other clichéd things. So the initial melt down was caused by an Indian curse?

O…..K

It’s about this time that the mullet appears as 2 (count them two) different zombies that just happen to have the same exquisite mullet. At least he doesn’t smile while chasing our doomed heroes, like some of the extras do.

Then there are more zombies of the pawing variety. Daria sacrifices herself so the others can run away. Of course sacrifices herself here just means lets the zombies grab at her a while before running away herself.
Eventually she runs into her fellow heroes and they make their way through the complex and back to the entrance. This is where he sets the 3 sticks of dynamite.

Really?

Why did they go into the complex if they were going to detonate the dynamite at the entrance? Anyways the explosion works and the hole is sealed. Now why didn’t the Government think to do that? All is saved…except here are more zombies and one by one our heroes tragically fall. After the credits we are given a scene at a video store. A man would like a zombie flick. As he searches he is of course attacked by zombies, as is the clerk. Larry and his mullet make another appearance here. As the bit ends “The End” and a question mark pops up. The threat of a sequel was the scariest moment of all. There of course are 2 more Zombie Bloodbath films.

Zombie Bloodbath’s main flaw also appears to be its main purpose. Sheets doesn’t appear to want to tell a good story but rather revel in the gore it can provide. Carnography at its finest (or worst)is on display the entire movie. There is more effort in the gut eating and ripping scenes than any other part of the movie. The extras smile and at one point I believe laugh. The zombies all look like able bodied people with smudges on them. At one point you can even see people going about their daily lives in the background as a zombie horde stumbles forward. The story and dialogue is just an afterthought.

~ by ClevelandPoet on March 4, 2011.