I’m not very good at running a website.
Why? I’ve had Zombie Town in my Netflix instant queue since well before Halloween, along with a handful of other zombie movies — all of which I planned on reviewing before the October 31st. Obviously, that didn’t happen. However, I did manage to view and review Gangs of the Dead before my self-imposed deadline, meaning I’m not completely awful at running a website.
Zombie Town is not a very good zombie movie. It attempts to accomplish feats such as scaring you, making you laugh, and forming a bond between the viewer and the film’s characters; all of which are necessary for a successful zombie movie, none of which the movie accomplishes. Zombie Town did manage to impress me with buckets of gore, some cheesy one-liners, and a Romeronian portrayal of the living dead, meaning it isn’t completely awful.
I also expect at least three people to read this, meaning I’m awful at getting my hopes up, just like I am at running a website.
Review:
I started my day by waking up around 10:30 AM, taking a piss and wondering why my urine smelled so bad. Something I drank, obviously. But what? Regardless, I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and headed back to my room to bury myself in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask for a few hours. Pretty standard start to a day if you ask me.
Zombie Town opens with a scene depicting the very beginning of the zombie apocalypse. Some trashy rednecks go hunting in the woods, one redneck is running from something, that redneck falls over his dead redneck best friend’s redneck corpse, and then is pulled off camera by something I’m assuming to be a zombie.
Back at redneck headquarters, some more rednecks sit and talk about their redneck lives when they’re attacked by their redneck friend. Blah, blah, blah. Boring and lacking in innovation is one way to describe the opening sequence here, and sadly it’s also a pretty solid way to describe the rest of the film.
It is also here that we run into our first problem. The actors playing the rednecks are simply awful. But of course, nailing a character as sophisticated as a buck-toothed, mullet-rocking hick who, for whatever reason, likes to tease his white trash friend about peeing the bed when he’s drunk can be a very daunting task, especially when you’ve only got maybe seven lines before your character is never heard from again. I totally understand how even the most talented actor could mess that up.
But really, how do you manage to completely fuck up every single line you have? That goes for all of you rednecks in the opening scene. You suck.
At least the acting throughout the remaining section of the film is better. No, I’m fucking with you. It’s just as bad, if not worse, but only until you realize this movie is supposed to be a comedy. Maybe. At any rate, at least pretending it’s a comedy on purpose make it much more enjoyable when you hear dialogue as brilliantly crafted as “Oh my lord. It’s like a God damn grandma massacre in here” and “Jesus, it’s sucking out the spine!?”
Stilted dialogue like that, only less hilarious and awesome, plagues the entire film, making it hard to want to follow the story, care about the characters, or believe in the sincerity of the conversations taking place. But none of that matters, because you don’t care. I don’t care. That’s why I’m bad at running this site. That and the fact that I couldn’t even keep the theme of comparing my incompetence to the lackluster quality of Zombie Town going through this whole review. I suck.
Final Words:
Zombie Town sucks as a film. The quality is awful, with lighting issues, fluidity problems, inconsistent volume levels, and a poorly-written script that is poorly executed by the actors. However, the movies still wins points for the entertaining, cringe-worth gore (though bloody scenes aren’t any where near common enough) and a depiction of zombies that stays faithful to George A. Romero’s design. This isn’t enough to make it a good zombie movie, but it’s enough to keep it from being an absolutely awful one.
Score: 5.0/10 (Mediocre)