Allow me to take you on a journey…
I finished and submitted my first review for www.Filmarcade.net and was given
another list of films from which I could choose three. First on the list was Zombie
Babies. I thought, “Dude, Zombies + Babies = awesomeness. How could this
possibly be bad? I mean it’ll probably be bad, but bad in a good way, right? Totes,
now, let’s play Borderlands 2. Sweet!”
Yesterday I come home from work and there is a package in my door. “Movies!” I
exclaimed in sheer delight and opened up the package. The cover for Zombie Babies
depicts a sonogram of a zombie baby. I was immediately excited. I turn it around
and read the synopsis and saw some gory photos and a puppet zombie baby. I
was super stoked. Then this morning, 10-6 10:00 a.m. EST, I got up and threw it
in the ol’ Xbox and prepared myself for cheesy awesomeness…the only cheese was
that European Maggot Cheese, you know, the “delicacy” where maggots eat the
cheese, then people eat the cheese excrement from the maggots, yeah, that, and no
awesomeness whatsoever.
How do I begin to describe this cinematic abortion that is about abortions? Well,
here we go:
The following is from the back of the case. Anything in () is me putting it in plain
terms: “When a local entrepreneur, (Two rednecks), advertises a new, painless,
late-term abortion method, a group of couples (forgettable rubes), flock to his hotel
(/casino), to take advantage. During their weekend retreat, (apparently going
to a hotel/casino for an abortion counts as a retreat), a freak accident, (a still of
moonshine exploding), reanimates the (pile of) fetuses, filling them with the desire
for vengeance and a taste for human flesh.”
Ok, I’m still all in at this point as I am expecting an ultra-low budget, Charles Band style of film here. I was wrong. Dead wrong! This film was TERRIBLE and not in that good way.
There was a ton of green screen. Note to aspiring directors out there: Make sure
the D.P. and the person in charge of the keying in post knows what the hell they are
doing! Parts of people clashed with the screen and bits of them were masked out,
puppeteers looked like Predator the way they were attempted to be masked out.
Look, obviously this was low budget, I get that, but there are still basic things you
can do for free (BitTorrent and Google) to make it look semi-good, or taking the
time, good.
When we are first introduced to the morons, excuse me, characters, it’s done on
a terrible green screened background with repeating digital fog (it casually fills
the screen, then once full, it starts over empty, and then casually fills the screen
again. Very jarring, err, annoying.) In the special thanks, they thank the town of
Sutton. Are there no wooded areas in Sutton to get a decent exterior shot? With
all the effort they put into the bad screening, they could’ve done it right in a natural
environment.
The sound design/editing…wait there was none. There are sequences where there
was supposed be dialogue dubbed in and wasn’t. See 1:04:57 into the film for the
most egregious offense. There was virtually no sound FX at all, no splats, no thumps,
no nothing…NOTHING, I TELLS YA!
The direction was what it was. As the old saying goes, “You can’t polish a turd.” But
boy, did the director really try, and kept trying, even when the turd got all smeared
across everything. He was determined (pounds the table) to polish that turd. An A
for effort, bud. I really feel like this had the potential to be something awesome, low
budget or not. You had the FX and you had puppets. PUPPETS, DUDE! FREAKIN’
USE THEM RIGHT!!! Might as well have just made them digital as well.
The script also was what it was: Basic, to the point, and very irreverent. It had all
the trappings of a potentially good/bad low budget horror flick: bad dialogue, some
nudity, terrible characters that were all fodder for the babies, a bad plot, etc.
The main characters, Burt Fleming, owner of the Hotel/Casino and basically a mash
up of all of Bill Moseley’s psycho redneck characters i.e. Choptop and Otis from
House of 1,000 Corpses, and his man servant/minion, Teddy were kind of ok. (That
is being generous, like “if I won the Powerball and gave you 95% of the winnings”,
kind of generous.) The rest of the cast was a vapid, forgettable mix of Jock, Fat guy,
Prom Queen, Honest Guy, Honest Girl, Hooker, Rich Guy, Bitch. Now once again,
I know this is low budget, but a good director can direct actors to deliver what
you want. The true star of this film was the character Kevin’s T-shirt, which was a
picture of a Question block from Super Mario Bros. 1, and underneath it said, “I’d hit
that.”
As for the special features, I didn’t even listen to the commentary because, nothing
this bad could be explained away. I fast forwarded through the “Making of” and saw
they shot this on a Canon DSLR. I’ve worked with these and they produce awesome
looking footage. I don’t know what happened.
If this, a poorly directed, poorly mastered final product was your intention, Director
Eamon Hardiman, congrats, you delivered!
This film “Jose Consecoed” me. If you by chance ever view this, you’ll understand
what that term means, and you will probably feel the same. (It’s bad).
-1,000,000,000/10
I'm currently conducting a "zombie month" type of deal at my blog, and saw this and was kind of excited...but damn, it just sounds like it's not worth my time...AT ALL! Cause normally I like bad movies that are fun to watch, but this doesnt even look like it's enjoyable on any level. Thanks for the warning!