Zombie Double Bill
Reviews by Nick Peron
More often than not I end up reviewing zombie movies, and I am sure it has a lot to do with the fact that over the last five years or so, they happen to be the popular thing when it comes to horror films. They don't require a lot of effort to put together if you just want to make a quick movie, so I suppose that's why people do them. I usually classify zombie movies into two categories: (1) brilliance and (2) trainwrecks. We're going to take a look at two movies that fit either one category or the other, so let's go!
Die and Let Live
With the amount of zombie movies out there, one would think that the well of ideas had run dry, But for filmmakers, from the zero-budget independent to the major studios, it appears that there is no end in sight. For such a simple concept -- the dead coming back to life to terrorize the living -- it can be put in many contexts, and the story telling potential is endless. From a simple gimmick (Zombieland
Die and Let Live follows Benny and Smalls (played by Josh Lively and Zane Crosby from the internet series "2 Dudes & A Sweet Prince" which, by the way is funny. Watch it.) The two are best friends, and when Benny falls head over heels over Stephanie (Sarah Bauer) who is being cheated on by her boyfriend Andrew (Jonas Dixon), the two buddies contrive a party so that Benny can win the heart of Stephanie. However, as luck would have it the local science research lab has had an accidental outbreak of zombies (oops!) While their leader (the talented Trent Haaga) scrambles to contain the zombies, they -- of course -- grow out of control and infest the town.
The zombies are not the central focus of the film but the friendship between Benny and Smalls and Benny's romance woes. Things are complicated by the fact that his friend Liz (Ashley Goddard) has a crush on him, however he is not the slightest bit interested. Rounding off the cast are Benny and Smalls' friends: Cable access TV late show camera man Adam (played by Henrique Couto) and Squints (Jordan Hess) who's girlfriend is nary seen but is always calling on the cell phone. As the party kicks off the zombies slowly lurch their way to munch on the unwary party goers.
Complications are made between Benny's attempts to win over Stephanie when her ex shows up, and ultimately she falls for Smalls instead creating turbulence in their friendship. I won't spoil the movies ending, but if you're expecting it to be a cut and dry Hollywood ending, you'll be in for quite the surprise.
What makes this movie entertaining and a fun watch is the fact that the dialogue is well written, the characters are fleshed out very nicely and the dialogue is hilarious. The movies shining characters are of course the main characters Benny and Smalls .
I also applaud Josh and Zane for writing a guy-tries-to-win-the-girl story that is more realistic of any tripe that comes out of Hollywood these days. This isn't a headstrong guy who knows *exactly* what he wants and wins the girl at the end. He's a young guy who's unsure of himself and is scrambling to do whatever he can to try and win the girl at the end.
The zombies, are not by any stretch of the imagination, very impressive looking. They're just regular people with fake blood and bite wounds on them. Which is fine, because firstly these zombies are not the central focus of the movie.. Plus all the characters were freshly turned into a zombie -- I think it's ridiculous to assert the idea that to be a convincing zombie they have to be mangled decaying corpses? Visually, I can agree that they are unremarkable when you compare it to the monstrosities that a few million bucks of make-up effects can do for a big budget zombie movie -- but like I said, they are circumstantial to the story-arch and a minor plot point at best.
This movie is a horror-comedy, and when it comes to the comedy aspect, this movie shines. There are a lot of funny jokes, sight gags, and goofy concepts that land their punches well. It's a very amusing thing to watch, and it's again where the good writing in the film pays off. The fact that they can have the characters more concerned about fighting through a zombie hoard to get a stack of pizzas thy ordered over car keys to escape in and of itself is hilarious. The movie also utilizes a number of flashback segways that are hilarious. as well, some of the funniest stuff I've seen in a while.
When it comes to horror movies that use dialogue and humor to deliver their social commentary, it's either pass or fail. To make a base association, this movie is like what would happen if Kevin Smith made a zombie movie and it didn't suck. I've seen other movies try to do this (the painful vampire flic Tainted
Also other than Trent Haaga, watch out for a cameo appearance by Lloyd Kaufman and the voice of my personal favorite scream queen, the talented Debbie Rochon.
So if you want to watch a quirky little zombie movie that's a whole lot of fun, you will enjoy Die and Let Live.
Hillbilly-Bob Zombie
In direct contrast to Die and Let Live, we have Hillbilly-Bob Zombie, which, I will give credit for trying to be a good zombie movie and fell a little short.
Hillbilly Bob Zombie stars the very talented and hillarious Sal Lizard playing Hillbilly Bob, a local moonshine maker who lives with his retarded son Junior (Chris Burdulis), his wife (Brenna Roth of Heavy Mental fame) and trailer trash, pig-tailed daughter (Danille Webster). While out looking for a barrel to make his famous moonshine, he and Junior come across a barrel of biohazardious material, dumping it out it's contents into a stream and go off to make moonshine with it, completely oblivious to what it is that is inside the barrel (Because they're illiterate red-necks you see...) Naturally the towns folk come for a huge moonshine party and those who drink the moonshine turn into flesh eating zombies and eat everyone else while Hillbilly Bob and his family sleep off the nights debauchery.
Of course, the next day the family wakes up to a horde of zombies outside, and are pulled away one by one to be part of the zombie feeding frenzy until a SWAT team shows up and blows all the zombies away.
The film is by Ray Basham. This is his second film. It shows.
I would first like to comment on the premise of the film. Rednecks who use a barrel that once contained hazardious material to make moonshine that turns people into zombies. Kind of sounds like... Well Redneck Zombies
Hillbilly Bob Zombie... Well if there is an element their got from Redneck Zombies, it would be the plodding part. Because this movie plods along A LOT. If there is one thing I would recommend is tighter editing, and trim the fat. I get that the guy probably wanted a feature length, but the movie just didn't have enough plot to it to span that long, and it shows with all the padding.
It becomes very apparent of this during the moonshine party scene, which is about a good 25 minutes of people sitting around while (over dubbed) music is playing, pretending to get drunk. This in itself wouldn't be so bad if they developed the characters or had diologue that you could hear. The major flaws of a scene like this is that Bashin's used a lot of wide angle shots. Which in an outdoor environment, and using the microphone that is built into the camera is going to cause all sorts of audio problems. The subjects are too far away and are all talking over each other, combined with a crackling fire and overdubbed music you're looking at 20 minutes of pointless footage where you can't hear any diolgoue anyway. So why is this important?
Another flaw to this is that some scenes could have been trimmed down, and it's not like they didn't know to do this. In the scene where Junior is trying to pick up the biohazardious barrel, Hillbilly Bob tells his son not to make him go down there. Sure enough the camera fades to black and fades in and Hillbilly Bob is now down in the stream picking up the barrel. Right after this follows a shot where the camera focuses on their pick-up trick struggling to pull off the side of the curb (the back tired can't get any traction.) Certain shots linger for too long and could benefit from some trimming.
The dialogue could have used with some more rehearsal, characters talk over each others lines and at times they appear to be thinking too much about what they have to say, that the lines do not come out convincingly. Some extra time spent studying lines could have helped. Sal and Brenna Roth (who didn't get a lot of screen time) however, appear to be very capable actors. The other issue I had with the dialogue was that it was repetitive. Characters would repeat the same line twice, or a character would say a line to someone, that person would repeat it and then respond.
The other problem I have with this movie is that it focuses on the gimmick behind the premise: rednecks, zombies and moonshine, rather than providing a unique or interesting story. If you were to make a check list of all the possible redneck stereo-types, then you'd end up with a full score card watching this movie. I think the writer’s inclination to cover all those bases makes the story suffer greatly as these are one-dimensional traits to apply to a character, and it gives the cast about as much depth as a bathysphere in a bathtub. The only stereo-type that gets glossed over is racism, which is only represented by having a black actor walk past in the background wearing overall and carrying a watermelon.
That’s as far as they were willing to go with that. Which is fair enough, I don’t want to watch a movie that is wall to wall racial slurs based on the flimsy fact that a stereo-type is supposedly funny. If you’re going to have characters that are blatantly racist, then there’s got to be a plot purpose to the film. If it’s there for gratuities sake, then you’re not shocking me, it’s just pointless and a waste of time and energy.
The other issue is that it really does appear that they could have gone interesting places with the plot as certain actions by the characters could have branched to interesting plot developments, but instead they're left hanging for incest gags and uneducated redneck jokes. For example, during the moonshine party scene the camera spends time focusing on a particular character that is not drinking any moon shine who then wanders up to the barrel and takes the information down. This is never addressed again, and one is left to speculate how this situation contributes to the ultimate climax of the plot.
There are two other potential plot points they could have rolled with and just left. The first is that Hillbilly Bob and Junior dump most of the biohazardious material into the stream. If the moonshine would make people turn into zombies, then in turn the chemicals being dumped into the water supply would turn whatever is exposed to it into zombies also. Later one when one of the party goers happens by a man locking up a cemetery for the night, he asks “Why do you lock them up behind a fence?” to which the man replied “To keep them in there.” They could have made the story more dynamic by having the chemicals penetrate the cemetery and bring the dead back to life. I understand they had a low budget, but something like that could easily have been faked if they couldn’t do the shots at the cemetery.
The most disturbing scene in the movie is a scene of simulated incest between Bobbie-Sue and Junior, and later Hillbilly Bob. It’s not the idea at all, because really if you have three actors that are clearly unrelated imitating this on camera then that’s not really shocking, Sorry but it’s not. It’s also another bland perpetuation of a stereo-type about rednecks. What makes it so damn disturbing is two fold: You see Junior’s bare butt (the only nudity in the whole film) and the fact that by comparison to all the other actors’ Danille Webster is clearly the most attractive. So the whole time, if you’re like me, you’re hoping that in this parade of ugliness there might be something worthwhile to gape at, but anything that would interest me is obscured either by Junior’s bare ass or Hillbilly Bob’s hulking form.
So without well written character and a plot that is about as flimsy as tissue paper, the only thing you’re left to consider is the zombies: Which look horrible. The dead carcasses of people they made looked great, but the zombies were clearly lacking in the make up department. Plus, when were intestines piss yellow? To the point: My theory stands true, in that you can overlook the quality of the make-up effects of the zombies are if there is a good story written around it (Die and Let Live, The Italian Zombie Movie
Another thing I’d like to point out is the trailer that Hillbilly Bob and his kin live in. During the final scene where Hillbilly Bob and his family are boxed in by the zombies, whenever Bob opens the door to shoot at the zombies and the perspective changes so that the camera’s point of view is from outside looking into the house you’ll notice a glaring issue with the trailer: That there is no back wall and you can clearly see the trees that are behind the structure. I can understand the logistics of them not having a back wall to the trailer: First of all, it makes it easier for the camera man to film in tight quarters. Which makes sense the trailer itself was not very big and if you’re trying to cram four actors plus at least a camera man, that’s a tight space to work in, so it did help with the movement of the camera.
The other thing it likely helped was with the lighting, in that they could rely on the natural sunlight coming into the trailer. If the trailer was closed off then you would have had a situation where you likely would have had to focus on lighting, which again in such a closed space would be a nightmare. Also for the purposes of white balancing it worked out much better because every time the door opened and the camera was inside the trailer the difference in lighting would have made it look like a sun exploded outside.
However, when they turned the camera around and filmed through the front door, the least they could have done was put a blanket up or something to obscure the trees and sky that were visible whenever Hillbilly Bob opened the door. I can understand the idea of leaving that there for a good laugh if say the rest of the movie wasn’t riddled with so many issues in terms of poor editing and bad character development. With all the other things wrong with the film, any humor is lost and it’s viewed as another snafu that nobody noticed until it was too late.
My final gripe about the film is the ending…. What the hell is up with the ending?
Twice in the film there are radio reports warning people not to drink the moonshine because it creates zombies (voiced by Lloyd Kaufman), how the media learns about this is not established – but the fact is that they are warning people. Remember that point, we’ll get back to it in a moment.
So close to the end of the film, SWAT team full of wooden actors (seriously, it’s like giving the most monotone person you know NyQuil Night-Time and have them read memorable lines from action movies) pull up in front of Hillbilly Bob’s trailer. They lock and load, shoot down all the zombies (by which point Bob and his entire family have all been killed or turned into zombies themselves), they then shot and blow up Hillbilly Bob’s truck and trailer (with some of the weakest looking explosions I’ve ever seen, lots of smoke but no flames) Then to toast themselves on a job well done, they find and decide to drink down some of Hillbilly Bob’s moonshine.
YES THEY DRINK THE MOONSHINE!
The ending does not make sense in that, you’d figure if these guys were briefed enough to go out and shoot zombies, you would have thought they would have made a connection between the zombies and the moonshine that the media was warning people about countless times!!!
I think probably one of the top things in their list of instructions would have been “Don’t drink any moonshine you find in the zombie holocaust” I mean seriously. I don’t often decry a movie for having an idiotic ending, but I have to say that this is completely asinine. I can imagine people in a SWAT team meeting their demise by being cocky and under estimating the zombies, but to sit down and some how unknowingly drink tainted moonshine? I’m sorry.
So, in a nut shells… Hillbilly Bob Zombie…. Wow… This is an example of a bad zombie movie. It’s not as awful as say Vampires VS Zombies, but it’s still pretty bad. It does have its diamonds in the rough. It’s watchable, and somewhat entertaining if you have the patience to sit through the filler. Sal Lizard performs very well in his role, and stands to be one of the funniest characters in the movie.
Sal for those of you who don’t recognize him regularly frequents Cinema Wasteland, and dresses up like a demonic Santa Claus, he also does some hilarious stand-up comedy, and has many a tale to tell. So if you’re ever at Wasteland pay him a visit you will never be disappointed.
But anyway, back to Hillbilly Bob Zombie… Proceed with caution, this is by no means an epic zombie movie in the slightest terms, but you will find some amusement in it if you have a sense of humor.
