ZOMBIE BLOODBATH I, II & III
Films by Todd Sheet.
Submitted by Camp Motion Pictures
The first movie of this "Zombie Bloodbath" trilogy was made in 1993 and although the gothic music-score is quite interesting,... the plot, camerawork and cast aren't. The plot is full of holes as big as your grandma's underpants, the cast exists of annoying would-be actors, and yet this film has a great camp and cult aspect. Yes, it's so bad, that it becomes good, even though good just isn't the word it deserves in any way. The story starts of with a radiation leak in military base. In order to clean up the toxic mess and the dead, the base gets buried deep under ground. Unfortunately this base was build on an old Indian burial site which leads to... well personal that doesn't want to stay dead. ("Poltergeist" anyone?)
Sure it is crap, but hey, it is hard to create good crap! You'll never ever see so much obese zombies in shorts? Did you ever think that pouring milk over someone's head could lead to symptoms of a zombie radiation disease? Well, "Zombie Bloodbath" has it all and much more. Watch out for Jerry -I’m not a real actor - Angell as Larry Talbot, the white trash father of Joey Talbot!. During the movie he gets served as a fresh zombie platter, only to return later as a zombie and do that trick once more and return as… another zombie. Kudos for one timer Kasey Raush who did some Lara Croft-like stunts, she however never returned to the white screen, after this. Can you blame her?
"Zombie Bloodbath 2: Rage of the Undead" followed 2 years later with partially the same cast and crew. This time the story is set in is 1945, a cult of demon lovers punish a rapist by turning him into a living, mummified, crucified scarecrow. 50 years later he is cut loose from his cross and out on revenge, so he wakes an army of undead. The attention for the soundtrack has stayed and yes... the narrative has got better. This time no radiation leaks (although in the middle of the movie, out of nowhere, the image of an exploding nuclear plant is inserted), nor government experiments gone wrong are the instigators of the evil. The plot is much better and so is the camerawork. Including some creepy, artful black & white scenes and a quirky style of shooting. More or less the same cast from part one returns, including my n° 1 favourite white trash actor Jerry Angell as the mean sadistic crook Joe Bob. The cast is still worth all the suffering they undergo I have to admit that the way they suffer is done much more realistic. The effects get better and more intense in part 2. You get a real gore splatter fest with no more yoghurt-milk tricks as in part 1. "Zombie Bloodbath 2: Rage of the Undead" must be one of the first political correct zombie films, since you can catch a glimpse of a zombie in a wheelchair!
Todd Sheets is learning and thus the sequel is much better then the original.
Next up is the third instalment in the box: "Zombie Bloodbath 3: Zombie Armageddon." And believe me I never longed so much that the apocalypse would come.. most favourably during this film. This is what I call a total waste of time and energy. The plot is situated in the future. On a military base scientist try to revive dead soldiers and control them by implanting a chip. This experiment has the purpose to use the same soldier over and over during war. Especially with the big war (situated in the early years of the second millennium) going on, the need for soldiers is big. As we know military experiments rarely work out and thus the zombies are put in a container and sent into outer space to a place far beyond Pluto. (...opening the hatch in outer space didn't seem good enough to freeze their ass) On the final mission something goes wrong, the shuttle passed through a time vortex and ended up years earlier in a cave under a local high school. Sympathetic nerd Brian Travis (Abe Dyer) and his annoying sidekick skillet (Curtis Spencer) stumble upon the cave system and unknowingly release these 'future' zombies from their caves. Speaking of coincidence, it is the same Brian that will invent the chip to control the zombies in the future and thus this young lad is in fact responsible for the whole mess. Brain acknowledges his responsibility and throws himself in a group of zombies as a sort of suicide attempt. Once he dies, no chip can be invented and so all is back to normal, the zombies are gone. Since this is a bit too meagre to fill 90 minutes, a subplot is added which tributes more or less to the "Breakfast Club".
The atmospheric Goth music (the best thing about the former instalments) has been replaced by metal rock tunes and (save us) some rap music. The film is hard to follow because of some dialects used by the leads combined with complete over the top dialogues. And if that's not enough listen to this: 'Fuck, no Fuck man, this is fucking unbelievable, fuck, fuck fuck; can you fucking believe this?' and as reply you get 'I have no fucking Idea what the fuck you are talking about, you motherfucker '. And this swearing goes on forever, with almost every line in the film, by both male and female characters. You can already imagine that the acting is bad (maybe intentional campy, but that's no excuse), dialogues are 'fucking' boring. The unintentional laughs that made the first two films somewhat enjoyable to watch, are gone. The cast is recycled from previous Todd Sheets movies, that says enough, about the quality factor. The only thing that kept me awake was gathering the names of some of the characters, which are named after famous zombie directors, like Raimi, Matttei and Fulci.
While the movies are technical not that good, the acting is silly and the narratives aren’t always clever, the "Zombie Bloodbath" films deserve their place in history! It's hard to believe that about 10 years ago these films gathered a cult following. The first and mainly the second instalment of the series are worth your attention. "Rage of the undead" is surely the best. The third is best forgotten. Probably best watched with some friends at an after midnight movie party, but be sure to have some beers in advance. This Camp Motion Pictures release comes fully loaded with extras including original trailers of all the films, short films by Todd Sheets, commentary and behind the scene footage, but that doesn't sooth the lack in quality of the movies.
--- Pat ---
more info on :
http://www.zombiebloodbath.com/