Dense, dumb, gory -- a zombie film

Uncle Don

They stalk the Earth. Their origin is unknown. They have no visible

means of support. There is no apparent reason for them to exist. They

offer nothing but misery. They infect all they touch and ruin the

lives of those they encounter. Eyes are glazed and vacant. They drool

and slobber while wandering aimlessly. Enemies of humanity, nothing

but gibberish emits from their mouths as they ravage their

environment, destroying all in their path.

Liberals? Naaah, a higher form of life.

This remake of George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” is worth the

view. The corpse count has to be higher than Hiroshima’s. If the

zombies are not being impaled, shot, decapitated, eviscerated,

immolated or exsanguinated, these bug-eyed, hyperactive,

sugar-overloaded corpse-chewers are rabidly overacting from one scene

to the next.

Imagine going to sleep one night, ignoring the news flash on the

tube. Johnny Cash singing in the background. You wake up sometime in

the early morning to a banging on your bedroom door. The door opens

and there, silhouetted in the darkness, is your daughter. She’s such

a sweet little thing. Blood is dripping down her nightgown. Being the

good parent, you rush to her. Being the bad daughter, she tries to

gnaw off your spouse’s head. Like vampires and werewolves, getting

bit is the ticket to becoming said vampire, werewolf and zombie.

Houston and New York and Los Angeles, we have a problem.

Evidentially a plague of unknown origin has loosed itself upon the

Earth. In the grand tradition of most horror films and especially

zombie flicks, where the plague came from, what it’s doing here is

irrelevant. The only thing relevant is that there are zombies

parading the Earth. And, like teenagers, they’re eternally hungry,

and have just awful table manners.

These are not your parents’ garden variety zombies. You might have

seen them: old, slow-moving, stiff-gaited meatballs wearing Goodwill

clothes and a splash of Bosco or Karo syrup while gnawing on KFC in

some of the old flicks like “The Night of The Living Dead.”

These updated zombies have grown up on “Fear Factor.” They’re

faster than a sprinter on steroids. Stronger than Limburger. Mega

doses of Ritalin can’t slow these suckers down. However, like the

traditional zombies we’ve all grown to know and love, they can be

exterminated in the traditional way. A bullet or a sharp, pointy

object through the brain and these suckers are nothing more than

speed bumps for the army of zombies passing over them. But are they

really liberal zombies as I surmised earlier in the column? I dunno.

These zombies have functioning brains.

Our cast of survivors, who hole up in a shopping mall, is your

usual assortment of stereotypes. The cop, the con, the rich guy, the

schmo, and a couple of good-looking broads. Almost sounds like

“Gilligan’s Island.” Predictably, they fight, bicker and exchange

platitudes while the huddled masses of flesh-eaters on the outside

are hunkering down trying to figger out a way inside so’s they can

chow down on the tasty fresh meat that’s just on the other side of

the shatter-proof glass.

Our Mensa not-gonna-bees, safely encased in this mall, a huge

concrete structure with almost unlimited food, water and clothing,

come up with the brilliant plan of constructing a couple of armored

buses, outfitting them with various accouterments of destruction, and

driving through three-quarters of a million zombies to the rich guy’s

boat so they can cruise to an island off shore that may or may not

exist, that may or may not have zombies.

Collectively, they’re denser than a black hole and dumber than

pallets of pavers.

Well, they build buses that the Road Warrior could relate to.

Outfitted with cow-catchers (this takes place in Wisconsin), razor

wire, propane bombs, chain-saws and other tasty goodies, they bust

out of the mall into the greatest sea of nonhumanity ever put on

film.

The action starts almost from minute one and extends to the end

with its “The Blair Witch Project” grainy video type editing.

Listen up. Don’t read much more into this film that what it really

is. This ain’t nothing but a zombie flick, eatin’ all the time. This

ain’t nothing but a zombie flick, gore all the time. Well you ain’t

never gonna catch me and you just ate a friend of mine.

* UNCLE DON reviews B-rated movies and cheesy musical acts for the

Daily Pilot. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].