ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction, 2009.
Directed by Kevin Hamedani.
Starring Janette Armand, Doug Fahl, Russell Hodgkinson, Cooper Hopkins, Bill Johns, James Mesher and Cornelia Moore.
SYNOPSIS:
The idyllic island town of Port Gamble comes under attack by a horde of flesh-eating zombies, leaving a rag-tag band of rebel stereotypes to fight for their survival.
With a seemingly endless supply of zombie movies clogging the shelves over the past couple of years – many of them bearing the typically unoriginal “of the Dead” monikers – fans of the genre must either be in undead Heaven or thoroughly, thoroughly exhausted. 2009 was certainly a busy time with two notable releases in particular – the rather fantastic Zombieland from first time director Ruben Fleischer and the utterly abysmal Survival of the Dead, the latest stain on George A. Romero’s rapidly-diminishing legacy as the master of the zombie flick.
Tucked away amid the stream of straight-to-video offerings is the low-budget zombie-comedy (or is that zomedy?) ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction, an entertaining if unexceptional slice of gory fun from first time director Kevin Hamedani. Not to be confused with Kevin Grevioux’s popular comic-book title of the same name (which happens to be getting its own big-screen adaptation in 2011), Zombies of Mass Destruction is similar in tone to titles such as Braindead (1992, dir. Peter Jackson) and Shaun of the Dead (2004, dir. Edgar Wright), playing it for laughs while delivering just about enough of the red stuff to satisfy the hardened splatter-fan.
Hamedani really ramps up the social commentary of Romero’s early classics Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985) as the film delves into themes of religious hypocrisy, American paranoia and intolerance. In-your-face as opposed to subtle, this really becomes the primary focus of the film and leaves the zombie apocalypse to take a bit of a back seat as it goes on to explore the stories of its intentionally clichéd and stereotyped main characters. It’s probably about half an hour before the zombie fun really starts to kick in, which could be off-putting to those who expect balls-to-the-wall blood-soaked gore from outset, but the plotlines are fairly engaging and the depth of storytelling makes quite a refreshing change from typical entries into the genre.
There are two main protagonists in Zombies of Mass Destruction, both of whom come from minority backgrounds which brings them into conflict with the overly conservative religious zealots and rednecks that occupy the small island-town of Port Gamble. First up is Frida (Janette Armand), a young American girl of Iranian descent who has to contend with ignorance (most of the townsfolk keep referring to her as an Iraqi) and her strict Muslim father (the unfortunately miscast Ali Hamedani, who mumbles his way through the picture like a poor Arabian Al Pacino impersonator and from this point forth, shall be referred to as Ali Pacino). When the zombie outbreak is announced as the result of a terrorist act, Frida immediately becomes guilty in the eyes of bigoted redneck Joe (Russell Hodgkinson), who finds the teenage girl more of a threat than the flesh-eating creatures amassing outside of his home.
Running parallel to this is the weaker (but funnier) of the two stories in which gay guy Tom (Doug Fahl) returns home from the city with his boyfriend Lance (Cooper Hopkins) to announce his sexuality to his mother. Tom’s plans are thwarted by his her death and subsequent reanimation, which forces him and Lance to seek solitude in the only place on the zombie-infested island more dangerous to a homosexual couple – the House of the Lord. Naturally the narrow-minded congregation soon want to throw the couple to the zombies, only for the island’s Reverend Haggis (Bill Johns) to suggest a more merciful approach, showing them the way and ‘straightening’ them out by means of an IV drip and a selection of ‘homo-erotic’ material.
Going from this description it might seem that there isn’t too much action on offer and, like I said earlier, the film does take a while to get going. However, from the moment of the first blood-drenched attack on Frida’s stoner boyfriend things rarely let up and there are plenty of inventive deaths, flying body parts and cannibalism in the second half of the movie to make it worthy of its title. Even old Ali Pacino gets in on the act, channelling The Evil Dead’s Ash as he hacks his way through a swarm of zombies to slightly redeem his inclusion in the otherwise impressive cast.
ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction is by no means a bad film; some of the jokes miss the mark and the social commentary is a bit too heavy-handed but there’s plenty going on during its hour-and-a-half running time to keep viewers engaged and entertained. As a “zombies on an island” movie I found it far more enjoyable than Survival of the Dead (whether that’s testament to Hamedani’s skills or an indication of just how far down the crapper Romero’s series has fallen is open to debate), and if you’re looking for something with a bit more depth to the usual hack-and-slash formula then Zombies of Mass Destruction is certainly worth a shot.
ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction is released on Blu-ray and DVD on 18th October, 2010.
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