by victor_crowley
3. June 2010 08:37
As someone who watches a lot of zombie movies both good and bad, I would have to rate “Zombies of Mass Destruction” somewhere in the middle of the pack. It had enough blood and gore to make it fun, but ZMD didn't bring anything new to the table. It is apparent that Kevin Hamedani is a huge fan of the genre as most everything (as far as the zombies go) was borrowed from past movies. The zombies were quite Romero-esque, which is always a bonus and you can see a little bit of Peter Jackson's influence as well, as Tom's interactions with his mother is quite reminiscent of “Dead Alive”. Other than that it is a bit of a hodge podge of recycled material found in many a zom-com these days. Unique kill scenes are what make a zombie comedy movie. Show me an extended beating with nunchucks or a group of people beating a zombie down with pool cues while listening to Queen. Now that's comedy.
The one place that ZMD really fell short was in the plot and the character interactions. I watch these movies to be entertained, not to be preached at. This movie basically attacked small town America for being ignorant and got on a soapbox regarding every issue it could, including racism, homophobia, war and religion. I'm sure if the opportunity presented itself, Hamedani would have been promoting left wing economic policy as well. The characters were pretty well developed in a short amount of time and the comedic timing was dead on in a couple places. Playing off stereotypes can be fun in two different scenarios; it needs to be fairly subtle, or WAY over the top. You would think with all of the obvious Romero influence that ZMD would have picked up some of the master's subtlety but it just bombards the audience with its message throughout every line of dialog.
I have become used to AfterDark's consistently solid picks for HorrorFest and honestly, I'm quite surprised they chose this one. I'm not saying it is unwatchable. It certainly had its moments and was not without merit, but I wouldn't recommend going too far out of your way to see it. Overall, I give it a rating of 4/10.
