I almost had a totally satisfying zombie movie marathon with four flicks I chose from my Tubi watchlist, but one didn’t quit live up to the challenge. Let’s take a look.
DEATH VALLEY: THE REVENGE OF BLOODY BILL (2004)
This is 2004 direct-to-DVD goodness, and I was so here for it. I’d blind buy crap like this every new release Tuesday at Best Buy in the early 2000s and revel in the cheesiness of it all when I forced my hubby to watch my purchases with me.
After car trouble in the desert, a drug trafficking dude ends up on foot and reaches a ghost town, only to discover minutes later that it’s actually a zombie town! The undead swarm and attack him to the sounds of metal music and the sights of grindhouse filters.
That sets the tone for the rest of the movie. In fact, that pretty much is the rest of the movie. It’s one raucous, skin-stretching zombie attack after another.
A group on a road trip stops to help a guy who turns out to be in cahoots with the first drug trafficker. He holds them at gunpoint and makes them drive…right to the ghost town.
Soon, the zombie attacks begin, but there’s a little more to it. Not much, but enough to add some extra monster action. The group learns of confederate soldier Bloody Bill, who is out for revenge because he was killed during the Civil War. He cursed the town as he died, and now the dead residents are his army.
Just pop the corn and pour the cherry cola, because this is a perfect popcorn movie time waster.
DEAD GETAWAY (Infected Paradise) (2014)
It’s another one that’s all about the action and fun, with little in the way of pesky depth. If you’ve ever played the video game Dead Island, this is basically that as a movie. Friends go on an island getaway and zombie attack. That’s it.
The acting isn’t great, but it doesn’t even matter. There are loads of shots of shirtless guys before they even get to their destination, landing this one on the stud stalking page.
Once on the beach, some dude washes up on shore not looking so great. Soon after, he samples his first piece of human flesh. Not long after that, there’s a whole horde of zombies! I have no idea where they all came from so fast, but it might be something in the water.
The rest of the movie has people who are really infected, not zombies (they simply growl and have blood on their faces) chasing after and biting people with just mock munching, no actual gore effects. The movie is all about the actors play fighting on the beach, and they all throw themselves into the parts.
Eventually, they attempt to make their way to a rescue boat for the final battle. It’s simple and low budget, but it’s high energy and a lot of effort was put into creating zombie chaos.
PANDEMIC (2016)
Rachel Nichols of P2 is a doctor on a search and save mission after a zombie apocalypse. She only has three other members on her team: the bus driver, Mekhi Pfeiffer, and Missi Pyle.
As soon as they drive out of the safety of their bunker, the action begins, and it pretty much never lets up. Their reinforced bus, which is right out of the Dawn of the Dead remake, is somehow penetrated in a tunnel (which is right out of 28 Days Later), by zombies that easily get in and have to be fought off…first person shooter style! Yep. Every time there are zombie attacks, the film switches to first person POV. It’s visual chaos, with blood-splattering zombie kills right in your face. Either you love it or you hate it.
Adding to the fun as the team drives through decimated L.A., the zombie they are dealing with are fast, smart, and oddly almost human. They even feel pain when hurt and beg for mercy.
The film has some minor character development, but it’s mostly comprised of the team moving from one dark, creepy location to the next encountering zombies. There’s a great, night vision scene right out of Quarantine, and there is a character twist eventually, but this is another one you should just go into with a bowl of popcorn and a glass of cherry cola.
GONE WITH THE DEAD (2024)
Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed it by watching a fourth film. This one broke my streak of zombie midnight movies, which is a shame, because it seemed like it was going to unintentionally hit the mark at first.
I overlooked the poor decision to have a horror host dude introduce the movie. It served no purpose. However, that shifted to some very satisfying zombie footage and a voiceover about the outbreak during the opening credits, set to a classic, throbbing synth score.
We then meet the actors in all their stilted dialogue delivery badness. It works somehow, giving the film a campy tone, complete with unintentional laughs. There’s also early 1970s horror style with really cheap grind house static effects on the film that only kick in during zombie action. Again, it felt like part of the cheesy vibe. Meanwhile, there’s some gory gut munching, but all the blood splatter is CGI.
The plot is just a meandering cliché. A group of friends discovers there’s an apocalypse, so they try to navigate the new landscape. This leads to lots of zombie attacks, encounters with other survivors, a scientist gets in on the action to propose using a vaccine…you know the deal.
By the time we start getting hit by “missing reel” moments during zombie attacks, I had checked out. The cheap, amateur feel of the film really starts to drag it down after a while.
