No matter how played out zombie movies get, inevitably I’m going to dive into more of them. So let’s get right into this trio of indie flicks.
THE MANSON BROTHERS MIDNIGHT ZOMBIE MASSACRE (2021)
This is a wrestling buddy action zomcom, so go into it for the mindless zombie fun–and all the unfiltered gay subtext that comes with sausagefest movies.
You’ve gotta love that there’s a review on IMDb praising this movie for not being woke…when in fact it’s loaded with sexually-tinged man-on-man stuff. It’s a perfect example of how straight men are fine with homosexual content as long as it’s masked by “butch” dudes in male dominated arenas like the wrestling ring. For instance, Midnight Zombie Massacre makes sure to squash straight male fears of the homoerotic nature of the locker room by infusing a shower scene with elements that remind us that males are “gross”, not sexual…sure they may be showering together, but only feet away, a dude is sitting on the toilet in a stall with the door open talking to the men in the shower as he takes a noisy dump.
Gay dudes will most likely see things through a different lens. The showering guys, men hanging around the locker room in only towels, a dude feeling up another dude’s belly, one wrestler giving another wrestler an atomic wedgie, our main characters donned in leather uniforms that scream “hurt me, daddy”…
Anyway, I’m sure the majority of men in this cast are real wrestlers. I recognized a couple and had no interest in checking to see if the rest of them are. Real actors or not, they make this movie work. They all seem quite comfortable and familiar with each other, and they are clearly having a good time together. They even deliver on the humorous tone the movie is going for. The only handicap is that the material isn’t funny enough. The actors and their interactions actually rise above the weak writing.
What works best here is the zombie action. The zombies look great, there’s loads of practical gore effects, and because these are wrestlers, they deliver on the zombie fight choreography. The bulk of the action comes in the last half hour, so the early silliness and filler definitely leads to payoff.
Other things to note:
- The movie revolves around a steel cage match event on Halloween, and the holiday is mentioned several times, yet there is simply no holiday vibe here. I’ll add the film to the holiday horror page, but it’s not a film that’s going to get you into the Halloween spirit.
- DB Sweeney appears in the film as a wrestling manager.
- The film attempts some “representation”: a beefy Black wrestler appears to be given one scene so the filmmakers can claim they had a diverse cast, and a gun-toting little person is relegated to the usual campy role.
- The first pre-zombie wrestling scene goes for the retro vibe with an 80s-style rock song playing in the background.
- As another reminder that these are tough, masculine dudes with nothing gay going on between them, one guy disses another guy by telling him to go binge The Golden Girls.
- When the full zombie action hits, some electronic suspense music kicks in that is very reminiscent of the awesome score in the Dying Light video game.
SCAVENGERS (2022)
The title of this “zombie” film is very telling. We’ve all been overloaded with Z Nation, The Walking Dead and its spin-offs, and various one-season zombie shows that feature survivor communities, so we’re all familiar with the teams responsible for going out to get supplies. That’s what this film is about…the lives of the scavengers that hunt and gather. And it’s handled with a low budget, agonizing melodrama, a hokey score, and endless dialogue.
This feels like a home-brewed production. Following the outbreak of an infectious disease, the whole “community” ends up partying in a nice suburban backyard with rich green grass, a crystal clear in-ground pool, a trampoline, and even red Solo cups.
There are approximately four zombies throughout the course of the film, several infiltrate the community 53 minutes in, and near the end the main guy points out what he calls a “huge horde” of zombies, which is approximately 15 people shuffling along a deserted road.
Why watch this cheap attempt at an indie when you can just watch one of the numerous zombie TV shows out there and get better storytelling, better acting, better production value, and more zombies?
PANDEMIC UNDEAD (2022)
I’ll never understand this type of note in the trivia for certain movies on IMDb, but this film is described as being edited from the 2007 film Zombie Farm. I’ve never seen that film, but this has the same exact cast, the same exact director/writer, and the same exact running time, so I have no idea if there’s actually any difference between the two cuts.
Either way, this movie has a little too much going on for an indie. We have FBI agents investigating the poisoning of a small town’s water supply. There are terrorists. There are rednecks on a farm.
There’s a foursome of horny young people heading to the farm to deliver an eviction notice. And there’s a hunky military guy who believes in government conspiracies and is totally ready to be a survivalist.
Taking place entirely during the day, this is a low budget zombie outing, and includes both practical gore effects and some funny CGI effects, but it all works to make for an oddly entertaining experience. The film does, however, take itself a bit too seriously instead of going for all-out zombie action fun.
For me personally, the best part is the four young people dealing with the zombie outbreak on the farm.
One cute douchebag gives good pit and eventually teams up with the military hunk to survive, and quite frankly, I wish the bulk of the movie had focused on them, because they make a cool zombie-fighting duo.
Yeah, that’s what I was hoping for. The two hotties wasting their time fighting zombies together when all they have in the world is each other and they look like this…
