…show up on a streaming service. The punch line? I watched all three of these oddities on Prime. Was it worth it?
ZBURBS (2017)
The fun, animated intro tells you exactly what you can expect from the tone of this zombedy.
In a quick, campy blur, we meet a husband and wife, the husband gets attacked by a neighbor, and the next morning he wakes up…different.
This isn’t your typical zombie flick. The husband is basically a human cannibal, and the wife and her best friend attempt to keep him from eating anything other than raw meat him while trying to figure out what to do about him.
Unfortunately, a turnstile of people keeps coming to the door just asking for trouble..
…the husband eating in a cyclone of Taz the Tasmanian Devil proportions every time.
It’s kind of like, well, watching an episode of Three’s Company with cannibalism.
And just like Three’s Company, it is always fun and charming, but the same exact predicament over and over makes you wonder how the series ran for 8 years.
Oh wait, we were talking about Zburbs. But, you get the picture.
LET’S KILL GRANDPA (THIS CHRISTMAS) (2017)
Brian Gianci, the director of this dark comedy, is also one of the stars and is adorable.
I mean…adorable…
He also appeared in the gay horror film Dead Serious, which has never actually seen the light of day as far as I’ve heard.
Family members come to grandpa’s house to celebrate Christmas. After they discuss the goodies he’s leaving to them in his will, one guy convinces another that he should kill grandpa so they can get the inheritance sooner.
Problem is, the guy who’s supposed to kill grandpa is a loser and a wimp, and can’t seem to get the job done right.
Part of the challenge is that while grandpa seems like a crabby asshole on the surface, he’s actually a cool dude.
Let’s Kill Grandpa is cute and funny if not as quick with the comedy as more mainstream films over the years with a similar plot. It’s also more about the characters than the killing.
Of note is that there’s a gay storyline (the reveal being one of the funniest moments in the film) and a gay kiss that, in an odd choice that I guess is supposed to be funny, is literally censored with a black “censored” band. It’s not funny, not necessary, and a slap in the gay face!
HEAD (2015)
Head is essentially Sesame Street puppets in a slasher scenario.
It only runs an hour long, has a puppet horror host intro segment, and warms us up with a short puppet zombie film before the main feature.
Head is played surprisingly straight. It’s a good move because it’s easy enough to laugh at slasher tropes played out with puppets.
Too much slapstick humor would have actually made this an annoying puppet movie (you know, like pretty much anything acted out with puppets). However, puppets are the only original aspect of the film—otherwise, this is like watching any other cliché backwoods slasher.
Puppet friends travel to the woods. They talk about sex. They have sex. The puppet guys make a lot of gay puppet jokes. They interact with the local puppet sheriff. They meet a puppet loner in the woods who seems cool, but they start to suspect him when puppet friends start turning up dead.
There are body reveals. And of course there are hillbilly psycho puppets and a psycho puppet killer with a sack on his head.
Overall, I feel like there weren’t enough kill scenes, and the puppet count was kind of low. Most of the puppets seemed to die off screen!
