I’ll make this trio quick – creeps from between 2003 and 2013.
ZOMBIE NIGHT (2003)
As far as valiant low budget zombie efforts go, I give this one a thumbs up, especially since it’s juggling a whole lot of characters and a much bigger environment than it probably should have.
Zombie Night throws back to the good old days of slow moving Romero zombies, with tons of gut-munching, atmospheric darkness, and loads of infighting between survivors,
However, it has a vast cityscape as its playing field, so characters, motivation, and story begin to get lost in the zombie shuffle.
However, the upside of this being an indie is that it goes where most mainstream films don’t these days—a good old sex scene. Right in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, no less. And this chick could zombreast feed an entire army of the undead.
It also delivers a ruthless traitor to the group, making for some vicious conflict.
There is one major monologue to God that I could’ve done without.
Dude, if you’re still asking an invisible man in the sky if you’re being tested when everyone around you is being eaten by zombies, expect me to turn quickly between shooting zombies in the head to blow yours off, because clearly you’re one of the brain dead.
BOTTOM FEEDER (2007)
While I was hoping for a nasty gay porn (I think the kid on the left in the pic below was, too), I was still pleasantly surprised. This is a low budget creature feature done just right.
It doesn’t get any seedier than a sick man with a fucked up face meeting a guy to buy a special underground drug underground.
This miracle medicine regenerates cells, and will do wonders for your face—as long as you don’t suffer the nasty side effect that makes you so hungry you’ll eat and then turn into the nearest thing you see. In this case, a sewer rat…
Meanwhile, Tom Sizemore plays a sanitation worker who brings his crew on a special cleanup job…take a guess where.
While the tunnels in the sewers make for a dark movie, it works to great effect to keep the hideous rat man in shadows. Even so, we see more than enough of his oozing, slimy skin to know he’s topnotch horror monster goodness.
Action, scares, and gore galore – a total jaw detaching moment is my fave – make this highly recommended when you need some cheap thrills to wash down your popcorn and cherry cola.
LIKE A BAT OUTTA HELL (2013)
As bad as CGyFy films are, at least there’s usually action thrown in at a fairly steady pace. Like a Bat Outta Hell gives us an hour of a handful of young documentary filmmakers exploring the same abandoned slaughterhouse and surrounding area over and over again with just vague hints that they’re eventually going to see something to explain the occasional signs of blood and glimpses of a mysterious creature.
There’s the usual old dude who knows a little more than his cryptic warning is revealing, some hot guys, and plenty of arguing going on between characters, but an hour passes before the action finally kicks in—when the group wakes to find one friend’s face completely ripped off.
Okay, that’s pretty damn cool, but it doesn’t make up for an hour of no hot guys getting naked—I mean, no monster.
As CGI as the flying bat monster is at times, it’s a step above most SyFy trash (okay, maybe a baby step).
The action is about as generic as it gets and pretty brief, but it is fun while it lasts, especially since most of it takes place in flashlight beam. We also get good old bat night vision POV.
When all is said and done, the movie comes to a rather confusing as hell conclusion. There’s a lot to put up with here just for a short span of monster madness and a couple of hot guy, one who is shirtless just long enough for this quick peek into the back of a truck, and the other who is barely in the film, pretty much just standing there like that with his arms crossed for his entire appearance as he takes a conference call with the kids.
