The October Zombie-Thon! - Day 18: Zombiegeddon
Posted by Trevor Snyder on 10.18.2006
I watch this crap so that you don't have to.
ZOMBIEGEDDON (2003)
Written & Directed by: Chris Watson Country: USA
Just how bad is writer/director (and I use both those terms loosely) Chris Watson's Zombiegeddon? Well, let's put it this way: the presence of Uwe Boll is actually one of it's best elements. That's right, the man who brought us House of the Dead and Bloodrayne shows up early on, warning us that Zombiegeddon is a huge piece of crap and we shouldn't bother watching it. I never thought I'd say this, but in this case you'd be a fool not to listen to Mr. Boll. The film then cuts to a fake newscast (with the always reliably-entertaining Troma-star Trent Haaga as reporter Ted Kopafeel), where the top story is the incredible badness of Zombiegeddon.
These initial scenes are somewhat amusing, and would be all well and good if this was just another case of a mildly-entertaining B-movie poking fun at its own lack of budget and intentionally cheesy story. But, no, Zombiegeddon really is as bad as these scenes warn – a near-unwatchable mess that is terrible to the point of being legitimately depressing. A word of advice to Chris Watson: admitting that your movie is a cinematic piece of shit doesn't suddenly make it enjoyable, it just shows that you really should have known better.
B-movie queen Brinke Stevens stars as a radio call-in show host who, after a one-night stand with Jesus Christ (and I mean that literally), interrupts her usual programming to inform her viewers of the upcoming apocalypse. Meanwhile, two dirty Tromaville police officers are having a busy day shooting innocent people and trying to find enough time to grab some lunch. And then…
Ahh, to hell with it. I don't mean to be unprofessional, but if Watson can't be bothered to create anything even resembling a real movie, I shouldn't have to waste my time, and yours, trying to recap this garbage. Suffice it to say there is some sort of demonic plan to kill all the women on earth, it involves using zombies as the foot-soldiers (a plan which I assume will take a very long time, since there are rarely ever more than two zombies at a time throughout the entire movie), and only one of the crooked cops, who is unknowingly the last descendent of an ancient zombie-fighting bloodline, has the power to stop it. Oh, and there's a zombie-fighting tiger in there, too, for no other reason than Watson knew somebody with a tiger, apparently.
I'm not gonna sugarcoat this one, folks. This is bad. And not "so bad it's good," or "so bad it's pretty funny when drunk." No, this is "so bad your eyes might just sue you for forcing them to watch it." We all know there's a certain joy to be had watching bad movies that were made with the best and most-ambitious of intentions – sure, they end up terrible, but the very fact that the filmmakers were trying so hard, and ended up with such trash, gives them a certain kind of goofy charm. That's definitely not the case with Zombiegeddon, as at no point does it ever feel like Watson was even trying to make a good movie. Maybe it would be halfway tolerable if he had made an intentionally tongue-in-cheek parody of bad films instead, but even that's not the case. Apart from the inclusion of some kung-fu fighting zombies, Watson doesn't even really seem to be trying to push things to the same ridiculous heights that other cheaply-made zombie moves try for (and in turn become perversely entertaining in their utter failure).
There's really nothing here worth recommending on any level, since this film has none of the things that often make a bad movie worth at least a casual glance. The zombie make-up is nothing special, the gore effects are cheap (and surprisingly minimal, for this kind of movie), the acting pathetic, and the dialogue beyond boring. Nearly every conversation in this thing goes on for way too long, and not a single one of them is interesting or funny in the least. You have to wonder why a movie like this was even made, and who the target audience was, since neither Watson nor his cast show any ambition towards bringing anything new, or at least outrageous, to the zombie-genre table.
Speaking of the cast, the majority of Zombiegeddon's curiosity factor for viewers will surely come from the numerous B-level stars who appear, including scream-queen Linnea Quigley, Edwin Neal (the hitchhiker from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre), the mighty-chinned Robert Z'Dar, Plan 9 from Outer Space's Conrad Brooks, Sleepaway Camp's Felissa Rose, and Joe Estevez (here mugging like there's no tomorrow). But even such an "impressive" roster shouldn't get any fans too excited. Everyone here has starred in much better films than this one (and given some of their resumes, that's saying something), and most of them only appear in Zombiegeddon in the briefest of cameos.
In fact, quite a few of its promised stars, including Julie Strain and Ron Jeremy, don't appear on camera at all, instead lending only their voices to the film (they would be the smart ones). Nearly everyone here looks about as bored or as embarrassed as you would expect. The only one who comes out of this looking good is Troma president Lloyd Kaufman, as a confused janitor who mistakes the invading zombies for an army of homosexuals. Just by being his usual energetic and goofy self, Kaufman delivers the film's best moments, but even he can't save this train-wreck.
Perhaps the most perplexing cameo is Tom Savini, who has little more than a minute of screen-time as Jesus Christ, here depicted as wild and crazy one-night-stand loving swinger. If you somehow convinced Tom Savini to be in your movie as Jesus, wouldn't you at least have him try to look the part, or somehow fit the character into the main story, rather than just have Jesus in your opening scene for no reason whatsoever? Yeah, you probably would, but then you're not Chris Watson. And thank your lucky stars for that, for at least your name isn't attached to this abomination.
The 411:Zombiegeddon is a movie so bad it makes me question my determination to watch as many zombie movies as possible (not that I'm going to stop, mind you, but if I ever do, it will be because of garbage like this). A hideously boring and poorly-made affair that advertises its own terrible quality as if this makes it somewhat more enjoyable. Well, it doesn't. Don't be fooled by the number of B-movie stars who make cameos, or the fact that its released by Troma (even the most dedicated Troma fans will have a hard time getting through this one); Zombiegeddon has nothing to offer on even an "enjoyably bad" level. For the sake of your sanity, and the love of all that is good and decent:
