The October Zombie-Thon! - Day 24: Redneck Zombies
Posted by Trevor Snyder on 10.24.2006
Every bit as sophisticated as you would expect.
REDNECK ZOMBIES (1987)
Directed by: Pericles Lewnes Written by: Fester Smellman (I know…yeah right. But, hey, that's what the credits say) Country: USA
Snakes on a Plane aside, you can't always judge a movie by its title. Take Redneck Zombies, for instance. From the name, you might expect a fairly stupid film, but it's actually a provocative and sobering look at the harsh realities of rural life, and the tragic plight of the pitiable, underprivileged men and women who reside in the South's sparsely populated areas…
Nah, I'm just messing with you; it's complete garbage. Redneck Zombies is dumb, crude, juvenile, insulting and just plain bad – but I mean that in the nicest way possible. After all, director Pericles Lewnes admits on the DVD that "we knew we making a bad film, but we were making the Citizen Kane of bad films." In that regard, Redneck Zombies can't be regarded as anything but a complete success, as it's a movie so intentionally odious that you almost can't help but grudgingly respect it. And if there's anyone who willingly watches it and disagrees, or feels insulted by the film's lack of quality, well, I hardly feel sorry for them. You don't go into a movie called Redneck Zombies, particularly one distributed by Troma, not knowing what to expect.
So yes, it's pretty much exactly what you think it is – a sort of Dawn of the Dead meets Hee-Haw, although nowhere near as intellectually stimulating as either of those. In a case like this, I find myself wondering if it's even necessary to bother with anything resembling a plot synopsis, since I'm pretty sure the majority of movie fans will have already made up their mind about whether or not to watch it as soon as they heard the title. And, besides, it's not like the plot was all that important to Lewnes either, since he freely admits that, in his desire to make an incredibly gory horror movie, he decided first that the title would be Redneck Zombies, and then simply threw together a story to fit the name.
But, heck, I guess I'll give it a whirl. Writing the synopsis shouldn't really take much longer than it did for Lewnes to craft the actual story anyway, right? I mean, it's not like it's incredibly complex or anything, focusing on that tried and true element of many a zombie film: the accidentally misplaced barrel of toxic waste (or, as the movie puts it in a far more verbose manner, "highly experimental chemical warfare nuclear waste").
In this case, the barrel ends up in the hands of an old hick and his three lame-brained sons, who unwisely decide to use it as their new moonshine still. The fact that the new batch of shine comes out bright green doesn't seem to bother them, and before long the tainted mash has been distributed to all the local townsfolk. Meanwhile, a group of campers have picked this day to take a little excursion into the nearby woods. Guess what happens next. No, really, go ahead and guess.
OK, so it isn't Shakespeare. But then, the plot is hardly important here, as it exists solely as a means for Lewnes to gives us an hour and a half of extreme gore and some of most broad, stereotypical redneck caricatures you will ever see. Redneck Zombies exists in the sort of universe where every southerner dresses and talks like Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel from The Simpsons. But don't think for a minute that the film's offensive streak stops there. Not content with its over-the-top redneck stereotypes, the movie goes one further and also produces two incredibly exaggerated gay characters – a swishy soldier hoping to find Deliverance-style fun in the backwoods, and Billy Bob, one of the 3 moonshine-making sons, who confounds his family by wearing half-shirts and insisting that they call him Ellie May.
To the film's credit, though, at least all the actors playing these generic redneck characters dive into it with gusto, actually managing to elicit some genuine laughs with their wacky histrionics. That's more than can be said for the campers, who within minutes of appearing on screen are easily some of the most annoying victims to ever grace a horror film. Hell, the only member of the group I could really tolerate was the one who says nothing for the entire film, but instead simply stands off to the side in every shot, drinking from a never-ending supply of liquor bottles. The one bright side to this is you don't have to feel at all bad when they start getting torn to pieces; this is one of movies where you end up rooting for the zombies by default.
And speaking of those "getting torn to pieces" moments, that's where Redneck Zombies bread is really buttered. As one might expect from such a low-budget film, the gore isn't exactly incredibly realistic, but there sure is lots of it. And, surprisingly, the sheer abundance of guts and blood somewhat makes up for its hokey appearance, especially since a few of the gore-moments are actually quite creative and nicely executed. There's more than can be said for the zombie make-up, at least, which consists primarily of honey and corn-flakes, and looks about on par with every zombie you've ever seen at a friend's Halloween party.
As is often the case with low-budget, shot-on-video horror movies, Redneck Zombies sometimes tries a little too hard to be strange and out there, in order to stand out from the crowd. I suppose that's why we get strange, unresolved moments like the brief scene where Billy Bob/Ellie May delivers some of the tainted shine to a couple of sadistic murderers, in the middle of torturing their latest victim while watching film of baby chickens being slaughtered. And this desire to be as out there as possible also probably goes a long way towards explaining the presence of such a bizarre character as The Tobacco Man, who wears an Elephant Man-esque sack over his deformed face and issues prophetic warnings of upcoming danger while delivering tobacco as if it were ice cream.
So, given all this, is the film actually any good? Well, I suppose, although it really all depends on how much any potential viewer can tolerate this much intentional-badness. Redneck Zombies exists in that strange netherworld between "unbelievably awful" and "blissfully terrible, to the point of being genius." Sure, the majority of the jokes actually make an episode of Hee-Haw look like Monty Python, but then again there actually are a few memorable moments, including a well-done and legitimately funny Texas Chainsaw Massacre parody, and an amusing sequence where a character must perform an autopsy while tripping on LSD.
Ah, what the hell, I'm feeling charitable today. After all, like I said, with a name like Redneck Zombies you should really know what you're getting into in the first place, and I can honestly say the movie pretty much met all of my expectations. That's more than can be said for a lot of higher quality zombie films I've watched, all of which might technically be better movies, but certainly didn't feature zombies who can be defeated with aerosol deodorant spray. Score another one for Redneck Zombies!
The 411: You pretty much get what you came for with Redneck Zombies, or at least what I assume you came for, if you're watching a movie with that title. It's every bit as terrible as the name would suggest, but on the bright side the filmmakers and cast are just as aware of this as you are, and that kind of dedication to pushing the stupidity as far as possible goes a long way when it comes to these low-budget, shot-on-video affairs. There is a certain charm to the film's knowingly-amateur proceedings, and while some of the cornball humor is more aggravating than funny, the plentiful gore and brazenly-stupid tone should keep a certain kind of fan entertained – you know, the kind of fan who would actually decide to watch a Troma movie called Redneck Zombies.
