The October Zombie-Thon! - Day 11: The Mad
Posted by Trevor Snyder on 10.11.2007
Listen to your zombie-killing friend Billy Zane, he's a cool dude.
THE MAD (2007)
Directed by: John Kalangis
Written by: Kevin Hennelly, John Kalangis, & Christopher Warre Smets
Country: Canada/USA
There are plenty of potential crimes against cinema, and trust me, I've watched enough cheapo zombie movies to have seen most of them. But, in that long list of filmmaking blunders, perhaps no sin is greater than casting infamous over-actor Billy Zane, and then asking him to tone it down. At least one can only assume that's what happened with The Mad. How else to explain why Zane, who so memorably chewed scenery like he was starving in films like Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight and Bloodrayne, here spends the entire movie acting as if he needs a good, long nap. Hell, even after his bitch of a girlfriend is killed (and, story-wise, it is supposed to be her dominance of him that has led to his milquetoast demeanor), he still barely registers any kind of reaction. C'mon, Billy Zane…be Billy Zane, dammit!
Oh, wait, I guess I should talk a little bit about the movie itself too, huh? Alright, here goes: The Mad, along with being yet another post Shaun of the Dead attempt to cash in on the "zom-com," is also another entry in the recent wave of "tainted meat" horror films. With recent similar "bad bovine" films like Isolation and Mad Cowgirl, it appears this idea is on the verge of legitimately becoming its own horror subgenre.
Is this a good thing? Perhaps, but if only if the quality of these films take a little step-up in quality from The Mad, which tells the tale of a father (Zane), his daughter, the father's overbearing girlfriend, and the daughter's well-meaning but oblivious boyfriend (got all that?) who, during a road trip, decide to stop for some dinner at a small town diner. Wouldn't you know it, they just so happen to show up on the same day that the diner's meat supply, provided by a local farmer, sends everyone who samples it into a murderous, cannibalistic rage. And then, much hilarity ensues.
Or, at least, that's the idea. In reality, though, the film mostly just kinda limps along, occasionally remembering to actually have something, you know…happen. To be fair, there are some very funny moments – the characters have an amusing debate over whether these infected maniacs can truly be considered "zombies," and I also enjoyed the running gag concerning a particular character who gets repeatedly injured (a bit that, dare I say, actually doesn't go on long enough).
Still, these inspired moments are a little too few and far between, with the rest of the film filled with humor that is either too wacky (a zombie hamburger? Really?), or just too damn odd. For instance, there's a subplot involving Zane's character, who used to be in a new-wave band during his college years, rediscovering his love of music during all of the chaos. It doesn't go anywhere, nor does it add anything to the movie (other than the title…"The Mad" was actually the name of Zane's band), so I can only wonder: why is it here? Was director John Kalangis trying to tap into some "new-wave music loving zombie-comedy fans" demographic that I was unaware existed? Or, more likely, were the filmmakers convinced that seeing Zane in a new-wave band would just be hilarious in and of itself, without any need to actually develop the joke?
Hey, I agree, the sight of Zane leading a new-wave band could have been pretty funny – except the movie never even gives us that! We only ever hear Zane talk about his music days, and are not even treated to the shoulda-been-obvious flashback scene depicting it. Once again, this ties into the movie's overall inability to utilize its leading man, who should have been its saving grace.
On a good day, Zane is a pretty good actor (check out his intense, ultra-creepy performance in Dead Calm). On a great day, Zane is the kind of mega-ham that makes William Shatner seem subdued. There's a great movie to be made someday featuring a fully over-the-top Zane battling a zombie invasion, but, incredibly, The Mad asks him to play a restrained, one-note bore. Zane does what he can with what he's given, and its to his credit that at times his understated, deadpan delivery actually does manage to elicit some laughs. Still, you can't help but be let-down by the film's unwillingness to let the man just go for it and let loose.
Then again, you also can't help but be let-down by this "zombie film's" dearth of zombies. I mean, it's not like I was expecting scene after scene of intense battle scenes involving out hundreds of undead fiends. With its obviously low budget, this is more the kind of movie where characters exclaim, "there's a lot of them out there," even though we never actually see more than three zombies at a time.
But at least those scenes have zombies, no matter how sparse. For its final act, The Mad abandons the zombie motif almost entirely, as Zane and his daughter decide to go get some revenge on the farmer whose tainted meat started everything, and the movie suddenly becomes your typical "city-folk terrorized by crazy rednecks" story. I suppose there's nothing horribly wrong with this approach, in theory, but by that point the film's only real laughs have almost all come out of the characters' interactions with the zombies themselves, and so the sudden shift can't help but make the movie lose some steam (never a good thing when your film is only 83 minutes long).
The Mad is one of those movies that's so close to being potentially good that it's more frustrating than unwatchable. There are laughs to be had, but not enough. There are clever story ideas, but they're buried underneath too much unrelated nonsense (why do we learn that two separate characters had mothers who choked to death on a bone, when this little development goes absolutely nowhere??). And it has a perfect leading man for what it wants to accomplish, but it refuses to let him do what he does best. It's the zombie cinema equivalent of "close, but no cigar."
But, if nothing else, at least it teaches us that when a zombie takes on a vending machine, the vending machine wins.
FINAL SCORE: 1.5 out of 4 Bubs (For Billy Zane completists only)
