The October Zombie-Thon - Day 09: Zombie Town
Posted by Trevor Snyder on 10.09.2008
A fun place to visit, but you probably wouldn't want to live (or die) there.
ZOMBIE TOWN (2007)
Written & Directed by: Damon Lemay
Country: USA
I don't know what it is about parasitic alien slugs that turn people into zombies that's so hilarious, but there must be something. After all, anytime anyone makes a movie on the subject, such as Night of the Creeps and Slither, they can't help but mix the horror with humor, creating a goofy, gory good time. Now here's another to throw onto the pile, and while Zombie Town might not quite live up to the high standards set by those two films, it's a fun little flick in its own right.
The small town of Otis, Vermont has a slight problem – and sure, thanks to my opening paragraph you already know what that is, but play along anyway, alright? Anyway, it turns out the town is being overrun by strange slugs that turn folks into flesh hungry zombies! OK, you can act surprised now. Now, while this may be bad news for the town's residents, it's great news for gore fans, as every horrifying stage of the victims' resulting melt-down is chronicled in gooey, squishy detail.
Luckily, the town does have a hero – or, in this case, three. There's Jake (Adam Hose, who looks like the product of a Kevin Bacon/Jared Leto "What If They Mated?"), a slacker mechanic whose brother was one of the first victims; Alex (Brynn Lucas), Jake's ex-girlfriend and resident scientist; and the constantly wise-cracking Randy (Dennis Lemoine), the town's snow-plow driver and nemesis of Jake. Together, the three will try to survive the night, defeat the zombies, and save as many of their fellow townsfolk as possible.
Zombie Town is the kind of movie that only a die-hard zombie fan could love – and that only a die-hard zombie fan will love. When looked at objectively, I must admit it's in no way a great movie. But it's really not that bad, either. For the most part, it hovers harmlessly in the average range, but every once and awhile actually manages to surprise with a truly funny joke (usually supplied by Lemoine, whose comedic timing gives the film a noticeable lift on several occasions) or an admirably disgusting gore gag (the film's cheap but effective FX work is a nice throwback to the old-fashioned carnage of the ‘80s, and is easily the film's most enjoyable element). Combine that with fairly strong performances and a decently-paced story, and you end up with a movie that is a slight step above much of its low-budget zombie ilk.
Sure, it has its problems, both minor and major. For one, I had slight issues with some of the story logic. For instance, it's established early on that Randy and Jake are rivals who clearly don't get along. Yet later Randy just simply walks into a scene with Jake and Alex, and then never really leaves. Suddenly, neither he nor Jake seems to have a problem with one another, and they spend the rest of the movie working together. I understand that Randy is the comic-relief character, and I guess this is a somewhat unimportant criticism, but why not at least acknowledge that up till just a few hours ago these two hated each other? If handled well, wouldn't it only add to the humor?
Even more bothersome is a poorly conceived late scene which threatens to dampen much of the good-will the film has built up by that point. Our heroes eventually realize that salt can be used to destroy the slugs (gotta wonder why the characters in the other alien-slug movies never thought of trying that), and proceed to fill up shotgun shells with salt instead of the usual gunpowder. But when they finally use these new salt shells on the zombies, we don't even get to see the results! Instead, we simply get the characters describing what they're seeing happening off-screen. Lame! I realize this was probably a budgetary thing, and it's not like there isn't already enough gore anyway, but that doesn't change how frustrating this scene feels, or that writer/director Damon LeMay really should have considered filming it in a different way.
Still, none of these complaints are strong enough to outright ruin the movie, as there's enough decent stuff here to help you ignore the minor quibbles. I mean, how many other movies feature a bingo hall full of zombie-fied grandmas? Even better is a later scene where one of the zombie grannies attacks her grandson…while he's having sex with his girlfriend! Yikes. It's like every teenage boy's worst nightmare, taken to an even more horrifying level.
So no, it's not particularly original, and I doubt you'll remember it long after watching it. But for the 80 or so minutes you spend in Zombie Town, you'll probably have a pretty good time – maybe an even better time if you regularly watch far worse low-budget zombie movies. The great thing about truly wretched crap like Deadlands: The Rising or Zombie Campout is that they help you better appreciate the good old-fashioned mediocre charms of a film like Zombie Town. Maybe not the most glowing compliment a film could receive, but Zombie Town should probably be happy with what it can get.
FINAL SCORE: 2.5 out of 4 Bubs (Mildly Recommended)
