i would rather watch buddy poop.

ZOMBIE NATION...oooh, sounds creepy huh? oh yea. LOVE me some creepy movies...after reading the back of the case at the video store, i didn't expect it would be taking home any oscars, but come on...what critic ever really appreciates a good zombie film? besides, the cover has this way cool, grey-skinned, drippy-fanged, glazed-over-eyeballs dude - oh yea, so sold.

first i was going to fuck with you and tell you to run out and rent ---no, BUY this film. you know, just for fun - but i felt guilty even thinking about it. second i was going to tell you, in detail, about the 84 minutes of my life that i will never get back and try to explain just how painful the passing of each one was. however, upon thinking about it for roughly 12 seconds, i've decided that i cannot make up words to describe this movie. but i'm going to try. i owe it to the unsuspecting masses. really.

do you like the night of the living dead movies? I LOVE THEM. my personal favorite is the mall one (is that dawn of the dead?) complete with porno music, get down and get funky 70's fashion statements and the ever-hunky (gah) steve running through the mall trying to keep up with the cool guy and protect the dimwitted stoned chick. great cinema there - campy and cheeseball and solid entertainment all the way through. now, zombie nation? uh, notsomuch. my point is that i'm not at all hard to please when it comes to skeery, creepy, gory movies and this one failed even me miserably.

not only was there NOTHING in the movie even slightly resembling the way-cool monster on the front of the case, there was nothing resembling an actor, a real movie set or even movie cameras (note the plural - there did seem to be one real movie camera but clips from it were scattered about the movie among many more clips from someones garage sale find in the form of a home video camera circa 1987 - remember the ones roughly the size of a microwave that you had to carry on your shoulder? ok, we are now officially on the same page...); the voice dubs were off - hell, i think their mouths were moving in english, but it was really hard to tell in some places - they could have been speaking farsi for all i know; the fight scenes were so bad that you could see them swing, let up and purposely miss when they were "beating" someone up; oh, and probably my all time favorite part of the movie was when this one guy (at band camp) was hefting a duffel bag (supposedly carrying a dead chick going about a buck-twenty) into the trunk of his maroon mercury cougar "police car", you see him really struggling to carry it because, well...you know it was "heavy". then came the moment where he actually threw it into the trunk...it was so painfully obvious that the bag was flat-ass empty that, just for shits and giggles, we rewound and rewatched it about 5 times. evidently not one person "on the set" thought to toss even a few rocks in there for effect.

apparently the budget for the "film" was so small, the only zombie makeup they could come up with was what appeared to be black crayon rubbed around the actors' (and i use that term oh-so-loosely) eyeballs; apparently, the budget was so small, instead of renting an actual room to film their "police station" scenes in, they used a portion of someones storage warehouse (complete with water pipes and actual stored products) and set up cubicle dividers to make pretend walls; apparently, the budget was so small that when one scene called for a chick-zombie to bite off some guy's wanker, did they at least flash me a glimpse of a real one? noooo, they instead substituted what appeared to be a ketchupy dog's tongue or maybe it was a hot dog - it was dark and hard to tell, regardless IT WAS SO FAKE. interestingly enough, they did find it in the budget to include a close-up scene of some hippie guy (complete with braids and a rolled up bandanna) on the side of the road flashing a peace sign for no apparent reason. it does indeed, remain a puzzling decision.

so, i'm not siskel, ebert or roper, BUT the only value i would place on this dvd would be the ability to do the poop-scoopin'-boogie with it and then maybe, once loaded, throw it like a frisbee over the neighbor's fence. that just might match the thrill of that one scene, when this single, monstrously large, seemingly floating in mid-air, silicone-filled, bare breast took over the entire screen. oh sure. that was worth the rental fee right there. (come on, you know you want to add this movie to your blockbuster online queue - what are you waiting for?)