MICROBUDGET MASSACRE 8:
Hysteric Eric Takes yet another insightful
look at 5 Trashy Indy Flicks!

Jesus H. Zombie. Great title, but doesn’t deliver on the promise. It’s a title that suggests you’d be able to see some sort of social satire, or at least some enjoyable blasphemy. But no…
Since you asked…in the movie, a guy runs over Jesus, and takes him to his house, until he attacks some annoying missionaries and runs off. The lead’s girlfriend is then kidnapped by a Satanist, who wants to trade her for Jesus. That’s the plot in a nutshell. Has a good opening sequence with kids out in the woods who find Jesus. The kids actually have the best lines in the movie, the dialogue goes downhill after that.
A constant irritant is the fact that everybody in the film seems to think that the rocker dude looks just like Jesus, when he looks just like…some rocker dude. A dubious-looking reporter has an obvious fake arm torn off (you could tell immediately from the big shirt and abnormally large shoulder that he was getting his arm severed), but most of the violence so far is off screen. This is disappointing, because then it’d have something to recommend, since the movie is not that funny. Too bad, it’s a concept that has plenty to explore.
The film is in focus and lit well enough, but camera is a bit static, with interminable medium shots of yak yak yakking, and poor pacing kills some of the story’s impact. Suffers from Troma-esque attempts at humor. The TV reporter’s paper logo on his microphone reads WFRT. Lots of time wasted on Jesus joke that’s not that funny, especially when they guy doesn’t even look like Jesus. He kills people by ripping off of body parts, but the violence is not shown very well and is disappointing in its’ brevity, robbing the film of it’s payoff moments.
It’s an amusing exploitation concept, a Jimmy Buffet t-shirt-wearing Jesus biting people and creating zombies, but it doesn’t go much beyond that initial adolescent idea. Attacks the pimp and gives the money to his girls? Like Jesus might have done. Get it? There’s a moment when Jesus turns water to blood when it felt like the film might have turned in a more complex direction, but hope was soon dashed. It did grow on me after a while; it’s obviously made with no budget, which I admire. But the lack of gore is a problem, and for a film with this title to almost completely steer away from sacrilegious/satirical/social commentary opportunities is going to keep me from recommending it.
Ragged backyard filmmaking. It’s wise to keep it short at 45 minutes. Order it for $10.00 post paid direct from the filmmaker at: http://www.shybyday.com/jhz.htm.

Stoned Dead. And with a title like that, you might think that it was a stoner comedy, but no, it’s a straight-faced horror/supense picture.
CIA agents ask private investigators to go undercover in Panama to find kidnapped missionaries (picture of one is actor’s head shot!) who turn out to run a drug lab staffed by resuscitated dead. Over-utilized horrible 80s synth music is very busy, very intrusive yet bland. They strive to get the most out their limited production values in dressing the set, but wallpaper in a jail cell? The nice exteriors of South America add needed production value and realism to the film, which seems like a filmed play at times. Either they know their way around a stock footage library, or somebody went on vacation in South America. The actors, however, could be in a forest in Georgia or Florida or anywhere, we don’t really see them in any recognizable foreign setting - respectable enough cheat, though.
Story lumbers along at its own clumsy pace, often displaying behavior that doesn’t seem to make sense. What kind of dumb-asses don’t take any supplies with them into the jungle, even water, even just for an hour? And the money in briefcase is white!
The zombies are a variation of the classical Haitian Voudon zombies, like in The Serpent and the Rainbow, but less interesting –you may not realize they are supposed to be zombies at first. More exposition time is wasted trying to explain their convoluted heritage. The dead are revived by a mixture of coca leaves and uncut heroin (seems more likely to kill you all over again!) Then they’re sent to work in the boss’ drug lab purifying coke and hauling sacks of it on their backs, and killing intruders. The zombies are growling guys in hooded robes, with little or no make-up.
Slow and talky, and could use some humor. Photography OK, actors not so much. Suffers from an uninvolving cast (except for the police chief) and an odd sameness, or lack of dynamics in the video, everything is mid-range, if you dig me. Story concept is fine, but dialogue stinks and uninteresting camera placement doesn’t draw you in. What’s with the fake fish eye lens look? Even the action scenes underwhelm, and the film’s blood and wounds don’t convince. Perhaps that’s why there isn’t much of either.
Available from the filmmakers at: http://www.createspace.com/234035.

Sensitive New Age Killers is a 2000 Aussie import, a darkly comic crime thriller soaked in blood and sex and irony, the story of a sad sack hit man given one more chance to fix a botched job. Lively camera movement and stylized action mingle with deceptively mundane details of everyday life.
Hitman Paul idolizes the Snake, a mysterious hit man he once saw in action as a child. Paul’s a family man, but got caught by a lady cop during a job, and now has a standing Friday appointment to bang her, unless he wants her to arrest him. He’s also being played by his friend George, who snorts coke mixed with his mom’s ashes and stars in SM videos in his spare time. George is banging his wife (he has something on her), and sabotaging his killings. Paul has a chance to make a big score, when he finds out a crook with a million dollar bounty on his head is in town. Unfortunately for him, The Snake is in town for the same job…
Acting is uniformly good, especially the hated George, and Paul, the main character who is onscreen for most of movie. Chock full of marvelous details and small revelations about the characters. Gives the actors great bits of business, like The Snake listening to his victim’s decreasing heartbeat with a stethoscope.
Corny lounge music, classical or music reminiscent of cheesy 70s cop shows often plays during shoot-outs, seemingly celebrating and mocking the violence. The over-the-top climactic gunplay at the end of the picture comes across as a mad parody of a John Woo shootout.
Released as part of the Savage Sinema From Down Under set of films by Mark Savage, the rest of which is definitely worth a look, too. Funny, violent, campy, fast moving, and densely plotted. Great camera placement and fabulous lighting belie the low budget. Highly recommended. Available from Netflix and Amazon.

666 The Beast is a cheap Omen/Devil’s Advocate rip-off distributed by The Asylum, and an apparent sequel to a movie nobody seems to have seen. Anti-Christ movies should be creepy and fun and sacrilegious, at least until the comeuppance in the last reel, but this one miserably fails the fun test. Played waaaay too seriously for something that looks like a bland made-for-TV movie, an occasional comic relief would have considerably loosened the stick up this movie’s ass…I guess they were worried about breaking the non-existent “suspense.” The best thing about the movie is its’ soundtrack, full of chanting monks and ominous classical sounds.
Future TV actors do a serviceable but uninspired job with the terrible script. I’ve just now finished the movie 15 minutes ago, and I literally cannot remember any dialogue from the thing. Perhaps that’s a blessing. I thought the wife did a good job with the difficult role. The lead has a great angular Max headroom-type face that is able to convey menace and likeability, but even him stabbing five priests can’t save this film from tedium.
Spoiler alert: The only worthwhile concept in here is that he is the Anti-Christ, and must kill his pregnant wife because his unborn son is the second coming of Jesus! If you’ve seen any, and I do mean any, anti-Christ type movie, there’s no reason to see this. You’ve already seen it done better.
In the obligatory sex scene, the director even manages to take a hot girl and make her sex scene boring! Nice use of red filters, though. Film has a little bit of blood, but could have really used some gore to liven things up.
The beginning shows a guy waking up from dead and killing nurse. He turns out to be the CEO of the corporation the lead actor has been working at for a year, yet nobody says anything that would explain his body being on a slab—maybe he was just practicing! You would think that someone would recognize him as being an ex-dead guy, but it’s not even acknowledged. And what was the point of the sister coming back to life in the morgue and strangling that cop? It made no sense, had no impact on the story, and wasn’t even impressive.
End seems to set things up for a sequel (Lord help us all!) Available from: http://www.theasylum.cc/cgi-bin/showMovie.cgi?id=135.

Edison Death Machine has a campy no-budget let’s-make-a-movie sensibility, and it did make me laugh a few times, so I’ll go gentle on it, but man is the acting bad, not that the actors had that much too work with. The dialogue is atrocious, and the pacing is also bad and script clunky (The Machine’s history is repeated several times in the first 20 minutes, including through some old footage.)
And while I like the idea of lost footage, I’ve seen some of the actual Edison labs footage, and, just adding scratches to the video alone and tuning out the color can’t replicate the look. And at the time they would have shot experiments and such, not some random people coming to ask Edison a favor. And multiple angles and close-ups? Puh-leeze.
The characters act without any common sense, discussing sensitive things in front of strangers, leaving a robbery they planned for months without anything ‘cept an old machine that they just found out about that MIGHT be able to raise the dead, etc. Plenty of redundant duh! moments, like when the gangster kills somebody, then in the very next scene another hood says, “He means business.” Duh! Like we didn’t just see what he did!
The concept of the machine itself is a solid device if a little creaky, but it’s like they didn’t know where to take it after that. They bring back the king of rock and roll (Buddy Gilbert?! - couldn’t get the rights to use the Elvis name?) and let him walk off.
Acting redefines the term wooden. The lead and martial arts guy are the only ones halfway decent, although I eventually found endearing the awkward earnestness with which the head gangster (and Robert Berry-look-alike) delivers his lines.
Much of it sounds way cooler than they had the budget or talent to actually pull off - like the Pirate shootout with the SWAT team. The overuse of close-up and medium shots drove me crazy. Too close, I yelled at the screen. Too close! But on and on the DVD continued…thank god for the fast forward button. Buried somewhere in this mess are a couple of pretty cool looking make-up jobs on the resurrected dead (Buddy, mummy, civil war soldiers.) But I fear the director doesn’t know how to frame or light them to their best advantage, either.
It often can’t decide if it’s going for camp or realism. Bad punched-up sound effects and cheesy flash animation underscore the budgetary shortcomings rather than help them.
At two hours, the film is way too long. The viewer is constantly aware they are watching somebody’s friends try to act in somebody’s garage dressed up to look like a set. Occasionally underlit. Lame FX (except zombies). Too much eyeliner on lead actor. Too much talk talky talkerson going on here. I beg you not to waste your time.
In case you still want to see it, rent it on Netflix or buy it direct from the filmmakers’ at: http://www.zombieplanetmovie.com/.