Movie Review: Redneck Zombies (1987, U.S.)

21 years ago, Troma Pictures made minor cinematic history when it released a “Zombie Classic” straight to video (and it was shot entirely on video, something unheard of at the time if it wasn’t pornography). I’m talking about those “tobacco chewin’, gut chompin’, cannibal kinfolk from Hell”…Redneck Zombies. Fangoria Magazine called this movie a “backwoods blood bath that’ll tickle your funny bone then rip it out”. I credit this movie, for better or worse, as one of the main influences on why I went to Film School. Redneck Zombies showed that you could make a movie and have it released by a major studio straight to video without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars (before El Mariachi, Clerks & Reservoir Dogs). The story in Redneck Zombies is pretty straight forward: the military loses a barrel of chemical waste, a redneck family discovers the barrel and decides to use its contents in their latest batch of moonshine. As the rednecks deliver the shine to their patrons, the toxic brew begins to turn the locals into zombies and mayhem ensues. As all of this is happening, the viewer is also introduced to a group of hikers camping in the wilderness of backwoods Maryland. They eventually come upon the deadly moonshine still and have to fight off hordes of the Redneck Zombies.

This movie is probably one of my favorite movies of all time. A small part of my brain shrieks in repulsion as I type those words but I don’t care. This movie is fun, pure and simple. The director, Pericles Lewnes, makes no apologies for its over-the-top campiness. This unrepentant approach helps make the movie that much more enjoyable. It’s hard to find a movie that incorporates some of my favorite things, including zombies, the Three Stooges and homages to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Recreational Drug Use, Rocky and Bullwinkle & Day of the Dead. There are so many jokes in this movie, both visual and aural, that it will take multiple viewings to catch them all. Even as I write this review, I am catching new things that never occurred to me before. For anyone that has been lucky to catch this movie before now: the director’s commentary is hilarious as hell. There are so many back-stories to Lewnes’ friends and family that helped in this movie. One of my favorites is that one of the actresses in the film was threatened to be excommunicated by her church if she didn’t stop participating in its productions. She was actually forced to attend an intervention. Another one included the zombie, Ferd Merz, and the make-up nightmare that he had to go through. His zombie makeup consisted of pretty much a Jell-O substance. The makeup artist forgot to put in a chemical to make the Jell-O pliable. The substance in turn hardened on Merz. On the special features, there is actually video of Lewnes and company extracting Merz out of his Jell-O shell. You won’t see that on the 50^th Anniversary of Gone with the Wind.

The cinematography and lighting in this movie rivals several more expensive films that are considered successful by box office numbers. Some of the shots look like small “love letters” to the early work of Sam Raimi, with unique choices of camera placement and angles. Raimi actually sent a letter to Lewnes to tell him how much he enjoyed Redneck Zombies. The special effects are pretty damn good considering the budget. The movie definitely delivers the gore. Interestingly, there were two cuts of this film. A sanitized, censored version which was carried by the bigger video chain stores while the “Mom & Pop” stores carried the uncensored version. I reviewed this movie on the Troma 20^th Anniversary DVD. It has a new color corrected transfer from the original stock and is chock full of DVD extras that make the viewing experience a very immersive and enjoyable one. It’s important to note the social and pop culture mentions that this movie has obtained: writes up in major newspapers such as The New York Times and The London Times as well as officially being a Trivial Pursuit question. Lewnes is no slouch either. He went on to work for Llyod Kauffman at Troma (the modern day Roger Corman), working in several films including Toxic Avenger II & III, Sergeant Kabukiman & War. He worked on Ang Lee’s first film as well as directing the music video for the band Jimmy’s Chicken Shack, “High”.

Is this movie bad? I don’t think so if you look at it from Lewnes’ point of view. Everything is exaggerated for the purpose of satire. The zombies serve as comedic relief in the movie. This is the type of movie that you get a bunch of your film geek friends together for on a Friday night, buy a case of beer, light the hooka and enjoy everything that is right, and wrong, in this movie. I highly recommend this for anyone’s zombie collection, for both historical reasons as well as having a good laugh every once in a while. Keep your eyes open for Redneck Zombies 2, as Lewnes mentions that it is in the works.

Movie Review: Raiders of the Living Dead (1986, U.S.)

When discussing the history of Undead Cinema, Scott Schwartz is not the first name that comes to mind. The name might not sound familiar, but you’ve most likely seen Schwartz. He played the spoiled kid in Richard Pryor’s The Toy and Flick in A Christmas Story among countless other movies. In 1985, he starred a little known film that is infamous in film geek circles: Raiders of the Living Dead. The film had previously sat in limbo for several months before a notorious production company picked Raiders up: Independent-International Pictures. The company was known for “re-working” unwatchable movies and turning a profit on them. One of their big claims to fame was saving and successfully selling Dracula Versus Frankenstein. Raiders is actually a retooling of a 1983 film called Dying Day. The head of Independent-International, Sam Sherman, decided to purchase Dying Day, reshoot a lot of the scenes himself, and included new actors into the film, including Schwartz, Bob Allen (a famous cowboy actor from the 1930’s) and Zita Johann (she starred in the 1932 version of The Mummy).

It's a strange one, but here’s what I’ve gathered from the three different versions of the movie that are currently out there: a scientist is creating zombies from dead prisoners at an abandoned prison (or terrorists are holding hostages at the abandoned prison); a news reporter and a librarian go to investigate rumors about the abandoned prison; Schwartz creates a laser gun out of parts from a laser disc player; the zombies attack the townspeople; Schwartz and his grandfather save the townsfolk with his ray gun. Did you follow all of that? Now, I’ve just given you the Cliff’s Notes version of this cinematic abortion. The entire terrorist sub-plot plays out for almost 30 minutes before the laser-gun totin’ Schwartz enters the picture. Raiders was never released in the U.S. but had minor success overseas. The film was actually premiered stateside on the B-Movie Show “Up All Night with Gilbert Godfreid” on the USA Network in 1989. The show was well-known for showing bad horror movies or T & A flicks with all of the violence, gore and nudity cut out of them.

I’m going to be honest with you guys: this is probably the worst zombie movie out there (with Zombie Lake taking a close second). The story and dialogue are so incoherent at points that I had to re-watch this movie several times just to write this review. The make-up is very low-rate. Most of the zombies look like they stuck their heads in an industrial sized vat of green Spaghetti-O’s. I think the only reason that you would want to watch or (shudder) own this movie would be for the pure simple reason of watching the evolution of a cinematic train wreck. I reviewed the 2002 release from Image Entertainment. The box set (I’m not making this up) features all three versions of the film, as well as commentary by the man himself, Sam Sherman. The transfer is decent considering the film stock that it was shot on. From a zombie point of view, you’re better off to see more Zombie Action in House of the Dead.

In short, an ugly baby is an ugly baby, no matter what color the “onesie” is. It’s incoherent, badly edited and makes my head hurt about 10 minutes in. I had seen this film when I purchased it back in ’02. I decided enough of the emotional trauma that it rendered back then may have subsided, so I decided to open up this little Pandora’s Box of fun for Zombie Zone News. They say that you shouldn’t have regrets in life, but me watching this movie is one of them. If one of your douchebag friends ever piss you off, this movie is a good way to get back at them. Consider it the “Two Girls, One Cup” (internet reference) of zombies movies. And now comes the part in the review where we come full circle. The failure of this movie turned into cinematic cancer for Schwartzman. His last film role in 1990’s Comeback led “Flick” down a different road… into Hardcore Adult Pornography. Schwartzman starred in several red-light delights, including: Scotty’s X-Rated Adventures, White Rabbit, Torn & Insatiable. Luckily, the story doesn’t stop there. Schwartzman leaves the porn industry and decided to open up a very successful sports and film memorabilia store with his father, where you can find him today.

This movie is an interesting letter and possible warning for greedy film studios trying to slap a zombie in the title and hoping to repeat the box office numbers of the Dawn of the Dead remake ($102,356,381 ) of Shaun of the Dead ($30,039,392). While I am like a kid at Christmas with Zombies being the new Smurfs of the 21st century, you will have to take the dross out of the gold, so to speak. A small price to pay I guess, as for every Raiders of the Living Dead you will find an Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn. Until next time kids, always have two ways out of a building when the zombies come for you.