Zombies of Mass Destruction Movie Review

A riotous comical tone sits intriguingly with some serious issues in this energetic, chaotic comedy-thriller. And even though it's set seven years ago, presumably to make the satire more relevant, it's actually timelier today.

In September 2003, Tom (Fahl) returns home to the idyllic Northwest island of Port Gamble with boyfriend Lance (Hopkins). The plan is to come out to his mother, but her reaction is a little unexpected: she starts foaming at the mouth and trying to eat him. Indeed, she's been infected by the zombies roaming through the town. On the run, Tom and Lance also have to escape from a homophobic minister (Johns) before teaming up with Frida (Armand), daughter of a local Iranian (Hamedani). But everyone thinks she's Iraqi, and blames her for the zombie outbreak.

Clearly the filmmakers thought that the homophobia and anti-Islamic sentiment were more appropriate to 2003 than 2009, but they had no idea that the summer of 2010 would bring both issues back into the fray. And the rabid bigotry on display in these comical characters actually seems a bit tame compared to Fox News pundits. There's also an election raging in a sideplot, as a hippie (Moore) takes on the long-time conservative incumbent (Mesher) for mayor. One example of this film's rather unsubtle humour is the incumbent's name: Hal E Burton.

But then, this kind of ridiculous comedy is what makes the film so much fun to watch. Even as the sharp topics continually fly at us (at one point Frida is kidnapped and tortured by a terrified redneck), the main point here is to get us laughing. So the violence is so far over the top that we don't have time to feel queasy about all the gore.

On a technical-artistic level, the film is pretty silly as well. Director Hamedani doesn't really bother trying to create something that looks good; he merely gets hundreds of extras to maraud through the murky landscape chomping on each other at random. It's not particularly well shot, and the acting is uneven at best. But there is a nice sense of characterisation, and the dialog more than makes up for the goofy approach.