The Canadians go zombie nuts in “Zombiefeast”!
So what we have here is the results of a competition known as “Scrapshots”. Just what is Scrapshots? Taken from their DVD screen:
“‘Scrapshots’ is a film competition that uses the one-piece discipline of filmmaking. One camera, one shot, no post production. All competing films are screened live to the audience, who then rates the films.”
Nice…it’s the high-wire act of filmmaking.
And what you’re watching here are all the winners, save one. The opening screen goes on to explain:
“The Shopping Block,” “The Rotten Truth,” “The Passion of Zombie Jesus,” and “Unearthed” are all Scrapshots entries. And with the exception of “The Shopping Block” all are winning films. Putting Ira Hunter and Robin Thompson at the top of the list for consecutive winning entries.”
*cough*EGOMANIACAL!*cough* Whew…sorry about that, folks…just something about that last bit I couldn’t quite swallow.
In case you couldn’t tell by the roundabout way I put that, I find that last part pretty unnecessary. It would be like “Titanic” having a special part before the DVD menu saying just how many Oscars it won followed by an open invitation from James Cameron for the world at large to perform an act of f******o on him, because the man’s ego…oh…yeah. He’s got money enough to sue me. So I won’t go any farther!
Anyway, on to the movies! Presented now in the order I watched them:
Unearthed
A young man goes forth into the woods to discover the circumstances behind his great grandfather’s demise in a fashion that’s either incredibly overblown or deliberately comical, I can’t tell which. This guy’s so fantastically desperate for attention that he’s willing to light up a Lucky and smoke it while calling it a burnt offering. He follows this up by cutting his hand on nothing at all while digging in a fashion so ineffectually comical that I don’t know whether to roar laughter or cringe at the sheer awful of what I’m watching.
Check out the “Which filter are we using again?” shot at three minutes and thirty seven seconds. Normal, to green, to violet!
And it only gets funnier from there!
Unearthed is a comic gem, whether it was meant to be or not.
Corpus Delecti (The Passion of Zombie Jesus)
Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me.
I’m not even going to dignify this tripe with the rant it so richly deserves. I only wish there were words stronger than “vile” and “asinine” so I could give you the fullest sense of the childishly blasphemous seven minutes we’re being subjected to here.
If such words exist, please let me know what they are.
The Shopping Block
“The Shopping Block”–the single strangest informercial ever seen, two people who are way, WAY, too chipper offering the most bizarre product ever–zombies for home use.
While it’s oddly reminiscent of the last ten minutes of “Shaun of the Dead,” it’s still plenty funny. The concept of a home shopping network devoted to zombies is just beautifully funny, and as the zombies get theirs in the last few seconds, the irony is beautiful.
The Rotten Truth
This is a little odd–sort of a National Geographic special on zombies that exposes zombies as, at best, a minor threat. The lengths they go to to prove this fact are brilliantly comic.
Although the ending…well…let’s just say that zombies have only a limited patience when it comes to suffering fools like this guy.
The special features include making of featurettes for “The Shopping Block” and “Unearthed,” and also for “Zombie Jesus”–though why anyone would want to hear about that piece of filth is beyond me–a trailer for their upcoming film “Champions of Hell” and a fifth bonus film, Partsman.
Partsman is actually almost twice as long as any other film on the disc, which begs the question of why they didn’t just include it in the original program lineup in the first place, and frankly, it’s vastly better than “Zombie Jesus” anyway. Including the truly bizarre musical number involving miniatures and rubber dinosaur toys.
All in all, Zombiefeast is a mostly solid collection of zombie films in the funniest possible style, with one obvious exception. So cut out the cancer and you’ll have a good solid body left. Only problem is that body will be walking around hungry for brains.
