Monday, December 9, 2013

Movie Review: Bloodlust Zombies!





I had one reason for watching Bloodlust Zombies, and it wasn't, as you might expect,  the charms of Alexis Texas. A good friend had a small role as one of the zombies, and I wanted to see him.

Bloodlust Zombies is pretty much what it looks like, a low-budget zombie flick. If you've seen more than a handful of these movies, you certainly know what to expect:  Experimental zombie compound, lab accident, outbreak, fighting zombies during the ensuing lockdown, etc, etc. The melody might change, but the song remains the same.

For the commentary, the director and the star both call the movie "Bloodlust", so I assume the name was changed fairly late in production.

I wound up liking it more than I was expecting.   I don't know it if I'd call it a "good" movie, but it certainly was an enjoyable one. Of course, a big part of the appeal was the commentary from Jeremy on how they achieved certain shots or effects, which isn't going to apply to anybody else watching it . We watched it on DVD (though it was available to stream on Netflix until recently), and had access to the bonus materials. The blooper reel was funny, and I enjoyed watching them sneak into another building to film the elevator scene, which they had done because the office building where they had filmed the other scenes didn't have an elevator.

I might have liked it anyway, in large part due to Adam Danoff's character. Jeremy says Adam is an extremely nice guy in real life, but here he played this smirking douchebag.  This says more about me than anything else, but I like it when characters observe the absurdity of their situation.

Actual line from the movie, and among the best lines of any movie: "Okay...random naked woman, for no apparent reason"
I think the movie was at its best when it wasn't taking itself seriously. (And any movie is immeasurably improved by the addition of a scene with an elevator playing the Girl from Ipanema.) I didn't like in the Special Edition of Star Wars where Boba Fett mugs for the camera


"Hey, fanboy, yeah, I'm talking to you."


but I think that kind of thing works here.  I'm sure the crew was aware of the limitations of their budget when they were creating the movie, but they manage to turn this into an asset by lampshading the more ridiculous stuff. I think I would have watched a whole movie of him running around the building and radiating smarm.

 Janice Marie gave a solid performance, and somewhat distractingly, resembled Carrie Fisher, and Texas, while not the most polished actress I've ever seen, had a very appealing screen presence.

There were some nice moments, like the scene with Texas (or perhaps a stunt double. Jeremy wasn't there for that scene and didn't know who had actually performed it) in the hazmat suit decapitating the zombie with some kind of kendo maneuver.  It was a little bit hokey, but nicely choreographed just the same.

Bottom line, I enjoyed the time I spent watching it, which is more than I can say for a lot of movies.

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