Toxic Zombies..or Why Some Should not star and direct.

Well it wouldn’t be a zombie film a bit of gore and cheesy comments but this one takes the cake on music steals, bad dubbing, and yes even sound effects’ timing is off.  So grab your bug out bag, machete and solid rifle.  This is Toxic Zombies.

Spoilers can only be destroyed if you get the brain.

Charles McCrann is our writer/director/lead actor brings us the depths of this utter hell that this film is.  Violence with no real explanation nor any real attempt at character development and all back stories consists of people babbling about events we have not seen or these people should not yet have knowledge of.  Citizen Kane this is not.  Hell I wouldn’t even give it Citizen Toxie.   With a cast of no one I could recognize other than John Amplas (of Martin, Day of the Dead, Creepshow and No Pets) and he is not even a lead part.  He remains in the shadows of obscurity.  To start us on this journey; pot growers are using government land to score 2 million big ones in grass and have no qualms about killing officials to keep their crops.   We open this film up with what I thought was two hunters with rifles.  I mean commonly you see two guys decked out in flannel and hiking boots you would come to that conclusion too.  Cut to a topless bathing scene?  Well of course there’s one.  We are two minutes and forty seconds into this flick we got to keep the male audience or their attention span might wander.  So we get spliced cut shots of hunters and back to topless sudsy goodness.   After a quick dress she is informed the two hairballs with rifles are federal officers, she tries to bail and they shot her in the back…well the back of the neck according to her cheesy flesh wound.   No sooner have these crack officials realized they shoot a woman, that by the way was their only concern.  Not that they just shot an unarmed person but the fact she happened to be female.  Stay classy, movie.   Two hippies do in the officials and the frigging knifing sound effect is about a second and a half off from the strikes.  Yeah this is not exactly quality entertainment.   

Establishing from Commander Exposition and Junior Plot Point; two other officials realize the only way to tend to this problem is to release an untested chemical on the government land and thus destroying the pot.   With the help of a drunken sot of a pilot the chemicals are released and the hippies turn more yellow than a colony of vegans.   Suddenly more violent tendencies are occurring in the hippies and they proceed to do away with anyone that is not as messed up as they.

Our hero/writer/director acts his way into the paper bag and cannot leave there as he and his wife’s passionate lovemaking turns night to day and vice versa with fade scenes.  Random campers and their children are not safe in these insane making woods as they are laid siege upon. 

Now let us step back and observe for a second.  These zombie like folk are wielding hand weapons, rocks and even mastered fire for torches again and all without the aid of Dr. Rickles from Day of the Dead teaching them, so not exactly certain how to describe this lot, other than all messed up.   Most of the music for this flick has been lifted from Day of the Dead, a sped up version of Halloween, Dawn of the Dead and a mutilated version of Jaws as well.   I am not certain but I can manage some disgruntlement.  Go enjoy your evening outside or sit in with a book.

Death Factory...Hmm must be Kenner

Yup the title says it all…Death Factory.   Now if you look at it from philosophical point of view you could say the manufactory of guns, tanks, bombs and jets could be viewed as this and have endless debates about peace vs. war.   Well alas extensionalists, that ain’t the case.   Ten to one teens are involved.  So grab your guy or girl, get some drugs and booze, this is Death Factory.

There a few spoilers ahead.  You know the drill.

The genius at work on this cinema feature is Brad Sykes (which is a rude name in the Newcomer language of Alien Nation) writer and director of such films as: (Camp Blood, Camp Blood 2, Goth and Plaguers) in 2002 under the blessing of Brain Damage Films (Apt name) comes this story…such as it is.  With 5 million in the kitty, the film was created and the magic happened…no wait that was Escape from New York.   Our story unfolds with a couple making out in the grass near the “factory” and they decided it would be a great idea to explore the factory and not each other.  Gee, I wonder what is going to happen.  No sooner than nitwits one and two wander in they are killed off.   Boy, who would have seen that one coming.  

This piece of sputum was shot on Digital Video.  I mean lower than the Panasonic.  A flip cam would have gotten better shots.   The pace of this movie is at the speed of curdled milk.  Okay how do I put this in polite terms?  Heck I will give it a shot.  The resonate sounds of the factory walls disrupts the actors’ dialogue.  5 million in the kitty and nobody were miked at all.  You hear lots of echoing in this vast empty warehouse that is allegedly a factory.   The only thing more wooden than the frame around the warehouse was the lines that felt less than natural to say.  The actors themselves look baffled when they should be terrified or they appear ambivalent when they should be serious.  They look like they could be doing anything else and just got roped into this gig.

 Our ensemble cast rounds off with Rachel (Lisa Jay of Two and a Half Men, Creepies and Tuesday), Luisa (Karla Zamudio of The Shield, Hard as Nails, Shakedown and The Mexican Dream) the sassy one, Troy (Jason Flowers of The Brink, Papa Zeus and The Lost Girl) The musing metal head, Derek (The Brink, Creepies and Tuesday) Dopey frat boy, Francis (David Kalamus of Alien 3000 a.k.a. The Unseen Evil 2 and In the Closet) and his girlfriend Letica (Rhonda Jordan of Urban Playground, The Mummy’s Kiss, Galaxy Hunter and Bad Penny) are the token black couple.  I swear this need to pair people off like that.  Cubby and Roy couldn’t attend.  

Our gathering of MENSA members were all supposed to party at Francis’ house when his folks went away for a trip but they canceled at the last minute.  Hmm where to get our groove on now?  Why, how about that abandoned factory on the other edge of town that even the cops don’t patrol?   Brilliant!    There are no subplots or perhaps a good flashback sequence that would explain what happened here or why it was truly abandoned but some meek word of mouth rumors/urban legends which sounded more preposterous than a vengeful leprechaun in da hood.   I assume the ridiculous banter which was to be hip and amusingly ironic was NOT supposed to fall flat on its butt and sound just plain snarky.    The main cliché’ of course is booze, drugs and sex.  Now I get that these youngsters have no clubhouse or apartment to use but my God an old couch exposed to elements of weather, insects and rodents?  Oh baby take me right here on the pile of rat droppings.  If the creature doesn’t get them the chigger bites should.

Best part is there is a bed in one room with fresh sheets.  The monster turned down the bed for them.  Isn’t that thoughtful?  The warehouse er um high tech facility has a few strewn papers calling it Dyson Chemicals and without any background in biochemistry the plucky younglings figure out that experiments went awry and caused one of the workers to go completely crackers, mutate and start mauling her fellow employees, I mean this was a bloodbath that somehow was kept out of the papers and TV.  Forget local; that would have been national news.  Suffice to say this had nothing new to bring to the table.  You have blood and boobs folks.  Heck why don’t we just do a series of those films and call it a day.  Blood and Boobs Part 3: Silicone and Slaughter!  Wow my cheesy made up title was better than this whole flick. Seriously, go read a book, sort your sock drawer or give an old friend a phone call.