Director: Mark Newton
Year: 2018
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: Kudzu Zombies
Genres: Zombie; Horror/Comedy
Plot:
After spraying a new crop fertilizer, the residents of a small-town celebration find it crashed by flesh-eating zombies spawned through a new experimental chemical being tested to control overgrown vegetation in the area and must gather the surviving townspeople to get them to safety.
Review:
For the most part, there's a lot to really like here. A lot of the fun with this one comes from the zombie outbreak that occurs here which has plenty going for it. The opening to this gives us everything we need to know about the situation, from the possible source of the infection being introduced with the different chemical tests to the character relationships which signal the introduction of the virus to the population as the arrival of the infected creatures on the outskirts of town while we spend plenty of time on the inner workings of the various characters. Getting to see the groups interact together and how they converge during the chaos creates a wholly enjoyable time as well as being fine for the emotional layoffs later.
This becomes all the better when mixed alongside the outrageous zombie action on display. The comedic tone of the zombie chase through the undergrowth adds a nice bit of humor to the severity of the encounter offers a great starting point to the chaos that erupts at the music festival. From the first instances of them taking out the stragglers who then turn on those inside the festival grounds in a frenzied manner causing all sorts of carnage ripping people to pieces, pulling off limbs, devouring body parts and other fun encounters. The race to get out provides some fun action trying to overcome the encroaching swarms providing plenty of bloody kills amidst the frantic sequences.
Once they've left the festival, the action that occurs in the escape attempt to reach the facility keeps this one going incredibly well. Once out of the fair, the series of gun-battles and confrontations on the streets not only between the friends but a militia group that's trying to regain control has some great cheesy fun included. The main finale where they arrive at the swarmed facility and try to use the available weaponry to try to overcome the creatures in a last-ditch effort involving plenty of cheesy, high-end action set pieces featuring the destruction of the base as a rather fine explosive-filled sequence to take out the zombies. Combined with the fun gore effects and decent zombie make-up, there's enough to like with this one.
This one does have a few issues. Among its main problems are the absurd and terrible-looking CGI present here for so many action scenes, completely ruining the moment at the wrong time by rendering awful-looking graphics on-screen that don't mesh with anything else happening and stand out as being noticeable. Likewise, the high number of survivors seems weird when there's not a whole lot of reasoning why they don't all get killed during the fray. The other issue is the somewhat obscure motivation for starting the infection, pointing it to a singular individual and spreading it but there's nothing about how they get infected nor why none of the other inhabitants were. Beyond these, there isn't much to dislike with this one.
Overview: ***.5/5
A pretty solid and wholly entertaining zombie effort, this manages to get enough to like which is enough to overcome the few minor flaws that erupt here. Give the film a shot of you're a fan of low-budget indie efforts or fans of comedic zombie efforts like this one, while those who have no interest or appreciation of the style should heed caution.
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