George Romero Meets The Branch
Davidians in Sturgis, South Dakota, in this no-budget gorefest by
Jeff Dunn, the one-man drive-in film industry of Cincinnati,
Ohio, who marshals a cast of a hundred zombies, plus that many
stuntmen, about 40 bizarre religious cultists, a biker gang,
bizarre demonic animation that looks like it was grafted onto the
film with a blowtorch, and so many exploding heads and
dismembered bodies being devoured by ghouls that "massacre"
doesn't begin to cover it. He also cranks up the deathmetal
soundtrack so high that half the time you can't understand the
dialogue, a technique that tends to make the acting brilliant. A
couple driving through the woods get distracted and run over a
zombie. Marvin, a childhood victim of beer-gut-daddy child abuse,
gets out of the car and tries to revive the zombie, but gets
bitten on the arm because they've come to a part of the rural Midwest where an army of zombies roam the woods, trying to batter
down the chain link fence that surrounds an armed encampment of
Jesus-freak followers of a sexaholic weirdo. Sure we've seen it
before, but have we seen it with a three-way battle to the death
between trigger-happy cult members, rifle-toting bikers on their
Harleys, and hungry bug-eyed zombies wearing bad pants? I think
not. Fifty-nine dead bodies. Ten breasts. Multiple bullets to the
head. Ecstatic snake-handling. Multiple arm-chewing. Chest-
ripping. Screaming-bimbo-devouring. Three orgies. Car-tire
zombie-head-smushing. Child-flogging. Caged-zombie entrail-eating. Nostril-drilling. Multiple jugular-vein therapy. Nude
female crucified demoness who electrocutes your eyes (you kinda
have to see it). Blood-drinking. Neck-chomping. Involuntary
dentistry with a Black-and-Decker power tool. Throat-slitting,
with fairy dust. Gunshot wound to the privates. Butcher knife to
the skull area. Zombie Feast. Running gunbattle between bikers,
green-eyed zombies and armed cultists. Leg ripped off. Death by
jugular-sucking. Three exploding heads. Gratuitous pants-wetting.
Finger rolls. Head rolls. Arm rolls. Leg rolls. Gratuitous hot-
tubbing. Gratuitous guitar-smashing. Kung Fu. Festering-wound Fu.
Faust Fu. With Bob Elkins as the raving perverted cult leader
("These people have given their lives to perform the work of the
Lord!"), Duffy Hudson as the mad doctor in the barn who gets
stabbed in the neck by his caged demonic experimental zombie,
Michael Botouchis as the hapless tourist who gets religion while
screaming "You're all crazy!" and later tells the devil "I'm
thinking about making a few changes," Randy Rupp as the troubled
cult sniper who picks off zombies and mainlines steroids. Three
stars. 
|