Sunday, February 19, 2012

Horror Film Review

Motocross Zombies From Hell (2007):  Zombie flick!  And it's bad!  Nose-curling, eye-watering, stinky bad.  Marinate-a-dead-rat-in-a-septic-tank-for-two-years kind of stinky.  It makes Die and Let Live look like Night of the Living Dead.  As you know, I wade through cinematic crapola in hopes of discovering the elusive and rare gem.  Tonight, I was knee-deep in it and sinking fast.  I'm sure you're dying to hear all about it.  If not, tough.  Hey, I lost 78 minutes of my life tonight.  The least you can do is listen to me bitch about it.

Friends Tom (Dave Competello), Lori (Rachel Diana), and Cody (Jason McClain) take their van and motorcycle somewhere into the desert boonies to compete in a dirt bike race.  Another team goads Cody into following them far off the course where he finds evidence of ritual killings.  He shows Tom and Lori, and then all three run away, winding up at an abandoned house far from anywhere where they find more bloodbaths.  The two bikers who goaded Cody buzz around the house forcing (for reasons that pass understanding) the friends to hunker down in the house as if they're under siege.  Then night falls and zombies start popping out of the ground.  Not really sure why, or why the sun had to go down first.  It's not as if they're vampires, too.  Anyway, Tom accidentally shoots Cody who gets dragged off and eaten.  Tom and Lori finally blow away the two bikers and begin walking home.  Sound lame and boring?  Oh, it's worse than that.  Supposedly, Satan is behind the whole thing.  The Satan connection is apparently explained in a voiceover at the start of the film but the low muttering is inaudible. 

And it gets even worse.  Let's start with the film stock.  There isn't any.  They chose to use video, which instantly screams cheap crap.  Oddly, the opening credits are as professional as any big budget flick.  It's classic bait-and-switch, folks.  Next thing you'll notice is the acting...or lack of it.  Competello isn't very good, Diana is annoying, and McClain is simply awful.  Then there's the technical things.  I'd say 90% of the shots are close-ups.  They make you uncomfortable, like your personal space is being violated.  The sound quality is...well, let me put it this way, background traffic noise comes across more clear than the dialogue.  I'd crank up my sound system to catch what the hell they were trying to say only to have the score kick in and blast me out of my chair.  It was then I realized the dialogue was meaningless anyway and so kept the volume down (I tried turning on the subtitles but they weren't included on the DVD).

The debacle that is Motocross Zombies From Hell could have been salvaged to a certain degree if the filmmakers had attempted humor instead playing it straight.  As it is, you can't take this movie seriously.  You don't give half a shit about the characters and even less about what happens or why.  Even the footage of the dirt bike stunts will put you to sleep.  So is there any aspect of this endeavor that's worth your time?  You'd find more things of interest in an infomercial selling leak-stop spray that can turn a screen door into a boat's hull. 

Breakdown

Acting:  The leak-stop, infomercial guy is better.
Story:  Ridiculous, preposterous, ludicrous, and...er...stupid.
Direction:  In the opening credits, we're shown that the director's name is G.R.  The dude didn't even want to attach his name to this mess.  What's that tell you? 
Production Values:  What did they spend the $75,000 budget on?  Definitely not on actors, film equipment, or sets.  I think I know...
Gore/FX:  Money was spent here.  The gun gags are realistic and the blood looks like blood.  The zombie makeup isn't the greatest, yet not the worst. 
Scares:  If there were, they hid them very well.
Ending:  Sudden, silly, and most welcome.
Verdict:  Should you see Motocross Zombies From Hell?  If you're a masochist, then yes.  If you're a lover of so-bad-they're-good horror films, then maybe.  If you have a sliver of self-respect, then no, absolutely not. 

My Rating1 out of 5 stars. 

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