[The Mad]
Plot:A horror-thriller in which a doctor and his teenage daughter are terrorized by flesh-eating zombies at a truck stop.

Cast:Billy Zane, Maggie Castle, Shauna MacDonald, Evan Charles Flock, Jordan Madley, Ian McPhail, Rothaford Gray, Matthew Deslippe, Christopher Gross, Angela Maiorano, Kara Wooten, Allan Price, Michael Rhoades, James Binkley, Sean Orr.

My Thoughts:Terrible zombie movie.

Review:"The Mad" is a low-budget-indie zombie pic which has some cast talent in Billy Zane, and Maggie Castle. But the script just doesn't come through in the end. The film follows a doctor, his teenage daughter, and his new wife who stop at a truckstop during a road trip. They are unaware however that a bad and tainted stock of hamburger meat is slowly turning the locals into flesh-craving zombies.

When the outbreak finally reaches critical levels, they have to find a way to survive, or become the next item on the menu. This film is similar to Rob Schmidt's upcoming horror movie "Bad Meat", by premise only. No one has seen "Bad Meat" yet, but I doubt it'll be as bad as "The Mad". The film makes so many critical mistakes that it has no chance of being any good. The characters aren't very interesting first and foremost, although Zane's character is funny at times.

And everyone knows in a zombie movie, you need strong and vierse characters. Otherwise we as viewers don't care who gets eaten and when. And we're forced to cheer for the zombies. In this films case, I cheered for the zombies. The characters who weren't interesting, or who weren't super annoying, we're one-dimensional to the max. So at that point, I decided well, might as well sit back and see who gets eaten first because I really could careless if anyone survives.

The premise wasn't too bad. Infected cow meat turns local hicks into zombies. With some stories popping up in the news over the years of stories about bad meat in middle america and rural places making people sick, the premise had a shot at working. But when the characters, pacing, and everything else is all wrong, well, you pretty much have no shot at success. This movie does have a high gross-out factor though. So if you're a fan of zombie movies that put disgust, and stomach-turning over plot, characters, and good writing, then you're in luck.

This movie has everything nasty from infected mouth-foam, to blood, gore, slime, guts, and green hamburgers. Yeah, it's a pretty nasty film. The problem is though, it delivers very little beyond that. Zane has proved before that he can carry a horror movie if the script is strong enough. "Tales From The Crypt Presents:Demon Knight" proved this, where Zane played The Collector, a demon who wanted a key that held the blood of christ within it's structure.

But Zane as of late has been taking on some bad indie horror movies, and I really think as an actor, and a pretty good one to boot, he needs to stop taking on these disasterous flicks. Granted, acting sometimes is about paying the bills, but good grief there needs to be a level at which one won't sink below, not even for the paycheck. Beyond that though, "The Mad" does play the zombie part of it's cinematic make-up in typical by-the-numbers fashion.

Someone's bitten, they turn. They then bite someone else, and they turn. The same old story. Of course there is a point in the movie where Zane's character, and his daughter, played by Castle, discover the source of the outbreak. This is where the movie gets really silly and stupid. And the acting hits pure, uncorrupted, rock-bottom. With that being said, the ending makes matters even worse, by putting forth a suggested sequel to all of this nonsense.

"The Mad" is as bad as indie zombie movies can get. I'm pretty sure I've seen some indie zombie movies as bad as this one. But I am vague on those titles at the moment. Which means that this movie is even worse than usual, when with my vast collection of horror-movies-seen, I cannot come up with an indie zombie movie to compare "The Mad" to in terms of poor quality.

Positives:Some of the comedic bits with Zane and castle work well sometimes, high-gross-out factor. Decent premise.

Negatives:The way the story plays out is awful, the characters are uninteresting and in some cases very obnoxious, and the zombie action is too by-the-numbers to be original in any way.

Overall:One star out of four.





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