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[ZMD:Zombies Of Mass Destruction]
Plot:Frida Abbas, a young Iranian-American girl, is blamed for a zombie epidemic that destroys the small town of Port Gamble. Life is wonderful for the people in the quiet, Island town of Port Gamble. Frida, a young Iranian-American college dropout is back in town to help her father run the family restaurant. Tom Hunt, a Wall Street broker, visits his hometown with his outspoken boyfriend Lance in order to finally come out to his estranged mother. As Frida, Tom, and Lance take life-changing steps, the town faces a far greater challenge: A zombie virus outbreak!
Cast:Janette Armand,
Brittany Christine,
Constance Best,
Russell Hodgkinson,
Richard Carmen,
Trent Sweeney,
Sydney Sweeney,
Bill Johns,
Victoria Drake,
Colin Blake,
Edward Tubbs,
Doug Fahl,
Erik Lagace,
Andrew Hyde,
Jay Cynik,
James Tubbs,
Cooper Hopkins,
Ali Hamedani,
James Mesher,
Linda Jensen,
Jake Gear,
Corrie Moore.
My Thoughts:Well, the first 15 minutes were good.
Review:"ZMD:Zombies Of Mass Destruction" is quite the unique concept when it comes to zombie movies and zombie movie characters. The film has the usual cliche of a small town, and redneckish townspeople, but the movie also gives us a main character who is female, and Iranian (Persian). Her name is Frida Abbas, and she lives in the small town of Port Gamble. She returns home from college, taking a break for awhile to help her dad at his restaurant.
Soon however, the town becomes overrun by zombies, an outbreak which sets in because of a "Cabin Fever"-esque mistake, of being too curious. Now, with the walking dead, walking the streets, literally...Frida has to find a way to save herself, her dad, and at the same time, deal with the small-minded townspeople who think she had something to do with it because of her nationality.
"ZMD" is biting social commentary, mixed with a bucket full of stereotypes. Frida is an Iranian American, but just wants to be seen as an "American". But the mostly white town of Port Gamble refuses to allow that, and most of the people keep mistaking her for Iraqi. Not to mention the fact that she's harshly stereotyped every now and then, despite her being a fan of American rock bands, and even dressing like a typical American girl. Much to the dismay of her father, who is very traditional in his ways of thinking.
The film has a great opportunity to do something different, and be something different. But beyond the first 15 minutes, it squanders this opportunity so badly. For starters, it doesn't concentrate on Frida enough. She's the main character, yet gets just as much, if not less, screentime than the supporting cast who plays the narrow-minded towns folk. And these people are typical of your mostly white small town, absent-mindedly racist, small-minded, hyper christian, etc. So why would we wanna see a lot of these folks?
Haven't we seen characters like this in like, a thousand horror films? Janette Armand as Frida is the films most interesting and likeable character. Yet she just doesn't get enough screentime in a movie like this, a movie which she should've carried 97%. Instead, she spends about 55% of the movie being shown and or mentioned. And this film doesn't have any interesting lead characters beyond Frida.
Once you get past her, you have two gays from New York who come into town to visit one half of the couples mom, and why are they there? Well, why does a gay man return to his small town home to have dinner with his mother/ If you guessed..."because he wants to finally come out of the closet to her"...then you get the golden cookie. That's how predictable, and lacking of good writing or good characters this film is. Once you get past Frida, everyone else is a walking stereotype.
The films even has a preacher who constantly whines about how the town is being taken over by lesbians and gays, and pines for the days of the 90's when people were more hyper-christian (as if they're still not?). And there's a scene later in the film where the preacher believes he can convert one of the gays to being straight. Granted, the movie certainly pokes fun at the stupidity of small town america, but the instances don't click with it's main character.
If you're gonna create a character in a zombie movie who's Iranian-American, dresses like an american girl, listens to rock, and wants to be considered "American"...a character that diverse needs a diverse cast of supporting characters. Not the run-of-the-mill rednecks, bible-thumpers, and other shallow-gene-pool types. As for the zombies, they aren't even worth mentioning. They do very little in terms of having an impact on the movie.
There's a few scenes of them being shot, a few scenes of them attacking people, blood gets spilled a bit, but in reality the movie is so focused on the smalltown cliche-characters, that Frida, the lead, and the zombies, the title characters, all get lost in the shuffle. And that hurts the movie drastically. The finale of the movie is also a let down, and doesn't pack enough punch to send you off the couch and on a run to the local super market with a smile on your face.
"ZMD" has al the necessary ingredients to be a great indie zombie movie. The problem comes when all of these ingredients are mixed together in improper order. Had the script been rewritten and reorganized to focus more on Frida, give the character more "star" moments, and have her take on the zombies more often...it could've been quite spectacular. Instead, the movie settles for cliches and taking the easy way out, very disappointing.
Positives:Armand as Frida is quite good, and has some decent scenes here and there. But most of her scenes are relegated to just dialogue, and no real fighting-for-her-life scenes, scenes which a heroine needs in a film like this.
Negatives:Enough cliches to make your head spin. Not enough focus on Frida and giving her a ton of stuff to do. The zombies are relegated to footnotes in a movie with "ZOMBIES" in the title, and the supporting cast is a total waste.
Overall:One star out of four.
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