Zombie Bloodbath

I watched "Zombie Bloodbath" expecting gore and not much else. I was surprised at how much more it had to offer.

First, its flaws.

1. It's extremely low-budget. For many of you, it will be the lowest-budgeted movie you'll ever see. Shot on video, no professional actors, a couple of nonsensical things. Despite being gory, the effects are all quite simple. (If this is a deal-breaker for you...what the heck were you expecting?)

2. It's only an hour long. An hour and ten minutes, actually, but the story ends after an hour. This is lame, but the film gets credit for not ruining the pacing just to fill out the running time.

3. Takes awhile to take shape. Starts off with a few subplots that never go anywhere.

Now, the awesome things.

1. Scary. Not like "The Ring," but much more so than you'd expect. It's got a couple of predictable-but-effective scenes where someone slowly gets ready to do something like open a door, and then something jumps out at us.

MUCH cooler, though: Usually in zombie movies, a person who gets close to a zombie IMMEDIATELY either gets away, bitten, or ripped to pieces. In ZB, there's always an uncertain, extended struggle, and usually it involves a person dealing with a bunch of zombies at once. Despite the fact that all the zombies look like your little brother on Halloween, these scenes are INCREDIBLY tense and nerve-wracking! I was really amazed that these scenes were so effective, and even while I was watching them, I was wondering how I could possibly find them scary.

2. Soulful. Just because a movie is low-budget doesn't mean it's got more spirit than a Hollywood movie. Countless straight-to-DVD zombie movies are paycheck-motivated more than anything else. Some aren't. This one REALLY wasn't. ZB has so much heart that it's sometimes awkward.

Example: a woman has a nervous breakdown and weeps uncontrollably after the death of her husband. If I was watching the movie with friends, I would have been obligated to laugh at it due to the low production values. But Sheets gives you permission to take it seriously, if you are so inclined.

Later, when a character commits suicide with a pistol, the otherwise abundant gore is tastefully absent. Rather than just childishly trying to shock the viewer, Sheets has enough balls to assume that you will care about his characters as much as he does, and not want to watch them blow their brains out.

3. Engrossing. After things got started, the pacing was incredibly tight. Additionally, it had a really "big" feel to it, which is incredibly rare in low-budget horror. It had a few scenes in open, urban areas, and the central action continually was moving to new settings. I was a little worried that it would be another board-up-the-house movie, but it was actually quite an adventure.

4. Gross. Pretty much what you'd expect :)

So, Todd Sheets once stated that he considers his 1993, shot-on-video Z-epic, Zombie Bloodbath to be his first feature film. Anyone who's ever seen a little beauty called Zombie Rampage knows exactly how untrue that statement is. I mean, what makes this one that much more superior? Well, then again, Zombie Rampage doesn't include that mullet guy, now does it?

For one to comprehend exactly why Zombie Bloodbath is actually considered worth a damn, one must remember what the 90's were like for lovers of bad horror. A decade that all but said goodbye to B and Z-cinema as we knew it. Technological advances, awkward trends, and the internet would abolish the mysterious charms of the s.o.v.'s big-boxed golden years. And anything remotely resembling quality schlock was all too self-aware for it's own good, basically defeating the purpose. Luckily, not everyone changes with the times. Enter Zombie Bloodbath.

And I guess this is the part where I explain the same exact premise from 500 other zombie flicks from the last 40 years. Alright, so, Some kind of accident at a nuclear plant infects everyone in sight, turning them into flesh-eating zombies, who go on a rampage, inflicting some of the most gruesome, yet humorous gore-scenes of the 90's. The first 20 minutes are cluttered with the most awkward-sounding conversations you could imagine. Conversations that let you know that this isn't just a low-budget zombie flick, this is a Z-grade disasterpiece, fella. plenty Hysterical, non-existent acting to go around, and that goes triple for Mr. Mullet. That guy is truly the highlight of the night.

The fact that Todd Sheets seriously considers Zombie Bloodbath to be THAT superior to Zombie Rampage, amuses me to no end. I mean really, both are complete jokes, but then again, so is Redneck Zombies, so, obviously Todd Sheets is in the company of awsomeness. By 1993, a movie this bad would no doubt, be a full-blast spoof, but Mr. Sheets stands his ground, giving us some good old fashion schlock, the way it was meant to be, unaware, clueless, and pointless. God bless Todd Sheets. For anyone seeking surprisingly worthwhile 90's B-Horror, Leif Jonker's Darkness should be at the top of your list. As for Zombie Bloodbath, if you're a gorehound who got bored sometime around 1990, then '93 would be the perfect time to pick up. 7/10

I got myself a copy of this film thinking it was the 1964 film with 'Zombie Bloodbath' as one of it's alternative titles. Perversely, this film actually has a better rating on this site than the aforementioned title; which may mean that the other one is really bad! This film is pretty bad too; obviously you cant go into a film that calls itself 'Zombie Bloodbath' and expect to see a masterpiece, and in fairness it does live up to the title with the amount of gore on display...but it all feels very old and tired, which isn't helped by the atrocious acting and stupid plot line. It's just your average nuclear spill causing people to turn into zombies etc etc. The film kicks off with a sequence that sees people melting and that pretty much lets you know what you're in for; low quality zombie garbage. There's plenty of gore in the film, and it's a real good job otherwise the film would have been really boring. Zombie Bloodbath looks really cheap too, and was clearly put together by inexperienced filmmakers! The main influence seemed to be Romero's superior Day of the Dead, although it could really be just about anything that features zombies and gore. It all boils down to a typically predictable and pointless ending and overall I can't say I was impressed with it!

Every once in a while, a group of friends, with a minimal budget but bags of enthusiasm and talent, will create a low budget masterpiece that takes the world of horror by storm. Raimi and co. did it with The Evil Dead, Jackson and pals succeeded with Bad Taste; and Myrick and Sanchez made a mint with The Blair Witch Project.

Director Todd Sheets and his chums, however, are destined to wallow forever in relative obscurity if Zombie Bloodbath is anything to go by. A lesson in how not to make a cheapo horror, this miserable effort (about a plague of flesh-eating zombies—natch) serves as a reminder that, whilst many people these days have access to a video camera, most shouldn't take that as their cue to try their hand at making a full-length movie.

It's not that Sheets hasn't got an eye for a nicely framed shot (some of his camera angles and movements are actually pretty good), but rather that a) he has a lousy script b) he has a lousy cast, and c) he doesn't realise that he has a lousy script and cast. Which means that the final film is amateurish in the extreme, and unlikely to be watched in its entirety by anyone other than zombie film completists (like me) or members of the cast and crew (like those who have given the film favourable comments).

Zombie Bloodbath is obviously aimed at undiscriminating gore-hounds, and Sheets (who currently has an incredible 34 titles under his belt as a director) certainly goes out of his way to please, with buckets of offal and blood thrown about at every opportunity. But whilst these moments are undeniably yucky, they aren't particularly convincing, and soon get rather tedious.

So, to summarise, this is a really bad film, with almost no redeeming features. Except for two:

Firstly, it features the single greatest mullet in the history of film, as sported by Jerry Angell, who plays Larry (as well as several zombies). The magnificence of his barnet (coupled with a fetching moustache) is reason alone to watch this film.

Secondly, it has 'pathetic stealth zombies': flesh-eating corpses that lie in wait for unfortunate victims to wander by, before leaping from their hiding place to launch a feeble attack, which requires almost no effort to escape from. Best known for lurking behind a door for hours waiting for someone to open it, 'pathetic stealth zombies' also occasionally hide behind low walls, or sit in churches posing as members of the congregation.

Normally a film this bad would get 1/10 for me, but, in celebration of Jerry Angell's flowing locks, I will generously raise my rating to 2/10.

Yeah, these movies are LOW-budget!!! Imagine if you and a group of friends had a hand-held camera and decided to make a horror movie...that's what "Zombie Bloodbath" is. The actors are armatures and friends and family of the director. The video quality is really poor...but they did the best they could do with the original print i bet. There are a couple decent gore effects but there isn't enough to make up for the other 85 minutes you spend watching these boring people TRY to act. I don't know how these even got released, let alone someone produced and directed 3 of them!?!?! i guess if you were wanting to watch something you and your buddies could laugh at drunk...then MAYBE this could be for you. But overall, this is prob the worst zombie movie i've seen...and i've seen Zombie Lake.