ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction

ZMD is interesting if not scary, and amusing if not laugh-out-loud funny. Kevin Hamedani makes some valid points for the Progressive, tolerant viewpoint, while other points are made less persuasive by the cartoonish exaggeration of Conservative stupidity.

There are several shots where the side of a zombie's head is blown away, and I'm not sure how Hamedani and crew did those so well, given the obviously low budget. There's also an eye that pops out fairly well. On the other (severed) hand, each time a face, or portions thereof, is ripped off, the results look more like a face beneath layers of strawberry jam than a skull that's missing part of its cozy.

Armand, however, has screen presence and acting ability. The consensus on the message board of her IMDb page is that she is "really hot," a "babe," and has charisma, provided that "charisma is a code word for hotness."

Why you should see it You feel that any self-respecting zombie connoisseur must see all available zombie movies, in order to name, with some authority, both the "best zombie movie ever" and the "worst zombie movie ever." You're a Progressive who loves to see Conservatives made to look foolish and then devoured. You want to see a hot babe shoot zombies in the head.

Why you shouldn't see it You're a Conservative. You're more into vampires. You're sensitive on the subject of cannibalism, given the awkward events of this year's family reunion.

--from my review at www.1man365movies.com

This film reminded me of a George Romero zombie movie, no not the good old ones I mean the crappy modern ones where he tries to shoehorn in some political commentary and it just doesn't work. Billed as a political zombie comedy it fails on all three levels.

Politics? Well, it mentions politics but has nothing to say about it really. It's just there.

Zombies? This isn't too bad, there's some good scenes of zombie action but they are spaced too far apart and the gaps are filled with boring scenes.

Comedy? It's just not funny, at all. It thinks it is, but it isn't.

I wouldn't waste your time, nothing happens for 30 minutes and the zombie bits are only slightly better than a cheap 80's Italian zombie flick. Rent one of those instead it's got more laughs (unintentional) and will probably have a lot more action. None of the characters have stories that lead anywhere which must surely be indicative of one hell of a crappy piece of fiction to even the least discerning viewer.

I have a hard time understanding how people can see this movie as anything more than mildly entertaining. I decided to watch it with high hopes as I am a big fan of the zombie genre and some reviewers compared it to Shaun of the dead and Zombieland. In my opinion however, there is no comparison, even when taking into consideration the far lower production costs of ZMD. There is no depth to any of the characters and I don't see how the acting can be viewed as anything more than up to par. The humour and satirical elements consist of easy one-liners which failed to even make me grin. I mean, come on : "Don't shoot, I'm gay". Is that even a joke ? If I was to compare this movie to anything I've seen, I might consider Zombie strippers. However, Zombie strippers, at the very least, added a new original take to the genre and there was some much appreciated subtlety to the humour in the script. Furthermore, I've seen Zombie strippers twice whereas I would never consider sitting through ZMD a second time. In all honesty, I feel generous in rating this movie with a 3/10.

First off I'd like to address the audio issue, whoever mastered this needs to learn that when something is only 20ft away is doesn't need a second worth of reverb this caused pretty much any noise off screen to sound incredibly awful. This is something that shouldn't be a problem even in a low budget film it would've been better off with no processing.

As for the zombie scenes I was actually surprised at the quality of makeup and acting during these scenes, some of the effects were noticeably low budget but overall quite impressive for what they had to work with, there was a lot of camera cuts which seemed a little over done.

In the political sense it addressed several issues touching on homosexuality, religion, mayoral office, and the middle east. it did seem to overemphasize them but perhaps that was the point. I only had a problem with how they were trying to make a point it detracted from the flow of the movie, there would be one scene where they're fighting zombies and then the entire mood changes to make political point it seemed like the writer wrote a political movie then an editor came along and said what do you think of adding zombies. The scenes didn't mesh together and felt forced.

The cast seemed a good fit for the characters they played, however the acting was definitely B-film quality I'd say the gay couple and the Iranian girl were by far the best actors/actress of the film. The Iranian father's actions and lines seemed rehearsed and forced. The zombies seemed as you would imagine from most zombie movies slow, stupid and bloodthirsty.

In conclusion a Zombies of Mass Destruction is a zombie film crashed into a political movie and didn't have any insurance to fund the collision repair, which makes for decent zombie killing action mixed with b-c class acting and interruptions of over-exaggerated political views, when I say interruptions I mean it takes on the mood of an entirely different movie.

A potentially great old school zombie movie with a clever twist that is squandered by shoddy production values.

I saw the trailer for this film and I was absolutely stoked. An old-school Romero-esquire zombie movie blended with comedy and satire sounded like a sure thing. With the success of other zomedies like Shaun of the Dead, Dead and Breakfast and ZOmbieland, there's no reason why this should have failed, but sadly it does... to some degree at least.

It's got it a decent amount of laughs and gore scenes. It's post-911 terrorism paranoia twist works excellently and is so refreshing for a genre that is getting stale.

The film just isn't any good on a technical standpoint. The editing is really bizarre and during some of the intense scenes, everything looks warped and choppy. Poor editing aside, the worst thing is the horrendously bad sound design. Everything sounds awful. Everything. When anybody raise there voices, the levels peak and the quality is distorted. this combined with the poor editing makes any sort of action scene almost unbearable to watch.

A really good idea and a good attempt but next time, more talent and experience might produce a better movie.