Zombie Bloodbath

I loved this movie! It was excessively gory, it had horrible acting, but it kept you on the edge of your seat! Not a frame of it was boring. I didn't like how it lingered on the gore scenes forever. It made the overall shock less appealing. I did, of course, love Jerry Angell's character. You know, the guy with the mullet. I swear, he is the reason why these type of movies are made! I particularly loved his death scene. It was gory to the max! But I won't tell you about because you'll just have to see it for yourself. There was one death scene that I didn't like, though. You can actually hear them spraying the blood on the guy! But it kind reminded me of Ed Wood's type of filmmaking. If you have seen Plan 9, then you know what I'm talking about. I give it a 7 out of 10! There were some things that were just plain bad but I still enjoyed it! A great party tape to watch with friends!

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!

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 :)

Zombie Bloodbath is a movie made by zombie fans for zombie fans with a true love of the Horror genre. As I understand it from the commentary and things I have read, it was made during the huge Midwest flood of 1993 when half of Missouri was underwater. Buildings were under water. cars and houses were underwater. One article said that zombies and the crew from this movie would help sandbag the river after shooting each day. The fact this movie got made at all is a miracle. It is like a huge mashing of every zombie movie ever made put through a Troma filter. It is a party movie to enjoy with friends who like loads of splatter and goofy characters. And it is fast paced and energetic and really funny.

A toxic spill accident in a nuclear power facility causes people to melt down or turn into zombies. The local Government covers it up, tears down the factory and builds houses over it. Some ground shifting (?) causes a cave opening to develop and some new residents find the cave and unleash the undead on the newly built community. From there it just gets crazy and gory and fun.

I have read these reviews on here a few times. And it seems obvious to me that the same person attacked this fun little movie three times as a different reviewer, using fake names. They use the same words and sentences. Zombie Bloodbath is cheap. It is raw. It has some bad acting. So does half the movies made. There is much much WORSE out there than this fun movie. If you hate this film so much, don't buy it. There is no need for personal attacks and to call the crew or cast "Trailer Trash." And it is obvious you are not from Australia or England. It is just upsetting that this great service, the IMDb does not catch people using it just to trash others. There are bad reviews and good reviews, and I don't mind those. I give both bad and good reviews myself. But it is painfully obvious that some fool just wants to use this forum to personally attack the director of this movie. Sad.

Some of these so called "Reviewers" even basically sue their "review" just to promote their own movies. One called this film Boring - well, love it or hate it, one thing you can NEVER say about this film is that it is boring. It moves fast and never has a dull spot.

Oh and this reviewer from The Netherlands??? Um - LIAR. You tried to post this same review at Amazon and it got yanked there. The SAME review only it said it was from Missouri.

This nonsense HAS to stop. Love it or Hate it - give it a real review or type nothing. It is obvious you have not seen the films.

But for the record, I have and though this one is not nearly the best that I have seen, it is far from the worst. And even the worst I would give an actual REVOEW and would not attack the director personally.

Hope this review helps some people see through the stupidity going on here.

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.