Mutant Vampire Zombies from the 'Hood!

Written and Directed by: Thunder Levin.

Really enjoyable fright flick with some laughs,Very much like ZOMBIELAND.

Feels like a Blaxploitation rift by a Tarantino or Fred Williamson.

Enjoyed the Urban feel when seems most types of these films take place in a small town or remote,These sets ARE NOT out of the way,'You are Knee Deep In URBAN DECAY !' More than adequate cast including -C. Thomas Howell ( Asylum Studios alum nowadays) and GregAlan Williams ( From BAYWATCH TV) and Johanna Watts ( Soon to be be seen in American BATTLESHIP) brings a realness into a Mutant,Vampire& Zombie environ.

Sound track was pretty good with VITAL,Doing most of the soundtrack justice.

Some nice lines of dialogue and some borrowed to great effect.

This film essentially begins in Los Angeles with two rival gangs meeting in a warehouse to discuss the release of a hostage. As it so happens, a Chinese gang led by a man named "Dragon" (Robert Wu) has kidnapped a woman named "Latiffa" (Rachel Montez Minor) who is a member of a black gang led by her boyfriend "G-Dog" (Tyshawn Bryant). Since the negotiation involves the exchange of some illegal drugs, two members of the police are also nearby and are prepared to make a bust. Unfortunately, as soon as they enter the warehouse a gun battle breaks out which seriously injures one of the policemen. Even worse, however is the fact that at this exact same time a strange solar flare occurs which releases large amounts of radiation upon the earth and turns everyone who didn't happen to be in a properly sealed environment into zombies. Realizing that something is terribly wrong outside one of the police named "David" (C. Thomas Howell) agrees to join forces with both G-Dog and Dragon as they now have to deal with millions of zombies all around them. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that the humor in this movie basically stems from the ineptitude of those working on the production of the film--with the manner in which the zombies were filmed and portrayed being especially ridiculous. Fortunately, the overall plot and the acting was sufficient enough to make things somewhat entertaining with Tyshawn Bryant probably giving the best performance overall. That said, while this was certainly not a good zombie film by any means, it wasn't necessarily that bad either and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

I was one of the fortunate few who got an invitation to an advance screening of "Mutant Vampire Zombies from the 'Hood." Like so many of you out there I have been waiting for this one for about a year, and with much trepidation. I think we were all hoping for the best, but fearing the worst. Well, I'm happy to report that these Mutant Vampire Zombies deliver. KeiKabou Holland and Maxie J. Santillan Jr. practically steal the movie, while Johanna Watts and Tyshawn Bryant ground the film with strong, believable performances. In fact, all the gang members are terrific--my only caveat is that their screen time is too brief. The script by Thunder Levin and George Saunders is fun--think more along the lines of an R-rated "The Mummy" than "Shaun of the Dead"--and Thunder's direction keeps the story going at a hurried pace. There's never a dull moment. The zombies look great, the action is crisp and the laughs work in all the right places. After all the waiting, I was happy to see that "Mutant Vampire Zombies from the 'Hood" lives up to the pure hokum fun its name implies.

Anyone rating this anything above a 2 must not be viewing the same movie I just watched. The dialog was awful, the camera work poor, the stock video footage was terrible, and the acting mediocre. There was no human actor on the screen you actually cared about.

There was tons of science flaws that even the common person can spot. The gasoline is non-flammable caused by solar radiation. People are mutating into blood sucking rapists that is caused by the same radiation. Yet when a person is bitten they somehow pass the genetic mutation to them? When are these writers going to learn that no explanation is better than flawed one. Cessna aircraft can fly on electric power? Electric cars drain back in the generator if it stops?

I have seen worse than this, they made a serious attempt at making a zombie flick but failed. Horror wasn't horrifying, the jokes and humor lame, the drama was thin, and the pseudo science was insulting.

Mutant Vampire Zombies from the 'Hood' (2008)

** (out of 4)

First off, if you're coming to a movie with a title like this, you really shouldn't be expecting the work of Orson Welles. A solar flare crosses paths with the Earth, which turns most people into the title characters. There's a small group of survivors in Los Angeles and they're quite an interesting mix as we have white cop (C.Thomas Howell) and rival black and Chinese gang members. At just 81-minutes and featuring a terrific title, MUTANT VAMPIRE ZOMBIES FROM THE 'HOOD' is just what you'd expect to see at a drive-in forty-years ago when this type of exploitation was getting produced in mass numbers. Of course, today there's no way anything like this could ever come close to a theater but that's too bad because fans of trashy, silly exploitation should be able to get a few laughs out of this film, which is a lot better than you might think. Obviously the budget is extremely low but I give credit to director/co-writer Thunder Levin and his writing partner George Saunders for making up for that by delivering some nice characters, some fun dialogue and a rather interesting set-up for a good time. Having rival gangs and a cop having to team up isn't exactly the most original thing as it was done in previous movies but it works here because the characters are so memorable and most shocking is that you begin to care for them and want to see them live, which is usually something these movies never pull off. The dialogue is also fun for fans of the genre because there's mention of George Romero and various zombie pictures from the past few decades. I was also surprised to see how good the performances were including C. Thomas Howell who doesn't seem bitter about appearing in something like this and instead gives it his all. I also really enjoyed Tyshawn Bryant in the role of G-Dog. The movie features some funny sex scenes, some nudity and quite a bit of CGI gore to keep things moving. This isn't a classic or even a good movie but I think it's a good example of taking a small budget and little story and doing something good with it.