Zombie Farm

Desperate to end her husband's domestic abuse, a young woman seeks asylum fro ma local voodoo priestess. When warned that her husband may "change" if given a special potion, the abused wife is relieved. But waking up in bed next to a zombie isn't exactly the transformation she was hoping for!

The film opens panning over the waters of Louisiana with some light guitar playing in a Spanish style. The film is definitely of a Hispanic or Latino flavor, with the cast and crew being of that background. And I hate to lump Latino films into one group, but they have not fared well -- even the ones that featured known actors, like "Day of the Dead", were pretty awful. I have not seen a good film from the Hispanic community since the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Perhaps you're wondering why the film took two years to be released? Or why it is named the same as a 2007 film, which was also overlooked by most people. I do not have those answers... you would have to ask the writer and director, Ricardo Islas.

I am not going to lie. I opened my mail, found this film, and immediately groaned. One, zombies are overdone. I do not need more zombie films. Two, I have not heard of a single cast or crew member associated with this film, so I had no base to work from. And three, it came from Maya Entertainment, which I have no idea what that is. So my expectations were about as low as they could possible be. And, luckily, it was better than those expectations.

The film tries to make social commentary by mentioning pedophile priests and Homeland Security tearing families apart (their words, not mine). There is talk of Marines invading Panama and raping the women, and how those babies (brown with blue eyes) are an improvement of the race. What the heck? These commentaries are just so haphazard, thrown in without cause. Maybe to stir people up, but for no reason I can tell.

As for the zombies, well, they come from a voodoo priestess (who is Hispanic, not Caribbean, but does live in Louisiana). And they do not show up until a good while into the film. This is a family drama about domestic abuse... the zombie aspect of the story is just sort of thrown in, and I am not sure why. If there is supposed to be a subtle satire, they lost it on me.

It sounds like I am bashing the film, and I am. Yet, you will see I gave it a decent rating. Here is why: although it is not really a horror film, but a drama about race and abuse with some horror elements, it is decent, and probably a good film if you go in with the right mindset. I think horror fans will be mislead and disappointed, but the Latino community may identify with it... I, unfortunately, am not part of that community and can only speculate.

Alright, well "Zombie Farm" was nothing at all what I had expected or hoped it would be. Having bought it from Amazon, I was intrigued by the rather interesting looking DVD cover, and being a fan of all things zombie, I just had to add it to my collection.

"Zombie Farm" almost literally takes forever to get up in pace and take you places. The first half of the movie is about film-maker Pilar Franco (played by Adriana Cataño, who actually did a rather good job) following the small time swindler and seer Roque (played by Roberto Montesinos) around in order to make a documentary. He is taking money from the naive and hopeful, in return giving them something to hold on to in their troubled lives and situations. However, one client visits a voodoo woman after Roque failed to help her with her violent husband, and end up being haunted by her husband whom has now returned from death.

"Zombie Farm" gives you a lot of facts, whether they are true or just made up I know not, about certain aspects of the Latino knack for the supernatural. And yeah, I did find that interesting, but sitting for about half a movie 'learning' about this cultural stuff was not what I had expected from a movie labeled 'horror'.

Then finally the zombies were revealed, yeah, it turned out there actually was zombies in the movie, but don't get your hopes up. Nothing major to come for here. It is not zombies in the Hollywood (or Romero-influenced) manner as most of us love, but take on that whole voodoo aspect, which didn't really impress me.

Truth be told, then I fell asleep during this movie, it was just so dull and uneventful, not to mention slow paced. It was like its engine was left on, but the gear was in neutral. This movie fairly much was dull inside out. I don't know if you have to be Latino to fully grasp what was going on in this movie, or if you have to be into voodoo, but I do know, that for a zombie aficionado (Romero-style, and proud of it) like myself, then "Zombie Farm" was all but impressive. The movie was fighting a struggling battle uphill, and lost, I might add.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't all bad. The movie was actually nicely shot, and they did good jobs with the camera work. And the people cast for the various roles were actually doing great jobs, and it was nice to see an entire cast of new faces for a change.

Just goes to prove the old saying: "don't judge a book by its cover". Which in this case was a DVD cover. I bought it solely because the cover was appealing and held the promise of some proper zombie action. "Zombie Farm" will be shelved in my DVD collection, bagged and tagged, never to be taken out and put into the DVD player ever again, it was just not worth the time of day.

In ZOMBIE FARM, the FBI develops a chemical agent for use during terrorist interrogations. Alas, the drug has a nasty side effect, turning people into -all together now- flesh eating zombies. Not-surprisingly-at-all, a rampage soon erupts.

Absolutely inept and absurd in every way.

A local, musclebound psycho with a pile of guns, and some hillbilly cannibals round things out.

Watch for the zombie mailman!

WARNING; This movie contains rat eating!

If only the sole existing print of this "film" had been eaten as well...

A Latina documentary movie maker who can't sell her projects because they lack Latin flavor, in desperation decides to make a documentary on a corrupt Latin faith healer. Turns out he has a heart of gold and a real concern for his people. He can give great speeches on the hypocrisy of Latins who always aim for the white standard of beauty: blonde hair blue eyes. You get a sense where this is going...

One of his customers is a woman who gets constantly beaten by her possessive husband. He can't and won't help her. She goes to another of these faith healers, a woman who practices Macumba. She gives her a potion to give to her husband. He drinks it and becomes a zombie. The reporter and the reformed charlatan who is now her sidekick in the investigation track down this voodoo priestess only to end up getting in trouble themselves. It all ends up in a violent showdown, Hollywood style.

This movie is slow, performances are uneven, equipment used is not the best, lighting and camera-work are rather poor. The story though has a lot of potential and shows signs of intelligence, but also plenty of your standard college intro level minority politicking. I can't really recommend this movie unless you are the intended target audience for these sort of films that use some genre (zombie horror) to deliver a tired sociopolitical message. And the zombie horror doesn't really take up a lot of time either.

"Pilar Franco" (Adriana Catano) is a film maker who desperately wants an opportunity to showcase her abilities. So one day she sees a mystic on television named "Roque" (Roberto Montesinos) purporting to be able to cure people through spiritual means and she decides to film a documentary on him. Even though he is clearly a phony he figures he could use a little publicity so he agrees. Yet as it so happens the first patient that comes in named "Ana Marie" (Monika Munoz) has a serious problem which eventually leads both Pilar and Roque to a Brazilian high priestess who is very skillful in the black art of voodoo-and unlike Roque she is the real McCoy. Now rather than reveal any more of this film and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that I honestly didn't expect too much from this movie. But after the first 10 minutes or so I realized that it was much better than I expected it to be as it combined touches of humor with a rather decent zombie plot. Additionally, the fact that both Monika Munoz and Adriana Catano were rather attractive certainly didn't hurt either. In any case, I liked this movie and therefore rate it as slightly above average.