Bath Salt Zombies

Pretty standard low budget faire with the exception of 2 parts of the film that are worth sitting through the rest of this thing imo, and those 2 scenes adjust my score from a 2 to a 7. Think of this movie as a coconut and you are marooned on an island with nothing harder than the only food source. It's a lot of work but the reward is so tasty... as long as rescue happens sooner rather than later. Surprised this hasn't shown up on Svengoolie or Elvira (they even still on the air?) I wouldn't recommend going out of your way but if you get the chance those 2 scenes show a humor, technical ability, and creativity lacking in the rest of it. If you have seen John Dies at the End think of the scene were the invaders are explaining what their plans are making use of an earth medium (think spiders), like that but better.

Dustin Mills' small scale, penniless SOV production feels like amateurish punk rock splatter adoration to "REEFER MADNESS". While its bare-bones technical limitations show, his enthusiasm and ambitions have no boundaries. Luridly trashy with cheap thrills, discount gore, punk tunes and gratuitous titillation, but for such an assembly Mills shows moments of creative style in using experimental animation, slow-mo and camera trickery. There are stylized scenes where the whacked-out visuals (mainly the massacre sequences) look like they have been ripped right out of a comic-book. They do become more prominent the further the film goes along, even the transformation of the central bath salt junkie (Brandon Salkil) over constant use of a newly developed batch of bath salts even stronger than the norm, but with a major side effect; turning users into violent flesh eating zombies. Once the recreational drug has worn off, you return to your normal self, covered in blood, dazed and confused, but your addiction to the substance only intensifies and so does the bloody mayhem.

The concept simply plays around with the Dr Jekyll and Mr.Hyde formula. Even the appearance of the junkie pepped up; large grin, eyes bulging, red face and of the course the wicked laughter managed to add to the craziness. When it wasn't being gung-ho, I found the pacing to stall. Scenes (like with the detective) just seemed to be going around in circles and dialogues (about donuts and good citizens) going through the motions. The payoff does make it worthwhile. At the beginning it starts off with a public service announcement cartoon highlighting the usage of bath salts which was a neat little touch. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more of Mills' output after the likes of "EASTER CASKET", "SKINLESS", and this.

An odd theme that had the potential to be quite funny, but wasn't. Cartoon-style intro was good, but rest of the film appears to be very home-made and poorly directed. Sexy/erotic scenes were pointlessly long. Don't bother watching unless you're just intrigued by the title.

Acting:Not great - Plot:Poor - Ending:Odd- Effects:Basic

Laughs:None - Scares:None - Twists:None - Gore:Poor - 3d Version:N/A

Overall opinion:

>>Worth watching for free: No

>>Worth watching at bargain price: No

>>Worth watching at standard price: Hell No

This film begins in New York City where a chemist by the name of "Sal" (Dustin Mills) has just made a new batch of the designer drug known as bath salts and given it to a pusher named "Bubbles" (Ethan Holey) to test on the street. Bubbles, being the persuasive marketer that he is, gives a free sample to an addict named "Richie" (Brandon Salkil) with the understanding that if he likes it he can come back and purchase some more. What Bubbles doesn't tell him is that Sal had strengthened the new drug with a powerful chemical stolen from an Army laboratory which also has the benefit of making it extremely addictive as well. In any case, Ritchie is more than happy to try it out and takes it back to his friend's apartment to enjoy. Not long afterward he comes out of his drug-induced stupor to discover that he has blood all over his face and shirt with his buddy's girlfriend lying on the bed partially dismembered and devoured. Yet even though he is initially horrified at what he has done, he still craves more of the drug and rushes to get another sample from Bubbles so that he can share it with some other friends. And then the wave of murders really begin. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film started off relatively well but the low-budget aspects were apparently too much for the director (Dustin Mills) to overcome with the most glaring problem being the audio which was quite erratic in nature. Other major weaknesses included poor acting and extremely bad special effects. And I mean really, really bad special effects. To that extent, other than being used as an example of poor film technique for aspiring directors I cannot recommend this film to anyone and have rated it accordingly.

In 'M is for Mastication', an episode from the 2014 horror anthology 'The ABCs of Death 2', a user of the recreational drug known as bath salts turns into a flesh-eating zombie. But low-to-no-budget SOV horror director Dustin Wayde Mills got there first…

Mills' 2013 film Bath Salts Zombies sees a potent and highly addictive strand of the designer drug (developed from a missing chemical weapon that sounds suspiciously like the one from Return of the Living Dead) being pushed to junkies, with precisely the same results: the user is transformed into a violent, uncontrollable monster with a hunger for human flesh.

Working with very little cash but lots of enthusiasm, Mills brand of horror is unashamedly lowbrow, his films designed to appeal to fans of splattery trash, with lots of cheapo gore and gratuitous T&A. However, for a purveyor of such gleefully lurid entertainment, Mills also displays a remarkable sense of style and creativity: Bath Salt Zombies might feature full frontal nudity, severed breast and penis gags, and a crazed ghoul that eats peoples' faces, but it also sees the director experimenting with some surprisingly impressive film-making techniques, including a neat POV sequence complete with 'blinking eye' effect, cool slo-mo shots, experimental use of colour filters, and time-lapse photography. There's also a highly stylised comic-book inspired smack-down between the main character and a SWAT team. For such a cheap production, this is ambitious stuff indeed.

The film opens with a crudely animated intro that I found rather perplexing (and which almost had me turning off before the film had really got started), and Mills does struggle to keep the momentum going at times, but I still had enough fun with this flick to recommend it to fellow gore-hounds and fans of underground horror.