Do NOT Rent This Movie!! You Have Been Warned!
A review of "Redneck Zombies"
by Rich Bruso
August 2002
Wow. I mean, WOW! I feel I should start with a warning this month. Do not, under any circumstance, even under pain of death, rent this month's feature. Ever. Even if your wife says you really should. I say this for two reasons. First, it might keep you from being exposed to one of the worst movies ever. Second, and this is a very long shot, maybe the lack of rental income will cause the producers of this video to go out of business, saving all of humanity from future films of the same caliber.
Just in case you skipped the first paragraph, please, please do not watch this movie. Trust me on this. You'll be better off. Really.
Okay, now that I've dispensed with the warnings, on to the review. This month's feature is "Redneck Zombies." This is a film that makes "Robo Vampire" seem like high culture. Trying to rate this movie on a scale of 1 to 10 would result in a divide-by-zero error. The fine folks at TromaFilms were allegedly behind this masterpiece. Normally, I don't have anything against the Troma folks. They make perfectly fine ultra-low budget horror-ish movies. Unfortunately, I think this particular movie was actually done by a competing company and released under the Troma banner in an attempt to destroy their reputation.
As a way to gauge this movie's quality, Phil actually turned it off halfway through, and he paid money to rent it. He says it looks like somebody had a camcorder and decided to make a horror movie. My opinion is that somebody stole a car, got really drunk, the found a camcorder in the trunk and decided to make a movie. The movie has a low-quality VHS camcorder feel to it, including audio by that crappy little built in microphone.
The movie starts with a scene in a mental institution, foreshadowing the state of the audience after this piece of trash is done airing. It then continues with fake news reports regarding the loss of a barrel of "radioactive biological chemical warfare" material. The actual material was played by some green food coloring suspended in a water/cornstarch mixture, which turned in the most realistic performance of the movie. Containing the material was a 55-gallon barrel painted bright yellow with all kinds of caution statements badly stenciled on in red. Transporting such dangerous chemicals always falls to a crack team of operatives, using only the most sophisticated of safety techniques. In this case, they decided to go with one low-ranking Army guy driving a Jeep. The barrel was just sort of tossed into the back of the Jeep without the benefit of any sort of tie-down material whatsoever.
Anyway, this soldier is driving along, smoking a joint and talking to a dog in the passenger seat. He ends up running into a tree, which launches the barrel down a hill into a convenient field. The soldier tries to retrieve the barrel, which, unfortunately, has landed in a field belonging to a rather rotund individual. I can only assume he is supposed to be a Redneck, as that's part of the title of the movie. Hopefully, someone from the Redneck Anti-Defamation league has seen this movie and is considering a lawsuit. It seems that this actor is trying to imitate "Curly" from the Three Stooges, though he pulls it off about as well as Mr. T would pull off a Cary Grant impersonation.
Mr. Redneck proceeds to chase the Army guy off with a shotgun, only to find himself in the sights of an even worse looking group of movie Rednecks. In the sights is actually only accurate for two of the four, as one is holding a slingshot and a second is holding a stick or something. Not truly terrifying. Oh, and one of the guys in the second group insists on being called "Ellie Mae", hopefully in an attempt to get another Anti-Defamation league involved in the lawsuits. Apparently, the second group took exception to the first Redneck shooting up their moonshine still. To placate them, he turns over a "brand new fangled city still", which happens to be painted a really sporty yellow with red letters.
Well, the barrel gets dropped, mixing some of the poor green food coloring in with the raw materials for the moonshine. The result is a sickly green looking batch of moonshine, which is immediately shipped off around the county.
Meanwhile, in what seems to be another movie but merges later, a group of city slickers is out hiking to a campsite. Their guide keeps pointing out the highlights of the propose campsite, such as having a lot of space and "a pond to piss in." Predictably, one of the first things to happen upon arrival at the campsite is a shot looking out at the pond from between one of the city guys' legs. Quality all the way.
While the moonshine is brewing, a bell is heard in the distance. The three youngest moonshiners get all excited and run off. They arrive at a truck, where someone named the "Tobacco Man" has set up shop. It looks like the producers came across an abandoned truck in a farm field and completed shooting of this scene just before the farmer who owned the field commenced shooting of the actors. Mr. Tobacco Guy scares the poor Rednecks with horror stories of what tobacco will do to you. I'm sure the R.J. Reynolds Company has a few lawyers they could supply for the court proceedings. These fine Rednecks then get back to the plot and finish brewing a batch of moonshine.
After sending Ellie Mae off, the remaining moonshiners decide to sit back, relax, and enjoy their new batch. Of course, they begin to choke on their product, cursing and spitting. Apparently, this is what the 'shine is supposed to do, as they compliment its smoothness and continue drinking. The stuff first kills them then reanimates them as flesh-eating zombies. Meanwhile, Ellie Mae picks up a hitchhiker who turns out to be violent. I'm not sure why they did this, though if my wishes are answered there will be a Hitchhiker Anti-Defamation league out there.
Back to our city slickers. After a night of partying, they wake up to find a young lady missing. The search turns up what appears to be a pair of pants stuffed with straw liberally sprayed down with a mixture of red food coloring and water. The food coloring industry should try to get in on the lawsuit, too. Much hilarity ensues when several Redneck Zombies stumble in and eat the city folks. I've seen more realistic gore on the Disney channel. Apparently, the producers decided that quantity would have to substitute for quality, so gallons and gallons of fake blood are pumped around the set as an entire town full of extras pretending to be zombies munch down on the city slickers, each other, and random Rednecks.
Mr. Tobacco decides to save one of the city girls, who ends up in the mental institution at the beginning of the movie. Only then did I realize that the entire movie was supposed to be a flashback. I know I will have flashbacks, and may end up visiting the young lady in the padded room. I'm sure she didn't move much further in her acting career after this movie.
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