MutantVampireZombiesfromtheHood

Mutant Vampire Zombies from the Hood (2008)

I’ve sat thru many terrible low budget zombie movies in my day. I mean since I run a website called Gutmunchers it is something I feel obligated to do. But once in a while it pays off for me and the last couple of low budget zombie outings have been pretty damn good, including this little gem. Plus the exploitation movie fan in me can’t resist when a filmmaker drops a title like Mutant Vampire Zombies from the Hood on the audience. Yeah I really had to check this one out.

The story here is pretty basic. You have a couple rival gangs that meet in a warehouse for a drug deal. Also tagging along are a couple of cops looking to make a bust. While in the warehouse a solar flare comes along and irradiates most everyone else, turning them into mutants that drink blood but can only be killed with headshots and look awfully dead. So really the title works. The rest of the movie consists of the survivors trying to escape from the city (Los Angeles) while avoiding the mutants that are out to eat or well *ahem* do other things to them.

You can probably tell that the story is very simple and familiar. But then most of these “survival” movies are very similar. What impressed me was the pacing, characters, and humor that was written into the script. First up the movie is paced really well. We meet the characters, get an idea where they are coming from, and get right to the action. So many of these movies suffer from brief periods of activity followed by long slow stretches the kill any interest you might have had in the story. Here there is always something entertaining and interesting happening onscreen, which makes for a great watch. I also really dug the setting, which allowed for the characters of the gang members and the cops. Initially it looked like the characters of the gang members were going to be very stereotypical, but that ended up not being the case. I won’t say the characters were really deep (this is a horror/comedy creature feature after all) but they were interesting. This again sets Mutant Vampire Zombies from the Hood apart from so many other low budget movies I’ve watched. Finally I have to talk about the humor. I expected a low budget movie called Mutant Vampire Zombies from Hell to be played for laughs and while the movie has some serious moments it is rather funny most of the time. I mean some of the jokes fall flat for me, but there are also times that the movie had me cracking up. I don’t want to spoil the movie by talking too much about it other than to say they did a great job with the comedy. Trust me after years of watching low budget movies this isn’t an easy task and the filmmakers do it very well.

Can’t talk about a low budget movie without jumping into the technical aspects of the movie. Here is where I always feel obliged to toss in a big old caveat. If you sit down to watch something like Mutant Vampire Zombies from the Hood with the same expectations of a big budgeted Hollywood movie you are setting yourself up to be disappointed. I’ve got news for you guys this isn’t Avatar! Hell I would imagine they spent more money on the doughnuts for the crew in the morning then the filmmakers had to make this entire movie. So right up front you need reasonable expectations. But at the same time this isn’t an excuse for lazy filmmaking.

Lucky for us those responsible for making Mutant Vampire Zombies from the Hood aren’t at all lazy and have some real talent. The movie looks and sounds great. It is shot on digital and I watched it on a 52-inch HD TV and the picture looks great. There are a couple of times where it was a bit grainy on the night shots, but overall they did a solid job. There are also some very creative overhead shots and lighting that you just don’t see very often in this kind of movie. The dialogue is clear as a bell, which is important because much of the humor comes from some really funny and snappy exchanges between the characters. They also did a fine job matching the music to the scenes. Too many movies just use canned music that they can get from the public domain or from a friends band that just doesn’t fit.

Can’t talk about a zombie movie without mentioning the makeup. The zombie makeup looks pretty good and is all practical. I applaud the filmmakers in not trying to overreach and use CGI to create mangled zombies that would look terrible on screen. We do get CGI bullet hits and muzzle flashes. Though I’m not sure the muzzle flashes aren’t “enhanced” with CGI because at times it looks like they might be firing blanks. There are a few “gutmunchings” that use simple on set practical effects, which of course put a smile on my face. While I'm not a fan of CGI effects but it doesn’t really ruin the movie for me. So I’m not thrilled but I will cut them some slack.

This is the first movie that I’ve reviewed from a company that I just picked up called Seminal Films, but won’t be the last. If you are interested in this movie, and really if you dig low budget zombie flicks you should be, then check out their website here. Mutant Vampire Zombies from the Hood gets a recommendation from me.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer