ZombieBloodbath2

Zombie Bloodbath 2: Rage of the Undead (1995)

Okay so this time around instead of a nuclear reactor it seems that an evil Satanic Scarecrow causes a zombie outbreak because some on the run criminals stole his coat. Nope not kidding, I wouldn’t make something like this up. Let me try and make things a bit more clear (if that is at all possible). A group of hardcore criminals break out of prison and break into a farmhouse. Then a van breaks down and a group of friends end up at the same farmhouse and are taken hostage. The criminals can’t find any clothes in the farmhouse so one of them takes the Scarecrow’s coat. Thus the zombie thing starts up. The survivors from this group end up at a deli where another criminal, completely separate from the first crew, has been torturing the workers. More zombies, a heart warming and abrupt change of personality for one of the criminals, and lots of running around, and there you have the movie.

Zombie Bloodbath 2 suffers from the exact same weakness as the first movie did. The story lacks any cohesive narrative and because of that starts off as bizarrely confusing and then ends up repetitive and boring. The movie opens with Satanists and then never goes back to them. Except for the short scene where the Scarecrow gets up and summons the zombies it is also never seen again! You then have the coincidence of two crazed groups of criminals that run into each other, which makes no sense other than to fill up the runtime with non-zombie related violence and to give director Sheets more characters to cover in corn syrup! But the biggest disappointment for me is that the movie goes right back to the characters running from one group of zombies to the next without any real sense of purpose or story. At least the first 30 to 40 minutes was somewhat interesting in a “this makes no sense” sort of way, but after the chase starts the movie gets really boring. The acting is just a bad as it was in the first film, except this time everyone’s favorite Mullet wearing actor gets an even bigger part! Not a good decision if you ask me.

From a technical standpoint Zombie Bloodbath 2 is an even a worse made movie than the first. The first Zombie Bloodbath was also shot on video and looks decent enough, but here there are several scenes where it is seriously so dark that you can’t seen anything that is going on. There are also a couple of terribly staged fights early on that look bad and should have been passed on because they are distracting. But the one thing that really surprised me is that they didn’t do that much with the effects. You get the same shots in this movie with the guts being torn open, but just not as much. I think that director Sheets was maybe hoping to do more of an exploitation movie (the girl killed n the deli pretty much confirms that) and got away from the over the top gore that made some of his first movie worth checking out. Plus what we get are the same gimmicks from the first movie and nothing more. I had hoped that this movie would up the ante a bit, but it doesn’t.

So you know I’m a fan of independent movies. I can forgive all kinds of technical issues and limitations as long as the filmmaker is a good storyteller. I also go out of my way to check out the second and third movie that a filmmaker makes, even if I didn’t like their earlier efforts. You know most people get better at what they do the more they do it. But not only did I not see an improvement in the plot and direction, but I actually saw new issues with the camera and shooting at night that had been avoided on the first Zombie Bloodbath. I just can’t recommend Zombie Bloodbath 2: Rage of the Undead because it is a step back from what was already not that great of a movie.

1 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer