‘Unstoppable… Unrelenting… Undead.’
Zombie A-Hole is a 2012 American horror film about a religious cowboy, a lost soul and a one-eyed grease monkey fixing to exact bloody vengeance.
Written and directed by Dustin Mills (Slaughterhouse Slumber Party; Don’t Answer the Door; Her Name Was Torment and sequel; Bath Salt Zombies; Zombie A-Hole; Easter Casket; et al). The movie stars Josh Eal, Jessica Cook and Brandon Salkil.
Review:
Director Dustin Mills (The Puppet Monster Massacre) turned to live-action for this 2012 effort, which weighs itself down with the ‘Z’ word in the title. If you are expecting another low-budget Romero imitation, however, this might come as a pleasant surprise, as Mills has taken a more voodoo-inspired direction while crafting an old-fashioned grindhouse experience.
Zombie A-Hole is one of those films with a faux ‘film-look’ effect on the video footage, though to his credit, Mills does a better job with this than most – fewer fake scratches and a slightly washed-out look that feels authentic without drawing attention to itself. And like other recent grindhouse-redux efforts, he’s happy to ladle on plenty of gratuitous gore and nudity – in fact, the film opens with a naked girl being murdered by a psycho killer, and goes on from there, with most of the actresses taking their clothes off before being offed by demonic zombie Pollux, who seems to have a thing for twins. As all this mayhem continues, the monster is being hunted by religious cowboy Frank – groan – Fulci (Josh Eal), one-eyed, one-handed surviving victim Mercy (Jessica Cook) and his own twin brother Castor (Brandon Salkil).
There are some interesting ideas in this film, and not all of them are references to other movies (you’ll see Thriller – A Cruel Picture, Machine Girl, Evil Dead and more in here). The foot-tall mummified monkey who is brought to life with a key in its chest and hands out clues to Frank is a great touch and impressively handled, given the $1000 budget.
The cheesy skeletal zombies that Pollux summons up are amusingly trashy, like inflatable versions of the skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts, and while the gore is mostly seen as the after-effect of an off-screen killing, there are one or two impressive moments of GCI (and several rather less effective bits too, it has to be said. The three leads do a solid job, and if the female victims are rather less convincing, I assume that a willingness to disrobe was more important than actual acting chops.
Unfortunately, Zombie A-Hole lets itself down by dragging the story out for almost two hours. A good thirty minutes of this could be removed or edited – the endless dialogue scenes unspooling exposition, a couple of the killings (which start to become a bit repetitive) and a general tightening up of the action would help the film immeasurably. However, fans of unabashedly sleazy horror might find this an amusing distraction anyway; and for the amount of money spent on the project, it’s a remarkable achievement.
David Flint, MOVIES & MANIA
Buy: Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com
Other reviews:
“Zombie A-Hole is 108 minutes long and feels like it could’ve been trimmed. Scenes with music playing over them go on for too long, dialogue could’ve been cut, less slow-mo used. As cool as some of the kills are, and as smart as the idea is for a micro-budget production (you get two for the price of one every time), the twin murder sequences do get repetitious, some of the set-ups too similar.” Life Between Frames
“The whole thing is well-made especially when considering the low budget, it’s expertly paced, nicely shot and features a likeable cast as well as some wonderfully grotesque special effects and quite a bit of gratuitous nudity. Recommended, actually!” Search My Trash
“A classic? Far from it, though it’s obvious that those behind it didn’t aim too high. They just wanted to make a no-brains Grindhouse tribute, and nothing more. It thankfully hits more than it misses, and those looking for a micro-budget zombie movie that actually tries something different might enjoy themselves.” Talk of Horrors
Cast and characters:
Elizabeth Aweiker … Tee / Dee
Melissa Blair … Mina / Mona
Michael Blair … Iggy
Jessica Daniels … Mercy Fulci (as Jessica Cook)
Josh Eal … Frank Fulci
Fuckin’ Betty Fhite … Brittney / Whitney
Eugene Flynn … Selwyn (Box Creature) (voice)
Elysia S. Gipson … Ave / Maria
Melissa Miels … Geri / Teri
Dustin Mills
Brandon Salkil … Castor / Pollux / Zombie
Harper St. Clare … Kristen / Christina
Lindsey Vesperry … Erin / Ellen
Technical details:
108 minutes
