Aaah! Zombies! (DVD Review)

16 Oct, 2010 By: John Latchem

Street 10/19/10
MVD/Level 33
Comedy
$16.95 DVD
Not rated.
Stars Matt Davis, Betsy Beutler, Michael Terry, Julianna Robinson, Colby French, Richard Riehle.

It’s not as if there are that many options for zombie stories. Regardless of how movies reanimate the dead, be it radiation or plague or magic, zombies are still hulking, brooding flesh-eaters that make ideal targets for human survivors brandishing shotguns.

Aaah! Zombies! isn’t exactly original in its setup, establishing an experimental military drug to create super soldiers that actually turns them into zombies. An accident during an attempt to dispose of the serum leads to it infecting a local bowling alley, where four friends consume the drug and turn into zombies.

The unique conceit of the film is how it switches between two points of view. The so-called “real world” is presented in black-and-white, an homage to classic monster movies, where people run away when they see what appear to be mindless zombies slowly marching down the road.

Then there are the “zombievision” scenes, presented in color. In these scenes, the audience perceives the zombies as relatively normal. From the perspective of the zombies, everyone else is moving and talking quickly and is afraid of them. But they can communicate among themselves and also find themselves possessing super strength, capable of surviving fatal injuries, controlling body parts that get cut off, and having a strange craving for brains.

With the Army trying to clean up its mistake about the serum, the zombies must unite for their survival, and the film begins to feel more like its conventional counterparts. Otherwise the juxtaposition between the two points of view is the source of some great laughs, and the film gets the most from its one-note joke before it can wear out its welcome.