Zombie Town
Residing in the town of Otis is rather boring - that is until the humor laced, limb splattering Zombie invasion occurs. Then it is up to slacking, inept local mechanic Jake La Fond and his ex-girlfriend, scientific Alex, to save the day. A fairly typical set-up, one might suppose.
Fortunately, director-writer Damon LeMay shows true craft and wit by setting this picture somewhat apart from the rest of the undead cinematic hordes. Here, the zombie masses are created by a crawling parasitic slug that burrows into the flesh, eventually attaching itself to the spine and controlling its hungry victims internally. With that in mind, Zombie Town ultimately plays out like a refreshing combination of old school Sci Fi- monster flicks like the original The Blob and contemporary gut crunchers like the Spierig Brothers’ Undead.
As for the giggle quotient - LeMay’s humor shows most strongly in a highly original bingo hall invasion. This makes the primary antagonists, for the film’s mid-portion, a bunch of elderly women. They savagely attack sons, daughters and grandchildren (one of them in the middle of a backseat romp at a warehouse party) and bring out the true infestation of Otis.
LeMay’s cast grandly underplays the material providing a charm and savvy friendliness that is enjoyably endearing. Adam Hose gives his Jake a likeable easy going quality and Brynn Lucas matches him well with a spark and sass as the intellectual, lovelorn Alex. Dennis LeMoine nicely softens comic relief Randy’s more sarcastic moments and Jon Norman Schneider also connects with an honest fear and emotional honesty as the slightly bumbling Billy.
Of course, there is plenty of intestine slapping, leg chomping, neck chewing goriness on hand. Some of the tensest moments being when a young partygoer’s leg is lobbed off with a chain saw to save him from zombie-hood and when the shaky Billy fights for his life under a collapsed structure of scaffolding.
LeMay also scores with a creative, water soaked ending. Even with his limited budget, he is able to create a scene reminiscent of the fluid final passages in Irwin Allen’s Earthquake - proving that for Zombie Town, LeMay truly deserves high, slightly salt stained, marks and many happily bloody hand claps - provided by arms severed at the elbows, of course!
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