The Mad Review
The ongoing concern in the western world about livestock being infected with “Mad cow disease” and the effects of a mass infection on the human public is great subject material for a horror film. Sadly John Kalangis simply uses the plot device of infected beef as just that, a throwaway plot point. Instead of making a serious horror film about a relative issue, John Kalangis gives us a zombie/comedy that borrows heavily from films that have come before it such as “Shaun of the Dead” and the American indie surprise “Dead and Breakfast”. Unfortunately though it doesn’t manage to deliver anything close to the smart and cleverness of “Shaun” or even the over the top fun of “Dead and Breakfast”.
The story revolves around a doctor (Billy Zane) that is taking his controlling girlfriend, teenage daughter and her boyfriend on a trip out to a cabin in the county. On they’re way they stop at a diner in a small town. It just so happens that the dinner has been serving infected ground beef from a local farm. Soon anyone that’s eaten the meat becomes crazed flesh eaters. Its up to (Zane) and his daughter and the few remaining survivors of the town to destroy the remaining meat before it kills anyone else. The acting wasn’t that bad and the gore and directing were all passable. The bottom line is the script was just bad.
It really was a shame too since there was potential which is a lot more then I can say for a lot of low budget films I watch and I wanted to like it since it was Canadian but nothing in the script worked. The film was supposed to have a slapstick comedy feel to it but none of the humor really worked and it just simply bored me. What was even worse was watching the making-of feature where the crew discussed how touching and funny it was but they also thought they had made a scary film. The director also talked about the social commentary that the film represented which was heavy handed at best and was really pointless. Overall I don’t recommend this film to anyone. Instead sit down and watch Shaun of the Dead again or any other film thats done the genre right.
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