ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction

Many zombie films have an element of social commentary. The George Romero originals typically cast the undead in the sense of some disadvantaged group, usually in terms of class or race. And even outside of his work, a lot of them tend to take the apocalyptic events as something of a social equaliser in exploring the interactions of the surviving few.

But there's definitely a level at which it becomes tiresome, and ZMD hits it pretty quickly. The premise is a zombie outbreak in a small town, which the media attributes to middle eastern terrorists, and the church attributes to sinful behavior. Queue our plucky heroes, an Iranian girl back from college, and a completely over the top gay couple visiting from The Big City.

The dead don't have much to say. In fact, for a zombie film, they have surprisingly few appearances, and are largely innefective even then. So the only interesting spots come from various rednecks mistaking the girl's country of origin for Iraq, and a wide assortment of biggots trying to throw the gays to the zombies before their sinful behavior infects them too.

Okay in theory, but these topics are handled with such a heavy hand that it's really hard to tolerate for more than a few minutes. Fortunately there's plenty of gore to offset the bad acting. And since zombie movies are supposed to be cheesy anyway, this one is certainly acceptable, if nothing special.