In this horror comedy, the residents of and visitors to a small conservative island in Washington state are forced to deal with an outbreak of zombie-ism as the outcasts are blamed for the occurrence.

Inhabitants of a small island start turning into contagious zombies.  Among our heroes are a gay couple who have come to the island for one of the pair to come out to his mother; a young, fully Americanized woman of Iranian descent who faces ostracism in the community; an overweight and bumbling teen who has a crush on the young woman; and a liberal hippy type who is running for mayor against the long-entrenched conservative.

When the zombie infection begins, the residents seem unaware that anything is wrong in their town, studiously failing to notice the change in their neighbors.  The couple at the mother’s house see her becoming a zombie in front of their eyes, but believe the reaction is due to the information that her son is gay.  When it reaches critical mass, people start being bitten and eaten in the streets.  The gay couple and the woman running for mayor hide out in a conservative church with the church’s pastor, the congregants assembled for bingo night, and the conservative mayor.  The young woman is taken captive by the redneck father of the teen, who ties her up and, in a light-hearted comedy romp, begins to torture her to find out what she knows about an Iraqi [sic] plot to overtake the island, as the woman tries to show the man that his wife (the teen’s mother) has become a zombie already.  Meanwhile, at the church, the pastor tries to “rehabilitate” the gay men by use of a series of films.

Eventually all escape, emergency medical teams arrive, and the zombie infestation is stopped.  After a cut to “29 Weeks Later”, the gay men invite the young Iranian woman to return with them to Manhattan, which she refuses, having decided to take over her (late, due to the zombies) father’s restaurant.  The liberal woman has become an arch-conservative, is elected mayor, and insists that a DHS presence be established on the island.

Yeah.  It tries.  Hard.  Really hard.  And at its best it is quite amusing, with several laugh-out-loud moments.  But the genre of comedy zombie movies is throughly saturated, with the top tier including Braindead and Zombieland, and the second tier Shaun of the Dead and Black Sheep.  And, at the highest, this film is third tier.

The message of the film is a bit lost on me: strongly pro-liberal throughout, I was confused by the flight to conservatism by multiple characters at the end.  I wasn’t sure if this were being promoted, or simply observed, and if the latter, whether or not this were believable.

In a weaker year this movie would fare better in my ranking, but this is a very good year, and this comedic gore-fest falls mostly flat.  I would give this one a pass.

The film is, as noted, quite amusing in parts.  The choice of gay-rehab videos, and the gay men’s bewildered response to them (”This is supposed to be homoerotic?”) is wonderful.  The inquisition of the young woman of Iranian parents is very funny: the redneck asks her why there are 13 stripes on the US flag.  When she answers correctly, he takes this as proof of her being foreign, as almost no high school-educated American would know the answer to this.  Pretty Janette Armand, in her debut role, is very funny as the young woman.  And the scene in which the couple fail to notice that the mother has turned into a zombie is at points hilarious.

Two horror-and-comic fangirl sisters take a last road trip together before the elder moves to New York to take up a high-paying job.  They end up touring an old mining town where they are stalked by people trying to kill them as a sacrifice to an underground demon.

The Graves sisters get lost trying to find the world’s largest thermometer and end up in an out-of-the-way town where (of course) there is no cell phone reception.  They go to a diner, where a creepy preacher, whom they previously heard preaching fire and brimstone on the radio and played by horror veteran Tony Todd, clearly has everyone in his thrall, including a woman with him who appears his captive.  Directed to an alternative attraction by the waitress — a ghost town built around an old mine — they face “The Blacksmith”, clothed in a cowl and welding glasses, who kills unwary tourists with a hammer.

Successfully defeating this killer, they run to the road for help, having been joined by one or two other escapees.  They stop a pickup truck driven by another man who questions their story, insisting on examining the crime scene.  This is a pretense to lure them back into the ghost town, as it is revealed that the man is the late blacksmith’s elder brother.  This man kills the other one or two characters (honestly can’t remember how many) leaving the young women to flee again.

Defeating this killer, they return to the town for assistance, and are taken captive by the preacher’s congregants.  Returned to the ghost town, the women are prepared to be sacrificed to an evil spirit who lives in the mines, a spirit that in turn possesses the preacher and members of his congregation.  Assisted in their escape by the woman previously seen to be the preacher’s captive, they successfully escape following the supposed death of the town citizens.  The sisters drive away happily, with the younger sister deciding to accompany the elder to New York, and the citizens of the town are reanimated to continue their reign of terror on future tourists.

This is a tedious and hackneyed attempt at subverting the slasher genre.  Featuring strong and successful female leads, the slashers are slashed, the day won, and the sisters empowered.  Hurrah!

Except it is a horrible film.  To begin with, it is beyond credulity that anyone would remain in the town depicted in the initial diner scene, despite the attempted sell of the elder sister being a huge horror nut, and even futher out that they would return to it for help.  The costuming of the killers is an unintentional parody of the genre, the motivations indistinct, the group possession scene (in the scrolling credits, most of the film crew are listed as extras) laughable.  Tony Todd’s performance is horrible, leagues beyond the “so bad it’s good” that he was apparently trying for.  The second false escape tries the viewer’s patience.  The lighting and sets are abysmal, the acting by all cast members except the younger sister is lousy, and the presumed attempt at self-aware camp registering as simple incompetence.  Avoid this one.

Pretty Jillian Murray is perfect as younger sister Abby.  Having lead female characters who are fangirls is fun.  The rock music chosen for the film is very good.  And victorious, strong female characters is much better than the alternative.

A group of outcast high school students, tired of being tormented at school, hatch a plan to crash a student party to exact vengeance on the tormentors.

Seizing control of the party, the outcasts drug the punch in order to incapacitate the oppressors, chain them in irons, and begin to systematically torture them.  The group had waffled over following through with the plan as a sympathetic student, who wasn’t supposed to be at the party, turned up.  Most agreed that he was “meant to be there” if he was there.  One of the outcasts frees this student, who runs into the woods.  The outcast’s fellows knife him to death for the action.

As the sympathetic student — a black kid — tries to plead with a redneck who has taken him captive for help, the oppressed embark on a series of grisly tortures on the oppressors, including enticing certain of them with freedom if they are willing to amputate their fellow students’ fingers with gardening shears.  The putative leader of the outcasts, played very poorly by Marc Donato, gives overwrought and melodramatic speeches overlooking the dance floor, at one point donning a black trenchcoat.

When the police arrive, finally summoned by the sympathetic student who has been able to convince the redneck to help, the oppressed commit suicide.  The sympathetic student returns to school, and the filmmakers make clear that there are still oppressors-to-be lurking there.

This is completely fucking unacceptable as a film.  Intentionally drawing on imagery of (at least the collective national mythos of) Columbine, the film attempts a sympathetic portrayal of picked-upon students who arrange to torture and kill their peers.  Registering as a brutal revenge fantasy on the part of the filmmakers, we’re supposed to identify with the oppressed and, I guess, cheer for them.

Fuck.  That.  Shit.

This is not something that one can do in a movie, especially one targeted at the demographics most interested in horror features.  Not fucking cool.  Ten years after (the mythologized, yes) Columbine, Stephen King’s early masturbatory fantasy of teen retribution Rage (written pseudonymously with a desired title of Getting It On) is just barely acceptable.  The Korn song “Faget” [sic] is probably not.  And this piece of shit registers off the charts into unacceptable territory.  The filmmakers should be ashamed at this inept, offensive, and possibly-dangerous film, and After Dark Films should be likewise ashamed.  Fuck them.  Gah.

Emily, played brilliantly by beautiful newcomer Lindsay Seidel, is the closest to evoking sympathy among the oppressed.  As for other bright spots … um?  Hmm.