ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction

Plot synopsis:
Opening on a beach of the island town of Port Gamble, a blind resident discovers a rotting zombie washed up in the sand.Frida Abbas (Janette Armand) is a teenage Irianian-American girl has returned to Port Gamble, her home town after dropping out of Princeton University. She runs into her neighbor, Joe Miller, at the local gas station which he runs with his wife, Judy, and their teenage son, Brian. The family refers to her as Iraqi, much to Frida' confusion.Meanwhile, the token gay couple, Tom Hunt (Doug Fahl) and Lance Murphy (Cooper Hopkins) arrive in Port Gamble to tell Tom's mother that he is gay. While Tom and Lance explore town, many island residents appear to have been zombified, including a police officer. Frida arrives at her house to find her father, Ali, praying. Ali has a lecturing argument to Frida about being more proud of her Iranian heritage. Frida sneaks out of the house with her boyfriend, Derek (Ryan Barret).Tom and Lance are having dinner with Tom's mother, who reveals that she was bitten earlier by a bystander at the store. She goes into the kitchen to prepare dessert and Tom admits that he is gay at the second his mom becomes a zombie and attacks them. Lance pins her to the wall with a fireplace poker and discovers more zombies walking towards the house. The news reveals that Port Gamble is under attack by a bio-terrorism attack which turns it's victims into zombies.While Frida and Derek are outside, Derek's face is horrifically ripped off and eaten by a zombie. Ali leaves the house to look for his daughter while Frida escapes from a group of zombies and returns to her abandoned and surrounded house. Judy calls for her from her barricaded home. Frida and Judy run and hide in the basement with Brian and Joe. Judy is bitten by a zombie while helping Frida inside.While watching the news on a TV set, Joe sees that the terrorist responsible for the outbreak is wearing the same necklace as Frida. He ties Frida to a chair and asks her questions about U.S. history, much to Brian's disgust. Tom and Lance find Mrs. Hunt (a teacher, mayor candidate, and Mayor Burton's (James Mesher) ex-wife). They run into the local church where Reverend Haggis (Bill Johns), Mayor Burton, Clive, a married couple, and a local senior woman are playing bingo. They immediatley begin to board the windows and chart the food. Reverend Haggis believs that the zombies outside are a part of the apocalypse.Back in the basement, Joe nails Frida's foot to the ground and begins to move a flame of fire toward her face when Brian hits a hole in his father's head with a hammer. Brian is able to lift the nail out of Frida's foot and before they leave, Brian is attacked and eaten by the zombified Judy. The wounded Joe watches in disbelief as his wife devours Brian.As Mayor Burton starts to show obvious signs of infection, Mrs. Hunt suggests quarantining him in a room which causes Mayor Burton to rebel against her. Tom and Lance lecture Mayor Burton which makes Reverend Haggis decide to turn Lance and Tom into straights by drugging them and making them watch gay "erotic" films. Clive and the married couple go downstairs to assist Haggis in the process, locking themsleves in the basement. Mayor Burton reanimates into a zombie and bites the senior woman's jaw off, leaving Mrs. Hunt alone with the zombie. As Lance is being drugged, Tom threatens the group and forces them to let Mrs. Hunt in, Mayor Burton enters with her. Clive and the couple quickly run out of the church with Tom, Lance, and Mrs. Hunt following while Reverend Haggis attempts to talk to Burton, who eats him.Frida makes it home to her father, who turns into a zombie and she is forced to kill him. She prepares to commit suicide with her father's shotgun before she hears a helicopter outside. She runs out of the house into a playground full of zombies and the still-living Joe Miller. In a struggle, Joe tries to handcuff Frida to a slide but Frida breaks loose of his grip and handcuffs him to the slide and runs off. Joe cries that he's sorry and that he was stupid. Frida honestly says that she forgives him but refuses to release him. The zombies attack, rip apart, and devour Joe. Frida soon finds Tom, Lance, and Mrs. Hunt and saves them from a zombie. They leave to find the chopper where U.S. soldiers find them and take them to refuge.Six months later. Port Gamble is off quarantine and begins to be repopulated. Mrs. Hunt is now mayor of the town and Frida is running her father's diner. Tom and Lance visit her and propose that she stay with them in New York. She denies but promises that she will visit them soon. Tom and Lance leave the island while Clive and the married couple enjoy a meal at Frida's diner.The film ends with shots of a wall of rememberance and Mayor Hunt putting a flower next to a picture of Burton.

Tags: violence, cult, satire, entertaining

Review:
Its not at all frightening and anyone familiar with low budget zombie movies will not see anything new in terms of effects shots and gore.
I think with a title like this "Zombies of Mass Destruction" many people are going to pass on this movie, which would be a bad thing to do.
Lots of zombies (usually with adequate make-up, wardrobe and effects), blood and gore (though the blood in this movie was very strangely red) and of course a story that will sink its teeth in you - no pun intended.Right from the very beginning I had a feel that this movie was going to be interesting, despite it not being a multi-million dollar Hollywood production.
Of course, they were not on Romero's level, but still they were very nice to look at and seemed real enough most of the time.And also, if you are the type that approach movies analytically, then this movie does have some interesting things that it deals with, such as terrorism, homosexuality, religion, racism, to name some.
Of course, if you just watch a movie for entertainment, these still add depth to the entire movie.Overall, I think this is one of the better "low budget" zombie movies I have seen in awhile.
Don't let the title fool you, as it almost did me.This movie definitely gets two thumbs up - if a zombie hadn't bitten off my left thumb.
I decided to watch it with high hopes as I am a big fan of the zombie genre and some reviewers compared it to Shaun of the dead and Zombieland.
It really picks on so many aspects of culture.The lead actress really did a good job, as did the two playing Lance and Tom. I think "Lance" gets some of the best lines and has some good comedic timing.As long as you don't mind a little poking fun at yourself and are not looking for the next over-the-top, over-polished Hollywood turd, this is a very enjoyable movie..
A potentially great old school zombie movie with a clever twist that is squandered by shoddy production values..
A potentially great old school zombie movie with a clever twist that is squandered by shoddy production values.I saw the trailer for this film and I was absolutely stoked.
An old-school Romero-esquire zombie movie blended with comedy and satire sounded like a sure thing.
It's post-911 terrorism paranoia twist works excellently and is so refreshing for a genre that is getting stale.The film just isn't any good on a technical standpoint.
this combined with the poor editing makes any sort of action scene almost unbearable to watch.A really good idea and a good attempt but next time, more talent and experience might produce a better movie..
Kevin Hamedani makes some valid points for the Progressive, tolerant viewpoint, while other points are made less persuasive by the cartoonish exaggeration of Conservative stupidity.There are several shots where the side of a zombie's head is blown away, and I'm not sure how Hamedani and crew did those so well, given the obviously low budget.
Its your typical zombie fare with just a few extra political and social themes thrown in to try and give you characters that aren't the norm for this kind of flick.
The meat of the film is nothing special, typical zombie outbreak with a few gay jokes thrown in to give the slower members of the audience a giggle.
Along with main characters who were clearly written with the thought "How can we get the most puns out of these guys?"Really, the true and honest glory of this film comes towards the end, when one of the cardboard villains mentioned above (I won't spoil who) gets attacked by a zombie, who rips his arm off and proceeds to beat him to death with it.
Once the zombies start making their appearance, the movie just doesn't stop giving the viewer laughs, chills, and a constantly advancing story.
And the story actually made sense within its own context; I get tired of those who think a zombie movie doesn't really have to have a storyline that makes sense.
This is something that shouldn't be a problem even in a low budget film it would've been better off with no processing.As for the zombie scenes I was actually surprised at the quality of makeup and acting during these scenes, some of the effects were noticeably low budget but overall quite impressive for what they had to work with, there was a lot of camera cuts which seemed a little over done.In the political sense it addressed several issues touching on homosexuality, religion, mayoral office, and the middle east.
The scenes didn't mesh together and felt forced.The cast seemed a good fit for the characters they played, however the acting was definitely B-film quality I'd say the gay couple and the Iranian girl were by far the best actors/actress of the film.
The zombies seemed as you would imagine from most zombie movies slow, stupid and bloodthirsty.In conclusion a Zombies of Mass Destruction is a zombie film crashed into a political movie and didn't have any insurance to fund the collision repair, which makes for decent zombie killing action mixed with b-c class acting and interruptions of over-exaggerated political views, when I say interruptions I mean it takes on the mood of an entirely different movie..
ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction (2009) Entertaining and interesting, but not brilliant.Zombie fans will like this film because it is done in the Romero tradition.However, the social satire has less bite.
The rest of the cast performed with energy and gusto.I rated the film as only a 6/10 because it was entertaining, but did not really advance the zombie genre beyond Night of the Dead (1968)..
This film reminded me of a George Romero zombie movie, no not the good old ones I mean the crappy modern ones where he tries to shoehorn in some political commentary and it just doesn't work.
This isn't too bad, there's some good scenes of zombie action but they are spaced too far apart and the gaps are filled with boring scenes.Comedy?
I don't want to give away any of the juicy, gory scenes, but I will tell you that there are some glorious moments involving skin ripping, shooting, stabbing, and even one shocking and hilarious hit and run.Instead of the regular cookie cutter characters you see in most horror films, ZMD features a diverse group of individuals that are actually interesting.
ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction is well-paced, high energy, gory, clever, and funny as hell.
I don't see how anyone could think ZMD can stand up next to movies like Sean of the Dead or Zombieland which both had shining and brilliant performances and a scripts written by people that know and actually understand comedy.
Behind this film's rather dumb sounding title lies a smart little post-9/11 zombie comedy in which outrageous splatter is combined with religious and political satire; it's a risky mix, but one that writer/director Kevin Hamedani successfully pulls off, his film effectively driving home such profound messages as being true to oneself and tolerance for all, as well as emphasising the importance of a clean head-shot!Janette Armand plays US-born half-Iranian hottie Frida, who returns to her home town of Port Gamble just as a mysterious zombie plague takes hold of the small island community.
As talk turns to the possibility of a terrorist attack, Frida becomes the subject of suspicion by small-minded islander Joe Miller (Russell Hodgkinson); meanwhile, gay couple Tom and Lance (Doug Fahl and Cooper Hopkins) seek sanctuary with a small group of churchgoers, only to find the fear and bigotry within almost as dangerous as the zombies outside.In taking swipes at small-minded small-town Americans and knocking religion, this film will naturally have no shortage of critics, but with its traditional, slow-moving zombies, bickering survivors, wry sense of humour, and insightful social commentary rubbing shoulders with well executed graphic gore, I actually found Zombies of Mass Destruction to be rather reminiscent of George Romero's original ' ...of the Dead' zombie trilogy—which isn't a bad thing in my book..
It's definitely better than the average low-budget zombie-flick.But this obviously is not a movie without it flaws.
No way people are going to take your movie serious when you are trying to create a creepy, realistic and shocking horror movie with zombies in it when you only have a couple of thousands of dollars to spend.
Problem is that the writing just isn't very clever or funny.The movie of course has a very simply concept and a standard main premise of a small town being overrun by a sudden zombie plague.
For this sort of movie it also definitely featured some good acting, which is all the more an accomplishment due to its simplistic script and dialog and the fact that basically all actors in this movie had never appeared in anything else before.It's not a great or even funny movie to watch but nevertheless the movie remains entertaining throughout.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/.
not to forget one of the most racist crap out there,Talking about the story, which didn't even existed, they don't tell you how it got started, what happened and how it ended 29 weeks later,its a shame to the zombie genre, horror genre and the horror comedy genre.Not even a good kill to show for all the money that went down the drain on this thing.Even porn movies have better stories.Those who have already seen this thing, my condolences,those who haven't stay away,save your money and save your time..
In the past ten years or so, we've been served more lame and pseudo- original zombie movies than regular TV commercials, but only a very small number of them are actually worth watching.
Just to think that this "Zombies of Mass Destruction" is quite often labeled as the best zombie film since "Shaun of the Dead" is totally preposterous.
I bet Hamedami watched Romero's classic zombie films countless of times and based his screenplay on those viewings.
A movie about a small town during a zombie outbreak is turned into a comedy when people, convinced it was a terrorist attack, start showing their ugly sides: homophobia, ignorance, blood lust, right wing politics, liberal politics, any politics, etc.This could have been a really cool movie.
There were some funny ideas there: the Iranian family that is always mistaken for Iraqi, just because that's what's most on the news, or some of the gay antics of the two New Yorkers returned to come out to the mother of one of them, but now I am really trying to find more funny moments and I can't.Bottom line: this is one of those movies that show the power of a good title.
Who could resist a movie called Zombies of Mass Destruction?
And those three people have to fend off the zombie apocalypse while trying to get out of Port Gamble.The greatest thing about ZMD is it's comedy.
The director and writer, Kevin Hamedani, is great at comedy and shows it well through the political satire in the film.
There are great jokes in this film, like jokes about gays, Iranian culture, American culture, religion, rights, and, of course, zombies.The biggest complaint is that the film does get a bit TOO preachy.
Also, the acting does get a bit cheesy at times (even though it maybe the film's intent).But, if you love zombies and if you love political satire, ZMD is the film for you.
Mass Destruction of Low Budget Zombie Movie.
What I mean with the mass destruction is that; this movie shows that a low budget movie could be way better without a cheap nudity, sex and other ridiculous stuff that are infecting most of low budget zombie/horror/thriller movies out there.
Of course there is a few things that make this film incomparable with Shaun of The Dead, Dawn of The Dead or other great zombie movies but for a low budget movie; this is good.
Save this movie for when you are drunk, really bored, or having a B movie party!Obviously the writers of this movie had some opinions about the war in Iraq, gay conversions, terrorists, and an assortment of American ideals.Seriously, can you expect people to take your inspirational speeches about national pride and community solidarity after a zombie eats their own eyeball?!.
The basic premise of the story is something like this: A woman running for mayor, a homosexual couple trying to come out of the closet, a father and daughter from Iran (not Iraq) come together with a band of religious folk during a zombie outbreak.
It could've turned out to be extremely funny, and a zombie classic to stand right up there alongside Shaun of the Dead.
These characters actually seem like people, and that's a massive plus.In terms of the cinematography, this film looks pretty good.
"ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction" is the sort of movie that will only get viewed by people who have decided in advance that they're going to like it.
The plot - amid a zombie apocalypse in a small town, an Iranian-American girl (who everyone thinks is Iraqi) gets assumed to be a terrorist, and a gay couple is about to come out to one of them's mom - sounds like something dreamed up by someone with too much time on his hands.
But more than anything, I get the feeling that it's fun to play zombies.The movie is no "Shaun of the Dead", but makes no pretense about what it is.
On top of that, the majority of the jokes are just flat-out stupid and lame and aren't in the slightest bit funny, leaving a large section of this at the end to be treated as some sort of monumentally-hilarious episode or joke that goes nowhere and has nothing to do with the movie at hand other than offering it's thinly-veiled political intrigue when that's the last thing it needs at the moment.
Yes, it's a B-movie, but then 90% of zombie films are, therefore you're probably not expecting a 'mega-budget' epic of a movie.
So, this does manage to deliver – it's pretty horrific and what little budget they have is used well on some nice/gruesome zombie and victim kills.ZMD also has another unusually plus point for a B-movie – the central characters are actually pretty different (remember, we're talking horror B-movies here).
It's like the writers wrote the characters into situations which separated from the main threat element, i.e. the zombies, so they had to introduce all sorts of nut-job characters to pose a new threat.Plus the film isn't that original.
Islamic terrorists, homosexuals and zombies seem to be a strange combination for a supposed horror film.
But, of course, they can't kill her because she is a zombie!Crazy preachers with reparative therapy, racism against Middle Easterners, gore, and blood expected in a zombie movie, and likable leads all make for an enjoyable time, even if it was cheaply made..
Well done, gory and funny as hell.I think the female lead started out in a skirt when her BF got killed wore jeans during part of her escape and then was back in the skirt when she got nailed.I need 10 lines so i'll say I enjoyed the anti Arab and anti gay humor, i think the female lead and the two actors who played the gay duo were excellent, so was the female lead who is also cute in an exotic way.The special effects were good for a low budget movie.
One character gets the skin ripped off his face(somehow really funny) and a couple non-zombies get killed in ways that surprise you so much you laugh out loud then feel really guilty for it.
The reason why zombie movies are so great is the interaction of the living characters but this one had the deeper, socio-political stuff I haven't seen since Night of the living dead original.
Zombies of Mass Destruction is possibly the worst movie I have ever seen.
This has to be the worst special effects I have ever seen in a zombie movie.
I do like how they included the LBGTQ community in this one with the gay main characters, and even if the plot was mediocre at best, the special effects were surprisingly good for a movie with a relatively small budget.
Zombies of Mass B-Movie destruction!.
This is a story about a xenophobic small island town under a biological attack or zombie virus outbreak attack by a militant terrorist group from the you know where.
There's also Frida's angry dad (Ali Hamedani) wandering through the story and an extremely sketchy conflict between the conservative mayor of Port Gamble (James Mesher) and a liberal school teacher (Cornelia Moore).Plot is not exactly the strong point of Zombies of Mass Destruction, which admittedly is common to this genre.
On the small island town of Port Gamble, a virus is unleashed and a zombie outbreak ensues.
In regards to originality, this particular genre has yielded so many zom- coms and horror films in recent memory, that besides introducing us to specific characters during the course of a movie, there's little else filmmakers can contribute that hasn't already been established elsewhere.
The zombies of this film move the same as those in a Romero movie, giving those not infected a fighting chance to defend themselves..
I found it very slow in starting the Zombie killing aspect that you would find with other Zombie Movies, however i did like the fact that we got to know about the individual characters before.
There was parts within then film that made no sense and characters within the film that never seemed to be long according to the way the script was laid out.Overall though was enjoyable but feel that the constant innuendo's's and suggestions of Muslin and Homosexuallity actually ruined what could have been an enjoyable Zombie Movie (Not George Romeo) but close to it..