Hell bent for Whiskey

**zombie vs wiseguys:** **Hell Bent for Whiskey** is the animated short film from which the Guns Gore & Cannoli series originated from. Set in Chicago, it follows two Prohibition-era gangsters named Vinnie and Paulie, who's bootlegging operation inadvertently releases a zombie plague upon the city, as they attempt continue business as usual by all means necessary.

## Plot

The movie starts inside a brewery run by the Belluccio crime family, Belluccio's Whiskey and Beer. Vinnie Cannoli narrates the shot through the brewery, formally introduces himself and his partner Paulie as made men of the Belluccio Mafia and describes the horrid state America was in in the late 1920s, from the Great Depression to the Prohibition Years. In these times, men like him and his compatriots flourished in the illegal trade of alcohol, thanks to either a network of connections or self-employed labor in supplying the general public with their much needed drink. He was part of the more hardworking kind, the old reliable bootleggers. Vinnie finds it to be as reputable as any other business, even if your competition and own colleagues were more likely to off you for the sake of profit in a more literal sense than most corporations, the key difference being that "instead of a pen, you use a gun.". The camera pans over barrels of alcohol, distilleries and wooden vats filled with liquor, before zooming onto a stack of dynamite with a wired timer deposited under a pipe.

A car speeds across the rain soaked streets on the other side of town and crashes in the side of the road, at the river bench. A man, a Belluccio associate named Frank, climbs out of the turned over wreckage and is suddenly blinded by the headlights of another car. As he readies his gun, out of the car step two mobsters, Paulie and Vinnie, who claim that he had been spotted at Costelli's bar, a rival family's speakeasy tonight. Frank denies having been there, prompting Vinnie to ask what he was doing at the Belluccio's brewery. Frank insists that he was only checking the brewery for faults and intruders, when an explosion obliterates the aforementioned operation. The duo's suspicions are confirmed and turn to Frank, who simply shrugs. They gun down Frank for destroying the still and leave him by the river.

The scene cuts to Belluccio's Bar where he plans his next move with the two gangsters. The Don, the eponymous Belluccio, informs the two that it was their last brewery and that they were now depending on the Canadian shipments and would be done for otherwise. Vinnie tells him that all the shipments were caught by police raids, because Tony forgot to bribe the authorities. Belluccio orders the gangsters to have Tony whacked, but they explain that he didn't pay the cops because they already had him killed last month. The two share a hearty laugh due to this misunderstanding, but their boss quickly brings them back to the point, implicitly threatening their lives if his business were to fail because of their undoing. Belluccio concludes that Frankie must have been working for the Costellis, Mr. Belluccio's rival business. Belluccio then orders the gangsters to go to the Costellis' liquor storage and steal their booze. He stubs out his cigar as he says that if anyone at the location tried to "play tough guy", they are to "ice 'em".

The gangsters then arrive at the Costelli's brewery’s liquor storage, only to find no one present. Despite Paulie,s initial skepticism, Vinnie ignores the unusual circumstances, saying it simply makes their job easier and begins loading the truck with some of the barrels. Paulie joins in and as they do, the camera pans to a broken window on the first floor. Inside, dead Costelli gang members are seen, seemingly after a shootout, with one corpse sticking out in particular, with grey skin. It zooms onto a bottle of whiskey as the sound of gunfire is heard.

The duo roll around half a dozen barrels onto the truck before deciding it to be enough for the night and head out. They ship their haul to Luigi's Bar, where they have a swinging party in the evening, as the people drink the stolen whiskey and dance. Inside of a backroom, Vinnie and Paulie are discussing the payment with the owner, Luigi. While they talk, an already inebriated Luigi pours himself another drink and starts to cough and retch. He falls silent and then begins to foam around the mouth, as his skin turns warty and grey. As the pair watch the transformation in disbelief, Luigi's right eye pops out of its socket and hits Vinnie, much to his and Paulie's horror. Their business partner lets out a roar of anger and flips over the table and charges at Paulie, pinning him to the wall, choking him. Vinnie grabs a fire axe and hacks Luigi in the back, to no effect other than Luigi turning around and throwing Vinnie at the wall. With Luigi's back turned, Paulie uses the opportunity and quickly grabs his shotgun. Luigi turns around for Paulie, but in response, Paulie sticks the barrel of his gun into Luigi's mouth and pulls the trigger, blowing the bar owner's head clean off. As they try to make sense of what just had happened, Vinnie and Paulie wonder why Luigi attacked them and Paulie deduces it may have been the alcohol they brought him. Vinnie dismisses this as nonsense, as the bar's customers were fine, but this is proven wrong as the zombified patrons of the bar start clawing at the glass window of Luigi's office and go after the two. They fight them off and manage to escape out the back door. It becomes obvious, that the Costelli's liquor caused the bar to turn into cannibalistic monsters. They report the incident to Mr. Belluccio, who demands to have the Costelli depot destroyed, with all evidence linking it to the Belluccios and gives them explosives and a detonator.

Vinnie and Paulie arrive the the Costelli's warehouse the same night and look for good spot for the bomb. Vinnie suggests planting it in the room with the large storage vats. Paulie goes to set up the plunger outside the storage, but a large group of zombies arrive, attracted by the alcohol, causing Paulie to drop the detonator as he flees from the incoming horde. With the zombies breaking in, Paulie and Vinnie are able to escape through a trapdoor, into the sewers, just as they start to drink out of the barrels. One of the zombies notices the big vats and tries to climb into it to reach its contents, while the other zombies are also made aware of the vats and try to do the same. The weight of the zombies cause the wooden and unsecured vat to tip over, flooding the room with a tidal wave of bootleg whiskey. The flood of booze flushes through the various drains of the warehouse into the sewer, forcing Vinnie and Paulie to abandon the ever-rising sewer tunnels, through a manhole.

At the same time, Mr. Belluccio is sitting on the toilet, reading the paper and smoking a cigar. His session is interrupted by his mother's shouting, who wants her son to help her with the whiskey, that is suddenly coming out of the taps. He tells her to not bother him while he's using the bathroom and to solve the problem herself, but pays no mind to her son's yelling, simply reminding him to stop dumping his cigars in the toilet. He noticed that the water in the toilet is bubbling, but ignores her anyway and drops his still-lit cigar into the toilet and ignites the whiskey in the sewer, blowing up the entire building, with him and his mother in it. This sets off a chain-reaction, that travels through the sewers back to the liquor storage, where it explodes in a violent explosion killing all the zombies inside and creating a nuclear-like explosion, that obliterates almost all buildings on the Costelli's side of the river. Vinnie and Paulie witness the mushroom cloud first hand and run for cover behind the wall of a building, miraculously surviving unharmed. As they evaluate the carnage, they figure that they *did* destroy all the evidence and sign it off as a job done. They decide to head home and look for a bar. They again try to make sense of the situation as they walk over to their conveniently placed and undamaged truck right next to the wall, but both being tired, they waste no more thought on the matter, as Paulie ends the night by saying "I need a drink".

## Cast

* Vinnie: Dennis Stacey
* Paulie: John Bell Williams
* Mr Belluccio: John Bell Williams
* Frankie: John Bell Williams
* Luigi: John Bell Williams
* Mama Belluccio: Dennis Stacey
* Zombies: Dennis Stacey and John Bell Williams

## Trivia

* Hell Bent for Whiskey was initially a student film made by Belgian brothers Benjamin and Matthias Claeys, who would later found Claeys Brothers Arts Studios, for the Flanders International Film Festival Ghent. It was given Award for Best Student Film in 2004.
* Almost all characters, with the exception of Mama Belluccio and Luigi, would eventually make some form of appearance in the *Guns, Gore & Cannoli* series.
* During the shot panning over the interior of Luigi's Bar, showing the party going on inside, a grey haired man drawn in a style heavily differing from the rest of the patrons, drinking out of a beer mug can be seen, who is clearly meant to resemble Fat Tony, a Springfieldian mobster from the animated series *The Simpsons*.

## Links

* YouTube link to video
* IMDb page