What happens if you take the best things out of movies like "Slither" and "Shaun of the Dead" and mix them together? Well, you would end up with something that looks a lot like "Zombie Town".
The story takes place in a small town where a small trio of people suddenly find themselves outnumbered by the living dead and have to make a stand for themselves if they want to survive. Ravenous zombies are turning the citizens of the town into cannibalistic murderers.
The approach to the zombie infection being caused by a parasitic worm that attached itself to the host was unusual, but much similar to what was done in "Slither". Whether or not you like that thing is individual, and personally I am not much fan of that approach. But hey, don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad thing, because it did work out well enough in "Zombie Town".
Moving on to the zombies. Well they were, in overall, actually quite nice. Some had good make-up and prosthetics. So it was nice to see this amount of detail (and gore) in a low-budget zombie movie like this. And then that leads us to the blood and mayhem; well, gore-hounds, you will not be disappointed watching "Zombie Town". There is a lot of blood, gore and guts in this movie. And it looks great and prepare yourself for a lot of flesh tearing. Thumbs up on the gore alone, it was great. Oh, and whether or not you like agile zombies that run around chasing the living, well that is also a matter of preference. I, personally (and for those familiar with my zombie movie reviews), am not a big fan of zombies being all agile and running around like sports athletes.
The people they had cast were really coming together for a good performance. And it was obvious that they had actually taken time to put together a good ensemble of actors and actresses for the movie. Quite often, you see low-budget movies collapsing in epic fails because they have cast people unable to act their way out of a brown paper bag. But for "Zombie Town", then they had gotten some really great performers, who really helped the movie come to life. Most memorable was Adam Hose in the lead role of Jake.
I loved the scene in the beginning of the movie where the people inside the cabin were fending off the zombie trying to come through the window, and one guy was using a broom to jab at the zombie. First of all, the jabs were so weak and half-hearted, the stick was nowhere near hitting the zombie. And then suddenly out of nowhere the zombie grabs the broom and pulls it out of the guy's hand, which prompts the man to faint. Wait, what? Yeah, he fainted from that. I didn't know that having a broomstick taken out of your hand would cause spontaneous unconsciousness. But now I do; a nice fact for later use in life. That scene just cracked me up.
"Zombie Town" is great entertainment for a low-budget zombie movie. It has all the ingredients for a great movie, and with a bigger budget, it would have been right up there with Romero's movies. If you are a zombie aficionado, like me, then treat yourself to "Zombie Town", it is well worthy a place in any zombie fan's DVD collection.
