Mutant Vampire Zombies from the 'Hood!

This film essentially begins in Los Angeles with two rival gangs meeting in a warehouse to discuss the release of a hostage. As it so happens, a Chinese gang led by a man named "Dragon" (Robert Wu) has kidnapped a woman named "Latiffa" (Rachel Montez Minor) who is a member of a black gang led by her boyfriend "G-Dog" (Tyshawn Bryant). Since the negotiation involves the exchange of some illegal drugs, two members of the police are also nearby and are prepared to make a bust. Unfortunately, as soon as they enter the warehouse a gun battle breaks out which seriously injures one of the policemen. Even worse, however is the fact that at this exact same time a strange solar flare occurs which releases large amounts of radiation upon the earth and turns everyone who didn't happen to be in a properly sealed environment into zombies. Realizing that something is terribly wrong outside one of the police named "David" (C. Thomas Howell) agrees to join forces with both G-Dog and Dragon as they now have to deal with millions of zombies all around them. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that the humor in this movie basically stems from the ineptitude of those working on the production of the film--with the manner in which the zombies were filmed and portrayed being especially ridiculous. Fortunately, the overall plot and the acting was sufficient enough to make things somewhat entertaining with Tyshawn Bryant probably giving the best performance overall. That said, while this was certainly not a good zombie film by any means, it wasn't necessarily that bad either and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

Now in Gangs of the Dead, rival Mexican and black gangs and assembled arm-candy or gun malls are doing a drug deal in a warehouse that gets busted by the cops. Things go wrong on the outside and they must join forces to fight off the surrounding zombie horde. Here its black and wanna-b-black Asian gangs. Apparently the slang talking Asians kidnapped the black gang member's girl friend in order to deal drugs with them. The deal sours a zombie comet hits earth, but instead of a castle siege it's a running gun battle black-hawk down style…C. Thomas Howell who was in that south rampart show (which NBC will go to hell for canceling) is slumming as usual, his usual black side kick cop. Apparently its okay to do racist stereotypical depictions of minorities if you stick a bandanna on them and call them gang-members. I think one of the black gang-members was that rapper "MYSTIKAL". Sticking to the true ROMERO they have to learn to shoot the Zombies in the head. All news is coming from the lone TV (the black guy from "Bay-Watch nights") and it's about how people react to each other during this catastrophic disaster.

I was one of the fortunate few who got an invitation to an advance screening of "Mutant Vampire Zombies from the 'Hood." Like so many of you out there I have been waiting for this one for about a year, and with much trepidation. I think we were all hoping for the best, but fearing the worst. Well, I'm happy to report that these Mutant Vampire Zombies deliver. KeiKabou Holland and Maxie J. Santillan Jr. practically steal the movie, while Johanna Watts and Tyshawn Bryant ground the film with strong, believable performances. In fact, all the gang members are terrific--my only caveat is that their screen time is too brief. The script by Thunder Levin and George Saunders is fun--think more along the lines of an R-rated "The Mummy" than "Shaun of the Dead"--and Thunder's direction keeps the story going at a hurried pace. There's never a dull moment. The zombies look great, the action is crisp and the laughs work in all the right places. After all the waiting, I was happy to see that "Mutant Vampire Zombies from the 'Hood" lives up to the pure hokum fun its name implies.

Mutant Vampire Zombies from the 'Hood' (2008)

** (out of 4)

First off, if you're coming to a movie with a title like this, you really shouldn't be expecting the work of Orson Welles. A solar flare crosses paths with the Earth, which turns most people into the title characters. There's a small group of survivors in Los Angeles and they're quite an interesting mix as we have white cop (C.Thomas Howell) and rival black and Chinese gang members. At just 81-minutes and featuring a terrific title, MUTANT VAMPIRE ZOMBIES FROM THE 'HOOD' is just what you'd expect to see at a drive-in forty-years ago when this type of exploitation was getting produced in mass numbers. Of course, today there's no way anything like this could ever come close to a theater but that's too bad because fans of trashy, silly exploitation should be able to get a few laughs out of this film, which is a lot better than you might think. Obviously the budget is extremely low but I give credit to director/co-writer Thunder Levin and his writing partner George Saunders for making up for that by delivering some nice characters, some fun dialogue and a rather interesting set-up for a good time. Having rival gangs and a cop having to team up isn't exactly the most original thing as it was done in previous movies but it works here because the characters are so memorable and most shocking is that you begin to care for them and want to see them live, which is usually something these movies never pull off. The dialogue is also fun for fans of the genre because there's mention of George Romero and various zombie pictures from the past few decades. I was also surprised to see how good the performances were including C. Thomas Howell who doesn't seem bitter about appearing in something like this and instead gives it his all. I also really enjoyed Tyshawn Bryant in the role of G-Dog. The movie features some funny sex scenes, some nudity and quite a bit of CGI gore to keep things moving. This isn't a classic or even a good movie but I think it's a good example of taking a small budget and little story and doing something good with it.

O.K. so it's not 'dawn of the dead' but it's still a movie I enjoyed watching as will most people who accept it for what it is, a low budget syfy channel type movie. A lot of negative reviews are being given because they are not comparing like for like.

I'm also a fan of C.Thomas Howell and the mock busters from 'the asylum' as they are so bad they are good. This was one of the better ones tho.

There are some funny scenes in it and the action was pretty good too. My only criticism was that the filming locations were a bit limited and the hot chick got taken out a bit too soon.