I had been through the first two Zombie Bloodbath films the day before on this amazing DVD set and finally it was time to tackle Part Three in the series, Zombie Armageddon. The Zombie Bloodbath series appeals to me not just on the level of splatter, but also on the level of creativity it must have taken to make these work on any level, ad to make them all entertaining seems like an impossible task with budgets this low, yet I am always shocked at how much they kind of worked, even though they shouldn't. Part two had some really original ideas and part three really had me rolling for one simple fact. If Lucio Fulci made the Breakfast Club on 150 dollars budget, this may have been the end result. This one is easily the best in the series from a technical level, and it does have some pretty fun CGI effects here and there. Knowing when the film was made, I kind of expected the CGI to be worse than it was. The kind of effects that DV films can utilize today are much more advanced than they were when this film was made. But it adds to the charm in a way, of this low budget effort. This time, the script is pretty tight and even with all the twists and turns, makes sense and has some humor and more heart than most DV films. The final twist as a matter of fact, was done quite well, and could have been super confusing, but turns out to be a cool idea and makes perfect sense. This is probably due to Todd Sheets growing even more as a director between the two films. His style, pacing and direction all seem more solid and it is fun to look back on all three and watch a guy grow and evolve as a moviemaker. The story involves time travel, zombies, government conspiracies and more, and I would tell more about it, but it really is better to leave the surprises intact. I would love to have seen this script done on a bigger budget. Basically, in the future, the military needs more bodies for the war and create zombies to basically fight and win the battle. Well, they win like they were suppose to but then the question becomes, what do we do with all of them now? So the Government loads them all on a space shuttle and sends them into space. Of course, they end up hitting some sort of black hole and going back I time to present day and the Government intercepts them and takes them to a secret underground base. A nearby school is above ground but has some old tunnels under it that still lead to the base and when to science nerd types find a signal belonging to the old shuttle, they trace it, thus finding the undead. Now, this sounds kind of far fetched, but in reality there is an air force base in Missouri that I know of, my uncle was stationed there, and it was next to schools and shopping areas and did have underground areas. Not only is Whiteman Airforce Base there, also an Army / military ammunitions Plant is there as well. Kind of cool to bring that local edge to the script. Though not as gory as the previous entries in this series, Zombie Bloodbath 3 does have some over the top gore moments and one standout scene involving a zombie fetus that had me both grossed out and rolling out of my chair. It still has more gore than a typical Hollywood film, but there was so MUCH splatter in the other two that this one does seem a bit mild in that area, but the film makes up for it with better acting, a good story and better style. Another fun ride in Zombieland for me, I would say that I look forward to more films from Todd Sheets. There was no commentary on this one but the behind the scenes featurette was cool and I enjoyed all of the interviews.
There is a raw short film that I found fun on a warped level, though VERY low budget, and some cool trailers to round out the collection. Overall, this is a solid, if a bit flawed, release with plenty of extras and TONS of gore and splatter. While not breaking any grand rules of move making, I found the series to be fun and always a laugh, so I give this set a solid recommendation. Todd Sheets was not trying to make award winning art here folks, he was trying, sometimes against all odds it seems, to make fun zero budget, splattery horror and to that end, he has succeeded in spades. And really, when looking back at the time these films were being made, he was one of the first to grab a camera and follow his dreams and the fact that I am reviewing a film made almost 20 years ago, shot on video with unknowns in the middle of nowhere, proves that in some way, he is successful and an innovator in the area of low budget DV movies. Knowing very little going into this set, from the commentary, the films and the behind the scenes features I learned a lot about this director and his crew and his films, and I actually am pleased to say that I hope to learn more and find more of his films in the future.
