Swamp Zombies!!!

There are good zombies movies and there are bad zombie movies. "Swamp Zombies" fall into the latter category. The DVD cover actually looks promising enough, but once you start the movie, that illusion vaporises like dew in the morning sun.

The story in "Swamp Zombies" is fairly much average for a zombie movie. Experiments were being done on corpses, and for some reason the corpses come back to life, hungry for human flesh.

But the acting in "Swamp Zombies". Wow, that baffled me. I have rarely seen anything like it. Most of the performances put on here were well below average, with forced, halted dialogue and performances that you never really bought into. Most of the people seemed like they had just memorized their lines and were stumbling through to put them out there. It was painful to watch. I am not sure why, but apparently it was a big deal to Brain Dead Films to have Brian Heffron, Jasmin St. Claire and Dan Severn on the cast list, but those people can't act!

There is a good enough amount of gore in the movie, and that is actually the one thing that the movie have working for it. But it is hardly nowhere enough to make it interesting.

The zombie make-up, well it was almost non-existent, was nothing interesting. Most of them looked just like ordinary people. So nothing to come here for.

Sure "Swamp Zombies" is an ambitious project, and hats off to Brain Dead Films to do this. But the movie never rises beyond an amateur attempt at making a movie. I am sure there are fans out there for these particular types of low-budget movies. I, however, am just not one of them. I don't mind low-budget movies, but this was just too uneventful and too plain.

I definitely think this kind of projects are the best ways for an aspiring filmmaker to learn the trick...actually I would like to see this type of films made in my own country. I'm also a fan of B-horror like Braindead or Killer Klowns from Outer Space. I rented Swamp Zombies!!! with the intend to just have a fun time and not expecting a masterpiece.

But even those expectations were too high. I don't say I could do this better, but this was one of the most boring films I've seen in quite a while. I really can appreciate the idea of a zombieflick with lots of gore, kung-fu and nudity in it. But except for the fun the director took on the nudity, 'Swamp Zombies!!!' just didn't work.

Let's be honest: two hours is just too long for a zombiemovie. Kungfu-scenes were overlong, lack of continuity and terrible acting made this film quite a boring ride, instead of the fun roller-coaster-ride I had hoped to see.

This film is bad. No question about it. But rather than just criticize the film for its faults I thought I would also point out some of the good things about it and explain the reasons for some of the flaws as well. For example, most of the actors were amateurs and it showed. However, this was an ultra low-budget production and as a result hiring top-notch professional actors was definitely out of the question. So the director, (Len Kabasinski) had to make do with whatever was available. With that in mind, I actually thought some of the scenes were somewhat adequate, particularly those involving "Dr. Phillips" (Shannon Solo) and to a lesser extent some of the scenes with "Lillian Carter" (Jasmin St. Claire). Unfortunately, these barely average scenes were few and far between. Likewise, the script was actually okay. It was the way the other actors delivered their lines that left me less than impressed. Even so, as bad as the acting may have been, the fight scenes were much worse. Yet instead of minimizing them the director chose to present one after another. Of course, the fact that he was one of the characters in the film ("Jack") who was involved in several of the fight scenes might be a key reason for this. Regardless, they were still pretty awful. Ditto the makeup for the zombies. Anyway, having said all of this, I believe that this movie could have been salvaged if it had focused more on Dr. Phillips and Lillian, put more emphasis on makeup and minimized physical combat. It didn't and the final product suffered accordingly. So, while allowances could be made for the lack of financial resources available, the fact remains that this movie could have been better in spite of it all. That said, while it isn't the worst zombie movie I have ever seen, it was certainly bad enough.

The makers of Swamp Zombies clearly had ambitions. Filled with a large cast and a number of locations (yes the low budget favorite woods are used but we also have a lot filmed in a hospital with plenty of extras walking around).

But that doesn't make Swamp Zombies good. I saw the 2 hour cut which is interminably boring. The audio is all in-camera and changes between shots.

The zombies, of which there is way too little are just some people with some blood splattered on them. It would have been awesome to get some mucky-living dead coming out of a swamp, but theres not even a swamp in Swamp Zombies. Its just a forest. Theres also a few scenes at a beach.

Little gore, a surprising amount of nudity, and too much talking. This was director Len Kabasinki's first feature, he has gone on to make 16 more films as of 2022, including a sequel which is mercifully only 75 minutes long.

From this site I understand the movie cost $12.000 to make, of which most probably was used to hire Jasmin St. Claire for a small supporting role. However unbelievable she is as a hospital manager, her acting was by far best of the movie - and that's saying something. Most of the others looked bored or ashamed to be in it, delivering wooden performances and terrible dialogue.

Not that they were given much to work with, although the basic idea is interesting enough it's full of plot holes, goofs and continuity errors. For instance the storm that makes the thugs not disposing of the corpses correctly and takes out communication doesn't seem to affect the students in the forest one bit. And if you're attacked by zombies you'd forget about your towel and stuff, or probably fight given one turns out to be capable of some quite decent martial arts later!

The camera work isn't very good either, especially the lighting is bad. But it's easily topped by the sound which has a lot of background, poor cutting and a soundtrack that's actually quite good but blares through your speakers at times. Make-up is probably about what to expect in a movie like this, however there are no special effects to speak of and thus gorehounds will be disappointed. Some nudity is included, nevertheless this alone won't save the movie.

Overall one of the worst movies I've ever seen, inept at every department although the premise is good. That together with a few nice rock songs and some good looking ladies (certainly not all of them) save this from the lowest rating possible - albeit only just.