A Cadaver Christmas

I love B grade horror films. I love zombie movies. I love over the top Troma humor. I am even an indie filmmaker. I did not like this movie.

The premise sounds really fun: A janitor enlists several locals to help him fight zombies in a university on Christmas eve. Instead of an enjoyable romp with tons of blood and gore, we get long passages where nothing happens and banal dialog that is supposed to pass for jokes.

The film is really nothing more than a low budget vanity project by a group of guys who aren't as funny or talented as they want to be. It's the kind of situation that all indie movie makers have been in (me included) where enthusiasm can't compensate for a bad script. I will check back after they've made a few more movies, though. I'm betting they do get better down the line.

Normally, I am so tired of zombies these days, I skip such films. But this time, I'm glad I didn't. Bored and lazy at 2:00 in the morning, I saw nothing interesting on the tube, so I said what the heck, I'll check it out before I crash. It turned out to be quite funny. The goofy characters approached over the top, but in an affable way. Think of your craziest real-life acquaintances thrust into an even crazier situation. I liked the artificial graininess imposed over the film like worn black and white stock. And the hokey lighting was perfect vintage '50s monster movie. Also, the soundtrack was a gas - rock Christmas music played in creepy minor keys. All in all, a good time, with a lot of laughs.

There was way too little humor and what looked like an attempt at dramatic moments. Make it funny, make it a horror movie, put on some horse blinders, and go for it. This is barely an entertaining b-horror movie.

I liked this movie. My favorite things are the cinematography and the writing.

I have tried to watch so many Christmas horror movies and I can't get past the first 10 minutes because I don't like the cinematography. As far as low budget Christmas horror movies go - the camera work in this is better than most of them.

There are some really funny parts too. The writing is also better than many of the other Christmas horror movies I've seen.

I've been trying to find good movies in the genre for years and so many of them are horrible. If you're the same way, I feel confident recommending A Christmas Cadaver.

As a zombie aficionado, it was somewhat of a treat to sit down and watch "A Cadaver Christmas" actually. I had never heard about it anywhere when I came upon it by sheer random luck. And as it was something with zombies, it caught my interest and I decided to give it a go.

So what is "A Cadaver Christmas" you might think? Well, think "Dead Alive", "Feast" and "Shaun of the Dead" mixed up into one movie, then you basically have "A Cadaver Christmas". It was a great movie to watch, good amount of blood and mayhem, good story and nice characters. However, the movie slacked somewhat on the acting part, as it wasn't the best of performances to be seen in this movie. But for a low budget movie, they pulled it off as to be expected.

The story was simple and straight forward as most zombie movie story lines tend to be. A group of people get stuck somewhere with zombies and have to survive. And of course, the survivors are underdogs of society, as they tend to be in these types of movies, so nothing new here.

Actually the characters were the best part of the movie. You had a drunk (played by Hanlon Smith-Dorsey), a bartender (played by Ben Hopkins), a former police officer (played by Yosh Hayashi), a perp (played by Edward O'Ryan) and a janitor (played by Daniel Rairdin-Hale). These characters were extreme in their own ways, but it worked out well enough, because they all added flavor to the movie.

For a low budget zombie movie, then "A Cadaver Christmas" is actually at the high end of the scale, because the story was enjoyable (despite the often questionable acting), and the characters were fun and likable. Plus, and most importantly, there was a good amount of blood and gore in the movie to keep most gore hounds satisfied.

If you enjoy zombie movies and don't mind watching even those that don't have a multi million dollar budget, then you should check out "A Cadaver Christmas".