On the fourteenth day of Halloween, my boo love gave to me ... fourteen outstretched zombie hands stained with mustard!
THE CARD:Road Warrior redneck prototypes, a small town starving for big Hollywood money, the pasty-faced undead, a bunch of OSHA violations, and Wings Fucking Hauser.
More details here.
THE ANGLE:
A monster with smoky, slippery hands attacks a handyman in a garage. Scary!
Two young studs on a road trip, one an awkward feather-haired doof and the other Wings, ramble down the road in their sweet Mustang convertible. They are soon harassed by shitty driving hillbillies and are run off the road and humiliated by the jerky rednecks. Their car totaled, they hitchhike the rest of the way, semi-shirtless, and are soon picked up by a crazy hunter named Mel who weaves stories of alien sightings in the countryside and warns them of dangers in the night. Cut to evening in a sleepy town where unbeknownst to our heroes, the residents are being picked off one-by-one by a guy with a smoking hand. The city slickers stumble across one of the victims, who looks like his neck was chewed off by a diseased yak, and when they try to report the crime, they get their asses kicked by town bullies that tried to kill them so impolitely earlier. Their butts are saved in the proverbial nick by the Sheriff whom they try to convince there's a killer on the loose. Later, the Sheriff finds them shelter for the night at an inn where they encounter additional crazy local yokels.
Meanwhile, the Sheriff finds a metal smoking object and takes it to the local doctor for examination. The pair are mystified at the origins of the strange, salt-shaker sized thing. Back at the inn, Doof and Wings argue (shirtless) again about the dead body they found and what they plan to do about it. Wings leaves Doof alone who subsequently becomes victim of the smoky monster. The next day, Wings, who we finally learn is named Josh, searches the town for Doof and makes a shapely lady friend named Holly along the way. The Sheriff and the doctor continue their examination of the object and find traces of blood on it. They also discover that blood is missing from the doctor's fridge. Josh and blondie Holly investigate the spooky goings-on at the local school where she is a teacher. They find another blue-faced victim, a student, in the basement where Josh is attacked by one of the rednecks from earlier. He escapes the scene while the doctor and Sheriff examine the corpse as the body count continues to mount. When the Sheriff notifies the student's family, he finds more bodies dying under mysterious circumstances, including a pissed-off but dead-tired zombie.
Josh and Holly argue, then kiss, and then worry about Doof. Just as Josh was getting down with Holly, he suffers a sharp pain in his stomach that knocks him out. He awakens in the doctor's office, still bewildered at Doof's disappearance and still horny. The Sheriff and the State Police argue over what's going on, and it is revealed that the Sheriff has somewhat of a drinking problem that has compromised his judgment in the past. Back at the doctor's office, more and more people are getting sick. But the monster with the smoking hand from the opening scenes has seemingly vanished. The sickness is now turning the infected residents into zombies with slimy hands and one of them attacks and kills the doctor. The next day, Josh and Holly somehow track Doof (who I think is named Mike, but who cares) to a chemical factory on the outskirts of town. Ah ha! It's the 80s, of course pollution's the source of the weirdness! How times have changed.
Josh bumbles his way around the factory and is captured by the foreman, who turns out to be Mel, the crazy hunter from the first act, not to be confused with Yor, Hunter from the Future. Tun tun tuuuuuuuun! Holly saves the day by ramming the factory in a Plymouth, rescuing Josh, and spraying the bad guys with the zombie goo. Back in the town, the Sheriff has been fired, Holly's uncle is undead, and buff shirtless Doof is still missing. After a run-in with Holly's family zombie, the Sheriff is finally convinced that something weird is indeed going on. They find a nest of zombies at the doctor's office and do battle. These zombies are of the stumbling, clawing kind so a locked door pretty much seals their doom. Josh returns to the inn to find Doof and instead discovers his body in the cellar, thankfully with a shirt on, and is attacked by the zombie daughter of the kooky innkeeper. He disposes of both of them with a Bic lighter. Holly returns to the school to help one of her students whose lost his parents in the zombie outbreak, but they too are attacked by a horde of little kid zombies. Yes! The kiddy undead feast on the kid in a really messed up scene. Josh arrives in time to save Holly, but the kid is zombie toast. Josh and Holly are again attacked by zombies, who have acquired a new power of being able to melt glass with their hands, on their way out of town. They hole themselves up in a gas station and are surrounded by the ravenous hordes in a final showdown of bloodcurdling mayhem, terrifying terror, and rubber crowbars!
THE FINISHER:
I pretty much walked you through the entire film in the paragraphs above, saving you 100 minutes of your life. This cheap effort is so dim and poorly acted that it'll make you yearn for a dozen TV movies starring Valerie Bertinelli. Although the kid zombies tearing up their classmate was pretty cool.
It's only saving grace? Wings Hauser. One of the great unsung kings of direct-to-video greatness. And even he is dim and poorly acted.
Wings.
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