POP PUNK ZOMBIES (2011)

Streaming on Tubi!
Directed by Steve Dayton
Written by Steve Dayton & Brian Leis
Starring Ian Kane, Nicholas Marinucci, Laura Savage, Eric Leitzen

This is a perfect example of a good idea that is somewhat too big for the budget of a film. Occasionally this pays off. With a talented director, low budget doesn’t have to mean low quality. Here, I think the makers of POP PUNK ZOMBIES had a nice idea, but lacked the skill or talent available to pull it off. In the end, what you get is something that feels put together by a bunch of friends in love with the genre, not by professionals.

The soulless consumer masses are ripe for zombie metaphor. It was the central theme of Romero’s classic DAWN OF THE DEAD. Here, instead of malls, the focus in on the music industry, where legions of fans follow latest trends and zone out in concert halls, consuming CD’s, t-shirts, and all sorts of memorabilia. In POP PUNK ZOMBIES, a manager gets the idea to use dead punk rockers to entertain the masses. A concert is set up, and of course the well-planned show goes pear-shaped quickly. Soon a concert hall is the setting for the inciting event of the zombie apocalypse.

I’ve got to credit the filmmakers for giving their all. They are obviously in love with horror. They reference other horror films. The zombie gore and make-up is actually pretty nice, but the wooden acting and amateur filmmaking going on throughout is a real detractor. Though this style of filmmaking is what gave Kevin Smith his boost to stardom with CLERKS, bad acting is bad acting and it really hurts the effectiveness in this film. The idea is big and in the right hands, it might have worked. Because of sheer quantity these days, zombie films either have to be ingeniously constructed or conceptually innovative to work. Unfortunately, POP PUNK ZOMBIES is neither.

Check out the trailer here!!