ATTACK OF THE VEGAN ZOMBIES (2010)

Directed by Jim Townsend
Written by Jim Townsend
Starring Christine Egan, H. Lynn Smith, Jim Townsend, Kerry Kearns, Natalia Jablokov, Walter Smith, John Kelly

Oh boy. Well, more often than not, I try to remain pretty positive when it comes to low budget fare, but I’m really having trouble saying too many good things about this latest “zombie” effort called ATTACK OF THE VEGAN ZOMBIES. First and foremost, there really aren’t zombies in this one. Well, there are, but they are more of the magical, green zombie variety. The films plot goes like this: pair of wine farmers has had their crops fail for the last time. The farmer’s wife urges her Wiccan mother to cast a spell to makes the crops grow, otherwise they’ll lose the farm. Unfortunately, the blood taken for the witchy ceremony is tainted with alcohol and the spell backfires, making the wine vineyard vines become thirsty for blood. Soon, the vines possess the field hands and you’ve got a zombie attack on your hands.

The acting is pure amateur hour with lines blurted out as if most of the cast were half asleep or in the bag during the shoot. The effects are crude. The sound and camera work is off as well. All in all, this isn’t a very good film. Even the tone of this one waffles from dead serious to farcical, as characters pontificate about losing the farm and family difficulties while ludicrous effects intervene such as a vine creeping up on unsuspecting swimmers in a lake.

Had the filmmakers stuck with a consistent tone, this could have been nice throwback to ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES, but instead they went the possessed zombie route which is infinitely less interesting. I understand the allure of shoe-horning zombies into the film. It’s easy to throw green makeup on an actor and have him or her moan and stumble. But this film frustrated me in that they had a somewhat fun idea of a killer vine movie and muddied it up by tossing in the undead. ATTACK OF THE VEGAN ZOMBIES has one or two clever lines of dialog and the potential for a schlocky treat with the goofy vine effects, but gave in to the tempting siren song of the zombie, which turned out to be its downfall.

Check out the trailer here!!