Enjoy this Monday with Mildred!
Zombeavers
Beaver jokes? Jokes about eating beaver? Jokes portraying beaver in a woman’s crotch? Jokes about furry beaver? If that kind of joke works for you, you will like Zombeavers, which wants to be the Porky’s of zombie movies.
The film begins with a medical research delivery truck being driven by a texting moron. Soon there is a dam full of beavers catching a sticky squirt in the eye that makes them hot to bite meat. Fortunately for them, there are three college students on their way to a secluded cabin in the woods nestled right next to the beaver pond. As soon as their boyfriends show up and they have sex, the bloody beavers have their way.
There were many images and scenes that seemed familiar to me, and the nods to other works – intentional or not – became a theme. The very nice opening credits are a kind of spy thriller lite, 80s style. The animatronics are very similar to the groundhog from Meatballs, stiff and designed not to be in the least bit lifelike. The “monster point of view” footage reminded me quite a bit of the vastly superior Tremors. The three heroines reminded me of the three leads in the first half of Death Proof, all legs and skimpy clothes and collegial cute girl banter. They swim out to the raft in the pond, and like the kids in the Stephen King story The Raft find themselves surrounded by danger in the water. Dialogue in the film is sometimes disjointed, with characters speaking and behaving oddly, which was done better in The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. There was the negative, whiny white guy character who first appeared in Night of the Living Dead and has been around since. The Whack-A-Beaver sequence was almost funny. There were other “nods” but these were the only ones I made note of. Normally I’m not offended by this kind of fannish acknowledgement of previous works, but this time it really set my teeth on edge, possibly because the filmmakers seemed to consider themselves equals to the other works.
The tone is difficult to pin down. It’s not quite tongue-in-cheek and it’s not sarcastic, but what they were going for escaped me completely. I think they came up with a funny title and constructed a series of loosely connected scenes around the joke. I didn’t like any of the characters at all, the cinematography, sound and effects ranged from poor to okay, and the jokes were too obvious or overdone. Even the faux lesbian scene didn’t come off right. (sorry, couldn’t resist)
There was one good joke that played on the social media aspect of zombie fiction, and it made me smile. But there was no laugh moment for me during the whole film. The longer I watched the more irritated I became. Normally I can find humor in anything, but for this movie, nada.
People on my Horror List recommended this movie, saying it’s not great but they thought it was funny. I was forced to kill all of them for fooling me like that. Watch this if you must, but you may end up hating yourself for it like I did, or simply be dead like my Horrorites.
P.S. BIG TIME SPOILER THAT WILL MAKE YOUR BLOOD BOIL
They don’t just kill the dog. One of the asshole boyfriends throws him to the zombeavers in aid of their escape off the raft. Why would anyone think that is even remotely funny?
CFR: In Addition: Boyfriend needs to die horribly.
END P.S. BIG TIME SPOILER THAT WILL MAKE YOUR BLOOD BOIL
LINKS:
ZOMBEAVERS TRAILER (USA: 2014) [HD]
Chick Flicking Reviews 