Zombiez

ACK FUCK GET IT AWAY FROM ME

I've never really thought a lot about astrology, but sitting here writing this I realize that that some fucked-up stars must have aligned just right to get "Zombiez" out of Satan's gaping, bug-infested asshole and into my DVD player.

Really I could blame Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons for kicking the whole thing off when he reviewed a movie called "Vampiyaz." While I have not personally seen the movie I am fairly sure it is the worst movie involving inner-city youth and vampires ever made. A couple weeks ago I ran into "Zombiez" at my local Blockbuster and told myself that I needed to review it as a follow-up to Zack's hard-hitting look at the urban vampire plague.

The second star aligned when Netflix sent me my copy of "Day of the Dead 2: Contagium." "Contagium" was going to be the second review of this gripping zombie series, but then I came to a single, stunning realization: The movie was too terrible to be reviewed by Something Awful. A previous viewer of the film, perhaps trying to warn me of my impending doom, left this message on the Netflix bio cover. After watching the movie and realizing the SA review system doesn't support a score of negative six billion I added "yes it does" to the bottom of the DVD slip and returned it to Netflix, where, with any luck, it found its way to California and lodged itself firmly in Director Ana Clavell's neck.

The third and final problem came when I drove back to Blockbuster. As I'm sure you're aware Blockbuster works hard to make itself the most inhospitable video store on the planet, and has made a great move towards its goal with its recently adopted "hire a bunch of condescending acne-faced teenage faggots" plan. After fighting my way through a barrage of dumpy 16-year-old girls who rolled their eyes at the audacity of me wanting to rent movies I found myself in the horror section, looking for a zombie movie to review. A few minutes later I walked out with a copy of "Zombiez," smirking to myself about my bad-movie-finding-and-remembering savvy.

Not pictured: Smiley Dave's Shitty Fucking Movie That Doesn't Have Anything To Do With Zombies Let Alone Good Filmmaking.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you something about my savvy. It is an evil, lying cocksucker. If I was Spider-Man and my savvy was my spider-sense, I would undoubtedly be dead from trying to fight crime by drinking used motor oil and dry-humping sick animals at the zoo. "Zombiez" sucks, for sure, but in a different way - in short, it sucks at sucking. That's quite an accomplishment, but not one to be proud of: It's kind of like buying your grandfather a "number one child molester" shirt as a gag and then seeing him wear it with pride a few weeks later.

You may have noticed that in these opening paragraphs I haven't said a lot about the movie itself. This is because "Zombiez" is literally the most boring movie ever made. Director Zachary Winston Snygg, possibly attempting to shame his parents for giving him the world's gayest name, managed to completely fuck up a potentially hilarious film about "urban" zombies and instead made a film that is conspicuously lacking both zombies and an urban setting.

Let me explain: Along with other things, like "basic hygiene" and "not masturbating to pictures of dead dogs," Zachary Winston Snygg does not understand the basic concept of "action." In most movies, action scenes are rapid-paced things, designed to pique the viewer's interest when the movie starts to lull a little bit. In Snygg's movies, however, these scenes are implemented to make the film more boring - in short, watching "Zombiez" is a lot like watching a low-quality bootleg of "Remains of the Day" interlaced with footage of constipated bears trying to defecate on a stack of George A. Romero movies.

Because of this it is incredibly hard to write a review with a lot of active summary. Unlike most movies I review, in which maybe two or three things happen, precisely zero things happen in "Zombiez." In fact, invoking the comedy magic we've all come to know as the bulleted list, I will now give you a totally accurate breakdown of the events that transpire in the film:

• There are some black dudes

"Alright. Here's the plan. You run away, I'll keep looking like a cross between an elf and a retarded bulldog. Also I'll die within five minutes of being introduced."

Given this fact I feel I have to ask a question about the very nature of the film. Why is it called "Zombiez," when in fact it could have been named something more accurate, like "Detroit," or something cautionary, like "Don't Watch this Movie; it Causes Brain Tumors"? Given Snygg's penchant for Ebonics-influenced spelling, it could have even been called "A Buncha Regulah Dudez Who Spil'd Ketchup on Dey Shirts."

A lot of these problems surface as soon as the movie starts. Although the cover of the movie promises us a swashbuckling adventure full of undead minorities crawling out of a city sewer system, "Zombiez" opens with nary a zombie, let alone a building. Instead, in the opening minutes we're taken to a true symbol of urban expansion and progress: An abandoned, unlit parking lot with a bunch of semi trailers in it.

But it's not just the setting that sucks. Snygg also decided to take the parking lot and stage the world's most boring chase scene within its dusty gray boundaries. For the film's opening five minutes we are treated to a scene that accomplishes two things: Using one of two shots over and over and showing some dude running around grunting "ugh" while two other dudes chase him with those plastic sickles and meat cleavers you can buy at Wal-Mart around Halloween.

The problem is, things only get worse from there. Instead of rectifying the problems with the first scene - possibly by lighting his camera on fire, then chucking it at the abortion clinic that turned his mother away when it found out she wanted to pay in WIC vouchers - Snygg just keeps going. And he fucks up even more. After the aforementioned chase scene, in which a couple of rec-room droolers try to play a game of "who can go the longest without absentmindedly sliding his hand over his penis" (they all lose), Snygg decides it's time to show us some dictionary entries.

You heard it right: Dictionary entries. And, given the fact that there aren't any goddamn "zombiez" in the movie, they're not even topical dictionary entries. In reality the movie is a lot like that drunken uncle everyone tries to avoid because of the time someone caught him forcing oral sex upon a Big Mouth Billy Bass in the bathroom. To be fair, however, "Zombiez" doesn't bring me into hysterics every time I hear "Take Me to the River."