Free Zombie

Please take a look at the DVD cover of “Vampires vs. Zombies,” and you will notice that two scary creatures are facing each other like “Alien vs. Predator.” Probably someone thought of renaming this cheap zombie flick, trying to cash in on “AVP” which is not a great film, but at least honest about its content. In this ultra-low budget “Vampires vs. Zombies” you see no battle between zombies and vampires. All you see is two guys, old and middle-aged, and three or four ladies (some with false teeth), all driving cars somewhere in the woods or roaming in the poorly-lighted building, not knowing what to do, saying whatever nonsense you don’t care.

Frankly I don’t know what I should write about its thin story. A young woman and her daddy are traveling in a car. The radio is talking about some terrible, very terrible news like outbreak of `zombie disease’ or something, and suddenly a weird-looking guy appears before their car, and BOOM! They hit the guy, whose head is rolling on the ground, but hey, it’s OK because that’s only a zombie! Am I supposed to be scared?

After that they pick up a girl named Carmilla, who turns out a vampire. And there is some old guy called `The General,’ George C Scott look-alike who is looking for Carmilla. That far I could understand, but the rest of the story is so muddled and confusing that I started to lose interest in whatever they say or do, except some brief nudity and chopping off the heads. And they are not much fun.

The film’s opening credits include the name of the 19the century Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu, and the film claims that his classic vampire story `Carmilla’ is the basis of the film. OK, to be fair, the filmmakers seem to have read the original. It is certain there are some scenes or elements in story that faintly resemble this well-known story – female traveler leaving her `daughter’ behind, etc. – but my impression is just this: “So what?” Probably yours will be the same.

Everything in this `film’ is amateurish – editing, acting and lighting, everything. Brinke Stevens appears twice as someone whispering something to the daughter, or someone who is supposed to be mysterious, but her roles in the story just don’t make sense, and neither do most part of the film.

In short, don’t waste your time!