CANNIBAL CORPSE KILLERS -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 7/25/20

 

CANNIBAL CORPSE KILLERS (Indican Pictures, 2018) enters the undead arena with a dash of "Mad Max", a pinch of Rob Zombie, some spaghetti (western) sauce, and a flashback intro in which a cousin of Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" book appears and cooks up a passel of the same brand of hell-spawn zombies to terrorize a poor little desert community (and, we assume, the rest of the world).

Into this apocalyptic wasteland comes a ragtag group of misfits who look like they just stumbled out of "The Devil's Rejects" and have cool names like Pike (Dennis Haggard), Ruby (Theresa Holly), cranky old hermit Slim (Chris Shumway), Scar (Katherine Norland), and group leader Boots (Nate Philo). These are the good guys, since they're only interested in survival. (Okay, Pike has a much loftier aim in mind, but that's for later.)

Fortunately for us, this survival includes lots of zombie killing that's bloody, gory, gutsy, grotty, and very action-oriented. The zombies in question are horrifically aggressive, again more in line with Raimi's "hellish speed-freak" model than the simple, shambling reanimated corpses of yore.

The makeups are consistently good, as are such production elements as locations (I kept wondering where they found all these trashed neighborhoods and other decayed desert architecture), costumes, props, and cars.

On the minus side, most of the cast indulge in relentless overacting of the "scream obscenities really loud" and "make spaghetti western faces" varieties, while director Joaquin Montalvan (LEGEND OF THE HILLBILLY BUTCHER) has a loose, freeform style that's sporadically effective.

As with many low-budget flicks these days, there's a heavy reliance on sweeping drone camera shots which take good advantage of the desert surroundings.

As the main characters slowly make their way to a tiny desert burg called Jawbone (first in Slim's van, then on foot), flashbacks from each person's past reveal the reasons why they've ended up as messed up as they are.

(For example, "Scar" had to shoot her own zombie son in the head as he was administering her namesake facial wound.) These brief episodes flesh out the characters and give the story some of its best scenes.

Meanwhile, the Magistrate (Ron Jason), a psycho hick who discovered the book and acts as a go-between for Ava, vile princess of evil (Charlotte Bjornbak) and her slack-jawed minions, waits in an abandoned church as the evil forces prepare to do battle with our heroic good guys.

The final clash on the dusty main drag of Jawbone is more of the clunky fight choreography and nerve-wracking sound effects we've experienced throughout the film, enhanced by more of those nicely-rendered gore effects and cool-looking zombie makeup.

The bonus menu consists of a making-of featurette, an interview with the sound designer, and extended/deleted scenes.

Alternately entertaining and irritating, CANNIBAL CORPSE KILLERS practically grabs us by the lapels and screams "I'm a cool cult film, dammit!" It's one of those doggedly earnest low-budget indy flicks that works overtime to prove how cool it is in every shot.

 
Buy it at Indican Pictures

TECH SPECS

Runtime: 100 minutes
Format: 1:78 HD
Sound: Dolby Sr.
Country: USA