ZOMBIE BEAST OF THE CONFEDERACY

THE SETUP

Zombie Beast Of The Confederacy is a Micro-budget Horror film from Wild Boar Films, it’s Written and Directed by Diamond Troy Justice (who I’ve been given the impression is a wrestler at least part-time) and stars Justice himself, Bad Bubba Brewer and a bunch of other independent actors. The story goes, that in 1863 Confederate President, Jefferson Davis sent a dangerous chemical virus to Gettysburg to help in the fight but it, along with the soldiers, vanished into the hills of the county. It’s now 2016, the virus and plenty of the undead, have risen to fight once again and it’s up to just three local men to stop the virus from spreading before it’s too late. A company called “World Wide Multi Media” are distributing this one and I purchased it from Amazon.com. Now I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve been caught out on several occasions with inferior products released through WWMM. “Milfs Vs Zombies”, “Season In Hell: Evil Farmhouse Torture” and “The Experiment Who’s Watching You” are just a few of their previous releases. They’re not exactly known for releasing high quality films but in the past I’ve bought a couple of decent films in Mike O’Mahony’s low-budget affairs, “Deadly Detour” and “Sloppy The Psychotic”, so you win some you lose some *see review* https://adamthemoviegod.com/sloppy-the-psychotic-review/.

THE GOOD

N/A.

THE BAD

Okay, here goes nothing. So right off the bat, it’s not a positive sign when you pick up the DVD and no one has actually been credited on the front cover (which in fairness to me I could have only known once it arrived). Of the countless films I’ve watched in my time, I think this is the first time I’ve encountered something like that. The only conclusion I can draw is that each person involved with the film doesn’t want to be shown as having been involved with it. The lead actors are not credited, the producers/finance (if there was any) are not listed and most importantly the Writer/Director isn’t credited either. Even once the films credits begin to roll, it’s apparent that several of the cast members have been credited with nicknames and only some listed with their actual names. After noticing this irregularity, I thought I’d dig a little deeper into the film but it that’s difficult to do because it turns out there’s no official IMDB page for it either. Any film, big or small, you can find it on the international movie database, so I’m stumped. The site is there for that very reason, as well as to better inform people about the film. It wasn’t until after I watched it that I checked for a trailer and YouTube does actually have one, so there’s that (and now I’m annoyed I didn’t know that before hand).

The DVD also comes with three quotes from online reviews, one on the front and two on the back. “Awesome Mag” say Zombie Beast Of The Confederacy is “Weird, Gory Schlock. Fun As Hell”. In addition to some sharp look stills on the back, there are two more summaries, one from “Extreme DVD”  that says “So badly homegrown, it’s great!” and another from “Deadly Indie Drive In” saying the film is “Downright Apocalyptic”. Okay, bear in mind I can’t say this with absolute certainty because after all, the world-wide web is an infinite database of information but I really don’t believe any of these websites or reviews actually exist. On the other hand, if they do exist then I sincerely apologize to everyone involved with the film for not doing a more thorough research. I figured after entering each website into the google search engine and browsing the first five or so page results and finding nothing, that it was a pretty safe bet that these sites and reviews were fake. Everyone’s taste is different and I’m not saying these quotes are fake just because I thought they couldn’t be any further from the truth. I do ask the question though, Why don’t they show up when you search them? This is a brand new film, there should be reviews for it, right? It’s bad enough that the running time is listed as 80 minutes when it’s actually 107 minutes but I draw the line at fake reviews and if that is the case, they have no respect for the buyer and therefore I have no respect for the filmmaker.

Onto the film itself. Zombie Beast Of The Confederacy opens with stock footage and gun shots playing over sloppy credits, displayed with different colored fonts. We then get given a small monologue about the events of 1863, which is essentially the exact same synopsis on the back of the DVD. Following that, is an introduction to some military man who reads off mission parameters, as he points to monitors that consist of a couple of really poorly placed photos and a giant map of the world, when I’m sure we’re supposed to just be looking at a small county (haha I’m not sure why that’s there). Enter a whole bunch of stereotypical redneck characters who are poorly portrayed by an amateur cast. From a technical point of view the film is an absolute mess. Big chunks of dialogue are completely out of sync, there’s no sound bed or impact foley for any of the action sequences and the score continually fades in an out. I don’t expect a lot from a filmmaker working with no money but the worst mistake you can make is to not even try. Troy’s camera has to be worse than my $80, DXG 5.0 Megapixel handheld one. The shots are either out of focus or atrociously framed, characters heads are out of the frame or the height of the shot is around people’s midriff, not to mention all the editing is glitchy as well. Most of my readers know me well enough and know that I’m always looking for positives in film, so if it’s done well I can dig thrills even on as cheap of a budget as this. Take Richard Mogg’s micro-budget work on “Massage Parlor Of Death” and “Bigfoot Ate My Boyfriend”, they’ve both got heart and good intentions unlike this one.

The digital effects are by far in a way the worst part of Zombie Beast Of The Confederacy. I don’t know the actual budget for this film but I imagine it couldn’t have been more than $1,000 and if it is, I feel sorry for these guys. Logical thinking should tell you that you probably want to limit the amount of digital effects in a film of this nature. Nope, these guys decide they’re going to go all out, with what must have been 25 to 30 vfx shots just in the short amount of time I watched for. There must have been countless lengthy sessions in “Paint”, creating drawn on blood, fire and fake weapon flashes. I can’t actually fathom why you’d choose digital effects, or for that matter any effects, for a film with such a small amount of money and think you’d be able to produce something people would want to see. I’ll be honest with you, this film ran 107 minutes and I lasted all of 14 minutes and 12 seconds, this from the guy that will watch just about anything. I know some readers will probably say I’m not in a position to give a fair and honest critique because I only watched a very brief portion of the film, hell maybe they’re right. Though maybe, just maybe, that should tell you all you need to know about Zombie Beast Of The Confederacy.

My rating for “Zombie Beast Of The Confederacy” is 0/10