ZOMBIE WITH A SHOTGUN * USA 2019 Dir: Hilton Ariel Ruiz. 79 mins
Aaron (Braeden Baade) and his girlfriend Rachel (Kathryn Kuhn) are on the run from a cartel that want to use Aaron. He has been infected by a zombie virus but hasn’t gone full zombie and is apparently able to talk to other zombies, they want to utilise his powers. He has to fend off his pursuers long enough to find out the origins of the virus.
ZOMBIE WITH A SHOTGUN is apparently the feature length adaptation of a web series. I have not seen the web series but I really hope it’s a lot better than the movie. There is so much wrong with this in fact I’m probably best off saying what is right with the movie. From the very few zombies we get to see the make up effects are absolutely fantastic, they really do look awesome! That, my friends, is the only thing right with ZOMBIE WITH A SHOTGUN. The sound and lighting quality is very poor, the set pieces are gloomy, the acting is terrible and the plot makes no sense at all.
Once again the police presence in this movie is an embarrassment to the profession. They try to show that the virus was started by voodoo trickery but it ends up looking like some kind of amateur porno. Nothing is explained very well and they just assume that you get what’s going on. Spoiler alert (sort of) you never see him communicate with any other zombies and you don’t actually find out how this whole thing started or who Aaron is actually after. The ending is just a mostly turned Aaron standing in an abandoned building brandishing a shotgun and growling down the camera for about 10 minutes. I wanted to like this more then I did but it was not to be so, it takes a lot for me to score a movie from my favourite genre so low but I just could not enjoy this one at all.
Review by Sarah Budd