Pot Zombies (2006)

Pot Zombies (2006) - United States
Directed by: Justin Powers

ABOUT THE FILM:
After reviewing tons of underground German splatter and odd, obscure shot-on-video titles, I'm finally taking a jab at a Troma film! ...Even though the movie in question barely deviates from the kinds of films I've already reviewed.
Pot Zombies is a film made in 2006 by up-and-coming amateur filmmaker Justin Powers, and it was soon picked up and distributed by Troma as part of their "Young Filmmakers Series" line, a line that didn't last very long. In fact it's hard to find any other titles released under this line, but I digress.
I remember buying this movie in 2015 from Hastings (RIP), as an ex-rental. It hadn't been rented for years and years, so the shop sold it to me for $2. At the time, I was getting more and more into Troma flicks, and I was building a sizable collection. I've seen some of the best the studio had to offer, like the Toxic Avenger, Poultrygeist and Redneck Zombies, to name a few. I've also seen some absolute trash like Rock 'n' Roll Space Patrol, Madigan's Millions and anything from Giuseppe Andrews. But then, there are films that are so bafflingly horrible that I don't know how to feel about them. Undeniably, Pot Zombies falls into that latter category.

REVIEW:
The "plot" of Pot Zombies, if you will, is about a barrel of toxic waste that makes its way into marijuana as it's being shipped to a small town, and anyone who smokes this toxic ganja turns into a green zombie with bouncy green CGI eyeballs and with the munchies for warm human innards. Of course, this "plot" is nothing but an excuse to showcase some of the most ineffective and laughable gore effects ever captured on videotape.
The entire movie rinses and repeats the same scenario over and over again across its 54 minute runtime. Smoke weed, zombies, death. Occasionally they change it up a bit, like in a scene at a venue where the bands the Dwarves and Damage Case are playing. Secondhand smoke fills the air and turns the crowd into zombies, and then carnage ensues. There's also a very gratuitous lesbian sex scene, but that's kind of par for the course in movies from Troma.

I will admit that there are things I enjoyed about this movie. There's a lengthy scene where a cop pulls over a hippie after he suspects him of being high off his ass. The hippie tries to convince the cop otherwise, but this devolves into a pointless anecdote about how he thought a raw chicken wasn't actually a chicken (?), and then the scene dives right back into bottom-of-the-barrel splatter territory. Funny enough, the guy playing the hippie is the only "actor" who put in something close to a good showing. Almost everyone else's performances are on par with low-budget porn, except for Lloyd Kaufman, who hams up his performance as a mentally handicapped pizza guy. But then again, I wasn't expecting top-notch acting from a movie about toxic weed zombies.

The camera work is acceptable throughout, nothing too bad. The editing is okay, although some scenes could have definitely used trimming down. The digital effects are just as bad as the gore effects, possibly worse. And the gore effects are already the remnants of the bottom of the barrel. There's a few uses of green-screen that look awful, tons of CGI blood and smoke, and while the soundtrack is decent, the sound mix is really bad. Sometimes dialogue is mixed so low that you can hardly hear what the actors are saying. If you're looking for a serious zombie movie with good story, characters and awesome gore, definitely skip this one. But if you like movies that are so god-awful that they're entertaining, I can kind of recommend Pot Zombies. It's atrocious, but I think the worst part is I kind of enjoyed it.

RELEASES:
-This movie was released by Troma (of course!) in 2007. DVD extras are kind of sparse, but the movie does come with a drinking/smoking game option, plus two music videos, a bunch of trailers for other Troma titles, and a short romantic comedy called Fiancé, which Justin Powers made in 2002. This short is actually better than Pot Zombies, but that's not saying much.

Blutnacht: Die Rache des Dämon (1999)

Blutnacht: Die Rache des Dämon (1999) - Germany
Directed by: Jochen Stephan, Hermann Weller

ABOUT THE FILM:
Jochen Stephan is a big movie fan with an even bigger movie collection, sporting thousands of DVD's, Blu-Rays, VHS tapes and more. He's been collecting movies for over 20 years at this point, and he has one of the best collections I've ever seen. Tons of rare underground and indie releases, and needless to say, tons of German splatter and horror. Jochen actively spends his time and money on collecting all of the underground German movies he can, but Jochen has also made a few horror films, and it's time to check out his first filmmaking endeavor.

"Scary find in the cornfield"

Blutnacht has a troubled history behind its production and its release. It was filmed between 10 to 12 days in 1999. After wrapping up the movie, one day someone from within the city found blood, animal guts, clothes and vampire teeth scattered all over the cornfield, where Blutnacht was filmed. Alarmed, this citizen called the police, the news and the media got involved, and they even brought in a police helicopter to look over the field for more body parts or clothes. They later found out everything was part of a film project, and the filmmakers hadn't finished cleaning yet. Everything traced back to Jochen and his film, and his house was raided and all of the film's materials were seized and investigated before being returned later. Because of its violence and bloodshed, the movie was marked as "indiziert," meaning it was placed on a list of media that could be harmful to German youth, but it wasn't completely banned (but close to it). The film was eventually taken off of the list, and on a VHS re-issue in 2002, Blutnacht came with television news reports on the aftermath. This same footage was also later included on the DVD release.

"Rider discovers gruesome horror film props"

But what about the film itself?

Blutnacht is about Jo, an ordinary German man who likes to have fun. One day, Jo and his buddies decide to meet up and have a party, and Jo brings his girlfriend along for the ride. But before the party, Jo is shocked and angered to discover his girlfriend fooling around with his best friend. So he confronts them and they quickly flee. Feeling betrayed, Jo walks off and wanders onto the road, where he is hit by a car. The driver gets out and discovers that he killed Jo, so he quickly escapes the scene. But the intense anger Jo felt toward his girl and his best friend manifests itself as a demonic force and resurrects Jo as a pissed off bloodthirsty demon, who sets out for revenge against humanity. As he stalks and kills everyone he finds in the countryside, he is followed by a companion who assists him in the killings, rewarding him with new killing tools and also making the bodies disappear. The blood night begins!

REVIEW:

The movie starts and after 10 long, boring minutes of nothing but Jochen and one of his friends driving and talking, we finally get into the meat of the story and the fun begins.

Blutnacht is a love-letter to all things underground splatter and horror, and you can tell everyone involved had a lot of fun making it. Everyone in the cast basically plays themselves, so the dialogue and exchanges don't feel awkward or unnatural, but are still far from professional. Jochen puts on an entertaining show as Jo, a brutal killing machine who just wants blood and guts, and he mercilessly chops, guts, slices up and decapitates everyone in his path. The story is plain and simple, but still maintains some originality with the aspect of Jo being followed and assisted by the other demon.

The gore effects in Blutnacht are pretty good by amateur film standards, and the kills are plentiful. Arms and body parts are hacked up and stabbed into, guts and innards are torn out of torsos, heads are pulled clean off of shoulders, and bodies are lit on fire, all the while blood sprays everywhere like a firehose. And the camera doesn't shy away from any of the gore, it captures every last second of the kills in their nasty glory. However, this causes some issues with the pacing and the editing. The movie is very slow at points, even when stuff is happening. The camera lingers a lot, with few angle changes or edits. Another problem is the picture quality and the lighting. Blutnacht was shot on a cheap video camera and was recorded almost entirely at night with very little lighting. Everything is lit with cars or with small lights, and this makes it hard to see what's going on at times. At one point a bright light flashes during a kill scene, as someone was taking photos off screen. The picture quality is very fuzzy and grainy, as if the footage had been copied from tape to tape a few times during editing. There are also points where you can see the play button from the VCR it was recorded on and the picture lags occasionally. So the film isn't pretty to look at, but it's what I expected from an amateur gore movie made in the late 90's.

Blutnacht feels a lot like one of those underground movies that the filmmakers made only to entertain themselves, out of their love of horror and gore. I feel that if the police never got involved in this movie, it would have been long forgotten and buried. But Blutnacht's production history marked its legacy, and the movie has forever casted its shadow onto the German underground scene.

I had a lot of fun with Blutnacht, even if it is technically flawed on many, many fronts.

RELEASES:
-Blutnacht was originally going to be released in 1999, but the police seized all of the materials before it could be released. Currently, only one copy of the original tape exists, in Jochen's possession.

-The movie was re-released on VHS in 2002 by WeSt Pictures after it was taken off of the "indiziert" list. This tape came with bonus footage at the end of the movie, showing various excerpts from newspapers about the film, as well as news report.

-Blutnacht was later re-released on DVD-R by WeSt Pictures, with the same extras as the old VHS release. You can purchase a copy from Jochen personally on Facebook.

-Blutnacht was released on DVD-R in the United Kingdom by OldSkull Video, along with its sequel. This was the only release to include English subtitles.

-Blutnacht was released on VHS again by Rotten Cat Media.

The only existing copy of the original tape.