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.