A curious blend of a few ideas and genres here, foremostly a clear cut grindhouse approach which appears to be all the rage these days. The film stars Danny Trejo which should give the game away as to what grindhouse type flicks this capitalises on. You only have to look on his filmography (and co stars) to see how many of these flicks are getting churned out!.
The plot is simple and highly unoriginal. An addictive drug has turned some people into flesh eating zombies which has in turn spread. America appears to be an apocalyptic wasteland where 'The Hunter' roams, he kills zombies. He comes across a small settlement with other survivors and together they plan an escape by air to islands in the Pacific. Its your basic flee the zombie plague fare.
What is interesting about this film is the combination of ideas. The main character of The Hunter is basically 'Max Rockatansky' with a classic Clint Eastwood 'man with no name' vibe just for good measure. I mean look at his name for a start...The Hunter/The Road Warrior, close huh. But mainly he drives an all black dirty modified Pontiac Trans Am (I think) which looks identical to the Interceptor in 'Mad Max'. But wait there's more, he even dresses like Max in all black with shades and handles a similar shotgun too, only thing missing is a pet dog. I might also mention the guy in the role (Martin Copping) is Australian too haha what are the odds?!.
So yes the main heroes look is a bit of a rip off but it works, he's cool, grizzled and dispatches zombies with aplomb. You have the main theme of a 70's/80's Mexican grindhouse approach with a Mad Max main lead fighting zombies in a Resident Evil setting with an actual Resident Evil monster too (not sure where they came from though). Trejo is playing 'Machete' again but with an axe, oh and there's a clear cut 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' homage/rip off too...got all that?.
Being a low budget affair the effects are average, the blood n guts look fine but the CGI monster things aren't. That said the low budget does work for the film giving it that gritty-ish look, as what tends to happen with limited resources. The cast are a mixed bag with Copping coming across pretty hokey with his over macho posturing but he's a fun character. Of course there are a couple hot chicks in the survivor band too, one clearly being some ex-*/model/* star type who is bad at acting but good at being slutty (I liked that). Hated the fact that our hero doesn't take her up on her offer of guilt free sex, dude are you mad?!.
The film is also amusing in places too, intentionally? I don't know, doubt it, but it is. The last three left alive find a locker chock full of machine guns/sub machine guns etc...the zombies are beating the door down, the last sexy chick remaining declares 'there's too many, they're too strong!'. You have just found Rambo's toy chest, are you serious right now? zombies aren't bullet proof.
I actually found myself liking this film mainly because of Copping's hero character, I'm not really a fan of the grindhouse genre/approach but the use of other styles and ideas worked well. Its not fresh and new, we've seen this type of thing a billion times before but I personally liked this films style, the cut of its jib. Gotta love that dialog and the end credits soundtrack has a pretty sweet electronic 80's style rhythm.
'Don't worry about me babe'
5.5/10
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