Attack of the Vegan Zombies (2011)

Studio: Midnight Releasing
DVD Release: January 3rd, 2012
Rating: Unrated!

Review by Raymond Velez

 

With a title like Attack of the Vegan Zombies, you get the impression that you may be in for a wild ride. Not exactly. This quirky film has so much going on you actually forget that zombies at some point are set to attack. Joe and his wife, Dionne owns a vineyard together. Due to their crop successes, they hire a group of college kids to help out.

Unexpectedly, the plants begin to act really strange. M. Night Shyamalan strange. Plants begin to attack people for no reason. The main characters aren’t able to escape because the plants somehow find a way to sabotage their vehicles. I think it’s very important to point out that you’re a full hour into screen time and you don’t get a glimpse at a single zombie. As the plot unravels more details we come to find out that Dionne’s mother is a witch. Yep. I know. Apparently the only reason why Joe and Dionne have seen any success is because their witch of a mother-in-law has cast a spell on the crops.

Due to the spell cast on the crops, the wine serves as a type of “potion” that turns its consumers into zombies. Only when you turn to a zombie you won’t actually look like one. You’ll look more like the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz. The grapes have gone bad!

Jim Townsend may have had ambitious ideas when writing the script, but he’s never able to decide what kind of film he wants this to be. With witches, violent plants and a few zombies here and there, the story is more of a mess than genre film. While I liked the overall idea of the film, I feel like it would have been much better if they stuck with one idea as opposed to throwing in every ingredient. Apart from the male and female leads, the acting is very bad. Watch for the two nerds and you’ll see. I actually felt annoyed because I consider myself to be a nerd and my voice is nothing like what these actors portray.

Attack of the Vegan Zombies is a great title. Unfortunately that’s all it is. A really cool title.