• Directed by Justin Channell
• Written by Justin Channel, Zane Crosby and Joshua Lively
• Starring
  • Joshua Lively
  • Zane Crosby
  • Sarah Bauer
  • Ashley Goddard
  • Jonas Dixon
• Produced by Justin Channell and Zane Crosby

This microbudget feature, usually described as combining a teen romantic comedy with zombies, has gotten review that generally range from good to ecstatic. Before I come down like a ton of bricks with my contrarian viewpoint, let me tell you where I’m coming from:

On my DVD shelves is a conspicuously empty spot. Nothing is missing; the spot has never been filled. And every week I light a candle and give simple, silent obeisance to that empty spot, looking forward with that hope borne of faith to the day of promise, when a legitimate DVD release will be granted unto Night of the Creeps (1986), the greatest movie ever made.

Benny, Smalls, and an impressive selection of tea.

Knowing how good a teen romantic comedy with zombies can be, then, I’m not inclined to overlook flaws in another movie which lays claim to that same description. I don’t think, mind you, that I’m about to be inordinately cruel to Die and Let Live out of spite, punishing it for not being my beloved. I simply come at this movie knowing how good it could have been, and finding it wanting. Or in other words: “I know Night of the Creeps, and you, Die and Let Live, are no Night of the Creeps.”

After the obligatory “security guard at pharmaceutical research facility runs afoul of zombies in the parking garage” intro scene (you didn’t know that was obligatory? Noob.), we meet our main characters: Benny (co-writer Josh Lively) and his best friend Smalls (Zane Crosby, co-writer and makeup artist). Benny and Smalls are what we in the movie-reviewing community affectionately refer to as “losers.” Benny pines for untouchable girl Stephanie (Sarah Bauer), with Smalls as the boisterous friend who eggs him on. Stephanie, being afflicted with the emotional blindness that is a prerequisite for hot chicks in these movies, only has eyes for Andrew (Jonas Dixon), despite the fact that his tendency to cheat on girlfriends two and three deep is common knowledge.

“I’m sorry, Stephanie. It’s just hard to ignore my nymphomanificating influence on other women, y’know?”

When Stephanie catches Andrew with his next score and breaks up with him, Benny quickly concocts a party for the next night for Stephanie to come to on the rebound and find his supportive shoulder to cry on. The locale is Smalls’ summer place, a little cottage behind the kennels his mother runs. It only takes a day for word to spread to all and sundry about the Saturday night kegger, including to Liz (Ashley Goddard), the other girls who’s got a sweet spot for Benny even though he tries to brush her off. Smalls’ party palace is open! Let the kegger commence!

And let the zombies attack! Or, like, congregate and mill around and stuff!

“I can’t believe I’m gonna be eaten by a zombie — in a Pantera tee!”

Now, although we saw a zombie attack in the first scene in the parking garage (it’s obligatory, you know), our main characters get their first inkling that there are zombies around about thirty minutes into the movie. As the total running time, pre-credits, is sixty-nine minutes, this kind of constitutes a problem, in that the story, such as it is, really can’t get started until then. And even then, the story doesn’t really start. Benny meets Andrew, who’s delivering pizza, at the front gate of the fence around the cabin; Andrew promptly gets chomped by the living dead who are stumbling around outside the gate, largely unnoticed; Andrew attacks Stephanie, and Benny and Smalls lock him back outside; and then half the plot revolves around finding some way to get out. Unfortunately, Andrew’s car is blocking every other vehicle there, and his keys are still outside the gate. With the pizzas, I might add.

And, um, stuff happens. Nobody takes as much interest as I would think that they should in the event of a zombie apocalypse, even given their drunkenness. After warding off Zombie Andrew, Benny and Smalls take Stephanie back inside to calm down and blow it off; they see reports of a zombie outbreak on TV (including Lloyd Kaufman cameoing as a reporter — where does that guy get the time to run his company, with all of the cameos he does?), and they decide to change the channel. Nobody bothers to wonder why scores of zombies have decided that a secluded cabin is the perfect locale to wander around aimlessly, and I suppose it’s a good thing that they don’t wonder, because the script has no answers. (Nobody wonders either why 95% of the living dead look just like shlubby teenagers or college students in logoed T-shirts and canvas shorts with some fake blood splashes here and there, though the answer there is simpler: free friends ‘n’ family casting call.)

And now, a shot for da Lay-Dees!

In fact, too much of the comedy here is unexplored and underdeveloped; it seems as though mere;y suggesting the presence of a humorous premise is left standing in for actual humor. And because the script doesn’t pick up the ball and run with any of the funny possibilities sketched in, we instead have other plot threads thrown in as filler which, true to form, are simply plopped in and never developed. Low-budget icon Trent Haaga cameos as the shadowy head of Frumcorp Pharmaceuticals, who answers phone calls with menacing instructions in his office. He adds nothing, especially when he instructs that their “best men” be placed on containment, best men whose actions we never see; all that his scenes added for me was an awareness that Trent Haaga, cleaned up and not doing his “wild redneck” act, looks a lot like Mark Hamill in Slipstream (1989). There’s also an abortive subplot about one escaped scientist from Frumcorp Pharmaceuticals getting his zombie warning out via a cable access show that Benny’s friends are running; however, this again contributes nothing except, “Look! There are zombies!” which both we and the characters have already figured out.

I’m probably opening myself up to accusations of overkill, because this feature, its apologists would contend, isn’t some big-budget opus, or even a professional low-budget crank-em-out; it’s a couple of kids putting together their digital video project with unpaid amateurs as cast and crew. And I can appreciate that the greatest contribution this production made to humanity was to keep its makers off the streets and out of trouble for a few weekends. But there were just too many flaws for this demanding reviewer-boy to really enjoy it, from main characters who didn’t inspire sympathy to stilted acting to generally unambitious makeup to annoying continuity flaws (if you’re going to shoot a movie on weekends, touch up your buzzcut every week!) to plotting ignored in favor of scenes which mainly centered on the production principles amusing themselves.

“Alla you zombies! Offa my lawn!”

Yeah, I know. Party-pooper. I guess I won’t get an invite to the next kegger. That’s okay with me; I’ve got a candle that needs lighting.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 11, with 1 more imminent
• breasts: 0
• pasty male butts: 1
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0