• Produced and directed by Matt Jaissle
• Written by Sammy Shapiro
• Starring
  • Steve Sheppard
  • Isaac Cooper
  • Gary Browning

I haven’t exactly made an exhaustive study of this particular subgenre, but between Bangers and this one, I feel pretty safe in asserting the following: There’s no such thing as a good zombie rapist movie.

Our producer/director, Matt Jaissle, was also the creative force behind Legion of the Night, a not-that-good movie which also has a zombiesque flavor. But it seems like, in the the intervening three years, Jaissle forgot whatever rudiments he might have known about story structure and audience appeal. (I know, I know — I should also be blaming the screenwriter. But the person wearing both the producer and director hats is the desk at which the buck stops.)

Crazed killer Logan: Before…

Getting us off to a bang is that old standard, a gratuitous shower scene. Steam, lather, and a masked killer named Logan (Isaac Cooper) watching through the skylight. And lest you think this is just your standard nudity, no sir! She gets dried off, then wanders around in an open robe as she gets nervous and locks the doors. But few such precautions will delay a determined serial rapist/murderer, and he soon gets in, strangles her, knifes her, plays in her intestines, and chews her severed nipple. What a class act.

Despite the fact that Logan exhibits no unusual intelligence or canniness (in fact, he’s a blathering moron with a hormonal imbalance), he’s already raped and killed 200 women — only one was accidentally left alive, and she became pregnant. These facts is relayed to us in passing by a couple of other blathering morons we’re going to be spending much of the movie with, police detectives Sloane and Manners (Gary Browning and Steve Sheppard, respectively). Sloane’s got a personal stake in catching Logan, as his own sister was one of the victims. Unfortunately, it’s hard to work up much sympathy for his emotional scars, mainly because Gary Browning can’t act. I think he’s trying, I really do, but unfortunately he’s got all the talent of a cereal box. Not the cereal itself, mind you; the box it came in.

…and after.

Answering a call about someone matching the description of the rapist (I can only imagine: “Neighbors reported someone on the roof with wild curly hair and a white mask with a swastika on the forehead — think it might be the same guy?”), the two of them arrive too late at ShowerGirl’s house, and Manners gets a wine bottle across the back of his head. Eventually, though, good prevails, and they get Logan cuffed. Then, because Manners is out of sorts thanks to the lump on his noggin and because Logan won’t stop giggling and muttering about “pussy… tits…”, Manners blows him away.

Nine months later, a handful of Satanists troop into the cemetery in broad daylight, mainly because Satanists are always conducting ill-advised rituals guaranteed to get them whacked. This one is supposed to raise Logan just for the hell of it, and it’s particularly perverse, as it involves slaughtering the Logan’s child via rape (remember that pregnancy?) over the grave. The good news here (find those silver linings where you can, folks!) is that the “baby” is very obviously and visibly a plastic doll. Not even a for-real movie prop; someone ran out to Wal-Mart and got a hard plastic baby, complete with swivel hinges at shoulder and hip. I don’t know that I’ve ever actually been glad of filmmaking ineptitude before…

Anyway. Thanks to the baby blood and some judiciously-applied urine (Latex Phallus #1), the now zombified Logan claws his way out of the ground, kills the main Satanist, and chases off the other two.

Sloane and Manners: When you need cops who look like insurance adjusters.

And then the movie gets down to its main point: zombie rape.

I really try not to psychoanalyze filmmakers or draw personal conclusions based on their movies (all right, that’s a lie — but I try not to be too annoying about it), but you really have to wonder about anyone who, when planning his next cinematic endeavor, snaps his fingers and says, “Hey, you know what audiences really love to see! Zombie rape! Boy, there’s nothing viewers enjoy more than several scenes of women being brutalized by a rotting corpse with a two-foot rubber erection sticking out of his zipper!” (Latex Phallus #2.) Matt Jaissle may be a swell guy to know socially, but honestly — can you imagine meeting him and shaking his hand without saying, “so YOU’RE the guy who thinks that zombie rape is good solid entertainment, hm?”

Sloane and Manners are still around, by the way. Thanks to the crack on his noggin, Manners has become something of a loose cannon, getting medieval on snitches and crime victims at the least provocation, and has developed a couple of bad overlapping drug habits. Despite this, the department psychs gave him a clean bill of health. (“Do you feel okay?” “Yup.” “Fine, here’s your badge back. Next!”) Sloane, on the other hand, is still a pudgy lump of poor acting. Their main role at this point is to go around to crime scenes, examine the aftermath of Logan’s handiwork, and say, “Jeez, if I didn’t know that Logan was dead, I’d swear this was his style.”

[Sorry, Nathan's internal Bad Taste Filter wouldn't let any of his captions through on this one.]

Given the general doltish character of law enforcement, Logan could probably rape and kill every woman in the city if it weren’t for the actions of the two surviving Satanists, who go back to the cemetery with another spell that’s supposed to raise a nemesis for Logan. (“We’re so sorry. We just didn’t see the dangers of resurrecting a maniacal rapist and murderer. How wrong we were!”) And the nemesis is none other than… the dead baby.

Yup. A plastic doll, painted zombie white, “flying” stiffly through the air courtesy of fishing line, babbling quietly in a chipmunk voice.

(You know, I could have decided to become a political columnist, or a general humorist. I could have turned my energies to novels, or to any of the screenplays in various states of completion on my hard drive. Instead, I decided to review bad movies. The good part, of course, is that there’s no dearth of material. The bad news is, well, they’re BAD.)

This might even be moderately amusing, if not for the movie that precedes it.

It’s only toward the very end of the movie that anything approaching genuine wit appears, and then only in very small quantities. Logan’s last victim is a woman who was in the middle of molesting an inflatable sex doll. (In the alternate universe of this movie’s events, every young woman is always engaged in some sort of “interesting” sexual activity whenever our zombie rapist stumbles by.) Once he’s finished the girl off, he then is suddenly taken with the sex doll; in fact, he’s off twirling with it in a flowered meadow when the zombie baby catches up with him.

What? No, that WAS the genuine wit I was talking about. Other than that, the best you’re going to find is the sight of a zombie shuffling down a city street in broad daylight, holding his two-foot schlong in both hands. And the fact that I just wrote that sentence is the best possible argument for ending this review right here.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 12
• breasts: 4
• explosions: 0
• dream sequences: 1
• ominous thunderstorms: 1
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0