• Written and directed by G.R.
• Starring
  • Dave Competello
  • Dominique Rochelle
  • Chris Saphire
  • Giselle Lopez
  • Juan Flabio

It’s movies like this that make me want to seriously reconsider reviewing zombie movies, or watching movies at all. Or having eyes. If you think that the normal output from Troma is too tame, too short on fart ‘n’ poop jokes and too long on production values, this is just the flick for you. If, on the other hand, you’re like me in appreciating the discernible influence of an immeasurable like “quality,” you’ll want to give this one a wide berth.

The rudimentary plot I can easily summarize for you. In fact, summary be damned, I think I can encapsulate it in its entirety without losing anything. Three loser friends go on a road trip for spring break. They get lost several times, and can’t find any action, until finally they meet three mysterious girls by the side of the road who invite them to a party. They arrive at the party, the girls there all turn into zombies, and the three guys get chased. The end.

“Nah, that’s my new ringtone, dude!”

Pretty thin for a full hundred minutes, right? So there’s filler a-plenty, more filler than in a train car of Chicken McNuggets. It is not good filler; it is not entertaining filler. It is just filler. I would not be surprised if I’m the only person alive who has watched Zombies Gone Wild! to the end in a state of sobriety. And I’m not a better person for it.

First, we get the interminable character introductions. The closest thing we have to a protagonist among the three friends is Marty Gump (Competello), who, as the character name so subtly indicates, is a dweeb. He’s a twenty-two-year-old clean freak, dweeb and virgin who doesn’t know anything of the facts of life until his father (Juan Flabio), a fatigue-dressed and camo-greasepaint-smeared military nutjob who spends his time playing with toy soldiers on the living room floor, tells him what he expects his son to do on this trip. Again, this is all ad-libbed, and when you see the single camera (there’s only one set-up per scene for most of the movie) try to figure out who’ll speak next, that sinking feeling descends on you so fast your ears pop.

The other two friends are:

Randy (Chris Saphire), who instigated this trip because his name is his main character trait. He’s also got Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which means that this whole movie is going to be punctuated by discussion and demonstrations of his irrregularity. In fact, we’re introduced to him while he’s squeezing off a loaf. No, we are not spared the sound effects.

I appreciate people who realize they shouldn’t breed.

Leroy (Dominique Rochelle — but he’s still a guy), who’s almost as geeky as Marty but is saved a degree by his blackness. We first meet him as he wins permission for the road trip from his father, Juan Flabio again in blackface. Dad’s accent keeps switching from “Ghetto Jive” to “7-11 Pakistani” for no discernible reason except possibly to allow two offensive stereotypes to occupy the same space.

The trip? The trip is long and boring. First Marty and Leroy puke at the smell of Randy’s van, and have to wear their chunks for the rest of the day. Then they get a motel room and talk about swampass and anal leakage more than you thought humanly possible. Then the next day they manage to run over Randy while he’s using a Porta-Potty. The find a club with a party going on, but apparently they’re the wrong kind of girls (we never see, the camera stays outside) and get kicked out. What, the obvious gay bar gag was just too easy? Then they buy a map from some old guy that gives the location of a party with lots of girls. Then they stop by a lake, but the weather is cold and there’s no one there. Then, just when the viewer is despairing that all we’re going to see in this movie is these three inept clowns, we finally meet some girls at 44 minutes in.

A note about the acting, because this is as good a place as any. As mentioned, just about everything is ad-libbed, and you’d be hard-pressed to demonstrate that there was any run-through beforehand. When the two mysterious girls show up, their lines are obviously rehearsed, because no human being speaking extemporaneously could sound that stilted. If this is the filmmakers’ cunning plan to make the audience appreciate the witless, directionless ramblings which have characterized all dialog up this point… well, it almost works. (Hey, one of the girls is deaf! Let’s throw in some “deaf=retard” jokes from Randy — and keep throwing them for ten minutes!)

You and me both, sister.

After a few minutes of inept come-ons from the guys, a third girl shows up — and you can tell she ranks, because she actually has a name: Sue (Giselle Lopez). Absolutely none of the guys think it suspicious that three hot chicks want to party with three obvious loser. They also miss all of the “eat/taste/devour” references in the girls’ descriptions of their plans for the night, which are about as subtle as a quadruple bypass. At last, something dealing with the movie we were promised in the title may happen!

First, though, we have to sit through drawn-out comedic sequences featuring a local policeman in a golfcart (Juan Flabio again) who wants to arrest the boys, and then the inept repairman where the stop for directions (Juan Flabio again again, this time sporting a mullet wig and putting the Pakistani accent back into play). I swear, I will never again complain about a Saturday Night Live sketch outliving its welcome for as long as I live.

The boys eventually (…eventually… eventually…) drive to the location of the party, which was apparently shot at a haunted village or theme park backlot or something. (It probably says where on the DVD commentary, but am I putting this disc back in? No.) They wander around lost there for at least ten minutes — boy, what a surprising plot development that is! — then eventually find Sue, who leads them to about a dozen girls sitting around a park as the sun sets. After making kissy-face with Randy, she excuses herself to go “get ready”…

I can’t shake the feeling that the entire production was mounted just to stage this single tableau.

…And the next we see of her, she’s coming out of a coffin, looking all zombied-out with greasepaint and torn latex hanging off her. She commands her zombie legions (hey, look! Zombie legions!) to chase the boys…

…and we join the boys already running wordlessly from the zombies. The one place in the movie where the dialog could reasonably have been expected, and we get none.

Yawn. Randy is apparently under Sue’s mind control because they kissed, so he comes at her call and gets eaten. Marty and Leroy make it back to the van (wait — it’s day again?) because Marty’s dad gave him a duffelbag for the trip, and Marty knows what it contains: military-grade weapons! They shoot a bunch of zombies but never get as far as discovering whether headshots work. Then they get caught and eaten. Then…

…No. I will not tell you the “clever” ending for the movie. Not because of any spoiler concerns, but because it’s got to be the stupidest “We can’t think of an ending” ending that this movie could have had appended to it. (“All just a dream”? Oh, you wish it were that original.)

Sue reaches the practical limits of concealer.

Now after all that, your eminently reasonable question is why this movie doesn’t qualify for a “cold” rating. And this is the point at which I sigh and admit I’m getting soft in my old age. Competello, Saphire and Rochelle convinced me of one thing in their scenes together: they were having a blast making this movie. They stayed wholly in their broadly-drawn characters through minutes-long ad-libbing scenes involving every ridiculous fart and poop joke they could come up with; they were dedicated. (Compare to the cast in, say, a Todd Sheets movie: “Remember my line, remember my line, remember my line, hope Todd ordered pizza for us tonight, remember my line, remember my line…”) That doesn’t excuse the entire idea of having them ad-lib scat-filled scenes longer than the Cold War in a movie that is ostensibly about zombies, but it’s just enough to keep the belly of this movie from scraping bottom continuously.

Of course, if someone forced me to watch the whole thing a second time, I might not be so generous.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 3
• breasts: 2, seen through a mesh shirt (“gone wild,” my ass)
• explosions: 0
• dream sequences: 1
• ominous thunderstorms: 1
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0