Review: Bath Salt Zombies

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films Blog, 2013
Images from the Internet

                            

Bath Salt Zombies
Directed, shot, edited and scored by Dustin Wayde Mills
MVD Visual                      
90 minutes, 2012 / 2013
www.Facebook.com/DustinMillsProductions
www.Aggronautix.com
www.MVDvisual.com

Am I a bit tetched in the haid because I enjoy films directed by Dustin Mills [HERE, HERE, and HERE]?  They tend to be cartoony, about goofy characters doing absolutely ridiculous things, with lots of unrealistic gore, but from beginning to end, they tend to be an enjoyable ride through the land of giving up a level of disbelief.

The plot revolves around a junkie named Ritchie (Mills’ stalwart actor / muse / partner Brandon Salkil) who becomes addicted to “military grade” bath salts, which is explained to be a designer drug that looks like bath salts, hence the name. I’m sure this also has relative relevance to an apparent new real trend of getting “high” by inhaling Epsom salts (how stupid and desperate is that?; as moronic as swallowing a dry teaspoon of cinnamon, another new trend…but I digress…)

However, this particular “bath salt” is extremely addicting (once is enough), and has a propensity to make its user not just hyper, but insane, stronger, feel no pain, and, of course, hungry for human flesh to be ripped by teeth or hands.

The government, who is on to this situation, shown in total by Josh Eal (who also co-starred with Salkil in 2012’s Zombie A-Hole), playing a G-man agent. Eal is great in a straight-man, “serious” as-is-possible character role here. He almost always has his sunglasses on, even while in a major fight and getting punched in the face. Again, suspension of disbelief is called for in buckets, but worth it. He plays his personality pretty flat, but in a good way, kind of like Eastwood or Bronson (d. 2003), rather than the blandness of Steven Segal or van Damme. Being just shy of a black belt when this was filmed (he has since achieved it, if I understood correctly), he choreographed the fight scenes, which often involved him and Salkil and Salkil and Salkil, etc. (will explain shortly).

Of course, as Ritchie’s use progresses, so do the effects of the drug, until his overdose turns him into a raving and deformed maniac (see the cover artwork). Now, let me talk about Salkil a minute here, as he has the most screen time, in many different ways. In a previous review, I mentioned how much he reminds me of Bruce Campbell in his role as Ash Williams (if you need to ask who that is, you probably need to see more horror cinema). In this film, he brings to mind more of a Jim Carrey vibe, with the rubbery way he moves his body and face. Also, as in Zombie A-hole (2012), in a way he plays twin characters. There is the everyday, pathetic-yet-sympathetic junkie, and then there is charged up Ritchie, the bath salt “zombie” (of course, technically, he’s not a zombie, but rather just a live flesh-eater… we need a new term for a living flesh foodie, such as in 28 Days Later… but I digress again). He apparently finds it pretty fluid to go from straight, to manic, to maniac, and it works. I can see him on a hit sit-com at some point.

Amusingly, with one exception, every masked character is embodied by Salkil, including all of both the drug gang and the SWAT team. Ya gotta love being able to overlay images; it gives me an ache when I think of what Cronenberg had to go through just to get two Jeremy Irons in 1988’s Dead Ringers. In one scene, Salkil kills a bunch of himself in the form of the SWATers.

Playing Ritchie’s girlfriend Rita, much as she did in Night of the Tentacles (2013), is Jackie McGowan, a tattooed and pierced everygirl (meant complimentary), albeit a junkie. She is both fierce and kinda brittle, and plays that well as it seems to be her specialty in Mills’ releases. Also joining in as Ritchie and Rita’s friend is Mr. (Dave) Parka, who is better known for his video review vlogs [HERE].

Through the connections of the producer, Clint Weiler, there is a killer soundtrack with nationally known punk acts like the Murder Junkies (sans GG Allin, of course), the Dwarves, Antiseen, the Meatmen and the Gaggers.

One aspect of Mills I truly enjoy as a filmmaker is that he runs the gamut to simple cheezy puppets, to some highly stylized visuals. With each progressive film, and he is quite prolific, his technical ability improves. I hope he doesn’t lose much of the kitsch factor the way some have, like Cronenberg and Craven.

When you watch this, you may just say, hunh, lemme see this again with my buddies. Not exactly a date movie (unless you’re with the coolest girl in the world who loves these kinds of films!), but definitely a safer high than, well, bath salts.

 

Unrelated bonus video:

Would a Zombie by Any Other Name Smell as Meat?…

Text (c) Richard Gary, 2012 / Indie Horror Films Blog

Images from the Internet

As with many others, I am a fan of the whole zombie genre, which seems to have picked up steam again over the past few years. But I am having terminology issues.

Growing up, pre-Night of the Living Dead (1968) [NOTLD], zombies were a whole different breed. They were slow and lumbering, undead, and usually Haitian. While there were horror films based on the characters, such as Bela Lugosi’s White Zombie (1932), mostly they were used as comedic fodder, as was with Bob Hope’s The Ghost Breakers (1940, infamous for the Willie Best line, “Feets, don’t fail me now!”). Of course, as most zombies were black, since they originated in the voodoo culture of Hispaniola, they were seen as derogatory and existed to be made fun of in a white colonialist stereotyping Hollywood way. Just the double-entendre title of the Bowery Boys’ Spooks Run Wild (1941) alone is an indication of that.

Early zombie

Even as late as the mid-1960s, zombies kept their kitsch appeal and were mainly used in comedies, such as in Ray Steckler’s ridiculously bad (in a good way) cult classic musical, The Incredibly Strange Creatures That Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies (1964), or, as they called a re-release when it played a midnight show at a Brooklyn theater where I worked during the mid-‘70s, Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary.

Of course, NOTLD was a paradigm shifter, changing the image of clumsy voodoo servants and mindless murderers who followed the orders of their masters into clumsy flesh eaters free roaming the countryside (and malls, natch). This became the standard for years, through the likes of Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (1973) and Return of the Living Dead (1985; including sequels).  While just a bit more limber in these later films, a sheriff from NOTLD said it best with “Yeah, they're dead. They're all messed up.”

However, once again things took an evolutionary leap with the Brit flick, 28 Days Later... (2002; not to be confused with Sandra Bullock’s 2000 mind-numbing-zombie-like-inducing 28 Days). In this flick, a virus turns people into violent and swift flesh eaters… but they’re still alive! This story is almost copied in another, more recent British release, The Devil’s Playground (2010), which actually inspired this column.

Slow zombies

Films like 28 Days Later... ignited a familiar question asked of horror fans recently, “Do you favour slow zombies or fast zombies?” An example of this is the documentary, The Walking Dead Girls! In fact, if you search the Web with this question, you will get many links on the topic. But I have an issue with this. First, let me admit that I like the viral running around fast eating people films; in some ways they are more exciting, though sometimes the editing and shaky camera used by seemingly everyone who does a story like this can be annoying, even if it doesn’t produce motion sickness. At least with a slow creature (or horde, as sometimes happens), you get to see the people get ripped to pieces (a nod to Tom Savini here), rather than a quick shot in edits, often in shadows or the corner of the frame for shock value. Give me a full-on, non-CGI appliance so we can to see some action, rather than shake it (apologies to the Flamin’ Groovies).

Essentially, the definition of a zombie, as is stated in part by Wikipedia, is “an animated corpse brought back to life…” In other words, from the voodoo to the flesh eating kind, a zombie is basically the dead arisen. However, in the later, faster versions, the attackers are not dead, merely infected, making them – er – hungry. We need a different word for this situation.

Fast zombies

My idea is to call them ghouls. Yeah, it’s an antiquated term that brings up memories of the likes of Eerie and Creepy comic magazines from the ‘60s and ‘70s mostly (where they seemed to be always in conflict with vampires, but I digress…). Again, Wikipedia describes ghouls, in part, as “…consuming human flesh, often classified as but not necessarily undead…Ghouls are perceived to be unintelligent and are primarily driven by their instinct to feed.”  Where my idea of using this definition falls short, is that in literature ghouls usually feast on dead flesh, while our infected humans (and zombies, apparently) prefer their tidbits still squirming.

Surely we can come up with a term that can differentiate between the classic risen dead chompers and those living foodies fond of animated flesh, or at least yet uninfected. 

Certainly, I don’t have all the answers. “Cannibals” seem to fall short as well, because in culture, with many of them it’s a matter of choice. Living people infected by a disease that makes them need to feed (there’s a tee-shirt slogan for ya) is not a option. “Biters” seems too mild, and “Flesheaters,” while a great band, also doesn’t give enough information.

The term zombies will always bring ‘em in to the theaters, or the television screen in the case of The Walking Dead series, so the odds that the appellation of zombie (or its alternative of zombi) is here to stay. Follow the fan base and surely the wallet will follow.

And look, no mention of braaaaains. Oh…never mind.