These days, it seems like most of the world is on some kind of drug, whether it be for medicinal or recreational purposes. Today I’m looking at All American Zombie Drugs, a movie that revolves purely around the recreational type of drugs. It was written and directed by Alex Ballar, and was apparently shot in only 10 days on a budget of approximately $200,000. Though it has a production date of 2010, the movie didn’t get a DVD release date of April 23, 2013, and a VOD release date of June 23, 2013. I was hoping to review it a little closer to either of the release dates, but better late than never right? Let us begin.
Vinny and Sebastian are best friends who can only be described by yours truly as epic-level stoners. Along with Sebastian’s girlfriend Kara, they spend most of their time either doing drugs or going out to get more drugs. That is, when Sebastian isn’t going through his random bouts of narcolepsy that tend to include orgy-related dreams.
Let’s never fight again.
On the way to their job, Vinny and Sebastian make a pit stop to (what else?) pick up some drugs. They make the mistake of taking some of the drugs just before they start, which hit them so hard they completely zone out and mentally vanish into another world. Needless to say it ends up costing them their job. Hope is not lost though. With the financial assistance of Kara’s well-to-do friend Melissa, the gang go into business selling drugs themselves. However, their business venture is a bumpier ride than expected, with a few unexpected problems popping up. Then Sebastian decides they need to make their own drugs and sell them instead of buying from suppliers. That will fix everything, right? Right?
You may have noticed I didn’t bring up anything regarding zombies in my story run-through. Well, there’s a reason. While you do indeed get to see zombies, they are not nearly as prominent in this as you may be led to believe. The majority of AAZD revolves around the four friends and their drug-fueled (mis)adventures. In fact, I would estimate that this movie is about 85% comedy, which made me a slightly reluctant at first to review it here on Necropolis Macabre.
Would you rather be chased around by zombies, or these guys?
Now, is that to say All American Zombie Drugs isn’t a good flick and you shouldn’t bother? Absolutely not! I had a great time watching it. None of the performances were half-assed. The team-up of Beau Nelson (Sebastian) and Wolfgang Weber (Vinny) did what Jay and Silent Bob couldn’t do for me; they were the main focus of a full length movie and managed to keep me interested in them the whole way through. Susan Graham was hilarious as Kara, and Natalie Irby was also great as the (mostly) calm and rational Melissa. Director Alex Baller is also in the movie playing Vinny’s dead brother Michael, who appears now and then to try to talk Vinny out of some bad choices he’s about to make.
Music choices were also well done. I think my favorite piece of music come in the last act, purely because it’s only playing in the heads of nerdy stoners Max (played by Dennis Bover) and Stone (played by Jeremie Loncka), who dance to the beat after sampling some of Sebastian’s homemade drugs. And as far as the zombies go, well they looked decent enough give that they had very recently died, so you wouldn’t really expect them to look too disgusting. The camerawork was done well. No terrible shaky cam or anything, although there were a couple of close up shots that didn’t seem totally necessary. But nothing that took me out of the movie.
Yay, It looks like the human I planted is finally blooming!
Any negatives regarding AAZD depend mostly on you knowing fully what you’re getting into. If you’re thinking you’re getting a full-on zombie flick going in, you’re going to be disappointed. And if you’re not a fan of stoner comedies then this may not be for you either. But now that you have a better idea of what you’re in for, I think you’ll enjoy it quite a bit. This is Alex Ballar’s debut feature-length directing effort, and I think it was a very good start. I look forward to seeing future work from him. Well, this review is a bit of an anomaly given the movie’s content is mostly comedy, but it had zombies in it so I’m gonna let it slide. Anyway, that’s all I have. Rest in peace.
Macabre Rating: 4 out of 5 tombstones
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