BATH SALT ZOMBIES

BATH SALT ZOMBIES

This film opens with a mock archive infomercial warning of the dangers of bath salt drugs. For the uninitiated, we're told these are "designer drugs containing cathinone substitutes ... similar to amphetamines and cocaine". The male narrator gets sillier as the onscreen text gives way to a monochrome cartoon starring a junkie by the name of Timmy (choice line from the voiceover guy: "[bath salts] are a menace ... a menace, I say!"). Complete with expletives and some illustrated gore, this comes across as a black-and-white short in the style of "South Park".

BATH SALT ZOMBIES then begins proper as we're introduced to "New York City, Present Day". More onscreen text tells us of how bath salts have become so popular that the world police now treat them as an epidemic: International crack-downs have all but halted the marketing of the drug. In New York, a group of enigmatic Ninja types in silver masks continue to sell their own brand. They're known as the Dragons.

But a new kid is in town. Aspiring chemist, and complete stoner, Sal (Dustin Mills) has concocted his own stronger strain of bath salts in a bid to make money as a dealer. His mate, Bubbles (Ethan Holey), is only too happy to sell the gear on street corners and take a cut of any profits.

Their first customer, and guinea pig, is junkie Ritchie (Brandon Salkil). He takes the new gear - which comes in the cop-fooling form of plain-looking cigarettes - back to his pad and smokes it with a girlfriend. Cue giggles, rock 'n' roll, female nudity ... and Ritchie turning into a wild-eyed psycho, ultimately eating the skin of his fuck buddy's face.

Oblivious to its effects, Sal and Bubbles are delighted when Ritchie comes back for more of their gear. Hey, he woke up the morning after and was mortified by what he'd done while high ... but he's an addict, remember? Anyway, their success with Ritchie convinces Sal and Bubbles that they need to start producing their new strain of bath salts more widely...

In the meantime, Federal Agent Forster (Josh Eal) is a devout drug crusher who's taken it upon himself to rid the world of bath salt pushers. With or without the aid of a SWAT team (usually without). He manages to take on the Dragons and win, in an operation which resembles a cut-rate version of THE RAID: REDEMPTION.

Upon doing so, he's further inspired to take the mantle when he learns that an even more potent breed of bath salt is now on the market. A brutal bath salt-inspired bloodbath at a local punk concert only fuels his fire even more: he wants to nail these pushers and will stop at nothing to do so.

But ... will he get to Sal and Bubbles before the frothing, manic Ritchie does? And will Ritchie successfully spread the insanity-inducing new strain of bath salts en masse in the meantime?

BATH SALT ZOMBIES has a stupid title and a comical cover. I wasn't expecting too much. Maybe that's part of the reason I really enjoyed it. Don't get me wrong, it's not high art and it's not going to emerge in time as a classic of its era. But if you're looking for an unpretentious no-budget horror flick with humour, action, gore and boobies, then you could do a lot worse.

Director Dustin Mills co-wrote the screenplay with producer Clint Weiler and between them they've fashioned a fast-moving, agreeably chaotic caper that is undoubtedly small-scale but definitely shows ambition (the concert carnage is splendidly audacious, in a manner that recalls Pete Jackson's BRAINDEAD - albeit, done with much less resources).

Elsewhere, the film looks cheap but Mills is imaginative to overcome this at several junctures (nicely coloured lighting; slick editing; some effective hallucinatory visual tricks). The gore is crude but enjoyably so. And, boobies are boobies. Who doesn't enjoy those?

When he gets high and starts grinning like a demon, Salkil looks like Sheila Keith in FRIGHTMARE - he really does. I'm not sure if that's a deliberate homage, nor that the dog turning on its owner and tearing out his throat in another scene has any basis in Fulci's THE BEYOND. No matter even if it does: it bears more similarity to a Troma production here, and I don't mean that in a bad way.

Finally, I have to give Mills etc credit for furnishing their film with a fine punk rock soundtrack. It includes contributions from The Dwarves, The Meatmen, ANTiSEEN, The Murder Junkies, World War IX and more.

The film is presented uncut in 16x9 widescreen and looks good for the most part. Some scenes do look blown-out due to over-exposure to natural light, but in general this is a colourful and well rendered presentation.

The same applies for the problem-free English 2.0 audio.

MVD Visual Entertainment's DVD is region free and opens to a static main menu page. From there, a static scene-selection menu allows access to the film via 7 chapters.

Extras start with an enjoyably thorough audio commentary from Mills and Salkil. Salkil, interestingly, also played just about every masked character in this film as well as Ritchie (there are a lot of masked characters!). In fact, a look at the end credits reveals how most people had at LEAST dual functions in the making of BATH SALT ZOMBIES - which gives you an idea both of its low budget and the sense of teamwork involved in its conception. That does shine through, both in the commentary track and the finished article.

We also get a 1-minute trailer which unfortunately makes the film look less ambitious than it is.

BATH SALT ZOMBIES isn't great but it is good fun without the need to do equations while watching or to guess what the twist will be. There isn't one. But there are tits, creatively crude gore scenes and punk rock songs.

Review by Stuart Willis


 
Released by AGGRONAUTIX
Region 1 NTSC
Not Rated
Extras :
see main review
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