Zombie Bloodbath Trilogy

By Louis Fowler • Jul 2nd, 2007 • Category: News

There’s an oft-repeated adage that the Velvet Underground’s first album only sold a couple of hundred copies, but everyone who bought a copy started a band the next day.

That’s how it was for me when I first picked up Kansas City, Missouri-based Todd Sheet’s shot-on-video zombie flick ZOMBIE RAMPAGE when I was in ninth grade, from a little mom ‘n’ pop video store in Oklahoma City. It was 1994, an important year in cinema, being the era that led to the rise and eventual mainstreaming success of independent film, with movies like CLERKS, PULP FICTION and the like becoming blockbusters, practically inspiring every filmmaker of the past ten years. Sure, I loved those classic aforementioned indie films, but it was the discovery of the backyard straight-to-video market that was my real influence. Filmmakers like Sheets, to me, were the real indie cinema. With no budgets, these people were just film fans armed with a primitive camcorder, a couple of gallons of red-dyed Kayro food coloring and a cadre of friends. That’s all. And, to a kid in a videography class with roughly the same backing, of course these guys are going to be superstars. Their gore-drenched horror outings would become the inspirado for whatever backyard masterpieces I shot over that weekend, much to my pacifist hippie teacher’s chagrin.

I would have rather met Todd Sheets any day over Kevin Smith or Tarantino. I still would.

That passion and love for true indie filmmaking has returned with the release of Sheet’s ZOMBIE BLOODBATH TRILOGY. Shot in 1993, 1995 and 2000, respectively, the ZOMBIE BLOODBATH films, filmed on the cheap and filled with Slayer-esque death metal, all follow a basic pattern: a group of people somehow disrupt resting zombies, hole up in some place and are offed one by one, in various ultra-gory (and ultra-low budget) ways. Fin. But the trick is in how exactly we’re delivered the plot.

In the original ZOMBIE BLOODBATH, a nuclear reactor that was unwisely built on an Indian burial ground implodes, causing the living dead, all wearing flannel shirts, to rise. This doesn’t bode well for a couple of oh-so-typical Kansas Cityians who, when not falling down mine shafts, are on the run from the amassing, shuffling undead. Complete with an old man armed with a shot-gun, a 12-year-old girl who is supposedly a seasoned Army vet and a guy with what is the greatest, non-ironic mullet ever captured on film (it’s a monster all it’s own), these unlikely local heroes try to figure out what’s going on, which is hard to do, because these zombies are efficient, silent killers that have the unbelievable ability to hide, in large groups, nevertheless, behind every doorway, opening or edifice that the main characters walk by. (And to think that purists were pissed about the running zombies of the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake!) It a cheese-laden blast from start to finish, with incredible competence and a real sense of goofy dread.

Two years later, Sheets continued with ZOMBIE BLOODBATH 2: RAGE OF THE UNDEAD which is actually unrelated to the first one, instead this time working in a whole Satanist angle. I’m not sure exactly what’s going on or why a cult of devil worshippers sewed a guy into a scarecrow costume in the first ten minutes, but who cares? A group of teens end up at a deserted farmhouse, only to be joined by a trio of escaped convicts and a Special Forces mercenary (a one-man, Chuck Norris-style wrecking crew, kind of), who are attacked by flannel-shirted zombies. They end up at a donut shop that’s being help hostage by a pair of redneck, Manson wannabes. More zombies show up. Satan laughs, happy that his will has been done.

But neither entry packs as much punch as Sheets’ grand statement, his tour de force, ZOMBIE BLOODBATH 3: ZOMBIE ARMAGEDDON. In the future, the army develops the perfect soldier: the zombie. So they cryo a few corpses and send the shuttle back in time to the present day, burying it underneath a high school. Got that so far? Well, a group of literal BREAKFAST CLUB rejects, serving a day’s detention, along with some A/V nerds and a pair of gangsta rapper action stars, uncover the underground shuttle and unleash a torrent of, yes, flannel-shirted living dead, with much gut-munching ensuing. It’s an insane capper to the series, with Sheets’ giving the viewer as much bang for the (non-existent) buck as he can.

Many people will toss these films off as garbage. They’ll refuse to acknowledge these films for the groundbreaking classics that they are. The elitist mentality that indie films can only be these deep, penetrating dramadies about a slacker uncovering childhood abuse or some such shit has to stop. The work of Todd Sheets is just as valid and important as that of Tarantino and his ilk. Sheets is just as much of a trailblazer as those guys, and it’s time he gets the credit he deserves. This is what real indie film is all about.

And the fact that he uses mulleted zombies? Well, that just kicks ass.

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