So here I am, sick at home with god knows what combination of cold, allergies and general malaise when I spy this movie just staring at me, taunting me with it’s title alone. Can you honestly look at the title of this movie and even remotely think this is going to be decent? Zombie Honeymoon sounds like a parody doesn’t it? Sounds like one of those terrible Scary Movie knockoffs that have flooded the market in recent years. Strangely though, it’s attempts to be serious; also it wasn’t released by some no name studio or my nemesis Echo Bridge, but by Showtime entertainment. So I’m understandably unsure of what this movie will bring, be it a strange quirky comedy a la Shawn of the dead or some utterly terrible but amusing strangeness like Executive Koala. Well, only one way to find out.
This is the next movie I’m reviewing by the way
The first warning sign I see here, or that I hear, is that the intro credit sequence is identical to that of “Death bed: The bed that eats”. See, Death bed’s intro credits were presented along with the sound of someone sloppily eating; no music, no nothing except the sound of sloppy eating. This movie does the same thing, except the credits are also shown on wedding invitations. I’ll give them credit, it is a little disturbing the first time for a few moments but after that it just gets annoying. With all the slurping I just imagine it as the most awkward and uncomfortably silent blowjob ever. Like, the guys just sitting there, face as stoic and vacant as Lovecraft’s while…never mind. Anyways, the first actual image we see is this
Now we, as the audience just know that it’s groan inducing foreshadowing, but think about it in the world of the movie. What would you say if you saw that on your wedding day? You’d more then likely find it very odd and foreboding wouldn’t you? You’d start asking questions like “Does the sign maker want to kill me and steal my wife?” and “did I wander onto the set of ‘Final destination 12’?”. Improper and disturbing signage aside we see that apparently Denise and Danny’s wedding party consisted of themselves and…these two fine citizens.
These are, in fact, their orgasm faces.
I should point out that the bride is wearing a red and black tubetop dress and the groom is basically just wearing a white shirt. I’m not sure if they’re both just incredibly trashy or if the wardrobe department was low on funds. Oh wait, this is how they say goodbye to all their friends
I show love to my friends the same way I satisfy my wife: With my middle finger
Well the utterly charming couple rockets off in their rented hatchback toward some unnamed honeymoon location. Oh and she gives him a blowjob as they drive erratically down the road and he licks his lips with a face that speaks less of impending orgasm and more of the joys of pedophilia. Through the use of a cross fade they reach their destination and Denise carries Danny over the threshold. That’s right, the woman carries the man over the threshold. That’s got to be a little emasculating doesn’t it? After entering the house the couple run about like ninnies, diving onto every couch and bed they can find, beating on an arcade machine without actually playing it and swinging on a children’s swing set. They then proceed to bump uglies in the middle of the backyard. All this is set to random rock music. In the end I get less of a feeling “these two are really in love” and more that I’m watching a documentary on the mating rituals of the wild twenty something stereotype. Oh and Denise chases Danny around the house with a handful of raw ground beef. Honestly, who does that? Who just thinks it’s a good or fun idea to chase your spouse around the room with possibly diseased meat? Next she’s going to release an alligator in his bed, just for giggles.
After all that attempted proof of their relationship the pair end up at the beach, were we find out that Danny is a terrible surfer and that Denise apparently draws clipart.
Denise runs on windows 95
Denise foreshadows a little more by drawing the beach with a monstrous black bird hovering over it and lo and behold, out of the water wanders a zombie. As can be expected the zombie wanders right up to Danny and vomits up chocolate sauce into Danny’s open mouth before suddenly dying. Danny then immediately dies and is rushed to the hospital, once again only staffed by two people. Denise stands nearby looking more bored then sad but still managing to pull off some pretty good fake sobs. Eventually, after trying for maybe 15 seconds to revive Danny, the doctor tells Denise that her husband isn’t responding to treatment. He isn’t responding to treatment mostly because he’s dead. During this entire conversation Danny, who is laying in the background, is quite obviously breathing. Danny, just to fuck with the doctor, then miraculously wakes up, much to everyone’s confusion. Despite having his heart stop for 10 minutes Danny is completely fine and has lost none of his mental capacities.
The two lovers head home, partake in some awkward conversation about how they’re going to have a candle light dinner the next day and then decide that the movie needs another sex scene. During this sex scene (which has scary music for some reason)Danny proves to be very nippy and proceeds to gnaw on Denise like a dog with a bone. There is no real point for this scene to exist really, it’s never mentioned again even when it would be relevant. Although we do get to see Denise’s distressingly large nipples, which is something; not something that’s necessarily good, but something. Overall, at this point in the movie, I’m beginning to fear that this might be the zombie equivalent of Twilight. The dialog and arguments reek of it.
Anyways, the next day Denise begins to whine about how they’re not doing the things they planned on doing before they got married, because she seems to feel that something like 3 days is too long to wait before all her pre-marrige fantasies come true. Caught up in the rush of her unrealistic demands Danny quits his job and Denise follows suit before the pair finally sell their apartment. I know this is supposed to be romantic or something but really it just continues the trend of making them seem incredibly stupid. There is also a scene depicting the anorexic girl from before as a bumbling psychic. It has no purpose and is never mentioned again, a growing trend in this movie. Within this scene we are given a 15 second motionless view of this.
Um…a one legged ken with a red slash down his chest and a Barbie with a boobless dress? What is the point of this and why do we have to see it for so long? Its like if they stopped and just showed us a picture of a kangaroo testicle money purse for a few minutes without ever telling us why. Just imagine harry potter stopping for 30 seconds so we can stare at this
It’s freaking weird, man.
Well, just when you thought this movie and this review by extension had fallen into utter meaningless time wasting in wanders police. Turns out they’re still trying to figure out who it was that vomited all over Danny. However, they also question him about the disappearance of his hospital roommate, who vanished without a trace while Danny was there. Denise leaves to go shopping in the middle of the conversation and montages her way to…Acme?
Denise’s last name is “Coyote”
With her shopping done Denise returns home and, as she puts in some eye drops, notices some rather sloppy wet sounds coming from her bathtub. Before she opens the curtain she grabs the hair dryer and brandishes it like a pistol. I’m serious, she actually uses the hair dryer as though it was a gun. Upon throwing the shower curtain aside she is confronted with the image of her husband literally neck deep in the entrails of a jogger. Danny, face and chest incrusted with gore and blood looks at his wife and says “Honey, its not what you think”. Honestly? That’s what he’s going to say? Its not like she caught him cheating on her, he’s literally devouring the raw flesh of a chubby stranger in your bathroom! Denise, for her part, doesn’t look very afraid or even shocked, just mildly confused.
You stained the tub didn’t you?
Well Denise apparently realizes that she’s supposed to be afraid and runs from the room, but actually stops to gather some of her things including a few magazines before she leaves. Really? I don’t know about you but if I wandered into a scene like that I’d jump out a god damn window, I wouldn’t gather up my stuff and leave, let alone stop to grab some light reading material. Once again, they’re basically handling this entire murder/cannibalism thing like it’s analogous to marital infidelity. Well, incase the producers are a little confused about the difference, cheating only sometimes ends with the death of a third party. Well there’s a lot a yelling and incoherency before Danny finally talks his wife back into the house and then proceeds to go on and on about how much he loves her. He relates his desire for human flesh, his devouring of his hospital roommate and how bad he feels about his murder spree. He explains all this with his face like this:
Red Man Group?
You try and take him seriously like that, no really, try. It’s strange because the speech he makes is very serious but his blood covered face and exaggerated from make him look like some bizarre clown. Personally, after watching it the first time I watched it again, but at 2x fast forward and believe me, hearing this bloody bastard squeak away about love like an overdramatic chipmunk is hilarious. Eventually Danny calms his wife down and the pair hug, gore and all, before and I’m not kidding, doing a cleaning montage. I swear to god this is true, the couple do a cleaning montage to rockabilly music. There are scenes of Denise scrubbing the gore out of the tub as a upbeat mix of guitar and drums plays. She even finds a severed finger in the drain and seems only mildly bemused; I half expected her to say something like “How’d you get in there you little rascal?”
The montage concludes as the surfer dude and his anorexic girlfriend/wife/sister show up for dinner. Before going out for dinner the couples talk and the surfer dude remarks jokingly on how Danny was now one of the living dead. He even does an impression of a zombie and screams for brains. Denise pounds back about half a bottle wine and Danny grins away. At dinner Danny and Denise get into an argument because Denise doesn’t want her once vegetarian husband to have any meat. She actually gets more mad and visibly upset by is desire for a steak then she did by his devouring of a neighbor. So, incase that escaped you, let me explain Denise’s state of mind: Murdering and devouring a random jogger is bad but acceptable, but eating a steak is inexcusable. She literally cares more about cows then humans. Why are we supposed to like this character again? Denise excuses herself from the table and runs to the bar to pound down a few more shots and at this point I’m just hoping that she drinks herself to death so the movie will end.
[CURIOUSBEAST_GUZZLER]
Well there are some more words, basically just setting up why the surfer dude and the anorexic chick won’t be around for a while and that Danny is losing memory. We then cut to the next day where it appears that Danny has ended up with probably the worst hangover ever. And when I say it’s bad
It looks bad but he actually just drank lots of red kool-aid.
I mean it’s bad. He then says one of the strangest lines I’ve ever heard: “I guess vegetarians don’t make good cannibals do they?” No, no I don’t suppose they do. But if they’re really vegetarians then they’re not cannibals, unless he’s implying that he’s a vegetable; of course, considering his acting that is a distinct possibility. Well, in-between regurgitated hunks of mailman Danny says he wants to go to Portugal ’Right fucking now’. I’m not really sure why but I guess he has a craving for foreign food *rimshot*. The couple drive to their travel agent, the only truly undead creature in this entire movie.
SHE WANTS MY SOUL
Apparently sensing the soulless evil within the travel agent Danny attacks and proceeds to bite a chunk out of her arm. Denise, showing surprising teamwork, clotheslines the agent in the neck before Danny leaps in for the kill like some sort of trained badger. Denise manages to pull him away from the body while he whines like a puppy that he’s hungry but he quickly escapes into the woods. Denise, not sure what her character would do at the moment, stands there with a big dumb look on her face and does nothing. Danny on the other hand immediately reemerges in a parking lot and devours the back of some unlucky businessman’s head. That’s what we call being empowered. Denise just goes home while we see Danny start devouring fat men left and right, despite large crowds of people watching him. While he goes on his broad daylight killing spree the cop from earlier appears at their house and has some semi-threatening and very awkward conversation with Denise. Moments after the cop leaves Danny walks in holding a severed arm like a thanksgiving turkey leg.
I wonder if he’ll eat the press on nails?
After a short argument Danny shouts “LOOK! I’m just trying to kill as few people as I can before I get on the plane tomorrow!”, which as lines go is pretty awesome. The two of them argue and eventually end up hugging and promising never to leave one another. Honestly, this is getting pretty odd; it’s like one of those lifetime movies about an abused woman, except it’s a woman enabling her cannibalistic husband. It sounds like it should be hilarious but it dives right off the terrible scale into just plain awkward, like watching a homeless man masturbate in the middle of the town square.
Dude and Chick return to see Danny looking like, as the dude says “total shit”. After laying him on the couch Danny asks the chick to read his palm. Anorexia proceeds to do so and, while reading his life line we get a split second shot of this.
At least his teeth still look good
It’s actually not a half bad prop and it’s very well matched up to Danny’s current position so the over all effect is pretty good. It’s probably one of, if not the only, mildly disturbing part of this entire movie. Or at least the only part that is consciously attempting to be disturbing. It’s somewhat undermined by Danny then immediately leaping onto surfer dude and biting his nipples off.
Kinky
As is expected Anorexic girl runs her ass away while Denise stupidly stays behind, doggedly holding fast to that “till death do we part” clause. Denise returns to the house (she ran out with anorexia but decided to come back) to find Danny, and I’m not kidding here, playing the arcade machine next to the partially eaten corpse of his best friend. Denise, apparently so lost within her fantasy as to be oblivious to reality, prepares dinner. Now, I am not shitting you, but they then sit down to a candle light dinner. No, seriously, a zombie candle light dinner. I have the pictures to prove it too
A toast….tooooooo…BRAAAAAAINSSSSS
Actually he toasts to Portugal, I bet they’re so proud. Anorexia, unsurprisingly, runs of to the police while the two lovers continue to induldge themselves in a shared delusion. And Danny sheds a single tear; no seriously, he does. Well the police bust in and bust a cap, including one straight to the forehead but this only seems to tickle good old Danny who proceeds to bite their faces off.
Once again, not joking.
You know, Danny’s acting a lot more like a vampire right now. He almost always bites the people in the neck and will quickly move on to the next person after he’d bit them once. Anyways, he gnaws through the rest of the police and Anorexia while Denise runs up to the bathroom and removes her makeup while having a good obviously fake cry. She then tries to endure the constant sound of Danny’s slurping of entrails by turning on the TV and watching some sappy romance movie. I’m not kidding about that. It’s a sappy romance within a weirdly sappy romance. IT’S BECOME RECURSIVE! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!
The severed arm is snoring again
Eventually Danny comes in and chases her around awhile before tackling her, almost spewing chocolate sauce on her but stopping himself at the last moment. He then says he’s sorry, cries another single bloody tear and collapses. Denise then, for some reason, drags him outside and hucks his body into the pool before running off to the beach. We then get several shots of her just standing there while the song “Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman” plays in the background and the credits roll. No real conclusion other then the hints that she’ll go to Portugal and that she’s pregnant. However, the credits contain several oddities, like how the car they drive is credited.
Also, the movie is done in the memory of a Danny Fraunhofer, which raises several questions over naming and meaning. A little digging and I found that the director’s sister’s name is Denise and that She married Danny Fraunengerman. Turns out they wanted to go to Portugal and that Danny died in a surfing accident just before they left. The director, and these are his words, created this movie as a way to help her deal with the loss of her husband. There is all sorts of wrong in that phrase isn’t there? How, may I ask, can you help your sister deal with the loss of her husband by making a movie that basically portrays him as a murdering cannibal? Are you utterly high?
Well, ignoring the stupidity of the conception, how did ZH fare? Um, well…hard to say. I keep getting this feeling that I’m watching a parody but they just keep going at it with total seriousness and it’s a little bit disquieting. I mean the dichotomy here between serious and most likely unintentional silliness is really quite jarring; the whole clean up scene set to rockabilly music is just plain confusing and is so out of nowhere I half expected it to be a delusion. Danny’s progressive decent into simplification is kinda cool and his random attacks are sometimes smirk worthy but it’s all drug back down by the horribly shoehorned romance and unbelievable stupidity of Denise. Really, the thing which stops this movie from being a fun little b-movie romp is the insipid romance and it’s insistence on unceremoniously barging it’s way into every scene. Denise is too stupid to live and Danny is hard to take serious as he coos about love with the remains of a crossing guard stuck in his teeth.
The part that, is for me, now messing with my head is the fact this is supposed to be, at least partially, based on the director’s sister. Now, remember all those sex scenes and in car blowjobs? Think about that in the context of the brother writing about an allegory of his sister. It makes you feel a bit uncomfortable does it not? Anyways, my final word on ZH is that if you cut out about 80% of it then it might be pretty good, but as it is it’s just confusing and terrible.
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Topic: Piecewise's Heavily illustrated bad movie reviews: Karate Cops Review (finally) (Read 35156 times)