Swamp Zombies
Directed by Len Kabasinski
Brain Damage Films

Swamp Zombies is what you would call an entertaining yet flawed take on the micro-budget zombie genre. It has all of the key elements of the genre but the lack of any real gore and the two hour running time hurt the overall impact of the film. The budget of the film is also readily apparent and somewhat muffled audio doesn't help matters either. Like I said the movie does have its merits but it is very far from perfect.

Plotwise most of the cliches of the genre are used but the story is all over the place. A doctor working in a hospital is experimenting with bringing the dead back to live but when a surprise inspection is about to happen the test subjects are dumped in a near by swamp thus we have the name Swamp Zombies. A group of students and their odd ball teacher also happen to be at the swamp for a weekend biology excursion. So now not only do we have zombies we also have a group of teenagers for them to munch on. The story also focuses of a hermit, a sunbather who survived a zombie attack and the Ranger who is looking after the area the swamp is located on.

There is actually more to the story than there really needed to be. The two hour running time is just too long and the action just doesn't move fast enough. This is something the director has improved on greatly with his latest two films as Swamp Zombies was his first film. I do like the martial arts aspect of the film, but it's a stretch that everyone would know these types of movies or that zombies would engage in hand to hand combat to begin with.

While the gore might not be gratuitous the nudity certainly is. Former porn star Jasmin St. Clair exposes her assets for a fairly lengthy shower scene that leads me to believe that woman only wash their breasts when they shower. The vast majority of the rest of the female cast members also show skin. If you like your schlock with a lot of skin, this certainly provides.

The video quality seems to vary throughout. The indoor scenes look much better and the nighttime scenes suffer from a lot of grain. Curse of the Wolf and Fist of the Vampire and much better looking films. The editing could also have been much tighter I think. Some shots are far too long when they really don't need to be which makes the film drag at times. But like I mentioned earlier this was the first film from the director and despite the flaws he did put together a fairly solid debut film.

As far as micro budget zombie films go, Swamp Zombies is far from being the bottom of the barrel. The director has proven he can do better with his latest two films and possibly if he revisits the zombie genre again the results might be a bit more solid. If you like zombies, skin and schlock you may want to give Swamp Zombies a try.

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