Attack of the Vegan Zombies!

“Attack of the Vegan Zombies” is a slowly paced tale of witchcraft, zombies (“Zero trans fats has never been so deadly!”), and bad horticultural practices. The film is set on a family vineyard where the harvest is failing again. The acting is sometimes painful to watch, and the interpersonal conflicts often make little sense, but you probably could have guessed that when you picked up an independent movie with the words “vegan” and “zombies” right there in the title. In essence the couple who owns the place does much emoting about the repeated crop failures, at which point the wife reveals that both she and her mother are witches and before you know it they are conjuring up a spell for bountiful grapes. Hint: you may think the references to alcohol consumption are gratuitous padding, but fans of foreshadowing should take note.

Meanwhile as part of a university program (?) a couple of nerdy guys and a couple of hot cheerleader-types show up to help out at the vineyard. While the girls are making commentary that makes it clear they think a weekend without cellphone signal is worse than the holocaust, the boys are blathering on about the pH being abnormal in the grape crop. (“Not grapes on steroids!”) It will come as no shock that this presages the arrival of the zombie grape monster and the only thing able to stop it is those meddling kids. I get the use of horror movie stereotypes in these B-movies, but the nerds are particularly annoying here (there is a great argument about which women are less attractive, Klingon or Ferengi), not that the girls are any more interesting. There are a lot of blown lines (Think they’ll reshoot?) and general nonsensical plotpoints, perhaps the oddest of which is about society’s anti-witch bias which involves greedy corporate interests clear-cutting forests…I have no clue. It doesn’t matter anyway, because about then the body count starts going up (“There’s a chance the plants could get aggressive.”) with the plants getting possessive “like the Venus flytrap”.

The crop malfunction results in some of the most ponderous dialogue imaginable, and the vineyard owners provide no explanation to the kids resulting in what legal scholars might call kidnapping, though scholars of B-movies will likely just roll their eyes. After the grapes disconnect the phone lines and deactivate the car engines making the cast marooned in the vegetative nightmare, the unconvincing cheerleaders steal wine and commence drinking; as one nerd relates “They’re hot, popular girls, genetically programmed to party.” The film then explains that zombies can be herbivorous, and that vegan zombies crave red wine. All of this leads up to the best line of the movie (said as the demonic plants close in): “Is this going to affect our grade?” Meanwhile the love song one nerd (Louis, not that it matters) composes for one of the cheerleaders (Leigh, not that it matters either) is a particularly cringeworthy plot device, but that’s OK, as the vines are closing in for their final solution, and for a few short minutes the movie starts to get interesting in the basement of the house.

Then it all comes unhinged as a ludicrous, pointless, and very boring family backstory reveals that the vineyard had been failing because in years past the evil mother in law put a curse on the land because she didn’t want to live on the farm anymore. (Like somebody was keeping her from getting a cozy condo in town? Whatever.) The film closes with a terrible local news framing device revealing information about the survivor of the grape assault. Could there be a pregnancy involved? Maybe. Could there actually be hope for a sequel? Maybe not.

“Attack of the Vegan Zombies” is tedious and boring much of the time. Riddled with awful dialogue and plot contrivances that don’t really work well as humor or horror, it falls into the dingy middle ground, making it totally forgettable. Some of the scenery was nice (it was filmed on location at Grayhaven Winery in Gum Springs, Virginia), and there were occasionally amusing bits, making it worthy of two stars.

I consider myself an avid cinefile, however, there are crater sized holes in my viewing history. The films of Pedro Almodóvar and Zombie films are two of my greatest deficiencies. I spent 2009 working towards a respectable knowledge of Zombie films, but many of them seemed too slick – fast zombies with high production value, comedies wrenched from gore splattered premises, post-apocalyptic scenarios too farfetched for me to suspend my disbelief. The Zombie films I enjoyed all seemed to hearken back to Romero’s original whose craftsmanship indicated that perhaps actual Zombies were part of the filmmaking process. The lower budget Zombie films seemed more adept at my belief in Zombie lore and more creative. “Attack of the Vegan Zombies” has that wonderful grass roots quality to it. Ominous and unsettling, at times this film feels like a 1970s hard-to-categorize film. The distinct vineyard setting, the undercurrent of the ravishes of alcoholism, and the stoic quality of the lead actor all lead one to wonder, “What is this film about?” For those who eschew airplane movies and Hollywood cranked-out crap, “Attack of the Vegan Zombies” is a stagger in the right direction. The directorial debut of Jim Townsend may have some imperfections but the true zombie of the film world is the dearth of original thought – I found “Attack of the Vegan Zombies” all together human and certainly worth watching.

Presentei uma adolescente. Ela amou os perfumes.

Perfeito.

Gosto muito dessa tinta, já uso a bastante tempo!.

Já utilizo o produto, porém é a primeira vez que compro desse distribuidor.

Produto exatamente igual a descrição ,super indico.

Já uso essa tintura há algum tempo. Clareou em 4 tons meus cabelo. Apliquei um tonalizante desamarelador e agora está show. Grata.