Review by Ben Bussey
At the risk of sounding like a broken record bringing this damn film up at the start of every comedy horror review, there’s a key reason Shaun of the Dead is held up as a modern classic: it took a very silly pun title, and transcended it. At a glance, we’d be forgiven for expecting nothing more than a dumb but fun Romero spoof, yet Wright and Pegg went way beyond that, crafting something genuinely witty, sophisticated and cinematic whilst paying homage to the genre. As has been remarked many times, negotiating comedy and horror can be a tricky proposition, with one element tending to overwhelm the other, and Shaun of the Dead is one of the few to get the balance right – yet it all began with the kind of title one might blurt out jokingly after a couple of pints. Many other such titles have been cooked up since: Boy Eats Girl, Lesbian Vampire Killers, Cockneys Vs Zombies, Strippers Vs Werewolves, etc… and not one of them has exceeded the expectation their title put forward. Indeed, many of them fell short of even that.
So now we have another of those crazy sounding comedy horror movies: Zombeavers. I won’t deny it, when I first heard the title I went into full-on Beavis and Butthead “hur-hur-hur-hur” mode for a bit, and I was responsible for at least a couple of the 2 million + views the trailer got on Youtube in its first week or so. But my expectations were in check: the title and trailer sold a crude comedy with zombie beavers, and that’s just what the film itself ultimately delivers – nothing more, nothing less. On the one hand that does feel like cause for disappointment, when one of the wackier concepts that a studio horror movie has boasted for some time results in something that’s ultimately pretty average in every capacity: a bit funny, a bit sexy, a bit gory, but ultimately nowhere near as out there as we might have hoped. It doesn’t surprise me, then, that Steph hated Zombeavers when she caught it at this year’s FrightFest, and I can totally understand her chief complaint, “it’s a dumb movie that thinks it’s being clever.”
Even so – I have to admit that I found Zombeavers an agreeable enough way to blow and hour and a half. Yes, it’s low on wit and the characters are largely unlikeable, and no, it isn’t as sexy, gory or outlandish as it might have been (Piranha 3D it ain’t), but it’s one of those bog standard schlock horror movies that brings just enough to the table to keep you entertained if you’re in a particularly undemanding mood – and toward the end, it actually has a few genuine surprises in store.
Plot-wise, it is of course the standard college kids in cabin set-up – but it seems in the wake of the Evil Dead remake’s “taking our junkie friend to go cold turkey” angle, there needs to be a bit more to it now. So it is that our three heroines head out to a remote woodland location so Jenn (Lexi Atkins) can get over her failed relationship with Sam (Hutch Dano). Naturally they all spend most of their time wearing little more (and occasionally less) than bikinis, and they get no signal on their phones, and they promise it’s no boys – and of course the boys soon enough show up, shortly before they all find themselves under siege from flesh-eating, living dead, semi-aquatic rodents. It’s like Assault on Precinct 13, by way of the gopher scenes in Caddyshack. But in the midst of all this, the relationship drama subplot thickens. Is anyone likely to give a shit about that side of things? Doubtful – though, to be fair, the romantic issues do kind of pave the way to the slightly unexpected developments of the final act.
It probably goes without saying that Zombeavers doesn’t come close to achieving that rare comedy-horror balance thing we mentioned earlier – although this may not be for lack of trying. The beavers themselves are for the most part endearingly obvious puppets, and are certainly utilised to comedic effect at some points – one scene turns into a game of Whack-A-Mole, for instance – and yet for the most part the creature attack scenes are played relatively straight, particularly toward the end as things go in a slightly darker direction than we might have anticipated. Still, if the plan was to catch us off guard with sudden bursts of raw emotion amidst all the madness (much in the spirit of the death of Shaun’s mum in that other comedy horror we can’t stop talking about), then I’m afraid they shot a bit wide of the mark there. Indeed, they shot a bit wide of the mark everywhere.
Still, though it’s lightyears away from the trash masterpiece it aspired to be, Zombeavers is watchable enough. Go in hoping for bona fide subversive humour and outrageous content, and you’re likely to be disappointed – but if you can content yourself with some cheap innuendo, mild splatter and a few tit shots, this’ll see you through a six pack just fine.
Bugger all extras on the DVD, but the Blu-ray reportedly features auditions, behind the scenes and FX featurettes and a deleted scene.
Zombeavers comes to UK DVD and Blu-ray on 20th October 2014, from Universal.