6 weeks of Christmas Horror w/ my thoughts on.... 'Silent Night Zombie Night' (an original Creepercast site review)

As with all of my reviews of the independent films that we get sent here at The Creepercast, I fully recommend that you check each and every one of them out. I am one man and this is my opinion. I've seen plenty of movies that received reviews that were the complete opposite of how I saw the film. These writers, directors, producers and actors all put a lot of time and love into these projects. They deserve to be seen and appreciated for what they are. Everyone has a dream and I fully support the people that take the time to make theirs a reality. With that being said....
Usually, people like to save the best stuff for last, in this case.... it didn't happen. I took one for the team, so that you didn't have too.
It's no secret that I love zombie films. Anyone who's read one of my reviews of the increasing number of undead themed movies out there knows that they're my bread and butter of the horror world. I can't explain the exact reason why, but I love them unabashedly. Maybe it's the age old story of overcoming overwhelming odds or maybe it's coming to terms with our own mortality or maybe it's just that I love dead things? I don't know. All I have come to realize over the course of my life is that reanimated corpses are kind of my thing, but not in a weird way. Because of this, a zombie themed Christmas horror film seemed like a no brainer. (all pun intended) What I didn't realize is that 'Silent Night Zombie Night' would turn out to be DOA.

This epic waste of time, tells the story of 3 survivors of a weirdly swift and lame end of the world. Where the zombies go from zero to complete infestation in a matter of about 15 minutes. The entire United States basically just throws their hands in the air and surrenders to, quite possibly, the lamest horde of zombies ever put on screen. We open with a ripped off theme from a big budget studio, overlayed on a different companies logo. From that point on, I already knew this movie was going to steal an hour and a half of my life. In our opening scene we come to find Sarah Talbot (Nadine Stenovitch) in trouble. Soon, her smarmy, cop husband Frank Talbot (Jack Forcinito) shows up with his partner and equally unlikable guy by the name of Nash Jackson (Andy Hopper). They saunter around talking about how much they hate each other, until they realize that the zombie outbreak has occurred. With cat like reflexes and quick thinking, they run and hide in Frank's apartment, located upstairs and only about a block away, rather than help the citizens of LA. Once inside, they find Sarah doing the same thing, hiding. In a moment of clarity, Frank tries the stove to make sure its still works! Rather than taking advantage of a door at the bottom of the stairs that is protected by the heavy storm door attached too it, they just leave it open and close the apartment door at the top of the stairs. Luckily, the undead don't know how to open it. Over time, we come to find that the reason Nash and Frank hate each other is that Frank's marriage is on the rocks and maybe it's because of Nash. Stuff happens and soon Frank is hiding in an attic with an out of place, Jeff Hannigan (Lew Temple). While hiding, some other people in pads and helmets show up to “rescue” them all. Sadly, Jeff gets his face chewed and doesn't realize it until later. Then, the bite robs him of his acting ability and he gets killed. Some more stuff happens and soon it's only the 3 of them again and one of the rescuers. Frank and Nash do some stupid stuff and when they run out of bullets trying to kill 1 zombie, they end up beating it to death instead.... but not before letting it chew on them both. Frank gets smarmy all over the place and Sarah shoots them both and rides off into the sunset with Elsa Lansing (Felissa Rose). The End, thank God.
Written and directed by Sean Cain, this movie steals from every place imaginable and I'm pretty sure, didn't pay the RIAA for any of the music that was played.. From ripping off an entire scene from 'Reservoir Dogs' to using music he shouldn't have. It just seems like Sean was sitting around one night and was like, “I'm going to make a zombie movie! Kids love zombie movies!” and the rest is history. I don't like having to write reviews like this, because it's such a beloved horror sub genre for me. It's also upsetting, because I know that a lot of these people put their time, money and talents into something they believed in. Sadly, the acting was community theater, at best and the characters were all very unlikable. From the start to the finish, I couldn't have cared less who lived or died. I didn't even want to root for the zombies. Not only did they look like they dropped hot pizza on themselves, they made dolphin noises to communicate with each other and I'm not even joking. Not too mention, Frank always had a look on his face like he was squinting, working out a math problem while trying not to fart at the same time. Think, Clint Eastwood, combined with Dana Carvey doing his George Bush impression.... but with muscles. It's all I could do to finish this movie.

In the end, I was very glad when it was finally over. There was nothing about this horror film that I liked. Nothing. This is one of the reasons why the zombie brand is so over saturated. Because every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks it's easy to make a movie about the undead. It's not. It takes a smart script, with people you care about and the living dead that create fear in you. This had none of those things. 'Silent Night Zombie Night' was just an exercise in futility. I hate to give anything 0 out of 5 stars, so I'm going to bump it up to 1 out of 5 stars, because Lew Temple deserves a little credit. Granted, he got wrapped up in all the terrible and eventually lost his way. Even after that, I still like the guy. If you've got some spare time and want to watch the equivalent of having a hang nail removed, then this is the movie for you. If you would rather see an example of a good zombie movie, then look elsewhere. This one is bad for the sake of being bad. Even the undead wished they had stayed that way.

Want some good zombie films? Check out: 'Dawn of the Dead' (1978), 'The Dead'/'The Dead: India' or 'Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead'