Bible-Belt Zombies

For all the bitching and/or moaning I do about the non-stop assembly line of zombie movies, they just keep coming out. Apparently, no one is listening to me. Fine. Keep not listening to me as I yell to warn you when you go to cross the street and you don’t see that 1973 Nova with a broken handle on the driver’s side (which forces the driver to get in via the passenger door) run the light and flatten you like road crêpe.

Heat Land, due out sometime this year along with 800 million other walking dead movies, is YET ANOTHER movie about zombies. In their defense, the filmmaker’s insist Heart Land is different from all the rest, describing it as “Lord of the Flies meets 28 Days Later.” Let’s see if their argument stands before the swift justice of a rule-breaking 1973 Chevy Nova…

“A group of children in Middle America struggle to survive in the brutal aftermath of a zombie apocalypse.”

Stock, but a serviceable premise.

So a bunch of hillbilly kids (Middle America, remember?) are left standing after a viral infection takes out all the adults. Sounds like a spin on Children of the Corn (1984). Some of the ’tweeners capture a zombie and torture it. Sounds like a spin on Day of the Dead (1985).

That the tortured zombie is one of the kids’ dads, causes some conflict amongst the rag tag group, which erupts in violence, screaming, chewing and being chewed. The house they were hiding in catches on fire, forcing those not yet chewed into a fall-out shelter basement, where they hole up to keep from being chewed. Sounds like a spin on Night of the Living Dead (1968). Then they turn on each other.

Of course they do. I would. Anything to ensure the survival of myself and my post-apocalyptic 1973 Chevy Nova war machine.

With few new ideas to make fast food burgers, using kids in zombie movies is admittedly a fresh spin. But at the end of the day, it’s STILL a zombie movie. And we have enough of those. And yet I’ll probably still go see it…in my 1973 Chevy Nova. Pedestrians – you have been warned.