★ (★★★ if you’re drunk) out of ★★★★★
It’s as dumb as you’d expect.
If you are listening to our podcast, (and if you aren’t, I suggest you exit this review and give the podcast a listen!), you will periodically hear one of us chime in about ZOMBEAVERS. There are some horror movies that are considered works of art, films held in high art reverence, such as The Exorcist or The Shining. And there is a much larger group of horror movies that go for the thrills and chills of a mass audience, usually with some comedy, and a high body count. Films like Scream, Halloween, or A Nightmare on Elm Street. But even more numerous are exploitation flicks that know that they will attract an audience if you promise boobs and blood. In the bilgewater of the exploitation films are movies like Zombeavers. Terrible acting married up with terrible effects and unfunny humor. What’s not to love?
There has always been a place on the video shelf (or now, Amazon/Netflix) for cheapie horny teenagers in the woods movies. This time, with, of all things… rodents. Pure magic! You want a plot synopsis? Really? OK… here goes: Toxic waste pours into a river, and the waste canisters get lodged in a beaver dam. (Start the clock) Three young women head out to a cabin… by a river, yes THIS river full of dying/undead beavers… to get away for a weekend of fun. Check! A cantankerous redneck arrives to give the girls an ominous warning. Check! Then surprise! The left-behind boyfriends show up! Then everybody pairs off to have sex. Check! Then one of the girls gets attacked by a beaver in the bathtub, which gets promptly dispatched by one of the guys with a baseball bat, and everybody is a (little) bit distraught. Check. The next day, they all go for a swim, not mindful of the dangers that the beavers present, and one of the guys gets his foot chewed off by a zombeaver! CHECK! Several teens vs. zombeaver battles ensue. Those who get scratched develop a strange were-beaver lycanthropy and the were-beaver teens turn on the uninfected. Nobody ends up surviving! Hooray!
OK, I will admit, I had a bit of fun with this movie. It is, however, undeniably a terrible movie. And, it knows it is. Movies like this and the slightly more upscale Pirhana 3DDD, Snakes on a Plane, and Sharknado make no pretense that they are destined for MSTK 3000 and just roll around in their own excrement. And, if you’re reading this, you probably know that sometimes you just want to watch a truly awful movie just for fun. When Mike and I were in college, we protested when our good friend and roommate, Chris Ralph, a telecommunications and film major, wanted to watch Wim Wender’s languid drama, Paris, Texas. YAWN! Mike and I agreed to rent Paris, Texas but declared that in order to balance the scales he had to watch Sorority Girls in the Slimeball Bowl-o-Rama with us. (That movie really exists: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096142/?ref_=nv_sr_1 ) That was a ludicrously bad movie, and yet I enjoyed it much more than the esteemed walkabout movie from Wenders. Sometimes, you have to dumb it down.
