Zombie Wars (2006)

There was World War II, Vietnam, The War on Terror, but nothing compares to the zombie war of the future. No, this isn't World War Z, this is Zombie Wars, and if you think you're going to see an actual war of humans against zombies, guess again. Zombie Wars is the first internment camp zombie movie ever made.

Zombie Wars starts 50 years after the zombie apocalypse has occurred, because, really, who wants to see zombies take over the world and force humans into the underground? That would be a total snoozer! Instead, shoot it waaaay after so you can film in the canyon and make it look like a suburban Mad Max!

In Zombie Wars' future, mankind travel in packs, train to be rebel soldiers and just try to survive the onslaught of zombies by living in tents, easily the best defense against zombie attacks. Zombies, however, are running out of humans to nibble on, so they are capturing them and forcing them to  mate so they can have more food.

On the surface, the plot of Zombie Wars isn't terrible, more atypical of a sci-fi film than a zombie film, but like any cinematic venture it's the execution of the idea counts, and writer/director/producer/editor David A. Prior has neither the money nor the talent required to pull off his own story. Actually, the fact that Zombie Wars isn't the typical zombie movie plot is about the only positive thing to say about it.

First of all, the story. There's no huge plot other than one of the soldiers (Adam Stuart) and a human woman raised in a zombie camp (Alissa Koenig) are captured and held in a zombie farm, and the soldier's brother (Jim Marlow) tries to get him out. Zombie Wars isn't actually about a zombie war, but more a zombie version of, say, Rescue Dawn, only Rescue Dawn is actually kind of good. Let's say Bat 21 instead. Still too good. How about Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil. Still too good. The point is it's a prisoner-of-war movie, but with zombies.

The acting is delightfully terrible at times, such as when Stuart tries to teach Koenig how to speak, and the over-acting of Jonathan Badeen, who plays the conniving Sliver. Not so delightful is the zombie make-up, which looks like every last "ghoul make-up" package was bought from a pharmacy during a post-Halloween sale.

As for the gore, there certainly are enough headshots, so if that's your favorite, Zombie Wars delivers, as seen in the video below.

In the end, there's no resolution to the whole zombies-have-taken-over thing. War rages on, and the human rebels will continue to fight the zombies in the ongoing struggle. One could say that Zombie Wars isn't about a war but a battle. The battle between a decent idea and horrible acting and effects further hampered by a terrible script. Let the zombies win this one.