I would like to mix up my reviews a little bit here on my new site. I will do some reviews of movies still running in theaters and some movies directly on one of the many streaming services. At this point, they all have original content that they release, full-length features that are made directly for that particular streaming service, so I shouldn’t have any issues finding plenty to watch and talk about. Also, if you don’t want the zombies to come for you and spoil the movie, then I would stop here and come back to read it later. This is your spooky spoiler warning.
To start this off, let’s keep the Halloween theme going this month as I talk about Zombie Town from Hulu. Let me begin by stating that I know this is basically a Goosebumps movie and I tried to keep that in mind while watching it, but at the same time, it was hard to get past the terrible acting beyond Chase and Aykroyd (and even they weren’t on the top of their games).
Zombie Town is a movie based on the R. L. Stine book of the same name. Even though Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase both get some top billing action here, neither one of them gets a majority of the screen time nor do they really share the screen at the same time until the end… even then, they still aren’t technically in the same room as Chase’s character (Mezmarian) is basically a reflection. Aykroyd is on screen quite a bit more, but he is still only topped billed based on his name alone.
The two main characters, Mike (played by Marlon Kazadi) and Amy (played by Madi Monroe) accidentally unleash a plague of zombies on their town when Mike plays a new movie for Amy to try to impress her. He works at the local theater and is able to play it on the big screen. The zombie movie is the first one made by local town hero Len Carver (Aykroyd) in a long time. From here, this is where the movie starts to take a turn. As if the acting wasn’t bad enough already, now we are forced to watch a town full of zombies do everything from chase people to do laundry. There was no rhyme or reason behind why they did the things they did. Why were some of them trying to convert them while others were doing chores? Yes, you read that right… some of the zombies were doing household chores.
Mike and Amy are able to very easily avoid various scatter of zombie hoards while Mike also has to pee several times for no apparent reason. Then at some point, we learn that all of Carver’s old movies are actually real-life events that were recorded and put out as his movies… more or less. I might have zoned out a little bit at this point. Lots more bad acting continues to happen while they hatch a plan with Len Carver to destroy all his movies to save all the towns that Len has ever destroyed with his films.
I have to admit, I was excited to watch this movie with both Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase appearing as two of the top cast. However, Chase was barely in the movie at all, Aykroyd definitely had a bigger role, but was overshadowed the whole way through by the bad story and sub-par acting.
For what it’s worth, the kids did enjoy this, but then again, maybe that’s the target audience. But if that’s the case, then why spotlight two of the older famous actors that the kids might not know anyway. Overall, this was one of the worst movies I’ve seen in awhile. I feel bad for Akyroyd and Chase that they have their name tied to this and I hope that the other actors hone their skills and can go on to be stars in other future movies.
This one gets a big 3 out of a 10!
