4/10
Cheap mediocre cash in
9 August 2011
Warning: Spoilers
This is a very cheesy film that seems to have had a name change to cash on in on the Cowboys and Aliens summer blockbuster release. It was originally called the Dead and the Damned but I think the name change suits this low-budget zombie film

We meet our hero right in the middle of a gunfight that looks as convincing as any Wild West Show. Our hero is bounty hunter Mortimer (David A. Lockhart) and he is desperate for cash ( I have to confess that Mortimer's soft high voice did cause a giggle when I first heard it). The clerk paying him for delivering his latest catch tells him about a large bounty for an Indian (Rick Mora) who has been accused of rape and murder is wanted alive. The authorities know where he is but other bounty hunters who went after him never came back.

Mortimer heads to Jamestown, a prospecting town in the California mountains. There he finds out where the Indian is and then our hero buys a woman called Rhiannon (Camille Montgomery) from a sleazy guy selling women on the street. So far and no sign of zombies but that changes soon.

We next see a women washing herself topless outside and Jebediah is leering at her from behind some bushes. He gets caught when his father calls for help with something he has just dug up. It is a strange spherical rock with slits in its side and a glowing green core. They load it on a wheelbarrow and wheel it to Jamestown. Once the whole town has gathered round to look at the rock Jebediah's father starts whacking it with shovel. Green spores pour out of the slits and covers everyone gathered around. Naturally it is these spores which turn people into mindless flesh-eating zombies.

Meanwhile Mortimer and Rhiannon get the top of the mountain and look down on an amazing sea of cloud stretching out below them. Mortimer ties Rhiannon to a stake in the ground as bait for the Indian, while he hides in a tree and plays with his gun before going to sleep. But the Indian is not the sex mad crazy we'd been led to believe and he sneaks down, steals the bullets from the gun of the sleeping dweeb and cuts Rhiannon free with his axe. After a fist fight which Mortimer only wins by pulling a dinky little girly Derringer from his boot the Indian gets captured.

You can guess that it's not too long before they all have to work together when they discover that woods are full of zombies. One thing the two men don't do very well is keeping the unarmed Rhiannon safe from harm and every time Rhiannon is left on her own she gets attacked by a zombie. Mortimer may express guilt about putting her in danger but that doesn't mean he does anything useful about it. There is one part were they get back to Jamestown and they make themselves safe inside the saloon because the windows have been boarded up. While that is true they seem to neglect that the saloon has saloon doors which don't do much to stop zombies. There's a German bounty hunter prowling around the area too but he does nothing useful and his character just seemed pointless.

The film is not totally terrible but it is full of lazy clichés. It's watchable if you think you can bear another low-budget zombie film.

Rating 5/10
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