A delightful blend of disgust and holiday cheerful gore, with the dead getting the gift of recreation, what a guy that Santa Claus is to help out the less fortune and assisting in reuniting families. A Cadaver Christmas is a sloppy, sticky and icky tale from three writers, Joe Zerull who directs and assisted by screenwriters Daniel Rairdin-Hale and Hanlon Smith-Dorsey, who earn the top acting roles in the film. The story is an unbelievable ride of jolly blood covered candy canes; splatter Christmas lights, but sadly no bowels of Holly hanging from the wall, the movie intended for absurd horror portions.
A man walks into a bar on Christmas Eve, covered in blood, plops on a bar stool, in a tired but almost animated form, with a story that likely no one will believe, no it is the opening to a punchline joke, it is the start of the movie. This quickly shows that Zerull is quite the horror fan, as the movie moves at break necking pace sometimes it becomes problematic, especially with the introduction of the movie, yet Daniel (The Janitor), seems as if on a cartoon speed to the roadrunner dizzy. While at the bar the janitor drinks to calm himself, with bartender Tom (Hanlon) and his favorite loyal drunks Eddie (Ben Hopkins) secretly calling the police who arrive just before a horde of unwelcome zombie patrons attack, and the team of new associates slay them all in disgusting fashion. Herein the janitor tells his story, of fighting the dead at the local university and group support the cause the check the institution and seeing just how believability the storyline actually happened. Soon the group grows with Sam Sherriff (Yosh Hayashi), wanting the hero status, The Perp (the character name in the credits) portrayed by Andrew Ryan Harvey. The perp plays the perverted and twisted fellow more interested in the student campus security Kristen (Jessica Denny) obsessed with rules and officiating in exactness of properness, sadly the comedy directed to her fall flat.
While one may state it is not the worst zombie related Christmas horror story, the up and down roller coaster, has many flaws, and yet the band puns and jokes still make it workable bad flick to an enjoyable one, for many different drinking games circulated with the film. This especially comes in handy when looking at the janitorial tools to battle the undead, in the weirdest manners, and tries the minimalistic sets to advance the action, but stumbles more the drunken customer. The performance for the cast are typically found in the lower end of the amateur horror films, with Zerull directing his only feature, however Daniel steals the screen, naturally with a comedic force. Horror comedies subgenre are a difficult breed to handle, more often the miss the mark, and sadly more often it occurs herein, with most directed to the teenage market, eluding the mid-twenty and older horror fans, to more fascinated films of reckless abandonment in the same vein such as Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984). The movie occasion fulfills the typical checklist, the solid special effects, and topless female nudity, and then an interesting caveat of necrophilia. Ludicrously character references and actions make one think about braindead blood splattering scenes of gore amok, which help alleviate the issues in the film.
Those issues, first the budgeted amount of under $10,000 and sadly with lack of movie, the strive for a feature film, the funds better served as a short, and then hound the crowdfunding avenues, but a rushed production, never truly as success written on it. The horror Christmas field becoming more popular, but the actions of using zombies still falls through the seams, while striving for a grindhouse concept of the 70s, but results in an 80s low-budget creation.
A ridiculously unorthodox and eventful tale with the zombies of jolly for the new lease on life, must warmly thank Zerull by decorating the walls in blood and guts, smearing the insanity of the inane actions of everyone involved for those wanting to escape the mind numbing tiresome Christmas music heard since Halloween. Not a film for everyone, or even most individuals, but for the horror fans wanting to pass the Christmas season watching only horror theme holiday movies then try on these zombie guts.
This review was published on Rogue Cinema’s now defunct website in December 2015 with a view count of 1,689.
TAGLINES:
Never Leave a Mess Unclean!
God Bless Everyone!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1692235/
https://www.facebook.com/CadaverChristmas
IMDb Rating: 4.8/10
Baron’s Rating: 4.5/10