You have to give David Heavener credit. This is a guy who since making 1988's Outlaw Force has produced, written and directed almost every movie he's acted in. I myself can't comment on the quality of these films since my experience with Dawn of The Living Dead is my first time seeing his work but anyone who can spend almost two decades getting films made has to either be really lucky or likeable enough to garner investors to his projects.

Originally titled Curse Of The Maya (and sometimes with Evil Grave plunked in front of that even), Heavener's latest project to hit the video stores shelves arrives almost three years after it wrapped production. Perhaps it's the entire 80's vibe the film gives off in both production values and aesthetics that made this a harder sell to distributors who are more concerned with CG monsters (which isn't to say this doesn't contain a few awful CG sequences, but still...) or maybe it was just that a movie that's top billed actors are Heavener, Todd Bridges, and Joe Estevez just won't fly like it might've during the video boom of the late 80's and early 90's.

Renee (Amanda Baumann) and husband Jeffrey (Estevez) arrive at their new house in the country looking to fix it up and get away from the hectic city life. It's also the best way for Renee to deal with her drug addiction past by being as far from such things as humanly possible. Not too long after they arrive things quickly give way to a confused muddle of sequences as a Giallo influenced scene of a girl being drowned in a bathtub is overlapped with ones of a family being gunned down by an unseen killer. It's not good when you're only ten minutes into the movie and you're already going "huh?" to yourself but, thankfully, we soon learn that these are visions Renee has started to see about the Vasquez family who were the previous owners a few years prior and were murdered in cold blood.

So while Renee continues freaking out and seeing things (a hand comes out of a pond to grab her ankle, etc.), Heavener tries to inject some humour by introducing us to Danny (Steven Bracy) and his slutty girlfriend who are, for reasons unexplained, transporting two Mexican prisoners through the same area. But don't worry about them too much as it turns out they're just fodder to be eaten by the Vasquez's who've come back from the grave as zombies.

Eventually construction worker Michael (Heavener) and his slow-minded co-worker Rueben (Bridges, pretty much unrecognizable with a big pot belly and bad fake teeth) show-up around the house to look after some nearby windmills and Renee takes to Michael and invites him over for dinner. After this Heavener has them fall for each other, gives us the films scariest moment as a drunk Estevez unbuckles his pants, and has some mild zombie mayhem as Renee figures out they need help catching their killer leading to a "reveal" moment that's as obvious as they tend to come. And let's not forget that there's also a scene where Michael gets to beat the living hell out of a zombie baby (that looks more fake than the mutant baby in 1987's Creepozoids).

If you can believe it Estevez and Bridges continue to be pretty busy in the world of low-budget cinema (Joe was in thirteen movies in 2007 alone) while Baumann has only been in one movie since this. Heavener has apparently made two other scare flicks since this with Costa Chica: Confession Of An Exorcist (with Roddy Piper!) and Psycho Weene though there's next to no details available about either.

Dawn Of The Living Dead (I hate that frigging title!) isn't a very good movie and Heavener's slipshod script and its attempts to toss in Mayan history such as talk of a cosmic cornfield and five joining suns doesn't help matters but it isn't a complete wash simply because it feels so much like the low-budget 80's movies I grew up with. Perhaps that's what made it more tolerable than expected but there's no way in Hell I can recommend this to anyone as it's quite obvious that Heavener should have stuck to the mindless action movies he's known for and not even attempted a horror movie as the results are inept at best. (Chris Hartley, 1/24/08)

Directed By: David Heavener.
Written By: David Heavener.

Starring: David Heavener, Todd Bridges, Joe Estevez, Amanda Baumann.

Picture Ratio: Full Frame.

Picture Quality: In the special features Heavener mentions that this was shot on film but judging from the way it looks perhaps it was left-over stock as this looks absolutely junky on DVD as it's constantly grainy and fuzzy. Everything just looks washed-out and ugly.

Extras: There's very little here to go with the feature as we get a dull trailer and a five minute long "behind-the-scenes" segment where Heavener talks briefly about the movie before we get to see off camera footage while Heavener's "Mombie Zombie" plays over top.

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