Notorious low budget gore meister/director Todd Sheets' movies are generally known for a few things - wall to wall extreme gore, incomprehensible/nonexistant plots and some of the worst acting ever all shot on location in his native Kansas City. Zombie Bloodbath and its subsequent sequels are probably his most well known movies and all above accusations ring true after watching the first in the series.

Not even five minutes, or the opening credits for that matter, have passed before we're treated to vomiting, gut-munching, zombies and a pretty cool body melting. Turns out, a leak has sprung out in a nuclear power plant built on top of an Indian burial ground (what else?), and now hundreds of zombies are snacking on the citizens of Kansas City. What follows for the next 80 or so minutes are rival all-girl street gangs, mullets, lots of slow motion close-ups on bloodletting, graphic gore, genre in-jokes and some laughably putrid acting while a too oftenly loud and too frequent score (with a little heavy metal thrown in) provides the back drop.

While there's a few clever self-deprecating lines ("This sounds like a trashy zombie flick to me, not reality"), most of the dialogue is groanable at best and the constant use of genre referencing and in-jokes gets a little tiring after a while - do we really need another horror movie where characters sport names like Agent Argento and Mr. Raimi?

There's a couple of pretty gusty scenes, such as the bit when a mother kills her kids and herself to avoid being eaten alive, but for the most part this is a so-so affair that'll most likely still appeal to gorehounds, might please an unfussy zombie fanatic, but little else. As it turns out, Zombie Bloodbath is just another cheaply made, gore-for-the-sake-of-gore, flick that has too little stand out quality to distinguish it from an already over populated pack.

Followed by two sequels. (Derek Carlson, 4/26/04)

Directed By: Todd Sheets.
Written By: Todd Sheets, Roger Williams.

Starring: Auggi Alvarez, Chris Harris, Cathy Metz, Frank Dunlay.