Thursday, July 24, 2008

DAY 258--SKYLER PHALANGES: ZOMBIE HUNTER

Yet another slice of backyard zombie shenanigans, this time courtesy of Mike Lombardo of Reel Splatter Productions. Mike's a good guy, as well as a reader of this blog, so take this review with as many grains of salt as you feel appropriate, but I thought his 2007 short film SKYLER PHALANGES: ZOMBIE HUNTER was a hoot.

Sure, it's pretty insubstantial even for a short (it works much better as a splatter effects demo reel than a legitimate movie), but SKYLER PHALANGES has a goofy, self-deprecating sense of humor that's hard to dislike; Mike not only pokes fun at the zombie-killer subgenre itself, but the stick-up-the-ass filmmakers behind them as well. And though the last half of the movie consists of coils of fake innards and slap-happy outtakes, the brief montage that begins the short and establishes the "backstory" actually makes for a stark, bleak atmosphere that could easily anchor a straight-faced feature. (That's Mike, by the way, as the zombie Santa.)

Check it out here.

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