DAY 322--HOOD OF THE LIVING DEAD

This 2004 micro-budget production might've been worth checking out if it made a genuine attempt to bring the horrors of the living dead into an inner-city environment; using zombies as a metaphor for, say, the drug epidemic or the hopelessness many of its residents feel would've been a rich vein to tap, even with the atrocious acting and horrendous shot-on-video quality.

But directors Jose and Eduardo Quiroz decided instead to make RE-ANIMATOR IN THA HOOD, even throwing in the well-known Day-Glo green serum, and gladly trot out every ghetto stereotype imaginable. (That the filmmakers are minorities made me wonder why they didn't at least try to balance them out with three-dimensional characters.) The end result, which boasts "zombies" consisting of extras with mouthfuls of red dye, is too ridiculous to be taken seriously, much less be scary.