Movie Review: Zombie Hunter (2013)

Synopsis: A year after a street drug started a zombie apocalypse that killed his wife and daughter, Hunter travels alone, driven by hate for the "eaters." He is shot and ends up recuperating with a group of sheltered survivors. In addition to being desired by the two females in the group, he soon finds himself tasked with trying to keep the group alive as they attempt to get to an airfield and fly somewhere safe.

Who's in it? The movie stars Martin Copping, Claire Niederpruem, Jade Regier, Danny Trejo and Jason K. Wixom.

Review: My wife, a teacher assistant, picked up something at school and spent the weekend on the couch trying to get some rest. Since that meant our Saturday plans were cancelled, I joined her, and we had a zombie movie marathon that included Zombie Hunter. While I didn't completely hate it, the film did leave a little to be desired.

The premise of the movie wasn't terrible. Zombie movies don't need to be anything overly complicated, and the filmmakers remembered that, keeping a plausible cause for the outbreak and not overthinking it. Also, while the characters were a bit comic book-like, I did think they fit the overall theme of the film. 

The main character, Hunter (Copping) was an interesting one as well. I thought it was a bit funny how he seemed to be narrating his life in his head, but appreciated how the film made him a bit of an anti-hero. He was willing to put his life at risk for others but at the same time was careful not to let himself get too close because he was driven too much by hatred. This in turn made it unclear just how far he'd be willing to go for a group of strangers, especially since one of those strangers shot him.

I did think the movie put a bit too much emphasis on the rivalry between the virginal Alison (Niederpruem) and the sexed-up "Fast Lane" Debbie (Regier), two women who practically threw themselves at Hunter while he was recovering from his injury. For a moment, I even wondered if I had accidently picked out a porn film. While, on the surface, it did result in some funny moments (which is just fine), I did think the movie could have focused a bit more on the zombies had it cut those back a bit.

This is also one of those films that clearly had Danny Trejo on the cast solely for the name recognition. His role in the movie was so small and inconsequential, you could have cut his character, Jesus, from the script and it wouldn't have made any difference at all. It's too bad too. Based on the limited amount of screen time he did get; I think he could have added quite a bit more to the movie and made it considerably better and more memorable.

Final Opinion: It's clearly a low-budget film and did an OK job with its limited resources and unknown cast but with something as simple as recasting Trejo in a more prominent role and having the two females be a little less randy, I do think it could have been at least slightly better.

My Grade: C-