2004, United States. Starring Melissa Bush, Chris Hartsell, Chuck Hartsell, Kyle Holman, Barry Austin, Mia Frost, Chris Garrison, Kenn McCracken, Eric McGinty, Michael Shelton, John Walker. Directed by Chuck Hartsell, Chance Shirley. Written by Chance Shirley. Buy it now from Amazon.com.

I'm getting pretty tired of "wink wink" horror films that cloak themselves in what they assume to be the criticism-proof armor of "it's supposed to be bad!" I'm equally tired of the would-be critics who swallow that defense time and time again, and I assume most of them are relatively young and thus haven't spent the last three decades watching these types of films -- otherwise they would realize that, 1) a movie can be self-referential and satirical and still be a good genre entry (witness Shaun of the Dead and Return of the Living Dead), 2) movies that are intentionally campy or spoofy are not anything new, and 3) there should be a moratorium on people who review such movies and employ phrases like, "People who don't like it just don't get it," or "what people don't get is that it's supposed to be bad!" or any other variation of those tired old excuses for bad movies.

The no-budget zombie comedy Hide and Creep has been the frequent benefactor of these types of comments and reviews, the likes of which are usually reserved for the collective works of Troma. I almost always tote a grudge against a film that relies on the "it's bad on purpose" excuse for shoddy filmmaking, so it's lucky for Hide and Creep (yeah, I'm sure they were worried about what I thought) that I knew absolutely nothing about the movie other than it was about zombies and the Southern dude on the cover looked like one of my relatives. I ended up watching Hide and Creep simply because I decided one day to search for and add every micro-budget zombie film I could find to my Netflix queue, and this one happened to pop up. I didn't read any of the comments and reviews until after I'd watched the movie, and that turned out to work pretty well in the movie's favor.

Because Hide and Creep isn't a great film. It's not an accomplished entry into the zombie canon. And it does play the "wink wink" card, but the difference is that it does so in a way that seems so good-natured, so innocent, and so amicable, rather than condescending or smarmy, that although the film stumbles, I found its friendly attitude enough to make it an all right viewing experienced. It also helps that it's one of the few low-budget horror-comedies where some of the jokes are actually funny and don't have to do with poop and farts.

The set-up is nothing original: a small town in Alabama suddenly finds itself infested with the living dead, who eat the living and can only be killed by a shot to the head, and a ragtag band of the living must fight for survival. As I've mentioned both in the old review of the Korean action film Shiri and the more recent review of the micro horror film Death Factory, there's nothing wrong with dealing in cliche as long as you either deal the hand well or make up for it in some other way. Hide and Creep is a good example of this, because while the scenario is well-worn and tired, the movie doesn't rely on the scenario. Instead, it relies on a cast of characters who are at times funny and engaging and manage to work in some gags that got a chuckle out of me.

Hide and Creep is built around three different groups. The least interesting and least funny is that of the small-town reverend who gets bitten by a zombie, and uses his final minute son earth to berate the people who are only coming to church now that there's something sinister happening. The second group is a trio of gun enthusiasts (the leader of which is named Keith). The final group is a random assembly consisting of cynical video store clerk Chuck, harried police secretary Barbara, her ex-boyfriend Chris, and a naked guy named Michael who apparently had his pants stolen by aliens. I will warn you now, though the film does feature a couple gratuitous nude shots of women, carrying the bulk of the nudity rests on the beefy shoulders of Michael -- and he isn't shy.

Plenty about the film doesn't work. It's poorly paced, for one, with some slow spots. The zombies are a minimal presence, and there's only a couple gore effects, so if that's your bag, then you are going to be disappointed. The zombie make-up is awful and looks like very little effort was put into it. The story doesn't seem to have a whole lot of focus, and the ending is less of an ending than it is the point at which they simply had to wrap things up for the sake of running time and money. Some of the jokes are tired, such as the video store clerk talking on the phone about zombie movies -- we get it, already. You've seen zombie movies, and you know what letterboxing is. I didn't need to see these jokes again.

On the other hand, certain things work to the movie's advantage. The acting is bad, but it's bad in such a way that it actually becomes pretty entertaining. It's not that flat, listless sort of bad acting one expects from such films. It's more -- I don't know. Not so much bad as it is confused, like everyone involved didn't quite know what was going on with the whole making of the movie. For some characters -- burn-out Chuck and poor, confused, naked Michael, it makes the performances pretty good in a very off-kilter way. And Kyle Holman, who plays gun enthusiast Keith, turns in what is actually a pretty endearing performance, if for no other reason that I know so many guys who look, act, and speak exactly like him. He also has one of the two funniest scenes in the movie. After arming his teenage daughter and little girl, he goes out for some zombie stomping. The girls are of course attacked and dispatch the zombies. When Keith returns, his youngest daughter runs up to him and says, "Daddy! I've been killing zombies all day!" to which he replies, in that fawning tone parents have, "You sure have, haven't you!" I don't know. It was funny to me, as was the throwaway line from one of Keith's friends upon their initial discovery of the zombies out in the woods: "Zombies! I knew it, just like they said on Coast to Coast A.M.!" Which is probably only funny if you are a trucker or someone else who drives during the wee small hours of the morning.

There are some other gags that worked OK for me to. When he visits a friend at the local strip club only to find it full of zombies, Keith raises his gun to dispatch them, but keeps getting distracted from the task at hand as he watching a couple of topless stripper zombies writhe about with one another. The "you have an RC problem - No, we had a Pepsi problem earlier" bit was good for a larf, as is Chuck's accidental debut on the news as a zombie expert when all he wanted to do was to tell them to quit pre-empting the Alabama-Auburn football game for emergency bulletins. All comedies are hit or miss, and that goes doubly so for micro-budget horror comedies, which tend to rely too heavily on the Troma style of throwing out the most mundane, predictable, and humorless jokes and hoping that the audience is too stupid or too new to the scene to realize how lame it all is. So it's a pleasant surprise when a movie the likes of Hide and Creep manages to squeeze in a lot of lines that got an honest laugh out of me. And most of those jokes are topical or cultural, rather than the usual toilet humor on which so many micro-budget films rely. Even the visual gag revolving around Michael's spending half the movie wandering around naked is pretty funny, especially since actor Michael Shelton delivers his line with such confused earnestness. You will believe he is a guy who honestly has no idea where his pants are.

I think what warms me most to the characters in this film is that they are Southern, sort of goofy, but not in any mean-spirited sort of way. After decades of films that revel in trashing Southerners, I'm happy when a film like Hide and Creep plays things a little friendlier. There are plenty of stupid characters, but they're not stupid because they're Southern; they're just stupid because they are characters in a horror film. And they are Southerners not because the filmmakers thought it would be funny to make them Southern. They are Southern because the film was made in the South, by people from the South, who probably mostly knew other people from the South and got them to be in the movie.

The direction is competent but unspectacular, working as most micro-budget films do around actual locations with limitations on what you can do with camera angles and lighting. It was co-directed by Chuck Hartsell (who also appears as Chuck the video store clerk in the movie) and Chance Shirley. Although I've savaged a number of micro-budget horror films in the past, I am impressed by the level of technical prowess possessed by many of the directors. There plenty of micro-budget horror films during the 80s and 90s, and almost all of them were wretchedly directed and recorded. Not all of this is attributable to the archaic nature of the equipment when compared to what the modern-day would-be director has at their disposal, though equipment plays a part. The big difference seems to be that we've moved from the realm of teenagers with no idea what they are doing to slightly older directors who are making earnest efforts to learn their craft. The dedication shows -- it's just too bad that similar dedication doesn't seem to get applied to acting and writing.

Speaking of which, Hide and Creep was written by the directors, and their skill at penning a script seems about on par with their direction in that it's just about getting good. They do, as I said, deliver a lot of solid bits. The task now is to simply weave them all together into a more consistent whole. Still, when you've suffered through multiple Brad Sykes films (yes, I kick him every chance I get -- but just so he doesn't feel bad, I still watch all of his movies) where neither the writing, acting, or directing ever seems to get better no matter how many movies he makes, it's nice to see a couple of guys who look like they are at a good starting point and will improve with each subsequent effort.

So while I may have said that plenty about the film doesn't quite work, and even that as a movie, it doesn't quite work, that doesn't mean it didn't work for me. I had a blast watching this movie, and the bad is definitely outweighed considerably by the good. Hide and Creep joins the ranks of films like The Stink of Flesh and Enter...Zombie King in that it makes me think that there might be hope yet for micro-budget horror film makers. Hide and Creep doesn't do everything right, but it shouldn't do everything right. What it should do, and what it does, is showcase some writing and talent that is just this close to getting it right. It's a movie with a lot of good and funny ideas and the ability to pull most of them off. Its missteps are forgivable, and though this is obviously a movie made by people who were having fun making a movie, it doesn't have to rely on, "they sure had fun making this movie" to be its only redeeming feature. It shows promise. And it made me laugh. Not at how bad the movie was, but at how funny some of the gags were.

Hide and Creep is the sort of movie I really wish was better than it is, because there are plenty of individual pieces worth watching. They just fail to come together into a cohesive film of the same quality. The subplot with the reverend could be trimmed entirely from the movie, and I don't think anyone would miss it. It contributes very little and seems ultimately to little more than padding. The characters in that story just aren't interesting or funny, and there the bad acting is just bad acting. It's the Tom Bombadil chapter of Hide and Creep. And yes, I know some people swear up and down that the Tom Bombadil chapter is their favorite part of The Lord of the Rings. Whenever someone says this, they are almost always just trying to be smart-ass and contrary. So look them square in the eye and ask them if Tom Bombadil is really their favorite part of The Lord of the Rings, then ask them to explain why. Then just haul off and let 'em have it with a good one to the jaw, because Tom Bombadil sucks.

Still, my feelings regarding Tom Bombadil aside, and the missteps of this film taken in consideration, I would heartily thrust thumb into the air and say, "Hell yeah!" Hide and Creep may not be a perfect endeavor, but it's solid never the less, and a worthy way to waste a bit of time.

Seriously, though. Fuck Tom Bombadil.

Labels: Horror: Microbudget, Horror: Zombies, Year: 2004