• Straight to Video
• Director: Jason Stephenson
• Written by: Jason Stephenson, Robbie Ribspreader
• Running Time: 90 minutes
• Language: English
• MPAA Rating: UNRATED
• Cast: Nicole Blessing, Douglas Sidney, H.T. Altman, Don Prentiss, Sonja Beck, Joe Knetter, Matthew Feeney, Rachel Grubb, Angela Hattenbach, Michael Dennis Johnson, Mary Karcz, Nathan Lassen, Timothy Meinke, Dan Mhyer, Frederick J. Ostrander, Justen Overlander, Luis Rosa

Forgetting that it’s a zombie movie and forgetting that the lead actress looks a little bit like porn star Kylie Ireland, I still couldn’t get all that excited about Jason Stephenson‘s “Doomed To Consume”, a film that looks and smells like sooo many other zombie films I’ve seen since I started watching movies so many eons past. A few years ago I might have been inclined to praise the hell out of it, considering that its competently made and the acting isn’t so bad, but with time comes a sudden realization that the things that excited me then aren‘t the things that excite me now -- and the notion of a foul-mouthed, man-hating strumpet roaming up and down deserted back-country roads with a pair of likeable, loony Southern militia-types, searching for… well… something, that doesn‘t necessarily rev my engine, no matter how many zombie brain-fragments are sent careening in the general direction of the camera.

When the film begins, a zombie apocalypse has left the planet a shadow of its former self, with a few random survivors roaming about the various towns looking for food and gasoline. The survivors here include Jim Williamson (“Mysterious Ways” star Douglas Sidney), the level-headed, thoughtful one, and a pair of likeable but none-too-bright goofballs, Shane Stokes (“Here on Earth” star H.T. Altman) and Tyler Stokes (“Survival” star Don Prentiss), both of whom are perpetually dressed in camo-fatigues and are, in keeping, forever armed to the teeth. They spend most of their time play-wrasslin and engaging in zombie hit-n-run apple chucking contests. Yee haw!

Across the way, or, in this film’s case, across the cornfield, a young woman, Traci Loomis (“Psycho Holocaust” star Nicole Blessing), has holed herself up in a farmhouse, eeking out a meagre existence with the help of some cat-like instincts and a trusty shotgun. With the arrival of bloodied neighbour, Deana Jenkins (Sonja Beck), who comes scampering across Traci’s backyard in heaps of zombie trouble, Traci is forced to take her in. “Are you bitten?” Traci asks. “No, but I’m hurt,” is Deana’s obvious reply. Of course she’s bitten. You know it and I know it and at some point Deana is going to morph from the cute country girl next door into a full-on rampaging zombie. So while we wait astutely for that bit of funny business to play out, up the road, the three stooges suddenly find themselves out of gas and are quickly scuttling across the cornrows in the general direction of Traci’s rickety homestead. You knew that was coming and I knew that was coming, so while they make their lacklustre introductions, it’s probably a good time to grab a coffee, go to the bathroom, maybe even hop on the net and weigh in on the hotly debated “Smith Sisters” urban legend. I’m a believer… Uh… Anyways, you’ve seen this before so I needn’t go into too much detail.

Traci abhors men, for reasons elaborated upon later in the film, and spends much of the time visually and verbally castrating her newly arrived male guests. Fun times! After dispatching of Deana, the three make a break for the car. What follows is a bent variant on every zombie film ever made as the foursome drive up and down endless stretches of anomalous back roads, always with the same cornfield milieu, endeavouring to locate the Tyler twins’ Uncle’s place… or something. Any attempts to bond with the characters are immediately broken thanks to Traci’s incessant man-hating invective tirades. When we finally do reach Uncle Tyler’s, things suddenly perk up, for about a half-second, and then we’re back to the muck and mire. In a rare pleasant moment, a real breakthrough occurs with the characters following a decapitation in a barn, as Traci, at last, bares her soul to a genuinely sympathetic Jim. Even the acting is up to snuff in this scene. In keeping with the blandness of the piece, Jason Stephenson and his writing partner, Robbie Ribspreader, elect to contaminate my only good memory of the film by having Traci revert back to her man-hater self, leaving Jim in a hallway to fend off a horde of zombies, including a zombie baby, which emerges from its mommy‘s tummy with all the focus of a Republican at a lobbyist convention. He be hungry! In a parting shot, Traci emerges from the room with a new focus. Donning a black leather get-up and a giant handgun, Traci, the man-hater, has transformed herself into a sort-of Blade-like zombie-hater… er… hunter, or something. Fuck her!

If Stephenson was attempting to use this film as a launch pad for a zombie-hunter film series, then he’s delusional. Rarely has a character irked me the way Traci did. Selfish, self-involved and brimming over with that kind of Gloria Steinem-esque hatred for the opposite sex, it would be nearly impossible to root for such an psychologically damaged mess. “Strange Things Happen at Sundown” featured a similar kind of female-slayer character, only she was somewhat likeable and seemed to work with a purpose. Traci, well, not so much. She didn’t particularly care about anyone outside of herself, and even her own point of emotional bleeding offered little growth, or compassion for her survivor-mates, as evidenced by her selfish decision to leave Jim in the hallway to die. Christ, even her failed suicide attempt seemed born out of a desire to free herself of the kind of agony that would come from being eaten alive, not from any stress at having left her mates to die. Again, fuck her! We’re talking zero redeeming qualities.

Regarding the special effects, I thought they were sufficient at best. The zombie baby looked similar to the zombie baby in “Creepozoids”, which isn’t a great thing from an FX standpoint, but considering how few zombie babies there are in zombie movies, I’m gonna give it a pass. “Doomed To Consume” wasn’t my cup of tea, but it might be yours. Jason Stephenson has at least proven to me that he knows how to make a movie and I’m sure in the future, I’ll see his name attached to something great. Sadly, this is not it.

For more information check out his website: http://www.nftsproductions.com/, where you’ll find “Doomed to Consume” and a variety of other titles from NFTS Productions, including “You’re Next 3: Pajama Party Massacre“, “Separation Anxiety“, “Off the Beaten Path” (Stephenson’s first film) and “The Locksmith“.