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 loody Bill" is a zombie film with probably
one-millionth the budget of the recent "Dawn
of the Dead" remake's catering budget -- if that. Directed by
long-time cinematographer Byron Werner and written by John and Matt Yuan,
the film follows a group of college students on their way to a debate, when
they stumble across Earl (Gregory Bastien), a gun-toting criminal in search
of a missing compatriot named Darrel. Following Darrel's trail, the group
ends up in the abandoned Western town of Sunset Valley, which seems to be
stuck in a permanent state of sunset. Luckily for Earl, he locates Darrel
rather easily. Unfortunately for Earl, Darrel has been bitten by zombies and
he quickly turns on Earl. Don't you just hate it when that happens?
The town, it seems, is cursed by
a zombie named Bloody Bill (Jeremy Bouvet), a saber-toting Union Army reject
(and, in a funny bit of trivia, a big time racist) who joined the
Confederacy during the Civil War, became infamous, and then got himself
strung up by the good townspeople of Sunset Valley. Now back from beyond the
grave, ol Bill's got the rest of the townspeople as his zombie slave.
(Apparently you only need to "curse" people in order to turn them
into zombies. Go figure. And here I thought black magic was more complicated
than that.). Unable to escape the town, and with zombies closing in on them,
it's up to the college kids, their "coach", and an actress in her
'30s posing as a college student, to team up with violent criminal Earl to
battle the undead horde or end up as dinner. Yum.
What's a debate team and an inner-city thug to do?
Fortunately for our heroes, one of the students happens to know every
single detail of Bloody Bill's legend, including how to kill him. Well,
isn't that convenient? Almost as convenient as the zombies, who
despite already been dead and thus undead, can still get shot and
fall down, apparently "dying" again. Or some such. In truth,
"Bloody Bill" has so little use for internal movie logic that
it's a futile battle to make them care about their own made-up rules. I
suppose the thing to do is to just "go with it" -- or don't.
Being that it's a low-budget film, "Bloody
Bill" suffers from the same problems as most films in its category,
which is mainly a general lack of resources. The actors aren't always
convincing, the script is mostly stilted, and Werner can barely get a
handle on maintaining continuity. The film's timeline is all over the
place, and it gets much worst when the characters split up, since they
seem to be blissfully unaware of the other group's encounters with various
zombies despite the fact that this is a very small "town". Also,
Werner keeps showing the zombies running about town like speed freaks (ala
"28 Days
Later" and the "Dawn of the Dead" remake), but for
whatever reason these zombies never seem to get anywhere with any
regularity. Despite, once again, this being a very small town.
The lead in "Bloody Bill" is one Gwen,
played by a very determined Chelsea Jean. The character seesaws back and
forth between serviceable and extremely abnormal, meaning that Gwen has
exactly one reaction to every situation -- complete and total calm. A guy
with a gun just hijacked our van! Gwen barely bats an eye. Zombies are
trying to eat our brains! Gwen grabs a bat and gets ready for battle. Gwen
stumbles across the 200-year old corpse of a woman who looks remarkably
like her. She steals the woman's clothes. You get the idea. While it's
nice to see a heroine keep her composure in a zombie movie, making her
Supergirl, Ellen Ripley, and those female "ER" doctors all roll
into one is more than a little ridiculous. When you can out-calm the
harden criminal, you are way beyond cucumber cool.
Being that "Bloody Bill" is a zombie film,
it's no use to nitpick its many inconsistencies. Sometimes you can shoot
the zombies and they'll fall down. Sometimes they won't. And as mentioned,
the zombies always seem to be darting and racing to and fro, but never
seem to get anywhere with any decent speed. At one point a character tries
to kill Bloody Bill with a grenade, and despite the fact that the grenade
went off on the first floor, all we see is a small plume of black smoke
coming out of exactly one window on the second floor. It must be a
trick grenade or something. Either that, or Werner and company was warned
if they dented their little faux western town they wouldn't get their
security deposit back.
As a zombie film, "Bloody Bill" runs down
the middle of the road for creativity. At just 75 minutes of actual movie,
it's much too short, and characters drop dead (or, in this case, get
zombified) at an impressive rate. There's a lot of humor, as when Earl
discovers Bloody Bill's racist side; and some unintentional humor, as in
the case of Gwen's magical gun -- one second it's in her hand, the next
it's missing. Look, it's back! You get the idea. The acting ranges from
good to decent and back again. Gregory Bastien, as anti-hero Earl, has his
moments, but for the most part he's stuck with some silly dialogue. The
same for the rest of the cast, especially Chelsea Jean as the insanely
unflappable Gwen. The way Gwen calmly and smoothly adjusts to every
horrific situation, you wonder if she runs a survival school on the side
or something.
Perhaps the one thing that sets "Bloody
Bill" apart from its brethren is its visuals. Ex-cinematographer
Byron Werner certainly knows his way around a film camera, and
"Bloody Bill" benefits tremendously from his years of shooting
other people's movies. The film opens with some strong visuals, and Werner
continues to make the movie look a lot more expensive than its budget. The
excellent "permanent sunset" look of the film was achieved in
post, obviously, and Werner even indulges in some "Saving
Private Ryan"-esque manipulation of the camera's shutter speed.
Although it's interesting to note that this visceral filming technique
comes and goes for whatever reason.
For what it is, "Bloody Bill" is certainly
better than it should have been. The limited budget, the questionable
cast, the presence of an unreasonably stout heroine, all adds up to a film
that falls on the plus side of average. But as a low-budget film, and a
zombie movie at that, it's pretty damn good. And although the film only
runs 75 minutes, one does get the feeling that a short running time was
the way to go, especially since the movie seems to lose a lot of steam at
the hour mark. Of course, killing off your most entertaining character at
this point didn't help matters any.
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