Reviewed by: Eric R. Lowther
Post by: Root Rot
Curse of the Cannibal Confederates (1982)
Written by: Tony Malanowski and Lon Huber
Directed by: Tony Malanowski
Hey kids, it’s Eric R Lowther aka biguglyhairyscary here on the Witch’s Hat with an early Troma-distributed mess, 1982’s “Curse of the Cannibal Confederates”, or, “Curse of the Confederate Cannibals”, or, “Curse of the Screaming Dead”. I think it was marketed as “Children of a Lesser Cannibal” as well but got into some copyright issues. Anyway, the title alone should tell you where we’re going with this, but since you’re already here we might as well go ahead with it.
Synopsis;
Three young couples head out on a hunting trip in the “deep south” and stumble upon a century-old graveyard surrounding a dilapidated stone church in the middle of the woods. The de facto leader of this little hunting trip, petty criminal Mel, finds a chest containing a tattered rebel flag as well as a journal dating back to the Civil War. After much insipid banter from the womenfolk of the group, Mel makes a big production about leaving the items in the graveyard as a matter of respect to the dead only to slip away with the journal. Later that night as he reads to his Japanese-American somewhat-girlfriend “Blind Kiyomi”, he discovers the Confederate soldiers buried back in the churchyard didn’t just fall in battle but were the victims of orchestrated torture at the hands of a sadistic Union commander and his troops. You don’t have to see a lot of these movies to know what happens when you take items away from a cursed graveyard, and eventually the dead rise to try and take back what’s theirs. They attack the campers that very night, but after the initial shock the menfolk take up their hunting rifles and shotguns and fight back, exploding zombie heads with explosive rounds and even common fireworks. And let me tell you, folks, you haven’t lived till you’ve seen a poorly-done zombie head explode from your average bottle rocket.
Hey kids, fun fact; early on in the movie our adult delinquent Mel shows one of the other guys the bullets he intends on using to hunt deer. The bullets are said to be “explosive rounds”, which was a common plot prop and device for movies of the era as well as being used as a scare tactic of the anti-gun lobby in the 1980’s. When Mel shows his buddy, Wyatt, the round, it is a short metallic cartridge. However, Mel’s weapon of choice happens to be a Mossberg pump-action shotgun. If you’re not familiar with the weapon basics involved, then you were the target audience for this movie.
The undead chase our hapless heroes around the woods for the better part of a full day, battling several of the scouts sent out from the main group, until they come across a couple of cops that are none too pleased about having to be out in the woods chasing after what they believe to be vandals that dig up bodies and hang them from trees to scare the hell out of campers and hikers. We also find out that the governor has made the cemetery a special project of his and intends to clean it up and make it an historical site. This won’t happen if the bodies keep getting “dug up” and used for the thrill and excitement of the local kooks and explains why the cops are bumbling around the woods in their smart uniforms in the middle of the night. The movie plods along with our thinking, tactics-using zombies pushing the group further and further until they’re finally cornered in an old farmhouse. Will the group survive? Will the Cannibal Confederates, or, the Confederate Cannibals, or, the Screaming Dead, or, the Children of a Lesser Cannibal get their revenge on a group of people that had absolutely nothing to do with their torturous deaths? Will Blind Kiyomi ever shut the fuck up with the constant whining? Will Wyatt ever get any tail from his equally whiny Women’s Lib girlfriend? How many bottle rockets does it take to explode a rotting skull? You’ll just have to sit through this one to find those things out.
Hey kids, fun fact; the movie was filmed completely in Maryland. For those of you unfamiliar with geography, this would not typically be considered “the deep south”…
Now we’ll move on to the nuts and bolts of the thing. This is shot in typical 80’s “craptastovision”. The night scenes are far too dark and objects are either lit or they’re not, no middle ground here. There are very few wide shots in the whole movie, with the director opting for way more close-ups and tight shots than his equipment, skill and special effects could support. The acting is a particularly great example of particularly bad acting, especially from the women in the group. The lead cop does try his best, but his efforts are wasted when you have nothing but hollow sounding boards to work off. The effects are the standard 80’s low-budget gore, with a lot of really bad, exaggerated masks mixed in with white/gray makeup for the zombies. A few of them showed the FX crew’s more industrious side by using the “flaky skin” texture so popular with Wal Mart Halloween makeup. The costuming also suffers from the low budget as any project would that requires period costuming, with many of the zombies stumbling around in modern-for-the-time flannel shirts. They try to explain this away in a journal entry that states many of the Confederate soldiers in this group were little more than boys in rags, but still it doesn’t help the overall appearance. There are one or two inspired scenes of gore, but it goes on for almost three minutes where all you see are some zombies chewing on rubber organs.
Incidentally, this is the only scene where the titular cannibals actually eat anyone. That’s it, just one real munching scene. It may not have been so bad if they hadn’t played a laughable sound effect of wet munching for the entire three minutes on a loop. It also may have helped when the camera shows the eviscerated remains on the ground if the victim’s shirt had actually been opened…
So, is it any good? As with so many other B zombie movies from the 80’s, it’s good if you’re a fan of the genre. This one falls smack into the “so bad it’s good” class of movies, and I could see fans of that broad category getting into the cheesy goodness of this one whether they are true zombie fans or not. It also seems these Confederate zombies have a lot in common with their 70’s Italian cousins in that their faces have rotted but their necks and hands have remained virtually untouched throughout being buried directly in the ground for the last century. I’ll also admit that supernatural zombies are a hard sell for me regardless of the budget and era since they can sort of make up their rules as they go along, which this one does with alarming frequency. Some of the zombies can run while others can use tools, and they can all follow the hand-signal commands of their undead commander to use tactics such as ambush and flanking. Still, this is a good one for a rainy day or when you’re having friends over that are bringing the booze. It’s also a Troma-distributed picture, and we all have to support Uncle Lloyd in any way we can. If this sounds like something for you, you can get it from Amazon and your usual online sources for less than $10, with Amazon offering a special produced-on-demand issue that is supposed to be a cleaner, better transfer and endorsed by Troma. You can also get it on at least one multi-pack put out by Troma and it’s available for rent through Netflix, though not for streaming.
Well, it’s time for me to shamble on out of here. Make sure you’re keeping up with the Witch’s Hat family of podcasts like the Blogcast, Horror Discussions and Joanie Loves the Witch’s Hat, and make sure you stop by and leave us some kind words, unkind words or whatever your little heart desires by way of comments over at out forums at Killer Reviews. So with a tip of my imaginary hat to Keely, Kyle, Misfit Boy, Root and all the rest this has been biguglyhairyscary saying, see ya, kids.
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