horror theater video bloodeaters toxic zombies haunted forest movie review

Who hasn't seen this memorable film in the drive-ins in the early 80's under one of it's many aliases. Seeing this film brings back the days of old when drive-ins played triple features filled with films you've seen before, just under a different title. This film stands out as being one of the better of the bunch even though it was the only film made by director McCann (wonder why?).

Hippies in a remote wooded area (were they still called hippies in the 80's) have a bumper crop of pot they are ready to harvest, but the government is on to them and sends out two agents to stop them. But the agents are killed by the aggressive farmers. So, the government decides to use an untested sprayed delivered by a local crop duster to kill the plants. Most of the hippies are covered in the dust, as is the crop duster himself, and soon turn into cannibalistic killers. First they track and kill the growers who weren't dusted, and soon are killing everyone from campers, broken down drivers, and attempt to kill two local rangers of the park.

One of the first independent films to receive a wide drive-in release, director McCann stretched his obvious limited budget to the max. Filled with actors in their one and only film appearance, the acting isn't so bad. Many of the crew members though actually went on to have prosperous careers in the industry, but definitely not the special effects man. The special effects, not so special, neither is the zombie make-up.

But aside from that, the film is strangely interesting, especially the drunken crop duster after he gets dusted, with the way he dispatches his shrew wife. I think Dennis Quaid must of studied this performance before he shot "Independence Day". Goes to show you the original ideas come from low budget films, but copied, made famous, and credit given to the inflated studio films.

This release came on the crest of the Italian zombie gore fests that started to drift to America in the 80's, and there were few completely American zombie films made after this. Theaters started to be filled with the copy slasher films, you know the ones with part ??? in the title. Toxic Zombies is no Lucio Fulci's "Zombie", but director McCann can hold his head up and say "I made a decent film with no money".

This film is sold by us at HORROR THEATER VIDEO, and we have one of the only uncut prints.

My Rating:

REVIEWED BY tony bernardini