Directors: Asif Akbar, Will Devokees
Writers: Asif Akbar, Phil Herman
Stars: Courtney Akbar, Krystal Pixie Adams, Tyree Cobbins
1 Hour, 17 Minutes
Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/34nfjIF
Synopsis
A girl, Candy, cooks bacon and eggs for her two dogs, Tea and Biscuit. These two dogs eat better breakfasts than I do. She’s recently had a breakup with her boyfriend. She’s moving out, heading back to her parents’ house many hours away. The gas on her stove goes out, and her phone loses signal. She turns on the radio and hears that there’s been an attack on the US.
Thirteen hours earlier, there’s a knock at the door, and a young couple wakes up. It’s some weird old guy with long creepy hair who is with his three strange buddies. His girlfriend can’t see any of them on the security camera. Unsurprisingly, these four guys aren’t what they appear…
Candy and her dogs decide to drive into town to see what’s going on.
Twenty-four Hours earlier, Mallory is babysitting her three brothers and sisters when her friends come over. The three teens pull out a Ouija board and get to work talking to ghosts. That doesn’t work out, and Mallory’s boyfriend asks her to run away with him. The third friend goes to the bathroom, and someone else is in there with her…
Candy hears on the radio that the dead are said to be coming back to life. She’s in the desert, so she doesn’t see anybody.
Twenty-four hours Earlier, a writer, Robert Zirn, is complaining about the rustic cabin that his assistant rented for him. He says it looks like something out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He’s not having any luck on his new book. He hears something up on the roof.
The landlord comes by, and explains that they don’t have any cable, but he doesn’t know what the noises are that the writer has been hearing. The man explains that if the writer hears anything else, don’t try to fix it himself, but to call him right away. Zirn really hates this place, but it’s raining too hard to leave. He notices that there’s a calendar on the wall that says Friday is “feeding” day. He hears the bumping upstairs again and goes to investigate…
Candy continues driving through the desert, listening to the zombie reports on the radio.
Meanwhile, a woman named Morgan eats a rare steak, which she promptly pukes up. She’s sick and in pain. She injects herself with something that puts a smile on her face. She’s a vampire, who runs outside and bites an old man, who turns out to be zombie. What happens when a vampire tries to drink a zombie? What happens when a zombie bites a vampire? We find out.
Her boyfriend comes over, and he brought her a sandwich. Hot ham and cheese on garlic bread. They watch a movie while she gets sicker and sicker…
Candy drives on. The radio guy says all the big cities are burning, and then the announcer’s door breaks down and he goes radio silent. She thinks she sees her ex-boyfriend on the road and stops. She finds him, but it’s not really him…
Commentary
The locations and stories are good, but the acting is atrocious overall. Will Devokees and Courtney Akbar, who played Zirn and Candy, were both fine in their roles, but all the others were pretty horrible actors, often unable to say their lines without grins on their faces. In some scenes in the segment with the Ouija board and the babysitter, the lighting seems to get bright and dark randomly, as if someone didn’t know how to light a scene properly. The writer and director did good work, but it looks like they just couldn’t afford real actors.
It’s got some jump scares, which are usually annoying, but these were well-timed and not excessive; just right. There’s some gore in the stories with the writer and Morgan the vampire, but overall, this doesn’t have very much blood compared to similar films.
Again, this was obviously low-budget, but well-written and I enjoyed it despite the amateur acting. I liked it a lot more than “Horror Hotel” a few weeks back, so overall, I do recommend it.