DVD review The Zombie Chronicles (Video 2001)

Tara Woodlet (Emmy Smith) is a tiery young reporter searching for clues to write a story on the infamous ghost legends of an old desert town. In her search, she picks up a bizarre hitchhiker, Ebenezer Jackson (Joe Haggerty). He leads the sceptical Tara on a vicious journey where the living dead prevail, and humans are the unwelcome intruders... The Zombie Chronicles is written by Garrett Clancy and is directed by Brad Sykes. The acting is pretty bad but Joe Haggerty is horrible, utterly horrible.. Camerawork and editing is okay. Jeff Leroy, one of the heroes of Independent Flicks, is the cameraman. This feature made on a shoestring budget anthology horror in the tradition of Tales from The Crypt. The first story; Returning from the Vietnam War, Sgt. Ben Draper, (Garrett Clancy) and his wife Marsha, (Beverly Lynne) car breaks down. Ben Draper heads off to find some gas, he returns to find his wife strapped to a tree rigged with explosives, and he is soon tormented into performing several arduous tasks from a mysterious watcher that soon turns out to be from his past. The second story; On their way to a campground, Jason, (Mike Coen) Buzz, (John Kyle Grady) and Melinda, (Janet Tracey Keijser) decide to stop in a secluded spot in the woods. To pass the time they tell ghost stories, including one of a famous outlaw said to be buried in the woods and they soon find themselves trying to escape from zombies. There is some gore, pretty decent practical make-up fx designed by Joe Castro, high lights include someone who has had their skin of their face removed, eyeballs being plucked out and a decapitation. The make-up fx design for the zombies is very uneven, some are pretty good and some look cheap but they are at least not painted blue. There is no nudity in this, there is a prolonged and very unerotic sexscene.
There is a  3D version of The Zombie Chronicles available.
This review is based upon the region 2 DVD release from Screen Entertainment.
Rating 0½ out of 7. The Zombie Chronicles has numerous flaws, bad acting, no sense of pacing, the intended twists are lame and quite obvious and both stories are just plain boring. It´s bad, really bad but The Zombie Chronicles has one good thing going for it, Joe Castro´s special effects, which are cheap but very enthusiastic. The Zombie Chronicles might be something to check out for die hard fans of the zombiegenre if you can get this cheap. If you´re a curious gorehound I should mention that they show evey death in the movie in the opening credits

/JL