Zombie Nation (IMDB) has an impressively discomforting image of a zombie on the front cover. A nation composed of undead monstrosities of similarly repulsive features would be truly horrifying, so you would think we’re off to a good start with that cover art.

Sadly the zombie looking fellow you see on the cover does not appear in the movie. And even more sadly, scary zombie face guy not being in the movie is only the start of the disappointments.

The opening scene of the movie starts out awkwardly enough with a flight attendant trying to disentangle herself from an overly amorous boyfriend. She’s running late for her flight but the boyfriend is not particularly concerned. He wants some more snuggle time.

A reasonable request, certainly.

Then we’re suddenly in some other bedroom with a cop grabbing his gun and getting dressed. And then some quick shots of someone fiddling with the bra of a woman, giving us a closeup of her boob in the process.

Flight attendant. Cop. Boobs. Cop. Flight attendant. Boobs. ZOM. BIE. NA. TION.

The flight attendant finally gets in her car and heads off to the airport. She’s running late so she might be going a little over the speed limit which naturally draws the attention of the cop we saw dressing earlier. His voice is deep and gravelly and without knowing anything of the lady he’s already cussing to his partner, calling her a bitch and making other colourful but unfair assessments of her.

His partner, meanwhile, is a little baffled as to his problem with this particular citizen but he’s obviously the junior officer so he wisely remains quiet.

But hang on, what’s this?

That’s the cop car? An unmarked police car being driven by uniformed policemen? It’s not unheard of, I suppose, but most movies don’t do it because it just looks wrong. A marked police car for uniformed police makes it clear these are real policemen.

But we’ll let that slide. Maybe their regular ride was in the shop. Crime waits for no one!

So now they’ve pulled over this flight attendant bitch it’s time to have a calm, reasonable discussion with her, asking her to explain why she felt it was necessary to exceed the speed limit.

Or perhaps not.

 

Seriously, fumbling teens getting into some BDSM could work a pair of handcuffs better than this supposed veteran of the police force.

Meanwhile Nooby McPartnerface stands back at the car, making no effort to provide backup for his partner, nor objecting to his partner’s treatment of the suspect.

After bundling the flight attendant into the car the three drive to the front of a very nondescript warehouse. This is obviously a very strange place to be brought after being arrested, causing the flight attendant to ask many questions.

Nooby McPartnerface sits quietly in the passenger seat, apparently seeing nothing wrong with taking this lady to somewhere that is distinctly not the police station, nor anything wrong with the other cop taking the lady into the creepy warehouse by himself, leaving Nooby to wait by the car.

He waits there quite dutifully, calling a friend on his mobile phone at one point, but never entering the warehouse.

 

Bad Cop is now also a Bad Doctor? I’m fairly sure he’s not qualified to examine any of the places he’s examining!

During the examination short cuts are shown of some wheelchair bound lady, presumably a doctor of some kind, being wheeled between a row of writhing people, restrained and lying on metal shelving. And needles. Scary, scary needles. Needles being held up in front of eyes. But not needles being used on anything. Was Bad Cop a patient of this Doctor? No idea. Maybe that’ll be explained later.

For now, let’s go back to Nooby McPartnerface, who finishes chatting on the phone as Bad Cop comes back out of the warehouse without the lady but with a very large and obviously heavy duffel bag, which is hefted into the boot of the car.

 

Best not ask what’s in the bag, Nooby. And wait until you’re in the car and driving again before enquiring after the lady.

Bad Cop tells Nooby that he let the lady go. Wrote her a ticket and let her go.

But what about that duffel bag? Enforcing the law is hard, son. And difficult. And I am going to evade your reasonable and well thought out questions with more condescension so get used to it.

After Bad Cop takes the duffel out into the woods – by himself – and buries his victim we return to the asylum with the wheelchair bound doctor and this time we see more of a young man. The young man is watching the crazy people writhe on their shelves. One man is naked from the waist down and is being caned loudly.

I’ll spare you a screenshot of his junk. I sure wish I hadn’t seen it!

Wheelchair bound doctor is then explaining to the young lad that this is where “Mummy” works when she’s not at home. So perhaps this young man is actually the Bad Cop from a great many years ago? Oh, that makes a bit more sense.

After that the doctor, the young lad and a slightly creepy and crazy looking orderly are in a small office with the doctor interrogating the boy, asking why his fingernails are dirty, checking to see if his ears are clean. They’re not. He’s a young boy, they’re incapable of ever being completely clean!

Doctor Mummy calls for “the needle”. Though she doesn’t say what’s in it the thought of injecting her son with it seems to bring her pleasure.

 

Time for some more poorly written extraneous things. We learn Bad Cop and other boys at the precinct all served together in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The precinct?

So not only do they not have a proper police car they don’t seem to have a proper police office? Hmm.

After that it’s back to hijacking women.

Though to be fair this one was trying to use her feminine wiles to get out of a ticket, so she deserves to be kidnapped, creepily inspected, drugged, murdered and dumped in the bush. Right?

This cycle repeats a few times, interspersed with more Crazy Doctor Mummy and some other scenes Nooby McPartnerface and friends discussing the creepy way suspects keep disappearing after being arrested by Bad Cop.

Boyfriends of the missing ladies also start turning up at the Totally Legit Police Station to complain about their significant others being significantly missing. Both of them suspect dirty cops have done something to the women, despite not having been anywhere near either incident. I guess it’s a logical assumption to make when you see the shambles of a police station they’re operating from.

But Nooby McPartnerface has one friend in the same precinct. His friend relates the concerns about Bad Cop’s behaviour to two of his superiors who seem quite dismissive of his concerns.

Then we’re thrown into a fight scene between Nooby and one of the other cops. Why? I’m not sure. It’s certainly not professional behaviour for police to be beating each other up inside the police station. And where’d all these people who’re watching come from?

 

Two of the people watching appear to be the girlfriends of Nooby and his friend. Why’re they suddenly at the station?

Who cares. Other Cop wins, Nooby gets up dazed, fight is never spoken of again.

Time to shake things up a bit. And what better way to shake things up than some out of the blue voodoo!

 

I am by no means an expert in voodoo but a bunch of chanting and hand waving and rubbing some pig’s blood on the lady’s chest and then getting a spider and a snake to crawl up inside her vagina seems a less practical personal protection plan than just buying a gun. But who am I to judge?

What was that? Am I serious about the spider and the snake crawling up inside her?

To be fair we don’t actually see them enter an orifice so it is possible they merely crawled and slithered around for a bit and then left. But we don’t see anyone take either animal away and they do not reappear during the scene and the lady in question starts oozing green fluid from her mouth. You do the math. The disgusting, repulsive math.

Naturally the lady in this ceremony is Bad Cop’s next victim. Does all that voodoo magic protect her?

No, not really. She dies like the rest. Big surprise there.

Nooby McPartnerface has a temporary reprieve from Bad Cop partnerdom for this outing, leaving his friend to tag along. His friend actually enters the warehouse to check out the situation and finds what looks like a furniture store. He can hear Bad Cop abusing his latest victim upstairs so it seems like Bad Cop’s reign of terror will be over at last.

Don’t be ridiculous. He goes back outside and waits in the car.

Bad Cop disposes of his latest victim in the ocean then heads back home with nary a care in the world.

Probably should’ve chopped the body up. Or burned it. Or anything but just dump the body in the ocean. Hasn’t he ever seen a horror movie?

For some reason the voodoo magic that allows his most recent victim to return to a semblance of life has miraculously resurrected all his other victims at the same time. Even though they had not taken part in the voodoo ceremony.

Details, details. The beautiful ladies that used to be dead are now not dead, meaning the beautiful ladies can have more screen time.

Haven’t you heard? The panda look is what all the fashionable zombies are sporting this year.

While this dark eyed makeup does add a certain something to the appeal of each of the zombie ladies it’s also about the cheapest zombification I have ever seen. There’s no latex cuts or sores, no hair falling out, no nasty teeth, no drooling.

And then they start talking. Not slurring words, just talking as you or I might discuss the weather. A passing motorist offers these two a lift, despite them not saying a word at first. Once they’re in the car the blonde asks him for a kiss before they go anywhere.

As you might imagine, kissing a zombie doesn’t turn out well.

Yeah, she ripped his tongue out by biting down on the tip during a kiss. While the man makes no effort to fight back. Believability off the scale!

Another pair of zombie ladies hijack a man who was leering at them at first. The leering stopped when one lady bit his penis off.

There won’t be a screencap of that.

Meanwhile, back at the Totally Legit Police Station, Bad Cop is being interviewed by Internal Affairs, finally. And despite the extremely suspicious circumstances surrounding some of his arrests he is allowed to take his gun and badge with him when he leaves.

Another added benefit of reanimation as a voodoo zombie is an innate sense of direction, allowing you to return to the voodoo witches who cast the spell on that one lady, even if you’re one of the other zombie ladies.

Deep and meaningful discussions ensue.

One of the zombie ladies wants to see her boyfriend. Voodoo lady asks her if she’s taken a look at herself? A tiny hand mirror is held up so she can peer into it, revealing the weird scars and dried blood on her head.

Apparently her current panda eyed appearance is a result of residual self image. Whoa!

So returning to their old lives is out. Guess they’ll have to go to new places, make new friends, people who’ll accept them for their hot zombie selves.

But first, revenge!

Step one, visit Totally Legit Police Station with no plan to speak of. Step two, apply for job as policewomen. Step three…?

Step three, go to a secluded parking lot to discuss their past lives and what they should do now. One posits that there may be more zombies out there they could connect with. Thousands of them? Millions? “Zombie Nation!”

Further inanity will have to wait as Bad Cop turns up at the warehouse. Turns out the secluded parking lot was actually right outside the warehouse. I guess they all memorised the route while they were cowering in fear on the way to being murdered. Seems reasonable.

Bad Cop enters the warehouse to find another lady standing inside and looking around impatiently. She has an appointment, she is quick to inform Bad Cop. Bad Cop walks right past her. She says hello, Bad Cop tells her to go away.

Take the hint, lady! Unless you want to be his next victim!

The zombie ladies arrive as random lady gives up and heads back out the door. But not before screaming at Bad Cop, “I hope you fucking die!”

I think the zombie ladies are going to fulfill that wish.

A short chase ensues, interspersed with more flashbacks to Bad Cop’s childhood. Eventually the zombie ladies catch up to and eat choice pieces of Bad Cop, including his eyeball. Delicious.

So Bad Cop is dead, justice is served, the end? Hardly.

Despite encouraging the zombie women to seek revenge against Bad Cop for murdering them they somehow forgot to mention that if a zombie bites a human the human will then become a zombie. You’d think that might have come up in the conversation at some point.

So now there’s the zombie ladies, zombie Bad Cop and presumably two other zombie men, one without a tongue and one without a penis.

Thankfully the movie ends there. Ordinarily the obvious setup for sequels would irritate me but in this instance it’s perhaps the best part of the movie. The idea that someone would actually want a sequel to Zombie Nation would be hilarious if it wasn’t so tremendously scary.

Easily one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Between the random unexplained cuts to other scenes, the utter ineptitude of Nooby McPartnerface, the abysmal acting of virtually ever person in the film and the worst zombie makeup ever caught on film it’s hard to recommend this to anyone, even people who enjoy watching terrible movies.

Most of the zombie ladies are quite attractive and one of them does get her boobs out and I suppose the camera work isn’t too bad for what was obviously an extremely low budget. It’s hard to come up with any other redeeming features of this movie.

The cover art promised so much and I pity anyone who bought or rented it on the strength of that shot.

Thankyou Tara for gifting me this DVD. Your bad movie finding skills are without peer. :)