Stetsons and limbs...

Introduction

Low budget film making is still alive and well. How else would you get a film titled "Cowboys and Zombies" aka "The Dead and the Damned".

A meteor lands in mid-1800s gold rush California. It's found by some locals. It glows green. They hit it with stuff because they think there are emeralds in it. Evil alien spores are released and before you can say "Zombie Nation" almost the whole town are turned into flesh-hungry zombie type things. A couple of bounty hunters are also in the area, looking for a nasty bad guy...

Video + Audio

This is low budget stuff, but the picture looks better than some of those "remastered" Hollywood releases. I'm not talking about anything mindblowing here, just that it all looks better than you might expect from such a low budget. Having access to an old prospecting museum/town set probably helps (even though it's not all that impressive), as does the fact that parts of California are still untouched and can pass for any age.

Extra Features

Nothing of note, but this can be expected from a low budget feature.

Conclusion

There's a lot of b-movie type schlock around at the minute, perhaps featuring Debbie Gibson(!), such as Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus and Mega Python vs. Gatoroid (also featuring 80s pop starlet Tiffany).



A lot less money has been splashed on this film, and it's all the better for it. A small cast, a small number of locations, and not much spent on effects means that you have to do something with what you have spent money on, and not rely on an unrealistic CGI shark eating the Golden Gate bridge.

It's not the greatest film in the world, but it's a bit of low budget fun that should bring a few smiles to the faces of b-movie fans.