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Josh takes his younger brother Mike away from the city to get away from all the problems he’s recently been having. He hopes that getting out to the countryside and living life at a slower pace will do them both some good. Things go astray quickly, however, as Josh’s car is run off the road by some country bumpkin bullies. They find their way to the nearest small town and do everything they can to just get their car fixed and leave. It turns out that’s not so easy, either. Because the mechanic/gas station owner has caught the same bug most of the rest of the town has come down with. To make matters worse, there’s been an unusually high amount of dead bodies turning up in the town recently. Who or what is killing these rural citizens? Can the brothers make it out alive?

Don’t let the title fool you. This is essentially a zombie movie, and a slow revealing one at that. Granted, the zombies actually aren’t dead before they start hunting for human blood, but the same basic feel is there. And there definitely is not just one mutant, although it may seem that way at first. It all goes sour when the doctor’s assistant claims to be sick, and then twenty seconds later becomes one of the zombies. It all snowballs from there, picking up convention after convention. And that’s sort of too bad. I think one of this movie’s strengths is in its slow brooding uneasiness. Once they start to go full steam with the horror aspect, they fall victim to all the normal conventions and appear to borrow heavily from other similar zombie films of the past (most notably, George Romero’s “Dead” series). It’s tough to not go down that road, but they were doing a pretty good job of it for the first two-thirds. I wanted to see more of a single mutant going one-on-one with civilians. We only got a hint of the terror he could induce, when you see him choking his victims with one hand, burning their flesh.

I guess you can’t expect magic from three first time screenwriters (Michael Jones & John C. Kruize along with Peter Orton). And you know the movie won’t be perfect if you hire a director that has a nickname in the middle of his credit (B-Horror movie lifer John “Bud” Cardos, “The Dark”). The cinematography doesn’t try to accomplish anything other than capturing the action (which is probably better than trying to do too much and being obtrusive). And the music is probably the most laughable part, surprisingly enough. But honestly, the flick didn’t turn out half bad. A lot of that has to do with the acting.

Sure, the performances have their rough spots, but in general, these are much stronger actors than you’ll usually find in a lower budget horror movie like this one. Most of the problems in the dialogue were covered up very well by the cast. Really, you won’t find too many actors in B-movies that are able to deliver the line “I just want one night alone with the body. Just one!” without making you laugh. They turn the clichéd stereotypes into necessary character traits to create a pretty effective, albeit extremely basic story line. That’s not to say the acting is without flaws. Mike (Lee Montgomery) and redneck bully kingpin Albert (Marc Clement, in his first role) are rather wooden and dry. Luckily, neither of them are in the picture all that much. So is the romantic interest, Holly (Jody Medford). Speaking of which, that has to be one of the most forced on-screen relationships I have ever seen. The real star here is Wings Hauser (“Vice Squad” as Josh). Sure he may look like the love child of Michael Keaton and John Lithgow that got all the bad parts from each, but don’t let that distract you. He gives a very solid performance that actually hits all the right spots at the right times and does so naturally.

As long as you don’t go by the title, or the promotional material, you’ll probably be okay. You won’t find fanged creatures or scary, well, anythings throughout the picture. Instead you’ll get very pale, apparently sleep deprived zombie like humans popping out of nowhere. It’s odd, but the quick turnaround into hardcore horror mode in the doctor’s office really gives the feeling that you’re watching two separate movies. The first one is pretty good for what it is, and the second could be a lot better, or at least more original. Despite that, I was surprised at how well and how easily this film held my attention and how decent it really is.

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