I think I can safely consider myself to be a fairly open-minded and tolerant horror fan, but there's one thing I honestly can't stand: horror comedies that are not funny, nor gory. And unfortunately we happen to see a lot of those lately, especially in the sub genre of 'zombie movies' ever since a British instant classic called "Shaun of the Dead" successfully mixed humor with splatter. By now everybody seems to think they're capable of making a horror comedy and this naturally results in a huge pile of stinking, inept, insufferable and redundant straight-to-video crap. All these untalented filmmakers don't seem to realize that "Shaun of the Dead" was actually the exception that confirmed the rule: zombies, people coming back from the dead to hunt the flesh of the living are no laughing matter. Like the case in "The Mad", there's absolutely nothing even remotely funny about family members getting killed by walking corpses that died after consuming beef infected with the mad cow disease. People will not start to make jokes or have discussions about the definition of a zombie moments after their beloved partners have been reduced to a pile of blood and intestines on the floor! "The Mad" really tries to be hilarious, with its absurd & stereotypical character drawings and clichéd father-daughter-stepmother-punk boyfriend relationship jokes, but it miserably fails. The other elements to create comedy are either totally pathetic (spontaneously attacking hamburgers) or utterly derivative (inbred farmers and banjo music). "The Mad" can't even distinguish itself from the majority of lame-ass low budget horror junk with a good amount of nauseating splatter, as the make-up effects and massacres are nothing exceptional at all. It's not a gore-soaked bloodbath and we're only treated to a couple of mundane zombie-attacks and relatively bloodless annihilations. And then there's Billy Zane, the "famous" name parading the DVD-cover; hoping to attract more viewers with it. To my surprise I encountered a lot of reviews claiming that his performance was awesome but I, on the other hand, have rarely seen someone acting so uninterested and hammy, and no, I don't misinterpreted the fact his performance was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. Zane more than obviously wasn't interested in starring in this piece of junk and he can't hide it. For crying out loud, Billy! Maybe you desperately needed the money, but if you really don't want to star in garbage like this, then don't sign the contract! "The Mad" is a terrible film, not funny, not horrific, not gruesome, nothing to recommend.
