B-Movie, laughable horror comedy, raunchy and bloody gore-fest; these are the words that many would use to describe Zombeavers. If you see those words scribbled here or there and are not turned off by the title I'm sure you'll get something out of this movie. Honestly me writing anymore would be a waste of time...yet I continue.
Zombeavers takes place near a remote cabin in the Indiana woods. Three college sorority sisters are driving up for a weekend so one can recoup from a bad breakup and the others can spend time away from their boyfriends. What the ladies don't realize however is their picturesque cabin along the lake is home to a family of mutant zombie-beavers who are out for blood. The boyfriends of course follow the women up to the lake guaranteeing a few more fresh corpses.
This may not be the best movie review to bring this up, but when did horror movies become less about making you scream and more about making you laugh? The line between the two emotions is fine, I get that but it seems that since Cabin in the Woods (2012) they don't even try anymore. There isn't any buildup in Zombeavers, there isn't any suspense, there aren't even any cheap jump scares in this movie just a decent stream of chuckles amid at a completely self-aware movie.
All this almost covers up the fact that the visuals, the draw of any good movie, aren't very good. Moments before the predictable horror clichés consist largely of characters sitting or standing around trading barbs or banter. There's no unease being brewed behind the camera, just people blocking the scene like they're doing a high school play.
The beavers themselves were not the stuff of nightmares. Is it too much to ask that a B-horror movie have monsters that look the part at least a little? I'm not scared of Muppets, and as the gag real at the end showed the arbitrary sacrificial dog wasn't scared either.
I can't believe we've gotten to this point but we need to ask more of our low-brow schlockers. Never expect that they pull off the scares and guffaws in equal measure but at least expect they try. If noise like this becomes the norm we'll never see another Sam Raimi or another Peter Jackson. Instead we'll just get a slew of big- headed film students who'll think they can make a movie out of anything.
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