I'm surprised it took until the 22nd film on the video nasty list for zombies to turn up. Back in the 80's every film they appeared in got cut to shreds by the BBFC. The shuffling, mouldering undead became a censorship cause célèbre. Dawn Of The Dead, the king of the living dead films had 3 minutes 58 seconds removed from it before it could get a VHS release. Day Of The Dead got off relatively lightly with only 30 seconds whipped off. Zombie Holocaust and Zombie Creeping Flesh had 3 minutes 24 seconds and 1 minute snipped respectively. Burial Ground had a whopping 13 minutes taken from it. So it makes no sense whatsoever that Forest Of Fear, by far the tamest film of all I've named so far, is the one that ends up getting banned. Well, actually no, another far more famous one made the DPP list too but that's another story for another time.
I've seen harsher episodes of Casualty.
Nasty 22 is a terrible film built on a decent idea. Deep in a North American national park weed growers are getting ready to harvest their latest batch. But the Feds and the DEA are onto them and when two agents come across the hidden business they are quickly dispatched. The DEA head honcho (played by John Amplas of Martin and Dawn/Day Of The Dead fame, trivia fans) vows revenge and hires a crop duster to spray the marijuana with a herbicide designed to kill it stone dead fast. This being a horror film things of course go arseways when the spray hits the growers and turns them into blood thirsty homicidal zombies. Now everyone in the park,from it's rangers to the hikers throughout it are in big trouble.
This could have been alright. Zombie films have traditionally never given a reason for the dead rising but here we see it play out in all it's unintentionally funny glory with cartoonishly red blood spewing out of gobs and gun totting drug dealers turning into moaning, shuffling automatons that move at a snails pace....until they see a victim. Then they run, rip, attack, wield weapons, figure out how to open car doors, lift people up and carry them off..... or else they just shuffle into them and claw at them weakly. Even the worst horror films have some form of internal logic, some list of rules they abide by but there's nothing like that here. It's all so shoddy that all you can do is laugh because you certainly won't be scared.
At only 88 minutes long it also manages to be intensely boring and that's what happens when you don't give your characters a second thought. The only one that stands out is a teenage boy who also happens to have special needs and as you can imagine the film deals with him in the cringiest way possible, even going so far as to have his own father lovingly call him "a retard" at one point. I know it was the 80's but still, that will never not be jarring. As for the rest of the zombie fodder you'll be hard pressed to remember a name, let alone a face as you watch, and as such you just won't give a fuck about anything happening. With this one you can't even enjoy the kills, always a high point in zombie cinema, because like everything else here, they're ineptly staged too, bit of ketchup splashed around here and there and that's all you get. It's goriest moment is a hand amputation so badly portrayed you'll howl laughing when you see it
The fact that this film made the video nasty list is mind boggling. It makes no sense. One has to wonder was a mistake made somewhere along the way and the BBFC were too proud to admit it. It's never been re-released in this part of the world either. Censorship wouldn't be an issue as it would probably get by with a 12 cert. Upon digging a little deeper we find out why. The rights owner was one Charles McCrann. A man who also wrote, produced, directed and acted in it. A man who died in the World Trade Centre on the 11th of September 2001. It's a sad postscript to a film that will make you cry laughing.
If you really want to watch this you'll find it on Youtube if you search for Toxic Zombies a.k.a. Forest Of Fear aka Bloodeaters 1980. Like some many of the other nasties this one went under multiple names.
Next up - The Gestapo's Last Orgy. I won't lie. I'm dreading watching this one again.
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