The line between a “Z-movie,” a “zero stars” on the one-to-four-star scale, and a very bad one-star C or B movie usually comes down to intent.
Did they set out to make a film this awful? Was their motivation or agenda twisted? Or was this simply the best they could manage?
“Hemet, or the Landlady Don’t Drink Tea” is a comical abortion, an ever-misfiring farce built around the landlady from hell and how she abuses her tenants in the middle of a “bit off his leg” zombie apocalypse.
Liz, played by screenwriter Brian Patrick Butler in less-than-Rupaul-flattering drag, is a bully with an apartment complex, a mean old lady who figures she’s holding all the cards in tiny Hemet, California, now that the zombies are an ongoing menace.
Toe her line, accept her abuse and her ever-changing rules, rent-rates and privileges, and she’ll just insult you. “Resist the autocracy” she’s set up, with the sheriff (Randy Davison) and his minions at the property owner’s beck and call, and “You’re evicted” might be the least of your problems.
Tenants range from waitress Rosie (Kimberly Weinberger) to “tree hugging, Burning Man-loving, Chewbacca looking” “hippie” Howie (Pierce Wallace), with put-upon Black renter Martin (Merrick McCartha) a near bystander and mouthie “bath salts” wingnut Gary (Matthew Rhodes) the quickest to string together perjoratives to label the others.
One thing they might all agree on is that abusive landlady liz “is just beggin’ to be made into a lampshade.”
Liz? You don’t scare her. You don’t impress her. You can’t “change” her.
“Peace and love, buttcracks! Catch you on the flip!”
That’s the way screenwriter Butler treats dialogue — dopey patter consisting of run-on word-salad sentences fired-off for comic effect. The more alliteration, the better.
Cops are “criminal killing clutch-cannons,” zombies are “’28 Days Later’ maniacs.”
Rants about the cost of living in California, hippies protesting for “zombie rights” and the “genocidal maniac” who just bullied his way into a “third term” in the White House are pretty much the only entertainment value here.
The novelty of Butler’s drag performance wears off quickly. The amateurism of most of the players would have been more forgivable with a script that showed a bit more wit or, you know, effort.
But all Butler, director Tony Olmos and the rest of the cast and crew were shooting for is a cultish comedy with a few laughs, undercooked politics and undigested zombie victims. There’s no arc to the story and little that you’d call funny or ambitious or politically pointed.
“So bad it’s good” is a tricky target to hit. The fact that they missed the mark, and not by a narrow margin, isn’t a cardinal sin. It’s just the best argument for giving this one star, and not “zero” stars.
Rating: TV-MA, violence, sex, profanity
Cast: Kimberly Weinberger, Merrick McCartha, Aimee La Joie, Pierce Wallace, Matthew Rhodes, Nick Young, Randy Davison and Brian Patrick Butler as Liz Topham Myrtle.
Credits: Directed by Tony Olmos, scripted by Brian Patrick Butler. Bayview Entertainment release.
Running time: 1:29
