Zombeavers (2014)
A Killer What?
Beavers are actually pretty formidble creatures in real life, they’re bigger than people think they are and vicious as hell when cornered. These beavers have been exposed to chemical waste that turned them into zombies. In all honesty the beavers could have just been mutated by the toxic waste, making them undead is just kind of gilding the lilly. I’m pretty sure this movie was created by coming up with the title and working backwards from there.
The beavers are all puppets that look pretty good but they’re not that big a threat, the movie doesn’t really find its feet until the human victims start turning into humanoid beaver zombies.
Is It Any Good?
Ehhhhh, kinda. While I don’t find the movie to be awful it’s not especially good. It’s kind of a nature run amok horror movie mixed with a college sex comedy and there’s not a whole lot done to combine the two. Horror and comedy are difficult to balance in the best of times but Zombeavers handles its approach clumsily.
On the likability index the characters do alright but the movie’s sense of humor is at odds with what’s happening on screen. The movie seems to want to have a goofy devil-may-care attitude but the plot and the deaths of the characters are actually pretty grim and upsetting. Even attempts to use the beaver puppets as Gremlins-esque comedic relief feels pretty tone-deaf.
The movie has a strong lead in Rachel Melvin, who plays the sort of sex-pot best friend that morphs into the sort of final-girl badass of the piece. Really the movie doesn’t actually get good until the third act when the victims of the beavers start coming back as zombies with beaver teeth and tails. The final act nearly makes up for the rest of the movie but it can’t quite undo what came before and the ending just ruins any good will built up.
Watch, Toss, or Buy?
I’ll give it a soft buy.