My advice when it comes to most modern zombie movies is to run away from them. The majority of these movies are zombies themselves, old dead ideas resurrected and stumbling around—and they’re everywhere. What was once cool has now gone cold and stiff. If you see one coming towards you, shoot it.
Give this one a chance, though. The makers put some heart into it. It’s got a funny side, it’s got a dark side, and it’s got a sweet side. It’s a Christmas movie. Set in East Texas in June because, hey, when the zombie apocalypse is in full-swing, you can celebrate Christmas whenever you want. The production is pure B-movie, low budget, sometimes clumsy, but never lazy. It cares more about its characters than its gore and it brings some sincere Southern weirdness.
Which is no wonder, considering it’s based on a short story by Joe R. Lansdale, a writer who charges through genre fiction like a real Texas tornado. Lansdale writes mystery stories like a horror writer and writes horror stories like a comedy writer (irony, after all, is an essential ingredient in both comedy and horror). He likes to twist your guts and creep you out, but underneath the ghastly exterior is as big a softie as ever lived. Whether writing about the dark or the light, Lansdale is never less than earnest. He’s a solid country boy and a family man, the pride of Nacogdoches, TX. Movie fans know him best these days as the writer of Bubba Ho-Tep.
The film is a true family affair. Landsale co-produces and his son, Keith, writes the screenplay while his country singer daughter, Kasey, stars as lead actor Damian Maffei’s zombiefied wife (she also sings a few deft tunes on the soundtrack). In Lansdale’s entertaining original story, a solitary man who lives the I Am Legend lifestyle in the midst of zombie hordes decides to celebrate Christmas when December rolls around, partly as a tribute to his dead wife and partly for something to do, even if it means having to fight for it.
The film version takes the engine that Lansdale built and steers it leftward (the short story is a little too short for a truly faithful adaptation). It goes to a place where its lead character meets a straight-talking garbageman-turned-zombie-killer, as well as tangles with a religious cult lead by a preacher (writer Chet Williamson, chewing up the scenery with style) who sees the zombies as the product of God’s will and who has a whole crew of escaped mental patients as his congregation.