Sometimes, a bad movie can be fun. Especially if the movie is about cows treated with a secret chemical that makes the meat tainted (and move!) and turns people into ravenous zombies. Oh yes, and if it has Billy Zane, you definitely have a watchable movie. The movie poster is really funny in itself as it presents this movie as a really dark, nasty piece of work about the undead. Pfffft. This is a piece of fluff you watch just for the occasional laugh and the silly work of Billy Zane.
He plays a beleaguered father of a teenage girl. They're on vacation with his new girlfriend and his daughter's boyfriend, so tension is really high. He is wearing 80's retro clothes (oh that hurts to say) because his girlfriend likes him that way - the way he dressed in high school (ouch again) where he played in a band called The Mad.
The movie description says they are at a truck stop but actually they stop for a backwater festival complete with lots of hay bales and yee haws all around. They also say he's a doctor but he was only CALLED a doctor (why? I have no idea). After checking into the motel, they decide to eat at the diner. The special is a burger made with meat from a local farm (if I remember right it was about $12 too - ouch!). They order that but of course, the diner has just run out so they are forced to eat something else. All around them people are stuffing these burgers in their face in typical open mouth chewing style to make them really look backward.
Suddenly people start to choke and convulse. Billy's girlfriend (Shauna MacDonald) is the first casualty as a ravenous bumpkin takes a bite out of her... or two or three, I don't precisely remember. The boyfriend gets a nasty leg wound but Billy and his daughter (Maggie Castle) are safe - for now.After talking to the cook they find out that the last raw burger he had saved for his step-daughter has 'disappeared'. After looking around they discover it moving like a cockroach around the kitchen. Now knowing the source of the problem, they find out which farm the beef comes from and decide to make a mad dash through the mess of zombies to try to get to the farm and... what? Stop them from selling beef? Couldn't they go to the police and let them do it? Or a hospital for the boyfriend... oops, too late he's dead now.
It is absolutely impossible to take this movie at all seriously. Billy and his daughter, both having lost the ones they loved seem absolutely unaffected, almost shrug it off as a nuisance and continue on. After reaching the farm, they find the farmer is pretty much near zombified himself, with his dumb dumb son being only, well, dumb. A few silly confrontation scenes and an almost-funny scene where Billy and his daughter are carrying on a conversation while bashing in the heads of zombies without missing a beat keep the movie going - very slowly.
Finally out of nowhere a cop shows up and finding that the dad and son were consumed by their own beef, offers Billy and his daughter a ride to town. Before letting them in the car he stops, looks off into the distance at nothing, quickly draws his gun and fires several times. Why? You tell me 'cause I have absolutely no clue. Of course, a rogue piece of meat finds its way into the car and the last scene shows the car slowly crashing into a tree. Awww, that's a darn shame. I think.
But this movie was mildly amusing and if nothing else is on, worth a look just for the heck of it.
