Another so-so zom-com hits DVD and Blu-ray: Matthew Albrecht and Tyler Glodt's BUCK WILD

To get right to it: The best thing about the new zombie comedy BUCK WILD is probably its tag line, which reads, if you can't quite make it out on the poster at left, "Friends don't let friends turn zombie." In fact, that's initially what got me to request a review copy of this fairly tired and derivative exercise in would-be laughs and gore. The biggest problem here may be that in trying to fill a film with both Texas rednecks and zombies, the movie-makers hit the over-load button way too soon. Really: How can you tell the two apart?

Actually, the funniest moment in the movie comes when a pack of zombies slo-moes its way into a diner, and the waitress, without missing a beat, looks up and asks, "Smoking or non?" Otherwise, this is simply way too standard a zom-com, stealing from just about every one of the many like-minded films that have come before it, and doing so with only mediocre credibility in the acting, writing and directing departments. Director and co-writer Tyler Glotz is also one of the actors, as is co-writer Matthew Albrecht (above).

The story has three friends and one of their crazy cousins going off on a deer hunting weekend and encountering one, then many, "turned" zombies, even as it becomes clear that the leader's girlfriend has been getting it on with his best friend (Issac Harrison, above), who himself is zombie-ized rather quickly.

Otherwise, the movie is notable for a performer who, here at least, looks an awfully lot like one of those Franco fellows but with an even better body (Dru Lockwood, shown at right). Fortunately he is eventually reduced to his skivvies for a good deal of the running time and so provides plenty of eye candy to help take your mind off the blood, gore and lack of funny-enough laughs.

If you're in the market for a really good zom-com, certainly the best since Shawn of the Dead, stream Stalled, a low-budget British delight.

Meanwhile, Buck Wild -- via Millennium and running 96 too-long minutes -- arrives this coming Tuesday, March 18, on Blu-ray and DVD. Go wild. Or, maybe, head north instead.