source: Witness Infection

Caught in a desperate situation, the son of a mob boss in a small-town at war with a rival family in the same town and tries to keep it from escalating, but in the process finds that a zombie outbreak has affected the town and turned against them, forcing him and his friends to try to get to safety from the horde. This was a pretty solid and enjoyable genre effort when it really mattered. One of the strongest elements here is the rather fun light-hearted storyline that pits the two families against each other at the very beginning. Given the liberty of how the situation occurred to begin with which doesn't make any sense, the fact that the feud between everyone is spelled out where everyone is given enough of a backstory to understand what's going on is a great touch. With the need for everyone to honor their sense of familial duties and keep the peace or else it'll blow up into something far grander than what they expected, which carries itself along nicely with the comedic one-liners and situations involved with this setup that gives this one a lot to like starting off. Based on this comedic setup, it's all the more fun to see this one score nicely with the gross-out zombie action when it matters. The early action around town and the confrontation at the rival bosses' house offers some intriguing and enjoyable setups with the out-of-their-element group trying to get everything in order while they try to get away from the creatures attacking them. However, the two big scenes here involving the zombies attacking the survivors in a bar and at the house where he meets his zombified parents offer up the kind of action that makes for a fun time featuring hand-to-hand fighting against the creatures emerging from out of the shadows of the environment, providing some solid make-up effects and practical gore that generates some fun times in the most important aspects of this kind of film. These are what make for a good time here. There isn't much really wrong here but it does have a few minor problems. The main issue is the somewhat clumsy manner that introduces the zombie threat into the film which is such a passing mention that very little impact is made from it. With a brief flash image showing the group confronting the zombies standing in a group at a food truck is all that really shows off the only clue that something's happening which is forgotten and ignored for the main part of the film as the next instance comes way later in the film as part of the other issue here. The film seems to stop dead in its tracks when the two visit at his house in the outskirts of town which revolves around tired flatulent humor and overlong conversations that are trying to generate some humor about the arranged marriage storyline but that's in the disservice of the zombie attacks since there's none for a long stretch leading into it. Still, these are all that hold this one down. Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

Two rival mob families - the Serrellis and the Miolas - in the Witness Protection Program have been sent to the same city to hide. So life is about to change for Carlo Serrelli (Robert Belushi, the son of Jim) whose father had kept him out of the family business while his brother Dominic (Bret Ernst) does the actual blood money-earning work. Everything soon changes. To make the peace, Carlo has to marry Patricia Miola (Erinn Hayes, Elizabeth from the third Bill and Ted movie), the daughter of mob boss Mr. Miola (Maurice LaMarche, The Brain from Pinky and the Brain), and seal a covenant between the two families. Dominic can't do it. All the steroids have made him sterile. So finally, Carlo has to be part of the family. Carlo is already in love with his co-worker Gina (Jill-Michele Melean*, Reno 911). She and his friend Vince decide to help him get out of town, but then tainted sausages turn everyone in town into the living dead. What I really liked about this movie is that plenty of voice actors - beyond LeMarche, of course - get the chance to be in front of the camera. Tara Strong, who has provided the animated voices for Harley Quinn, Batgirl and some of the My Little Pony characters shows up, as do Carlos Alazraqui (Bane from the recent Batman cartoons) and Gary Anthony Williams (Rick and Morty). Between Vince narrating the zombie attacks as if they were a film and a bartender at his Mexican place named Rose (Monique Coleman) who kicks ass like a 70's blacksploitation heroine, this is a movie that fans of horror and comedy will find moments to enjoy. Director Andy Palmer (Camp Cold Brook, The Funhouse Massacre) does a great job here building the tension, which works for both horror and comedy. Zombie movies are a genre where seemingly everything has been done before, but Witness Infection tries to mix the mob film and comedy in to a pretty fair degree of success. *Melean and Alazraqui also were the writers of this movie.

Witness Infection