Ozone (1994)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Best movie ever!

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

This is the weakest of JR Bookwalter's films because it strays from his style of fast, humorous action scenes. Bookwalter tries something more ambitious, moody and suspenseful and he fails. But its still typically watchable in its cheesiness. This is more drab looking and boring than his other films though. There are scenes where the black leading man is locked in cages, forced into a Mandingo fight and a zombie sniffs him and says, "You smell like a brother...". It might be a string of racist jokes or JR made a film thats a metaphor for smalltown racism. So Bookwalter tries to be artsier here and its appreciated, but he forgot to make it entertaining as he was NEVER scary or thoughtful director.

I'm not going to say that all movies made on video are crap just because they have little or no budget! No! But rarely, rarely have I seen one worth squat and this is one of them. Filmwork-Bad. Screenplay-Bad. Acting-non-existent. SFX- worse that The Incredible Shrinking Man. Bookhalter or Bookwalter should at least take a few classes at a community college, or read a book before he ever attempts to make another film, if he hasn't done humanity a favor and stopped already! Go rent out Invisible Invaders or The Giant Behemoth or the Brain from Planet Arous and have a good time. Don't watch this! You've been warned.

This came at the end of a long weekend spent watching really bad films. Don't think for a second that adds to its credit, though. I can't list everything I hated about this movie because a) it would take too long and b) I'm sure it killed a few of my brain cells, and my mind is blocking some of my memories out of self-defense. This movie contains: terrible acting, a horrible screenplay, lousy camera-work, way too much red lighting, occasionally no light at all, really bad makeup, plot hole upon plot hole upon plot hole, the least effective villain ever, a mind-numbingly bad soundtrack, and THE strangest sex scene I have ever encountered in my life. The director admitted in the commentary that he gets teased a lot for the "parking lot of death" scene, and I would say "teasing" is a generous word. I would like to throw feces at the man responsible for that scene. Also, when we got this movie it was listed as "Street Zombies", not "Ozone". It's a fair indicator of a bad film when there's more than one title involved-- alas, we had no warning. Here's what I can say to this film's credit: watch it with a bunch of friends and you just may get some good laughs out of the schlocky awfulness. In a scene in a bar involving zombified patrons, the director mentions that he'd been buying all the extras beer and they were all rip-roaringly drunk by the time filming was through. Watching this movie, I really, really, really wish I had been, too.

This isn't a great movie, but it's also not really a terrible movie. I found it pretty enjoyable, to tell the truth. The effects are obviously cheap, but when you consider the budget these people were probably working with, I think the film came out rather well. The major players act better than most in low-budget horror films, and the storyline, for the most part, makes sense. A few seemingly pointless scenes are thrown in here and there, but overall it isn't too hard to follow. I liked the movie, and if you enjoy horror movies and can appreciate a fairly well-made low-budget film, Ozone is worth checking out.