SWAMP ZOMBIES 2 (2018) ** ½

I only watched the original Swamp Zombies because I bought the DVD from Jasmin St. Claire at a horror convention.  It wasn’t bad, but I remember it being long as fuck.  Returning director Len Kabasinki obviously heard my criticism because this thirteen-years-later sequel runs a tight seventy-two minutes.  

The plot is one of those Escape from New York deals where a dangerous criminal is sent into hostile territory to complete a suicide mission.  In this case, Swann (horror host Mr. Lobo) sends Jack (Kabasinki) into a zombified zone to retrieve Mouse (Crystal Quin), the leader of P.E.T.Z. (People for the Ethical Treatment of Zombies.)  She has information that could potentially halt production on Swann’s zombie reality show, so he wants her silenced.

Swamp Zombies 2 is fun for a while, but it ultimately loses steam once the action switches over to the villain’s dark warehouse compound.  Still, it’s a big improvement on the original in many ways.  The fake commercials are especially funny and help lighten the mood.  The gore (which includes head squishing, gut ripping, face ripping, and more) is quite juicy, and the topless zombie (complete with nipple piercings) from the opening scene is probably the sexiest zombie lady since Mindy Clarke in Return of the Living Dead 3.  As someone who’s sat through a slew of bad shot-on-video zombie comedy sequels, you learn to appreciate one that almost gets it right.

Mr. Lobo gets the best line of the movie when he refers to a zombie’s walk as “The Pittsburgh Shuffle”.