Produced by Fred Olen Ray, Zombie Pirates tells the story of Linda (Sarah French), a sexy cat burglar who is coerced by a shady antique dealer (J.C. Pennylegion) into looking for some priceless pirate treasure. The only way to conjure up the mythical booty is to offer up five sacrifices in five nights at the stroke of midnight to a boatload of undead pirates. Naturally, when Linda fails to make the fifth and final sacrifice in a timely manner, the zombie buccaneers come after her.
I wanted to like this one, but there were just too many dreary stretches and extended periods where nothing happened. If you dig long scenes of a guy who looks like Colonel Sanders droning on and on about the history of pirates, then this will be your Citizen Kane. If you enjoy entire dialogue scenes that are filmed with the “Vignette” filter left on the camera, then this will be your Casablanca.
Once the zombie pirates finally show up, things slowly start to come alive (no pun intended), but not much. The poster artwork and skeletal pirate make-up is very much inspired by the old Blind Dead movies, particularly The Ghost Galleon, as the scenes aboard the zombies’ boat harken back to that old flick. The zombie make-up is also pretty cool. (One even has a zombie parrot!) The kills are serviceable too, and include a knife through the mouth, some gut ripping, and skull chewing.
The final zombie attack is OK I guess, but it’s ultimately too little too late. It certainly doesn’t make up for all the dull scenes that came before, especially the parts where our heroine disposed of the bodies, which had a tendency to drag. (And I don’t mean because they involved her literally dragging the corpses onto a boat for minutes on end. I mean they are repetitive and really bogged the pace down.)
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