Netflix’s description of Die You Zombie Bastards!: “Red Toole, a serial killer with a heart of gold and a cape made of human flesh, is on a mission to save his wife, Violet, and the world’s population from wicked Baron Nefarious. While Nefarious hatches an evil plot to turn everyone into zombies, Toole is hot on his trail, killing anything that gets in his way. Monsters and naked zombie girls add to the ambience of this undead superhero free-for-all.”

It does seem that quite a lot of people consider this to be an indie cult classic. I’ll, um, leave that up to you to decide, but I will say that if this is a cult classic, then people should be dressing up for midnight showings of my 10th grade Moby Dick video project. Wait. That idea is amazing.

DYZB begins with a rest in peace for Hasil Adkins. I don’t want to make fun of him, because apparently he was a skilled Appalachian musician who gained cult status in rockabilly and other genres, influencing such bands as The Cramps. But he also frightens me, because in DYZB, he’s a rambling, long-haired gentlemen with flabby white (musically talented) man-breasts. Hasil helpfully lets us know that the movie will be about, “zombie wombie choochie caca goo goo,” and that we shouldn’t watch it if we have weak hearts or weak “titties and cookies.” You will start to hate your genitals now–the first but not the last time that DYZB will have this effect on you. This is also the point when you realize DYZB might have started off as a D.A.R.E. project to warn children about the dangers of crystal meth. Sorry, Mr. Adkins.

Hasil introduces us to Hell Island, 1970, where a group of Asian man are harvesting. It’s actually a West Virginian weedy field, Year: It Doesn’t Fucking Matter, populated by blond white men in conical hats. This is actually close to my version of Hell, so I’m still with the filmmakers at this point. An alien spaceship crash-lands in the weed harvest, and a dude in a polyester black cape cackles, “The final component.” Maybe–maybe he plans to build a Ren Faire in the field.

Yeah, I look at this and think "true love."

But now we jump to find our current-day hero, Red Toole (and I’m Pink Slitt, pleased to meet you), slinging a scythe through the woods. He reaches some very enthusiastic teenagers sluttin’ it up in a convertible, and is about to kill them when he overhears that she loves him. Instead, he decides to kill a camp of bong-smoking hippies. It took Sean and I a minute to understand that this was his “heart of gold” moment, because though we don’t smoke pot or like stoners either, we are, you know, Californians.

This is when the movie takes a turn for porn. On present day Hell Island, three blond paleoarcheologists are trying to find evidence of, “The half-man, half-fish, ‘Amphibious Guy.’” It’s one of those jokes that’s almost a joke, until you remember your brain exists. To call these ladies actresses is like calling a fish an amphibian. I’d say it looks like they’re reading their lines, if I was certain they could read. They explain to each other that Amphibious Guy may still be alive because the lagoon water is deep, and because there was a civilization on Hell Island during the Jurassic period. Also, they made their island map out of magic markers.

"He could have swam...those same...oceans...of time." I know this goes against everything you believe in, but spit it out.

DYZB is what happens when we don’t make red states teach evolution and sex ed.

After one of the girls slowly fondles the–fossilized remains?–of Amphibious Guy’s bony fish cock (please reread that), they all jump in the ocean for naked splashing. A dedicated feminist, I make no judgments about grooming preferences, but let me just say: if you like peroxide-blond hair, farmer tans, and West Virginian bush, then DYZB is for you. Also, huffing glue is for you.

The horny ladies are in luck, as Amphibious Guy himself–with his unambigiously-erect green monster cock–shows up briefly and then leaves the blond academicians weeping as he swims away. Also, this is the first point when the girls don wigs. For some reason, the women of DYZB wear and swap wigs. I don’t even have a funny, made-up reason as to why that might be. It’s just weird.

Back in his neon yellow-green living room, Red comes home to the loving arms of his be-wigged wife, Violet. For a redneck, he makes a lot of flamboyantly, outlandishly gay hand gestures. He curls his fingers into a little wave when he explains how he killed those “diiirrty hippies.” It doesn’t help that he has disproportionately massive and–and rectangular?–biceps that he continually flexes for us ladies in the audience.

Ladies, feast your eyes.

But you’ll forget about that when Red and Violet start chewing on the hippie parts and smearing the gore all over themselves. That, apparently, is Red’s gift to his wife; her gift to him is a set superhero undies and cape of human flesh (the undies have a “severed penis,” he says with a bit too much relish for a red-stater; he further declares that Violet loves “rubber dicks slathered to the hilt with peanut butter.” We get it, hick filmmakers. You’re repressed homosexuals. Now stop waving it in our faces). There’s a lot of flesh and blood here. I just kept thinking, “They’re going to ruin their couch.” It only gets less sanitary when the start dry-humping to a soundtrack of terrified screams, barking, and–you guessed it–Red suggesting, “rubber diiiicks?”

If you were still tempted to think, “Maybe the cult classic part comes later,” your hopes will be destroyed by the beat-the-dead-horse-oblivious cops who come to the door. Let me just transcribe:

Blond Cop: “I’m Officer Konash–” pointing to badge, “and this here is Officer Peanutch.”

Look at his creepy bicep. Seriously.

Mustouche’d Cop, cave man voice?: “Pea nutch.”

(Blah blah blah about “missing” paleoarchaeologist triplets, spiders)

Mustouche’d Cop, for no goddamn reason: “Pea nutch.”

I hate Peanutch.

The next scene kind of looks like an early MTV music video. Gray lumpy-faced man in black cape; glowing, half-melted TV sets; chained up blondes in wigs; slow pans of blessedly blurry, thonged asses. Baron Nefarious (my favorite character, and that I have a favorite indicates how broken my brain is) explains that he plans to use his “Zombotron” gun to turn the world into zombies of the boring, not-brain-eating variety. He’s starting with these three ladies, which is no great loss to the science community. A few flashing lights and a wave of the Zombotron later, and their skin turns green while their wigs and once-again-exposed nipples turn pink. (No word on the West Virginian bushes.)

Watching TV with his newly acquired sex zombies, Baron Nefarious by chance sees Violet and Red on “Kentucky Bob’s Wifeswappin’ Rodeo,” which is much less funny in execution than it might sound (and it should already sound criminally unfunny). Apparently he really likes Violet, because he commands that his zombie slut-slaves beat his gigantic Play-Doh dick with hammers. This basically destroys the concept of humor. The Baron also asks, “Which one of you is going to play with my ass?” in case you were keeping track on your Sexual Repression Score Card.

The next part is weird even for DYZB. Violet and Red start eating a human head at a picnic (the blood spurts in from off-screen), and a nearby nice family expresses their disgust by covering their children’s eyes. It is pretty gross, though not how I expect you’d actually eat a human head, but our young family waits through most of it before declaring prissily, “Let’s just get out.” Really? Mild disdain is the most you can work up in response to public acts of cannibalism? Then again, if my law enforcement option was Konash & Peanutch, I’d probably put up with a lot of shit, too.

Baron arrives at the picnic to kidnap Violet. At his lair, he explains some nonsense about how he turned rats into zombies in college, and we find out that his mother (Red Toole in drag; the rectangular arms give it away) fucked Satan, and the alien crash…um…

SOoo, Red ends up in Pittsburgh, looking for a lead on Nefarious. His lead is a Rastafarian in a bathtub in a sex dungeon, which makes sense; that’s how they do it on Law and Order. Rasta Guy tells Red the completely pointless story of Coconut Head Face Man, a guy who drops sand on people at the beach, and strangely, Rasta Guy IS Coconut Head Face Man. I don’t think we’re supposed to notice that they’re the same actor; I think it’s just because there aren’t a lot of glue-huffing black people in West Virginia. Rasta Guy gives Red a magic conch shell and a photo of some (not topless) tits, apparently a woman who will help him. Red swims to Sweden and discovers that the tit-lady is Super Inga. He encounters more topless, wigged, unattractive blondes who all want to sleep with him, but true to form he’s more interested in gobbling sausage.

I’m not skipping plot here. Believe it or not, this is only about 1/2 of the movie, and it’s also when Sean and I originally turned it off. So we missed a cheese demon puppet, horrible close-ups of Red’s teeth, and a Hasil Adkins training montage. Oh, sucks to be us. But, yeah, most of the second half is just Red running around and getting completely pointless stories from locals–kind of like a really old RPG, except no video game ever has combined this level of extreme boredom; no-budget, but nasty, special effects; brain-snapping redneck stupidity; and uncomfortable homoeroticism.

Okay, so I admit–there’s actually a kind of funny moment. Nefarious is in surgical scrubs, preparing to inflate Violet’s breasts (erm), when he starts getting harrassed by a tied-up Kid Fantastico. Kid claims to be Red’s sidekick, but Nefarious has no idea who he is or how he got tied up. It’s actually a little entertaining (and of course gay; later Red says, “He is not my sidekick. I don’t even know that man. And I am not gay.”), and my slight enjoyment is what tells me it’s time to skip to the end of the movie. Not to mention the fact that Kid Fantastico is followed by an extended Violet-tweaking-Nefarious’s-nipples-with-her-toes scene. This is the point when your genitals will wish they had the ability to throw up, which may be the grossest thing I’ve ever said. If so, I’m sorry–DYZB has destroyed my frame of reference for crossing the line.

On the way to the end, Red finds his apparently-long-lost father, who gives him a vaguely bong-like weapon and a giant rubber dick. He uses the rubber dick to get into Nefarious’s lair, by fucking a giant rubber asshole. You know how they say that repressed homosexuals are the ones who make the most gay jokes? This movie is the Pride Parade leather daddy float of repressed homosexuality.

In the least boring scene of the movie (mostly because there’s rockabilly playing), Red and Kid Fantastico fight off an army of zombies, robots, disobedient dog men, and ninjas, while Baron Nefarious looks on in a pope costume. And then Amphibious Guy shows up, which made me say, “Hey, yeah, what about Amphibious Guy?” Red defeats Nefarious by shoving the bong/phallus down his throat and pumping him full of salty fluid. Because that’s what we do to hommerseckshules ’round these parts.

THEN THINGS GET AWESOME. Konash and Peanutch show up to beat the shit out of newly-free Red, Violet, and Kid Fantastico. Red goes to prison for life for being a serial killer, and then there’s something about Kid Fantastico and Violet becoming superheroes, blahblahblah. I would have watched the beating scene over and over again, if I’d had the patience to sit through two minutes of Konash beating the ground near Red’s skull while Red pelvic-thrusts. As it is, now I need to go sit in a rubber (“diiiicks?”) room and look at pictures of puppies for a few days. Somebody help me.

Come save me, puppies!

Final Assessment:DYZB is a blood orgy of repressed homosexuality, blond wigs, and Hasil Adkins fueled-rockabilly. Except it isn’t, because that makes it sound kind of bitchin’ instead of nauseating and boring.

Availability: You can Watch It Now on Netflix, but believe me when I say that your genitals will Hate You Later.

Special Note: After starting this review, I dreamed that I was watching another movie and suddenly Peanutch appeared. “No! Peanutch!” I said. Sean was confused by my reaction, because in this dream, everyone loved Peanutch. I’m not kidding.

Fuck you, Peanutch.

Double-Special Note: December 2009, I created a Die You Zombie Bastards! in 5 Minutes video and posted it on YouTube. I did this mostly because several people told me they wanted to watch the movie now because I made it sound awesome–this is like saying you want to get an awesome colonoscopy. The video was removed because Zombastic Productions filed a copyright claim with YouTube, which is their right to do. I’m not going to put another minute of my precious, precious life into DYZB, so I’m not making this video available any other way. (For the same reason, even though I have since learned that DYZB is part of a goddamn trilogy, I refuse to watch the other movies.)

At first I felt a little bad that the producers saw all the mean things I said about their movie. Then I thought about the hours (literally, hours) that I spent watching and rewatching that movie to get images, quotes, and the video for my review. And I realized that there is no mean thing I could ever say about this movie that would make up for the scar it has left on my soul.