HORROR DVD/BLU-RAY REVIEWS

Oy vey! That crazy poisoned matzo makes the gentle Jews into flesh-crazed zombies; I think I’m gonna plotz!

On the first night of Passover, responding to a domestic disturbance call in a small Jewish bungalow community, an expendable police officer is suddenly faced with an army of reanimated kosher corpses, who proceed to nosh on his heathen tuchus. Full of energy from their Seder meal, the Hasidic monsters menace a nice Gentile family (and their pig, Larry) trying to have a proper Christian meal. They are barely holding their own against the Christ-killing zombies when a savior appears in the form of an Elvis-coiffed hero on a John Deere tractor by the name of Johnny…Johnny Liebowitz. But don’t worry: he was only raised by Jews. He is immune to the Hitler-poisoned Matzos, but knows the ways of the Jews, and so is the best man for the job of exterminating them. And as it so happens, he knows exactly what the secret weapon is. Poor Larry.

Night of the Living Jews is an epically clumsy short film (21 minutes long). I cannot tell if it is so awful on purpose, a stylistic choice to mimic the horror films of the late 50’s and early 60’s that it draws inspiration from, or if the cast and crew just suck. Either way, I don’t really care: it has a menorah full of audacity, and you just can’t go wrong with something striving so hard to be offensive. Every conceivable facet of Orthodox Judaism is lampooned, and don’t think you Gentiles are safe either: the family being terrorized is the worst sort of milquetoast, WASPy unit imaginable. And Johnny is just, well, a dick.

The special effects aren’t that special, and the performances are routinely wooden (as well as the dialog, especially that of Johnny, being poorly synced), but once again, that may have been a Lost Skeleton of Cadavra type gimmick. The budget was non-existent, though, as can be evidenced by the obvious use of the Troma melon full of hamburger meat head squashing. The final battle with the antlered Rabbi is quite short (he has antlers because he is a country Jew; only city Jews have horns). I would be tempted to think this was just a short put together to try to get funding for a full length feature, if it were not for the very final looking packaging of the DVD. But then again, I’m not sure how much more mileage they could get out of this concept.

Video:Widescreen, black and white.

Audio:No idea.

Four Cups: the official Night of the Living Jews drinking game: this is a very funny little segment, and there seems to have been more thought put into devising the game than there was devising the script. I expect to see this game popping up in colleges all over the country in the next few years. Like college kids need an excuse to drink.

Too Hot For The Internet “Strip Dreidel” video: This is basically a goof on those awful late night Girls Gone Wild videos, where they try to get girls off the street to strip down and do ugly things. In this segment, you can see girls get naked (with stars over their nips, sorry fellas) and do ugly things with a giant Dreidel. Yeah, you heard me.

The Heeb Magazine Promotional Video That Nobody Wants You To See: A quick promo ad for Heeb Magazine, who funded this DVD release, featuring a Gentile kid doing a terrible thing to himself while looking at pictures of pretty Jewish girls online. *shudder*

Masturbatory Commentary from writer/director Oliver Noble: This commentary starts off promisingly, takes a hilariously bizarre turn almost immediately, but then just sort of fizzles. Five minutes into it it just stops. Kind of funny, but ultimately WTF? Some of us like commentaries.

Original Trailer: as run of the mill as a trailer for a movie called Night of the Living Jews can get, I guess.

Anyone watching a movie called Night of the Living Jews probably doesn’t need me to tell them to bring their sense of humor to the fore while watching it. If you have thick skin and a love of irreverence and bad movies, this film was tailor made for you. Fun for parties, and for offending your more conservative friends. Just don’t expect more than the one gag stretched taut over the 21 minute runtime. Oh, and there are boobies. So, you know, that is always good.