Some years ago my main man Billy Zane looked like he poised to be next Brad Pitt or something like that. He was probably going be Brad Pitt before Brad Pitt became Brad Pitt as he had some serious roles like the lead in the superhero movie ‘The Phanton’, which really wasn’t all that bad, and let’s not even get started on Mr. Zane showing up in the worlds most watched movie ‘Titanic’. But now over a decade later with his matinee idol looks etching away, his hair long ago going the way of Telly Savales and his six-pack turning into a two liter, Billy now makes his living in my realm, the world of the B-movie. And what B movies they have been such as ‘Bloodrayne’, ‘Alien Agent’ and the completely unintentionally hilarious ‘Perfect Hideout’. But we’re not mad at Billy here at the FCU because we love B-movies, we love Billy in B-movies and Billy is married, or at least used to be married – because you know how they do in Hollywood – to one of the planets hottest women in Kelly Brook. And even if they’re not married anymore I’m sure he has some stories to tell. To prove what a good thing this is we’ve tracked down a picture of Mrs. Zane to prove our point. All of this worthless prattle is merely to state that we’ve just seen Mr. Zane’s latest B-movie, from north of the border, the zombie comedy ‘The Mad’. Now it’s not nearly as funny as ‘Perfect Hideout’ but it’s not so bad.

Dr. Jason Hunt (Zane) is driving across country with his girlfriend with a plan Monica (Shauna McDonald), his bitchy teenaged daughter Amy (Maggie Castle) and Amy’s boyfriend Blake (Evan Charles Flock) when they stop off at some town located somewhere on the planet earth to enjoy the local culture and some local cuisine. Unfortunately in a bit of bad timing the local diner run by Charlie (Rothaford Gray) and watiresssed by his hot step daughter Steve (Jordan Madley) has just got in batch of bad meat from some of the worlds maddest cows. This is Canada where Mad Cow is a way of life.

Fortunately none of our heroes actually ate any of the wacky meat, but some of the locals did which has the unfortunate side effect of turning them into zombies. More or less. They actually get into a discussion on whether or not these folks are the undead or not which was quite fascinating but we’re not going to get into any of that here. Regardless, after the girlfriend with a plan dies via deep knife through the skull syndrome, Dr. Hunt, his daughter, the boyfriend, the cook and the waitress are going head up against some seriously crazed, flesh eating pseudo zombies. Not all of them will survive, say like Charlie the chef who happens to be Black. Be the movie from Canada, Kansas or the North Pole… the plight of the Black Man is a foregone conclusion.

However, not simply content to simply defeat the zombies menace, Dr. Hunt and his daughter for some reason feel the need to get to the root of the zombie menace which will take them to the farm that birthed these rotten cows and their rotten meat. I don’t know what their plan was when they got there, and neither did they as they are now in the capture of the evil farmer and his baby boy and things are looking quite grim.

I’m not quite sure what to make out of this film from director John Kalangis which obviously was made with its tongue firmly in its cheek and to that end there’s not a hell of lot to say about it. It has a lot of gore, it has more than its fair amount of humor and Billy Zane seems to having a good time in it. It’s kind of a fun movie to watch even though as a movie it’s really not all that good. The pacing is wildly uneven, the editing is a bit sloppy and the narrative jumps all over the place but what the hell, it’s a Canadian / Horror / Zombie / Mad Cow movie that makes you laugh on occasion and won’t scare the children all that much. Though you should probably pretend to be a responsible parent and not let your kids watch it anyway. Enjoy the picture of Mrs. Zane.