With a name like that, you kind of know what you’re getting yourself into. Take into consideration the name, and the fact that I have never heard anyone ever talk about this movie; I was setting my standards pretty low. I popped the DVD in and saw that it was distributed by Showtime. Taking all previous factors into account, and that the only company that would distribute this film was a cable television channel, I wasn’t enjoying where this DVD menu was going. Considering the last zombie movie I saw was Dance of the Dead, which I hated (review here), this Zombie Honeymoon just HAD to be better, didn’t it?! However, I watched this movie without very much volume, so it was hard to hear most of the dialogue. I got a feeling that dialogue wasn’t going to be the driving force behind things.

“Of course I would never eat you! Well, except for your…(snicker snicker).”

We see a church with two people running from it screaming. Did something terrifying happen? Yes! They got married! Danny and Denise, played by Graham Sibley and Tracy Coogan, got married! So they run screaming to their car. They go to a beach house, which was either a wedding gift or maybe they broke in. It was one of those instances where audio might have been helpful. We see the couple in love, doing each other in the backyard, not worrying about sticks and leaves in awkward places, or worried about pervy neighbors. They decide to spend time on the beach, when some guy comes walking out from the ocean, and pukes into Danny’s mouth. They rush to the hospital, only to have him pronounced dead. He mysteriously comes back to life a few minutes later, and that’s when the zombie honeymoon officially starts!

Ew! He’s making his mouth look like the Gulf of Mexico! Too soon?

Danny starts acting funny and, believe it or not, has a craving for flesh. He was a vegetarian before, but now he has been found eating a neighbor in the bathroom! What is his wife to do?! Well, they love each other too much, so they stick together. Danny doesn’t look like a zombie, just eats people. So it could be worse, right? Danny starts eating more and more people, and Denise keeps trying to protect him. They plan on flying away somewhere to start over, but the police and friends start taking notice. Eventually, the cops intervene, and Danny kills one. Denise makes a romantic dinner for the two of them, puts on her wedding dress, and kills him, then throws him in the pool. She goes to the beach, considers ending her life, but instead touches her stomach in an “I’M PREGNANT” sort of way, then looks back at the plane tickets, and the movie ends.

“Of course there are worse ways to find out you aren’t pregnant this month!”

Although it might sound kind of hard to believe based on that synopsis, I found this to be a pretty original zombie film, and I’ll tell you why. Typically, there are two types of zombie films. There are ones that are scary because of the concept that the entire world will be overrun, and then there are the type that scare you because of these “monsters” that simply cannot be stopped. The original Dawn of the Dead would be the first kind, whereas the remake would be the second kind. Zombie Honeymoon was neither. It was more closely related to the second type, because Danny was turning into a monster, but he wasn’t turning other people into zombies. It was one isolated incident and it was about two people, who clearly loved each other dearly, had to deal with one person turning into something. You get the same feeling of sympathy in this film as you do when you watch District 9 and see Vicas turning into an alien (spoiler alert). Despite its low-budget, this film seems to accomplish what it intended. They could have gotten higher production value, paid for better effects and distribution, but there really wasn’t all that much gore, and I thought the actors did an especially good job of portraying two characters in love, with the whole world ahead of them, only to have it snatched away from them. Not trying to say this movie needs to win any Oscars or anything, just ended up being better than my expectations.

Wolfman Moon Scale