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Health & Fitness

ATTACK OF THE HERBALS

ATTACK OF THE HERBALS

Jeri Jacquin, Movie Maven

On DVD from director David Ryan Keith with MTI Home Video comes the story of tea and zombies with ATTACK OF THE HERBALS.

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This film tells the story of Jackson McGregor (Calum Booth) and his buddy Russell Wallace (Steve Worsley) who live in the fishing village of Lobster Cove. A quaint and quiet little place where nothing happens. That is until recently when land suck-tard Bennett Campbell (Liam Matheson) unveils his plan to take over with a new development. Jackson’s grandparents have a post office right in the middle of that development!

While mulling over what to do and walking along the shore, Jackson and Russell discover a crate filled with tea – or is it? After drinking it themselves and enjoying the effects, they come up with a plan to sell it as a business venture to raise money to safe the post office.

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It doesn’t take long for the money to come in and people are standing in line for it. Enjoying their financial windfall they kind of fail to notice that something is up with the tea drinkers of Lobster Cove.

Once they discover what the tea really is that’s when the fun really begins!

FINAL WORD: Booth as Jackson has such a good hearted guy. But we all know what happens to good-hearted guys (watch THE NOTEBOOK for a crash course). Of course he is the last person the town would expect to be a hero yet if I drank some of that tea I could see it happening. Pass the sugar bowl please!

Worsley is just plain insane – and in the way that I absolutely love. Who cares if he is not a classically trained actor looking to win his first Oscar in an over blown film so full of itself that won’t make its money back – NO I SAY! He gets in there giving it his all and that’s what I look for.

Currie as The Roadrunner gets the Asner Award (you know, an Asner…when you drink a liquid of some sort, see something totally unexpected and shoot said liquid of some sort out your nose – yea – an Asner!) Without giving away the scene because I hate that shyte, lets just say you’ll know it when you wheel it.

Matheson as Campbell is the Gloria-Swanson-I’m-ready-for-my-close-up-Mr.-DeMille-minus-the-turban-over-acting-villain who is awesome in a villain in a zombie movie sort of way. Well done sir, well played!

The cast together just look like they are having a good time without trying to show they are having a good time which makes me have a good time. Are you getting all this? No, I refuse to give you any more information than I have because screwing up someone’s laughs doesn’t happen on this keyboard baby!

Other cast include: Richard Currie as The Roadrunner, Lee Hutcheon as Danny the Pincer, Claire McCulloch as Jenny Robertson, Margaret Bramwell as Granny MacGregor, Jimmy Lynch as Grandad MacGregor, Alan Fraser as Aldof Frankenfurter, Dave Thomson as Mr. McAndrews, Mary Cox and Mrs. McGinty, Daniel Greavey as Dan, Dorothy Taylor as Mrs. McTavish and Mark Wood as Ball Crusher.

TUBS OF POPCORN: I give ATTACK OF THE HERBALS four tubs of popcorn out of five. Do let me tell you why! This has to be one of the funniest comedies with the lowest budget I have ever seen. I can’t even begin to tell you some of the fantastic trivia associated with this film but let me try.

The cast and crew worked for free and on weekends because they all had jobs, the film took 35 days to shoot but over nine months shot on a single Canon 5D camera, edited in the directors bedroom, and the cast did crew work when needed.

For the fun stuff Danny the Pincer drew on his own lobster tattoo and used his girlfriends hair extension for long hair, and Bennett Campbell’s name is an homage to The Evil Dead’s character Commando.

See? This is a film that is absolutely original, straight to the point in its 88-minute telling and gave me a lot of good laughs. I’m sure the first thought might be ‘oh, Pegg and Frost’ imitators –WRONG! Booth and Worley are their own funny men and prove it in this film. 

So when shopping for a fun, quirky, over acted, and under appreciated film stop in your zombie tracks (which should only take a second – you’re a zombie remember?) when seeing the cover of ATTACK OF THE HERBALS get it! Now it’s available at www.amazon.com and on itunes. It is also available On Demand with Comcast and Time Warner Cable. Check it out at http://www.attackoftheherbals.com/index.html.

In the end – they are putting the tea back into terror!

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