By Dakota Cantwell

Pulling hard on many of the tropes from classic zombie films and B horror, “Attack of the Southern Fried Zombies” culminates to a fun 82 minute romp that won’t be changing the genre anytime soon.

The story follows Lonnie (Timothy Haug) as he lives his small town life as a crop duster for GloboBioTech, a company working with their experimental chemical Quadoxin in an attempt to fight off the invasive plant species known as kudzu.  At the towns annual fair, his day goes from bad to worse when a failed attempt to hit on his ex-flame, Kayla (Wyntergrace Williams), is then quickly interrupted by an outbreak of Kudzu Zombies.

Steering hard into the campiness of the B horror genre, “Attack of the Southern Fried Zombies” is full of groan worthy characters that are flat imitations from various other zombie films, helping us to remember that nobody loves the small town rednecks until people start eating eachother.

The low budget of the film is most shown with its poor CGI attempts. The low quality of the CGI, however, does not stop the movie from using it over and over again.  From bullets blowing half a zombies head off to excessively large explosions, the film works hard trying to make the CGI work for the film, but ultimately the poor graphics are a distraction from the rest of the film.

Despite the terrible CGI, many of their practical effects are pulled off well, giving life to some of the film’s bloodier scenes. While the first zombie’s mask is blatantly obvious, the rest of the films practical effects play well to the B horror strengths of the film.

Still, despite its many flaws, “Attack of the Southern Fried Zombies” gives an original feel by making use of the South’s most infamous weed, kudzu.

With earnest acting, zombie mayhem and a killer credits song, the movie makes for 82 minutes of fun, with intermittent moments for groans, teaching us strong lessons about the zombie dangers of weed and the importance of meat pies.