I wasn't totally sure what I was getting into with Buck Wild. The cover art (featuring a dirty, bloody guy with bad teeth looking through binoculars) would lead you to believe that it's a backwoods cannibal flick. The Netflix synopsis says it's about a Chupacabra virus. And imdb says the story is "A hunting vacation goes awry for 4 friends after they accidentally shoot the lease land's owner." These are all technically true, but why not just say "small town zom-com" and be done with it?
Buck Wild is the sort of movie where the characters are just loud. Not that they are yelling all of the time, but everyone has a defining characteristic that is obnoxiously amped up to 11. As in, the smarmy asshole guy is a HUGE ASSHOLE, the crazy gun nut is Taxi Driver-times ten crazy, etc. Other than our main guy, nobody in the film behaves remotely like a real person. Our four friends are: Craig (the normal one), Tom (the ultra sensitive one), Lance (the Big Time Asshole), and Craig's cousin Jerry (the crazy one). The first hurdle to clear is the fact that it doesn't seem like these guys would be friends in the least. Actually, it's hard to imagine that they would be friends with *anyone* - they are that annoying.
But anyways, Craig has planned a hunting trip, and the four of them show up at a kind of shitty ranch, where they've rented a dirty cabin and can go deer hunting on the property. When they show up, the ranch owner seems very sick - he says it's a cold, but we know better, having seen him get attacked by a chupacabra in the opening scene of the film. (Sadly, the rest of the film is chupacabra-less.) While our friends are out hunting, they shoot at a deer but accidentally hit the ranch owner, who happened to be doing a little gut-munching on the deer carcass. The thing is, he's not actually dead. Jerry realizes quickly that he is in fact a zombie - and really it's pretty easy to tell. He has blood coming out of his eyes, is very pale, and just looks like a mess. Plus, who eats raw deer guts? Jerry's matter-of-fact reaction ("he's a zombie") is a welcome change from other films; he's seen zombie movies, knows what a zombie is, and knows how to deal with them (i.e. shot to the head). But Tom and Greg don't buy it, so they plan on taking him to the hospital in the nearby small town. As expected, that doesn't turn out too well, and before they know it the town is being overrun with zombies, and our four friends are fighting for their lives.
But I guess the important thing in a zom-com is that it is funny, and Buck Wild more or less succeeds in that respect. The humor is a little obnoxious at times, and it's usually pretty juvenile. The only time things ever approach clever is when the characters are watching TV and they come across a fake commercial/TV show. (I think the filmmakers liked doing these gag commercials, as you see four or five of them.) And like I said, the characters are just loud one-note stereotypes and some of them - depending on their one particular note - are much more annoying than funny. Fat overalls guy, I'm looking at you. But I would say the jokes end up landing about half of the time. It's not a great average, but there are a lot of attempts. So ultimately enough of the humor works that the film moves along at a pretty decent pace.
Buck Wild is definitely more of a comedy film than a horror film. I mean, there are zombies, and there is a lot of blood, but there is hardly any tension or anything that could truly be called disturbing or frightening. There *is* a whole lot of blood (and many scenes of our characters in the aftermath of an attack just covered in it), but the blood is pretty much the only gore you'll find here. Other than the occasional zombie bite, you never see any of the attacks/impact on the body/whatever. I guess you see a few of the undead getting shot, but it's mostly bad CGI. And unfortunately, there isn't a memorable kill to be found anywhere. On the flip-side, the zombie makeup is pretty good, and they manage to get a lot of extras to make an impressively-sized horde for the big battle at the end of the film.
Based on the kind of underwhelming horror stuff, I presume it's a pretty low budget affair. But honestly, things look pretty good - the film has a nice, crisp feel to it and both the indoor and outdoor scenes are well lit and well shot. The only downside has to be the action scenes. Most of the film has a pretty kinetic feel to it, but the things slow down a gear or two when the action starts. I suspect it's that way for budgetary reasons, but it's still a little disappointing.
So I don't know. I think your enjoyment of Buck Wild would pretty much depend on your ability to stomach kind of obnoxious characters. It is funny at times, but it's not quite as funny as it thinks it is. But personally, enough of the humor worked for me. I certainly wouldn't recommend it to the general population - for instance, if you hear "zom-com" and are like "what's that?," stay far away. But if you're looking for a zombie-comedy and aren't in a particularly discerning mood:
I would more or less recommend this film.
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