To me, this movie is perfection.

Please don't spend money on this.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

A Mad Cow disease causes those who eat meat infected by it to turn into flesh eating zombies, ruining the vacation of a dysfunctional family. Zom com places major emphasis on laughs which are few and far between. Billy Zane plays his doctor straight-faced all the way through, never changing expression, with this dead-pan delivery an attempt at forced comedy. Shaun of the Dead, as good a movie as it was, has encouraged an innumerable amount of imitators which fail to capture the same kind of balance of (funny)humor and horror as it did. For instance, there's this entire comedy bit where father Zane and daughter Maggie Castle bicker over the name of the farm which provided the bad meat which started the zombie mad cow plague..it falls as flat as possible and desperate. There's plenty of "goremedy" using violence as a means to seek giggles, failing miserably. I think it takes entirely too long to get going and by the time the zombies are unleashed, I reckon many fans of the genre would have laboured in vain. There's heavy focus on the family dynamic and how the disconnect between father and daughter regains momentum as they encounter danger. Eventually they decide to take the SUV of a couple torn apart by zombies, confronting the father-son farmers whose "medicine" for their cattle caused the zombie disease infecting the meat. If anything, Castle in Daisy Duke attire and pig-tails should leave an impression even though the humor fails to do so. Shauna MacDonald is the woman that almost comes between Zane and Castle, Evan Charles Flock, the daughter's beau who doesn't fare well when all is said done. You could call this a treatise on the dangers of eating meat, celebrating vegetarianism, but I wouldn't dare submit such a theory for a movie this painfully unfunny. When you see Zane and Castle disputing with farmer Sutter over whether "strange" or "strangely" applies to the behavior of mad cows, then you know a film's struggling mightily to belly-laugh their audience into a stooper.

"The Mad" is without a doubt meant to be bad. There can be little doubt that both the cast, the director, and most likely the screen writer foreordained this to be a laughably bad film. There are time in which Billy Zane's performance not only breaks the forth wall it shatters it into a thousand pieces, leaving the viewer in a vortex of both confusion and pure hilarity. If it's not zombies, who's only zombie like aspect is alka-seltzer driven mouth foam, it's seemingly omniscience beef patties that attack the characters in-mass. The full affect of this leaves one with more per-zombie-giggles than "FIDO". If you happen to have a group of pro-zombie minded friends and what a movie to put everyone in stitches try "The Mad".

This film is as messy as a zombie chowing down on guts. Considering it's only 80-odd minutes long, it takes a good half hour to get going. It's certainly a quirky film, there are some bits which are genuinely funny, and none at all that are scary or particularly horrifying - not quite sure what the DVD has that makes it "unrated" to be honest! Billy Zane is okay, although UK viewers may find his resemblance to "Les" from Vic Reeves Big Night Out a little disconcerting. All other actors do their jobs well enough, but they can't carry the comedy. The script tries to be too clever and/or postmodern for its own good sometimes, and any humour, irony or subtle comedy just doesn't work. Shaun Of The Dead (to which this film owes a huge debt) did it all so much better.One scene with Amy and her dad walking through the field, dissecting their lives whilst kicking a couple of zombies to death without pausing for breath is the best scene in the film - unfortunately spoiled by inappropriate background music which just does not fit.The director refers to this film as "social commentary" - he believes the zombies have a lust for consumption, of any material goods - but this isn't brought across to the screen. They just look like typical zombies destroying a car, it doesn't make you think "Wow, what a subtle insight into American materialism." Worth seeing only if it costs you nothing, you have 85 spare minutes, and you'll watch anything with zombies and/or cows in it.

Having screened The Mad at the Gala Opening at the 2007 Canadian Filmmakers Festival, I can say that it would be a shame for this movie to be relegated to the 'Direct to Video Pile'. It's likely to become a cult movie in a similar vein to "Shaun of the Dead", "Evil Dead", "Return of the Living Dead", etc.A tad slow in places, the intelligent humour and earnestness of the characters more than makes up for any shortcomings. This movie makes no pretense to being anything other than fun.Nice to see Billy Zane in something other than a dramatic role, with luck we'll see more comedic acting from Zane in the future as he seemed to have a great deal of fun with this role.Go 'Team Chris'