Posted: 10/16/2005

Hide and Creep

(2005)

by Barry Meyer

Zombie flicks are a dime a dozen, but this one is worth its weight in dimes.

Television cover is a quote that claims that Hide and Creep is “even better than Shaun of the Dead.”

I don’t know.

That’s a pretty ballsy claim, especially coming from a no-budget, shot on video, stocked with local amateur actors kinda flick. But hell, I gotta tell you that even though they aren’t even in the same league, Hide and Creep is still a mullet tugging, beer belly tickling, redneck zombie good time.

As is the way of the zombie flick, a bunch of unsuspecting Alabama folk suddenly find their quiet Southern town over run by packs of flesh eating corpses. With the local law enforcement on vacation, a hapless video clerk teams up with the Sheriff’s secretary, a retired deputy, a lone G-man, and a couple local beer-swilling, gun-happy rednecks to administer their own dose of Southern hospitality upon the growing army of the undead.

With a crud load of straight to video zombie flicks piling up out there, paying faithfully ripped-off homage to the undead kings Raimi and Romero, it’s a rare treat to find a movie that has the guts to find their own set of balls. Directors Chuck Hartsell and Chance Shirley (he wrote the script as well) provide clever comic situations for the heroes to get caught up in, and supply the characters with some crafty dialogue to chew on (although some of the existential pop culture quips tend to get a bit too Kevin Smith-esque for my blood). But the real stand out in Hide and Creep is Kyle Holman’s unaffectedly hilarious performance as a droll redneck hunting aficionado whose wise-cracking smartness recalls Billy Bob Thorton at his best (he could be his uncanny double). Holman (who also appears in Sleepaway Camp III) feels so right and unforced in this role that he easily could’ve carried a sequel on his shotgun-totin’ mullet-broachin’ shoulders.

Barry Meyer is a critic and writer living among the cockroaches in New Jersey.

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