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Renee (Amanda Baumann) and Jeffrey (Joe
Estevez) have bought an A-frame out in the California desert. Once inside,
they see that the house is decked out in plenty of Mayan artifacts and
sketches. Jeffrey is creeped out, but Renee declares that it's
"perfect". That very night, she has visions of a family brutally
murdered in the very same unit they have purchased, but instead of
freaking out and wanting to split, she sets about cleaning up, pulling
weeds, and (after Jeff discovers a carved totemic head on the property)
busting through the door to the attic, where she happens upon a set of
snapshots of the family from her dream. Still undeterred, she receives a
visitation from the youngest of the clan, who leads her to a magical
cornfield/oasis where the entire family appears. This leads to more
discoveries in the attic (like bloodstains and drawings of the murder),
and this drives the now-obsessed Renee to read up on some Mayan history,
which leads her to believe that these spirits may not quite be at
rest.
The first folks to find this out the hard
way are Danny and Trish, a couple of no-gooders who are in the process of
transporting "$4,000 worth of wetback cargo" (that's two
immigrants) to an undisclosed location. Trish is a hot-to-squat bimbo who
takes joy in putting on a show for her two "little burritos"
while Danny cases the A-frame. Before you can say "Savage
Harvest", the family (now in full zombie mode, thanks to
the sun splitting into several orbs and the sky turning purple!) descend
on this group with all of the fury of the Donner party on a one-year fast.
Meanwhile, things ain't so hot at the house, where Renee desperately tries
to explain to Jeffrey the enormity of her attic discoveries, begging him
to look for the cornfield that naturally has disappeared.
This prompts Jeff to ask if Renee has been
taking her meds, and the reason for their buying a house in such
unforgiving terrain becomes abundantly clear: she's bat-guano crazy and
needs to get away from it all. The next day, she goes for a stroll toward
a group of windmills (if you've taken I-5 down to SoCal, you've seen ones
just like them), where she is surprised by Ruben,
a messed-up looking black guy with rotten teeth and a hardhat
(played by DIFF'RENT STROKES' own Todd Bridges), who is an
assistant to windmill maintenance man Michael (director/writer/producer
David Heavener), a beefy guy with an eye for the crazy. Renee invites him
over for dinner that evening, and (after getting wined up) proceeds to
tell her life's tragedy involving the death of her young daughter, which
led to her two-year stint in the snake pit. By the end of the evening, a
struggle to survive ensues, and even if the Mayan undead can be dealt with
there is still the issue of the killer on the loose..........
AKA CURSE OF THE MAYA, DOTLD
is the brainchild of one-man show David Heavener, who's been
tossing DTV dreck like this out of his Mojave, CA studio since 1988's OUTLAW
FORCE. You gotta hand it to the guy, he does it all, from
writing, directing and producing, to acting, composing (apparently he was
a Nashville songwriter with several top ten country hits before the indie
film bug bit), and handling his own distribution. This is staggering to
consider, but not nearly as staggering as trying to make sense out of the
plot to DAWN OF THE LIVING DEAD! It takes more than a third
of it's meager 80m running time to reveal the lead characters' names, not
to mention their motivations, and the whole Mayan plot (based on actual
myth and folklore, no doubt) is so incoherently handled and haphazardly
presented that the average horror buff will probably give up trying to
figure it out and wait for the set pieces. Luckily, these are pretty
splashy (one is in direct homage to Bill Lustig's MANIAC),
but there is so much yucky color filtering going on (icy blue and
fluorescent green make purple!) that their power and ability to shock are
severely compromised.
While the use of 16mm film stock is a
plus (and some of the desert photography impressive), it leads one to
lament that everything has to look so drab. The acting is just
about what you would expect, with Joe Estevez doing his best to not appear
as wasted as he probably is, and Todd Bridges not having much more to do
than grunt and look ridiculous with a fake potbelly and those
afore-mentioned joke shop teeth. Nope, Heavener actually comes out on top
here, saving some of his most humorously-written dialogue for himself (in
reference to Renee's coffee: "High octane!" "Want some
more?" "Just half a tank.") and possessing a little bit of
what could be called screen charisma. It also must be noted that
the last fifteen or so minutes take the film in a direction that is
somewhat surprising, but by then it's just too late for this to elevate DAWN
to a level above sub-par.
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