I should have known I was in trouble when the newscaster announced his name was George Romero. BRAINS!

Nobody loves a good gut-muncher more than I do. Zombie films have always been my most favorite of the horror sub genre. They're quite often simple, and more often than not, extremely effective and easily entertaining. I remember hearing quite a bit about BIOHAZARDOUS in the past and was extremely curious when I discovered that the flick had finally achieved distribution. Was it worth the wait? Let's take a look at BIOHAZARDOUS on DVD to find out.

You've seen THIS story well over a thousand times folks so I'm not going to bore you too much with the details. A company called Gentech has moved into a small town and the local townspeople are in an uproar. It seems as if Gentech is doing some sort of medical testing for the government, but nobody seems to know exactly what. Even some of Gentech's employees are left in the dark. Who wants to find out what's going on behind Gentech's closed doors? Well, it seems as if a couple of nosy cops, a priest and his henchmen as well as a group of meddling kids are at the head of the list. As fate would have it they all converge on Gentech's grounds one fateful evening. This also happens to be the evening that things go terribly wrong at Gentech's headquarters, as there's a lockdown of mammoth proportions this night. I seems that the dead have mysteriously returned to life (imagine that!).

Everyone's got an agenda against Gentech and they vary from the priest just wanting to put an end to Gentech's experiments to the nosy teens who think the "freaky electrical fences are cool" - OK. Everyone winds up trapped in Gentech's headquarters (somehow) and are forced to fight for their lives against an army of the living dead as well as each other.

Ok, let's start at the top here. BIOHAZARDOUS is not a great film. Now I'm not one to just sit here and openly bash an indie production for no reason and I'm not about to start now. BIOHAZARDOUS is most certainly not without its virtues, but as a zombie flick (and an indie horror flick in general) it's got its problems. Let's start with the numerous and all too "hip" horror flick references, which just don't work (they never have and they never will). There's the aforementioned Romero reference as well as the fact that the project at Gentech is called ROTD (Return of the Living Dead?). I think that these bits are supposed to be clever or funny (perhaps both), but they're not, they're just annoying. These references are sprinkled throughout just enough to grate on one's nerves each time they pop up.

I also had a problem with the kids motivations and dialogue (since they really are the centerpiece of the flick). It's not just with BIOHAZARDOUS either, I've noticed this trend recently in indie flicks and I'm just not convinced that people really talk like this. Add to the mix that these kids were just plain annoying playing mailbox baseball and tormenting the Indian employee at a local mini-mart (they call him Apu, get it?). It isn't until we get past all of this "characterization" when the flick really kicks into high gear (a good 40 minutes into the film).

Once everyone's trapped in Gentech and the zombie parade begins, none of this needless and unfulfilling foreplay we had to endure ptior really matters. The zombies themselves are pretty cool and a big kudos goes out to the make up and special effects. There's plenty of blood and gore as the living dead don't let up for a minute (which is fine, because you can't wait to see these characters get eaten). This is where BIOHAZARDOUS really shines and if you can make it through the tedious courtship, you're sure to gain some enjoyment out of the summer fling.

BIOHAZARDOUS is presented in a matted widescreen transfer (approx 1.85:1) and looks simply exceptional on this DVD. The transfer here is extremely sharp and crisp with bright solid colors and no evidence of pixelation. If there's one thing BIOHAZARDOUS won't be accused of, it's looking like a crappy SOV flick, it does have a great look to it.

Audio is presented in a Dolby 2.0 stereo mix. I found the audio to be a bit unbalanced throughout with dialogue remaining at a comfortable level, but when those hard rockin' tunes kick in (and they're not really good to begin with…that's what happens when you're friends with someone in a band), man you better keep your finger on the volume control. Aside from that, the audio was quite crisp and clear with no evidence of background noise.

Extras include a trailer, photo gallery, and a cast and crew audio commentary. For more info check out Eclectic DVD. BRAINS!