Ozone: The Attack of the Redneck Mutants — Ozone: The Attack of the Redneck Mutants ( Blu Ray
Ozone: The Attack of the Redneck Mutants is a mid-'80s slice of obscure regional horror- focusing on a small Texas town beset by nuclear zombies. It’s a very low-budget affair, with gloppy/ melty gore effects, rather hapless/ hopeless heroes, a sense of off-key humour, and a fair bit of very clear padding. Here from Visual Vengeance, resurrectors of long-forgotten VHS fare, is a Blu-ray release of the film. Taking in several commentary tracks, a fair few other extras, and for this first edition O-Card with alternate art by The Dude,12-page Mini Comic Book, Ozone Mutant Puke Bag, and Muther Video Logo Sticker
Ozone: The Attack of the Redneck Mutants appears in1986- it was directed by Matt Devlen, who has just two other director credits to his name. These are horror comedy anthology Tabloid (1989)- which he co-directed with two other low-budget film makers, and a comedy short called The Remainers ( 2020)…
The film's pre-credits follow a farm worker with a very badly hacking cough- moving from the wooden outhouse, through farm buildings, out into a tractor- before collapsing on the crops- all black, purple, and red-skinned spewing green froth.
As we get into the film, we get to meet our two leads- Arlene Wells( Blue Thompson), a plucky environmental studies student, and mulleted/ sport shirt with collar up Kevin Muncy(Scott Davis), who is related to those who run the local nuclear plant.
The just over one and a half hour film is a very low key affair, and is really a selection of attack/ effects scenes blended with redneck-focused humour/ off-kilter encounters. So the nuke-infected zombies are fairly neat- they are fast-moving, constantly spewing green, pink, or red goo- so if you do have an issue with puke-bound effects, be aware, as this could well be a trigger. As for the violence/ gore, we get throat ripping’s, limb chewings, and some organ pulling.
As for the Redneck element of the film- the red baseball-hatted character who enjoys shooting pumpkins, and trying it on with the female kind…no matter the situation. We have two very lengthy kitchen scenes- one of these including chasing a chicken around for meant to be comedic effect.
Ozone: The Attack of the Redneck Mutants is just fine, with the effects & off-key comedy done well enough. Yes, we do get some very clear padding going on, meaning it feels longer than its actual runtime- but the whole thing is largely entertaining enough if you’re a fan of gory, gooey-based low-budget horror.
As we’ve come to expect with a Visual Vengeance release, we get a good load of extras. There are two commentary tracks- both of these, I believe, are new. The first is between director Matt Devlen and actress Blue Thompson. And the second is between Sam Panico of B&S About Movies and Bill Van Ryn of Drive-In Asylum. I played the first of these two- they open up by saying there are a lot of toilet bits in the film, and we find out director Devlen played the first victim of the toxins. They talk about how the green vomit was created and discuss how the practical effects were created. We find out this film was made back-to-back with another Texas regional SOV horror film, The Abomination, which utilised a lot of the same folks. We find out the film before shooting had a ninty page scipt, which was somewhat pared back. They comment on the use of melons, with a few truly awful jokes. They point out bit part roles- many of these played not by actors, but town locals, friends, and family. We find out the film was originally called just Ozone, and why they added in the rest of the title. Later on they talked about some of the films' influences like HG Lewis. They point out continuity errors, and discuss how some of the zombies bit into the effects/ gore for real. All in all a instresting track, though they do start to run out of steam as it goes on.
Otherwise, on the new side, we have the following: Actress Blue Thompson interview( 10.09). Ozone & The Abomination location visit(13.09).
On the archive side, we have the following: Deleted scenes (2.34). Ozone outtakes- reel 1 ( 15.26). Ozone outtakes reel 2( 14.21). Ozone special effects outtakes(12.16).Muther Video – original VHS intros reel(36.46). Director Matt Devlen – Cinema Wasteland interview( 9.37). Matt Devlen – producer trailer reel (10.53). Short film: Babies (6.29). Actress Barbara Dow – acting reel (6.29). Director Mark Pirro – Ozone interview(18.10). Archival public access TV review: Hollywood Unseen( 8.54).
If you enjoy where gooey zombies meet zero-budget regional horror fare, then Ozone: The Attack of the Redneck Mutants will appeal. And this extra-bulging edition from Visual Vengeance gives you all the insight you could ever need on the film