Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

I'll admit to having a soft spot for TOXIC ZOMBIES, as it will always be known to me. The film has a legacy behind it that's somewhat bigger than the final results. Notorious for being one of the "Video Nasty" titles banned in Britain during a public outcry over gory, sexually suggestive horror movie videos. Its actually one of the last holdouts which hasn't gotten what would be a highly lucrative DVD revival, and there's a tragic, creepy reason for it.The premise is basic enough to be easily understood on a sort of Urban Legend sort of level: Dumb hippies camping up in the sticks for a summer growing season are waiting to harvest $2 million dollars worth of dope when a team of federal narcotics agents stumble upon their bivouac. They shoot the only good looking woman willing to bare her breasts for the camera and are promptly slaughtered for their efforts by the hippies, who aren't all peace & love after all. After the agents are reported missing cynical federal drug officers decide to dust the crop of weed with an experimental defoliant known to have toxic side effects. I actually remember stories about weed being dusted by the government with paraquat that would make you gag blood when I was a teenage troublemaker, and always wondered if this movie was a source of that urban myth.So the feds hire a down on his luck loser to do it, planning to off him afterward to cover it all up. The hippies get exposed to the defoliant and mutate into ravenous, bloodthirsty zombie type maniacs. They go on a rampage murdering and partially devouring anyone they come upon and the film does a good job of trotting a regular supply of fresh victims onto the location sets. Meanwhile, the hero (writer/director/star Charles McCrann) and his girlfriend happen upon a young girl and her mentally handicapped brother as they wander through the woods looking for frogs or whatever. The four flee the toxic zombies and take up with a survivalist hermit living in the woods who must have been Ted Kazinski's next door neighbor (even though the film was made in Pennsylvania). They fight a losing battle against the toxic zombies & find themselves on the run again, only to come face to face with the scurrilous drug agents, who plan to murder everybody and cover up the event. All we need is that cigarette guy from the X-Files and we'd have a nice little modern day post Vietnam era paranoia parable here.That's the movie in a nutshell. What works are the zombie attacks and the low budget middle of nowhere locations that were chosen. There's also a decent pulsating electronic musical score that suggest somebody had seen a couple of Lucio Fulci movies -- And it turns out, director/star Chuck McCrann was indeed a horror movie buff and sort of made this on his own with some friends & business contacts, one of whom was George A. Romero actor John Amplas, himself a native Pennsylvanian known to work on risky, low budget projects.There's certainly a "home movie" sort of quality to the proceedings, which I say works in the movie's favor. Mr. McCrann was apparently something of a financial entrepreneur and likely raised the funds for the project himself, giving the film a nice independent/regional edge to it. There are no big stars, the zombie effects and gore makeup are effective yet minimal, and the biggest bill for the project was probably the lab fee for the print. Most of the actors are non-professionals, it was likely filmed on public land with a modest crew, and was indeed apparently so independent of a production that there wasn't anyone to stick up for it when British authorities outright banned the film in or around 1984. Its legend as a barf-bagger epic banned by assorted heads of state grew far out of proportion to anything the movie actually delivers, resulting in some of the confusion amongst the ranks of my fellow reviewers here.Today the film exists in a sort of limbo. Not public domain but the legal rights to the film are probably undetermined since they likely remained with Mr. McCrann, who it turns out was one of the victims of the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center, which is where his offices were located. Until the legalities are sorted out the film will remain slipped through the cracks and overlooked, with only its bizarre legacy to recommend it. The only DVD versions kicking around today are sourced from old home video releases. There's an R rated North American DVD and an unrated print from Japan that shows the complete 89 minute assembly rejected by the MPAA.One offbeat tangent of intrigue here is that the theme of government conspiracy and indifference to public well-being runs through TOXIC ZOMBIES right up to a paranoid survivalist hoarding guns & MREs up in his cabin. Of course its just a coincidence but it adds to the film's aura of seediness and cynicism. I actually kind of like it too. I adore low budget regional horror and this is probably one of the pinnacle efforts. It deserves to be resurrected and restored, both as a legacy to McCrann's vision and a great object lesson on how to make a cheap, sleazy, endearing little horror movie for peanuts.6/10

After watching this movie a few times, i can honestly say it's probably the best that Chuck Mccran (RIP) could have done with such a weak budget and cast. The effects are super cheap and there really isn't one good one. The zombies aren't very menacing either, considering there's only 4 or 5 in the whole movie. and the acting, BAD BAD BAD.I think that this movie could have actually been fairly decent had it had a bigger budget, a few script revisions and a much better cast. Of course, the most noticeable role played by John Amplas (Martin). He plays a federal officer in the beginning who, with another officer drive out into the woods to search for the marijuana growers. I say, this is a cheesy yet in a way fun (yet also very boring) ATTEMPT at film-making. Also look at the guy who starred in, wrote, directed, produced, and edited the movie: Chuck Mcrann. He was NOT a filmmaker, just a guy who felt like making a film because of his love for movies.

Forest Of Fear is a terrible film, I have seen it and I still feel sorry for doing that. It's can easily be a part of the worst movies of all times in my opinion. Forest Of Fear is a very low budget film, not that it bothers me, I love low budget/no budget movies, but Forest Of Fear is just awful beyond words. The zombies are pathetic as hell, the characters' dialogue bores so much that you feel like breaking your TV our of anger. The effects are lame, and everything else is just so bad that you want to burn the video shop that has given you the film. I can only recommend this film to people who truly hate themselves or just people that should be executed just for liking horrible movies like forest of fear. If you can find this rare and horrible film, just BURN it. Only by burning it, won't innocent people suffer as much as I have.

The film opens with a shot of a car in the distance travelling along a dirt track in the middle of thick forest towards the camera, we wait for what seems like ages before it reaches us. Inside are two Federal Agents (James Hart and John Kuhi). They stumble across a hippies camp site. Jackie (Debbie Link) is bathing, less than three minutes on the clock and we get some naked breast shots, I'm almost impressed. Realizing that this is camp of a bunch of illegal marijuana growers they attempt to arrest the hippies. Jackie is shot through her throat and killed, the other hippies, manage to turn the tables on the Feds and kill them both. Back in civilization the Federal Agents are missed. In their boss Briggs (Paul Haskin) office, we know it's a Feds office because there's a big table, swivel chair and an American flag, he tells agent Phillips (John Amplas) to spray the whole area with an experimental, untested, toxic, chemical herbicide called Dromax. Back at the camp site the hippies decide to harvest what they can and leave before more Feds turn up. As they start to harvest the crop five of the hippies (Bob Hanson, Gerald Cullen, Ronald Keinhuis, Kim Roff and make up effects man Craig Harris) get covered in Dromax as it's dumped by a constantly drunk crop sprayer (Bob Larson) from his plane. They all start to cough up blood and look very sick. The hippie leader (Dennis Graber) and his girlfriend (Debra O'Leary) both escaped being sprayed and quickly find out that the Dromax has turned their friends into bloodthirsty mindless zombies! A husband (Roger Mills) his wife (Pat Kellis) plus their two children Amy (Judy Brown) and Jimmy (Kevin Hanlon) and anyone else the hippie zombies can find are attacked. It's up to the local forest ranger Tom Cole (played by editor, producer, writer and director Charles McCrann as Charles Austin) his wife Polly (Beverly Shapiro) and his half brother Jay (Philip Garfinkel) who are on weekend fishing trip, to try and save the day and put an end to the hippie zombies reign of bloodthirsty terror! Starring in, edited, produced, written and directed by Charles McCrann, who according to the IMDb died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. Well, we know who to blame then. I didn't exactly hate it but at the same time I certainly didn't like it either. Generally quite poorly made with awful acting, cheap effects, extremely static boring photography and lackluster instantly forgettable music. There's next to no gore or violence in it, a chopped off hand, cut off leg, a few gunshot wounds and a few splashes of blood here and there, that's it. The only nudity is the woman taking a bath in the opening scenes. The script sucks, it has no excitement, tension and very little originality. The hippie zombies have no purpose, their bite doesn't turn others into zombies and their never shown eating anyone, they just kill for the hell of it. Most of the characters in the film aren't even given proper names which shows how much character development McCrann was interested in. The limp ending is terrible as well, it just sort of ends all of a sudden. The dialogue is very sparse and some of the worst I've heard in a long time, none of the characters are developed at all, I couldn't care less what happened to anyone at any point in the film. This film has various alternate titles including Bloodeaters, Toxic Zombies, Blood Butchers and it's known as Forest of Fear here in the UK. Poor, don't waste your time.