Director/Screenplay – Justin Timpane, Producers – Brian Anderson & Will Stendebeck, Music – Michael Damon & Justin Timpane, Visual Effects – Brian Anderson, Practical Effects – Will Stendeback. Production Company – Seminal Films/Endlight.
Cory Okouchi (Cole), Dan Guy (Randall), Daniel Ross (Kyle), P.J. Megaw (Eric), Daniel Mascarello (Fitz), Carla Okouchi (Lily), Melissa McConnell (Ann), Tara Leigh Moore (Kara), Will Stendeback (Herman), Ted Taylor (Dr Wood)
Randall performs a magical spell that raises his brother Eric from the dead. However, things don’t quite go right and Eric emerges as something evil that wants to suck out people’s souls, leaving them turned into zombies. Randall then performs another spell that gives his friends Cole, Kyle and Fitz, a bunch of down on their luck losers, ninja powers so they can stand up to the zombie threat.
Ninjas vs Zombies was the debut film for Justin Timpane. The film enjoyed reasonable success and Timpane went on to make two sequels with Ninja vs Vampires (2010) and Ninjas vs Monsters (2012). Outside of these, Timpane has also made Trekoff: The Motion Picture (2016) based on a podcast that he appears in and A Christmas Cancellation (2020) in which characters in a tv show face their cancellation. Much of the film was shot around the Gainesville, VA area.
Ninjas vs Zombies sits halfway between the amateurish and the capably well made. You have to put up with some poorly staged gore effects and variable performances. At least, the performances from the main cast are competent – Cory Okouchi in particular has the definite potential to go on to do bigger and better things.
The film quickly stumbles into one of the pitfalls of amateur filmmaking in that the filmmakers are constantly making enthusiastic homages or in-jokes about their inspirations. Much of the dialogue comes in ironic, genre-nodding quote marks. There is a long monologue from Will Stendeback who plays a nerd conducting a podcast scathingly digging into the then recent Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). That’s just before he gets killed as zombies enter the house where he still has time for an aside where he asks P.J. Megaw whether his attackers are Romero or The Evil Dead (1981)-type zombies.
By the second half of the film, this constant fannish in-joking largely settles down. During these sections, the martial arts scenes take over. Here Justin Timpane delivers some fairly solid and well choreographed scenes with the ninjas in action. Moreover, the actors come together as a crew and reasonable attention is paid to them as characters. It all has a modest low budget vigour.
The main issue that cramps Ninjas vs Zombies in the wider aspect is the writing of the magician character. The magician Randall is a supporting character and has been created to get certain plot elements – the resurrection of his brother, the creation of the ninja fighting force – in place. On the other hand, the character is way more over-powered for what seems plausible. We have someone who operates a comic-shop and yet has the power to resurrect the dead, perform healing spells to affect those mortally wounded and teleport away from a scene, not to mention perform a spell that grants not only the team their ninja abilities but also outfits them with their gear. When someone has the ability to do almost anything without any cost, the stakes in a story cease to have any effect and nothing matters, a large part of the reason I am not a fan of the Harry Potter universe.
Trailer here