All hail You Tube for hosting the full version of this film, one which was banned by the BBFC and one of the few that has never been re-released. So how does this so-called Video Nasty pan out? Well, for one, I can't see why they banned it all. It's no gorier than The Crazies and even less gory than Zombie Holocaust, so it's a bit of a head scratcher as to why it was taken off the shelves. On the other hand, I did find it to be a fairly enjoyable, and daft, low budget horror film.After killing two feds who stumbled upon their ganja plantation, some hippies decide to cut their costs, harvest as much grass as possible, and run off. Unluckly for them a G-man gives the go ahead to spray their crop with an experimental herbicide just as they're harvesting, covering five of them in poisonous dust (and the pilot gets covered in it too, for his troubles). Now this dust immediately makes them spew blood and become sick, which leads them to crave blood and go off on a killing spree, starting with two unaffected hippies.Meanwhile, a forestry commission guy is on a fishing trip with his wife and his annoying brother (who does racist jokes), who then bump into two kids who's parents have been killed by the mutated hippies. From then on it's a chase through the woods while the G-man and John Amplas of Martin fame try and cover up the mess they've made.While insanely cheap and in places badly acted and edited, and also although it takes a while to build up some steam, Toxic Zombies is good for a laugh once it gets going. It's not overly gory but people do get stabbed in the eye, have their hands chopped off as the hippies battle the norms. The hippies are easily put down and don't transmit their disease but they're also quite crafty and relentless, using weapons and fire to get to their prey.If you're on the mooch for a cheap horror film then this one will do the trick. I love it when low budget filmmakers manage to pull a decent film out the bag.

This film came to semi prominence in early 80's Britain when it was labelled a video nasty under the evocative sounding title Forest of Fear. The moniker I saw it under was 'Toxic Zombies' which really doesn't make an awful lot of sense. But no matter because it doesn't really make a difference what title this movie has, it's not going to improve it any. Its story is about a group of marijuana farmers who are sprayed with a toxic chemical by renegade federal agents. They turn into homicidal maniacs and terrorise various people in a forest.Sadly, despite being an honest enough effort, this is a pretty boring movie. It's amateurish in every conceivable way. Its video nasty credentials are somewhat questionable too. It's one of many films from the notorious list that have no right being in any grouping of films that were considered a threat to society. The very idea of someone sitting through this and then being either traumatised or inspired to commit acts of violence is patently an insane one. The only thing anyone is in danger of is in falling asleep to be perfectly honest. Acting is universally amateur despite the presence of John Amplas who was so impressive in George Romero's excellent film Martin. While the music is a very poor man's Halloween score. The only thing truly of note has nothing to do with the actual film and that is the fact that the director Charles McCrann was one of the poor unfortunates who perished in the World Trade Center attacks back in 2001.

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.

In memory of Charles Austin McCrann who along with thousands of other Americans were taken from us at the Twin Towers on 9/11/01, is a review of his underrated undead treasure presented in ghoul form. Ghouls' abilities: They have above average human level strength due to their rabidity, slow to moderate mobility but reflexes are quick upon prey, and they have an understanding in using blunt weapons. Fleasheater: Yes, mostly blood draining but not adverse to getting flesh between their fangs. Virus-The cannibalistic virus is non-contagious. PRO's-The story and acting mostly holds up, pretty tough & fairly clever monsters, nicely crafted fx job by Craig Harris, eerie repetitive John Carpenter type score by Ted Shapiro which may have been constructed before the release of Halloween, the story gets gritty at unsuspecting times, humor was a nice touch and didn't take away from the overall tone of horror & the drug theme remains timely. CON's-The story could use more undead creatures, could use more casualties & the acting gets stiff at times. Conclusion: A plus to a horror collection, especially for those into the living dead.