(Frontline) www.pacificcoast.net/~frontline

Directed by Brian Clement

Starring: Plenty of dead folks

Meat Market 2 - I haven't seen part 1, but I'm guessing it also involves the dead eating the living- closely follows the vague plague blueprint for the apocalypse established by George Romero's zombie trilogy (there's even a quick off-hand reference to the splatter pioneer in the crackling static of the loudspeakers in Meat Market 2's Day of the Dead-esque military compound). The story involves a scrappy pack of neo-punkers and their vampire friend as they struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland lousy with the wandering, hungry dead and few resources to get by on. When they find another living soul, a studious looking 20-something backpacker chick under siege from a giant paper-mache headed ghoul, they foolishly tag along with her to some supposed zombie-free paradise full of dope and ammo, and probably whiskey and chicks, too, right around the corner. Bad move. Turns out, she's just a shill for a crazed motivational speaker (!) who's set up a concentration camp/training ground for a New Fascist State, and our heroes find themselves fighting off both the fuzz and the flesh freaks to escape the clutches of the feel-good fuhrer and his goose stepping minions.

Filled with copious splashes of hardgore, including much eating of entrails, vampire attacks, and maggoty medical experiments, Meat Market 2 is like some pedal to the metal, ugly joy ride through the conventions of high octane shock cinema- the cyberpunk zombie paranoia of 'Return of the Living Dead 3', the double fisted gunplay of 'The Killers', 'Men Behind the Sun's gross-out surgical hi-jinks, and the urban desolation and futuristic wastelandscapes of all those Italian Road Warrior rip-offs. Aided greatly by all the smashed concrete and abandoned hallways on display, not to mention a cast of hundreds, lumbering around in corpsepaint and greedily stuffing pig guts into their mouths, MM2 is an over the top homage/throwback to the golden age of splatter, when the red stuff flowed like some profane wine in a savage rectory. Clement plays it more for thrills than sleaze, so it's light on apocalypse sex. No sex starved zombie cheerleaders running amuck, unfortunately. Otherwise, though, low budget horror hounds will find a rich greasy meal in Meat Market 2.