The Zero Boys

 The Zero Boys is another bit of fun nonsense from Greek director Nico Mastorakis. It's a little messier than his later effort, Nightmare at Noon, and the budget is a lot lower, but it's still an interesting mix of action and horror. This time around the scales lean towards the scares: the premise is that a bunch of paramilitary dweebs and their girlfriends have to face off against a couple of backwoods slashers.

 Things kick off in media res with a shootout at a small Mexican town. Just a bunch of doofuses in different getups going after each other; I like that at first it's a couple of  dudes in what could pass for shitty Mexican costumes, then a bunch of military cosplayers come in (one of which sticks a picture of Rambo to the wall and says "eat your heart out, Sly!") and finally we get to a dipshit in full nazi costume.
 Once the nazi fucker bites it, it's revealed that it's a paintball game, complete with spectators off to the side cheering for the champions.
 It's a cheesy, fun scene, brought down a little by the low budget (at one point a weird editing glitch makes it look like someone just stares  someone down from a bridge).

 The winners are The Zero Boys: noble leader and Stallone-disrespecting Steve (Daniel Hirsch), seriously unfunny 80's comedy sidekick Rip (Jared Moses), and Larry (Tom Shell), who's given no traits other than being good-looking. They're the rockstars of the wargame circuit - they even get a "you broke all the rules but we'll let it slide because you're so awesome" speech from the venue owner. They've just beat their paintball nemesis, so they win from him an admission of inferiority, a wad of money and... uh, his girlfriend Jamie (Kelli Maroney) for the weekend. Yeah, it's very much a movie of its time, but more on that later.

 Steve has the grace to at least look ashamed about taking Jamie as a prize, but luckily for him she's so pissed off at her (ex-, hopefully) boyfriend she goes along with Steve just to spite him. So off the Zero Boys go, along with their girlfriends (Nicole Rio, and Crystal Carson) to the woods for some R&R and heavy necking.

Into the murderbarn (a genuinely cool and atmospheric sequence)

 There's some hiccups - Jamie sees a woman running for her life and no one else believes her, and some other indications that the genre is slowly shifting to horror territory. But for a while their picnic goes well; Jamie and Steve bond, despite themselves, the others have a good time, and when they discover a seemingly abandoned cabin in the middle of the woods they settle in for a wild night. Which... yeah, yeah, be careful what you wish for, etc.

 Things escalate quickly: One of the couples see someone spying on them as they have PG sex, one of the killers shows himself, waves a knife and disappears, and a lot of skeletons are found around the premises. Soon one of their number is abducted, and they find themselves hunted by a pair of snuff-movie-making rednecks (one of them  played by Joe Estevez!).

 But The Zero Boys won't take it laying down. They're professional paintball warriors - and as such, they carry a case of illegally-modified semi-automatic weapons and a shitload of ammo, because naturally that's what they practice with out in the desert. America!
 Despite all the guns, I did like the fact that it never really turns into an action film - more of a tense series of encounters and ambushes, a gauntlet they need to get through. More Southern Comfort than Golan/Globus.

 The film was written in two weeks and shot in less than three, and it really, really shows. On the one hand it's really energetic and unpredictable as a result; On the other... well, it's kind of a mess. Luckily the pacing is hectic and the movie likeable enough that it's easy to forgive it when the bad guys seem to teleport all over the place or people keep making nonsensical decisions, and events often seem to happen just to provide some incident to the movie, with no follow-through. And don't underestimate that unpredictability, which cuts through the macho bluster of the premise kind of like Predator would one year later.

 Technically it's a well crafted B-movie, with unoriginal but very effective cinematography (lots of bright shafts of light going through foliage), a couple of cool stunts and one outstanding explosion. The only real characters are Jamie and Steve, and while the acting is about what you'd expect with the lines they're given, both end up being fairly likeable (the former much more than the latter, but then again Maroney had much more acting experience). In fact, Jamie turns out to be the most well-rounded character in the film, and the girls manage to fight back at least as effectively as the guys; Wittingly or not, the film ends up being pretty enlightened in that respect.

 It bears repeating that this is not really a good film. But it's good, bone-headed fun, takes some interesting turns, and it's constantly throwing stuff at you so that it never becomes boring.