Killer Tumbleweeds (Screener - 2008)
McCain Brothers / 2009
Directed by Ben L. McCain
Written by Ben McCain & Butch McCain
Cast: Ben McCain, Casey Wright, Bella Shaw, Butch McCain & Mike Turpen
Review by Jennifer Holderness
 

The good people of Middle America (the heart of it all) are being attacked by killer tumbleweeds that have been secretly turned into terrorist fighting weapons by the military. The big bad weeds have escaped and killed hundreds of people and livestock while the military sits silently without taking responsibility. Only one news organization is brave enough to report from the trenches.

If this sounds funny to you, well it is indeed. Just like the wonderful New Zealand entry Black Sheep, the idea of it is what will induce the laughter. Killer Tumbleweeds however does not operate on the same budget as our killer sheep film. In fact Killer Tumbleweeds is considered a no budget flick. The wonderfully funny concept cooked up by Ben McCain of My Name is Bruce fame as well as many other titles, is wacky indeed. What you need to know going into this is that Ben McCain also produced news for a while so with that said, the man set about putting this production into orbit by calling on favors from real newscasters and all of his friends in the film business right on down to family. Now for those of you not into documentary style filming, you may be a little put off. Not unlike District 9 in that respect, this is mostly documentary style with a few you are there scenes and a lot of news broadcasting as well. Honestly though, to watch real news anchors talk about the drama of Killer Tumbleweeds and children suffering from Killer Tumbleweed Trauma (KTT) with straight faces is utterly hysterical. There is even homage of Woody Harrelson’s character in Zombieland but he’s good at Tumbleweed killing instead.

Attention is well paid to small details like this that make it a fun watch. Sound design is really good and the sounds the tumbleweeds make also adds to the funny factor in here. Seriously, for no budget this also comes off looking pretty good. It really is funny to watch full grown men fighting tumbleweeds. Did I mention that there are children suffering from KTT and that one of them is a full fledged Machete Girl? There’s a lot of good stuff in here that I found totally entertaining. It’s all taken so seriously and it’s hard to imagine but they really pulled it off. The other factor in this film that is noteworthy is they really did film this in many locations including Italy and Japan so it literally was filmed around the world. McCain’s news friends are far reaching indeed.

To me, this turned out to be as much a love letter to the Midwest as it is commentary on the media and military. There is underlying social commentary and for that it’s dead on and done with humor. At least that takes some of the bite out of it. It doesn’t seem quite as scathing when you are laughing. This seems to be a project born out of love and the McCain brothers are two very funny guys. After all Ben McCain co wrote The Legend of Guandi along with his brother Butch for the film My Name is Bruce, if you’ve seen that film then you know the kind of humor to expect. Silly and fun.