All Souls Day: Dia de Los Muertos (2005) (USA)

aka West of the Dead 

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Some youngish dillweeds get their stupid assess attacked by the living dead during the Day of the Dead festival thanks to some tragic history in a small Mexican town involving stolen treasure, forced suicide, murder, the goddess of death and Danny Trejo. Sixty years pass and Jeffrey Combs gets an extended cameo as a father traveling with his family back in 1952 who unfortunately detours through the cursed town and checks into a hotel. His son gets possessed and his daughter gets murdered by some costumed zombies after she gets naked and takes a bath. We jump ahead fifty plus years and our two “heroes” Alicia and Joss (sexy Marisa Ramirez and derpy Travis Wester) disrupt a funeral service thanks to an automobile malfunction but when the coffin falls, a very living young woman is freed. Her tongue has been cut out which prompts the derp to run over to the local officer of the law David fuckin’ Keith. He takes the girl but the duo are forced to stay in the town thanks to a wrecked car and no mechanic anywhere nearby. They hold up in a familiar lookin’ hotel. Laura Harring works there and acts mighty suspicious but so does the sheriff, so we know this town and its inhabitants ain’t right. Joss calls his buddy Tyler (Laz Alonso from The Boys) and Tyler’s braindead girl Erica to come pick them up. A little boy with your standard Day of the Dead face paint pops up to spook people and ghostly voices accompanied by flashes of horrific violence disturb Alicia, solidifying her want to get the hell out of the place. As expected, a sacrifice was needed to keep the evil at bay and now that the best laid plans have gone to hell, the whole town is about to be overrun with cool-lookin’ zombies unless Alicia is offered up. Joss manages to save his lady but now the dead are coming in full force. Looks like Tyler and Erica arrived just in time to fill out the body count. Joss gets bit, Erica turns out to have more going on upstairs than initially believed (she’s also a badass) and Laura Harring ain’t as evil as we all thought. David Keith waxes poetically about cunnilingus, an elderly woman hisses, Marisa Ramirez rocks a body-paint-and-headdress combo for far too brief a time and cultural sensitivity is taken out behind the shed and shot in the head. Likable leads, cool (and a little goofy) looking boogeymen, well-utilized cameos, silly dramatics and some minor splatter keep everything entertaining.