Directed by Nico Mastorakis | Starring Daniel Hirsch, Kelli Maroney, Nicole Rio
If you’ve ever thought, What if Rambo got drunk and wandered into a rejected Friday the 13th sequel?, then congratulations: you might be Nico Mastorakis. Or you may have accidentally watched The Zero Boys, a film that somehow manages to make paramilitary cosplay, psychotic killers, and screaming women in the woods feel duller than a butter knife in a sandbox.
The Zero Boys is the cinematic equivalent of an ’80s survivalist zine huffing aerosol fumes in a Walmart camping aisle. It’s a horror-action hybrid that delivers neither scares nor suspense, and makes the viewer nostalgic for simpler times—like when you hadn’t seen The Zero Boys.
Plot: War Games, Slasher Edition
We open on a paintball match, because nothing screams “badass” like grown men in camo arguing over honor points with neon orange pellets. Steve, our hero (term used loosely), leads his team—the titular “Zero Boys”—to a paintball victory against some goons in matching pastel headbands. Steve and his boys are tactical geniuses, you see. They’ve spent their young lives preparing for a war that will never come… unless, of course, they stumble into a slasher flick in the woods.
After the paintball triumph, Steve invites his teammates and their bimb—er, girlfriends—to a weekend getaway in the middle of nowhere. That nowhere turns out to be a murder house, complete with bloody bathtubs, VHS snuff films, and a soundtrack that sounds like it was programmed on a Speak & Spell during an exorcism.
The “Heroes”: Mall Ninjas with a Van
Let’s talk about the Zero Boys. Imagine a Dollar Store version of The A-Team, but with less charisma and fewer working firearms. These guys are supposed to be elite tactical warriors, but they spend half the film screaming, bumbling through cabins, and getting owned by two backwoods creeps who dress like rejected extras from Deliverance.
Steve is the leader. He has one expression—bland confidence—and one mode of operation: bark orders that no one follows. Larry is the comic relief, but he’s not funny. Rip is… present. That’s about all you can say.
Their combat strategy seems to consist of yelling “GO!” a lot, firing off warning shots, and then standing around while Kelli Maroney does most of the actual thinking.
Kelli Maroney: Queen of the Wasted Talent Club
Speaking of Kelli Maroney (you remember her from Night of the Comet or Chopping Mall), she’s honestly the only actor in this film who appears to have shown up on purpose. She brings some pluck, a few actual emotions, and more intelligence than the rest of the cast combined, which, admittedly, is a low bar to clear.
Sadly, the movie doesn’t know what to do with her. She screams, she runs, she occasionally outsmarts a killer with a hatchet, but mostly she’s used to motivate the Zero Boys into pretending they’re in Predator when really they’re in Scooby-Doo: Appalachian Nightmare.
The Killers: Off-Brand Manson Family Rejects
The villains in The Zero Boys are faceless, boring, and about as intimidating as a wet sock. They lurk in the trees, they grunt, and they pop up behind people holding knives like they learned murder tactics from an Inspector Gadget cartoon.
They don’t talk. They don’t explain their motives. They’re just sort of… there. Like termites. Silent, destructive, and generally handled with one can of Raid and a prayer. These are the kind of slasher villains who somehow make you miss Jason Voorhees’ charm.
Also, they’re somehow consistently outwitted by a bunch of paintball nerds with bad trigger discipline. Which is maybe the real horror.
The Horror: Barely Present
For a movie marketed as a horror flick, The Zero Boys is about as scary as a soggy graham cracker. There’s some blood, a few poorly-lit corpses, and a suspense scene involving a scream echoing through a forest like a broken intercom. That’s it. No real tension, no clever kills, and absolutely zero (pun fully intended) payoff.
Even the snuff film subplot—where the killers apparently filmed their earlier victims—feels tacked on, like someone whispered, “We need more edge!” and the screenwriter responded, “How about old VHS footage and a creepy bathtub?” Genius.
Cinematography: A Vacation Slide Show From Hell
The movie looks like it was shot on leftover film stock from a ‘70s porno, then lit using birthday candles. Fog machines work overtime to hide the cheap set design, and the editing suggests the crew was in a rush to make happy hour.
Day scenes are overexposed, night scenes are underlit, and every gunshot comes with a delay that suggests post-production was done by an intern using a VCR and duct tape.
The Dialogue: Wrote Itself, Unfortunately
Here’s a sampling of lines you might hear:
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“Let’s split up, that’s always worked in horror movies!”
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“You don’t know what you’re doing, man!”
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“They’re not playing games anymore!”
That last one’s supposed to be deep. Instead, it lands with the weight of a used tissue. There’s a distinct flavor of “first draft” to everything spoken, with characters swapping clichés like they’re playing Mad Libs with Survivor: Appalachia Edition.
The Verdict: Zero, Indeed
The Zero Boys has the bones of a great B-movie. The concept—paintball warriors up against real killers—could’ve been a fun, trashy romp. But instead, we get 90 minutes of aimless wandering, murky lighting, cardboard characters, and tension levels that could only excite an Ambien sales rep.
It’s a movie that doesn’t know if it wants to be a horror film, a thriller, a satire, or a Boy Scout instructional video gone horribly wrong. So it just shrugs, throws on a synthesizer score, and hopes you won’t notice.
Spoiler: You notice.
Final Score: 2/10
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+1 for Kelli Maroney, who deserves better
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+1 for unintentional comedy during “combat” scenes
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-8 for everything else, especially those tactical face-paint jobs that make them look like rejected GI Joe knockoffs
The Zero Boys proves that you can arm your cast to the teeth and still leave your audience defenseless against boredom.
