Zombies VS. Wiseguys: Hellbent for Whiskey is a 2004 animated short film by Claeys Brothers Arms Studios. Watch it here.
Set in the 1920s during the height of Prohibition, two gangsters named Vinnie and Paulie accidentally discover that the bootlegged alcohol that they've been transporting is turning its drinkers into zombies. Upon reporting this finding to Don Bellucio, their boss, they're ordered to destroy the tainted alcohol to prevent more zombies from being created and to prevent the authorities from learning about it.
This animation is notable for eventually spawning the Guns, Gore & Cannoli games, which were made by the same individuals.
The "Zombies VS. Wiseguys: Hellbent for Whiskey" cartoon includes examples of:
- The Alcoholic: It's the Prohibition Era - everyone from the people in the streets to the mobsters running the operations are looking for some alcohol to drink. Even the Zombies who got turned into such by Constellis' tainted booze appear to be this, as if some lingering remnants of their Humanity drive them to towards Constelli distillery so they can taste the booze still stored there, a distraction which allowed Vinnie and Paulie (who went back to destroy the distillery with dynamite) to escape.
- Bash Brothers: Vinnie and Paulie fight and work together throughout the entire cartoon.
- Boom, Headshot!: Paulie takes out the zombie-fied Luigi with a double-barreled sawn-off shotgun, he even stuffs the barrel into his mouth for good measure.Paulie: "Th-the guy lost his freakin' head!"
Vinnie: Yeah, well it's all over the place now... - Cool Versus Awesome: It's The Mafia versus the Zombie Apocalypse.
- Destroy the Evidence: After the mob enforcer duo barely escaped from the zombies, their boss demands they go back and destroy both the Constelli's distillery and Luigi's bar with dynamite so to leave nothing for the police to find. Hilariously by the end of the film after they pretty much decimate the entire metropolis, Vinnie states that they were at least able to destroyed the evidence.
- Deus Ax Machina: When the zombified Luigi starts choking out Paulie, Vinnie grabs a convenient fire axe in Luigi's office. While it doesn't do much, it does give Paulie enough time to shoot Luigi's brains out.
- Everything Explodes Ending: The entire city is destroyed when Boss Bellucio accidentally sets off the highly-flammable Constelli cask whiskey which was spilled by the zombies overrunning the Constelli distillery through the sewer system and overflowing back up the toilets and sinks, with the fireball speeding back the same way and igniting all the alcohol left in the distillery all at once, resulting in a nuclear-grade explosion which levels the metropolis, complete with a mushroom cloud.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The animated film is about two Mafiosi against a horde of zombies who are indeed hellbent in drinking the tainted whiskey that infected them to begin with.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When Paulie suggested the whiskey Luigi drank was responsible for turning him into a zombie, Vinnie initially scoffed at the idea...Vinnie: "Well what about the people in the bar? They dranked it too - !" [Vinnie does a Double Take and looked out the office window in horror as a whole bar's worth of zombified patrons bear down upon him and Paulie]
- Expy: Bellucio is definitely based on Marlon Brando's depiction of Vito Corleone from The Godfather.
- Failed a Spot Check:
- Vinnie and Paulie raided the Constelli's distillery to get their alcohol and makeup for the shortfall caused by Frankie's sabotage. They not only didn't suspect a thing when they discover the place unguarded, but failed to notice the Constellis guarding the place are all already dead in the distillery office, having fought each other to mutual annihilation after half their number turned into zombies sampling their own product.
- They also completely failed to notice the rest of Luigi's bar's patrons turning into zombies until Paulie pointed out that maybe the booze was responsible for turning Luigi himself into a zombie and Vinnie realizes what that implies.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Paulie's last line in the cartoon (minus 'Freaking') after surviving the zombie outbreak and the city-levelling fireball.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Both Vinnie and Paulie decided to go to a bar and get a drink after surviving the cartoon's events, intending to forget about the whole bizarre episode.
- MacGuffin: The Constellis' brew, which turns drinkers into Zombies and also happen to be ridiculously combustable.
- More Dakka: Vinnie uses the classic Thompson submachine gun as his personal arm and used it to great effect icing Frankie the Fly and holding off a horde of zombies at Luigi's bar.
- Mutual Kill: The Constelli gang end up wiping each other out offscreen after half their number turn into zombies and maul the other half to death, with the zombified half also going down in the process.
- Not Using the "Z" Word: Both Vinnie and Paulie never refer the whiskey-zombies as such, with Paulie referring them as 'monsters', and even then only once. Although zombies had made a few appearances in pulp fiction of the late 1920s, they were generally depicted as Voodoo Zombies rather than whatever these are.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Rather than being infected by The Virus, the zombies that Vinnie and Paulie end up fighting originate from people who unwittingly consume the tainted whiskey that the Constelli Family had created. It's unknown whether zombie bites will infect others, as the apocalypse is cut short when the city is blown sky-high. What's more, rather than infecting others outright, the zombies instead desire to drink more of the tainted whiskey that caused their zombification.
- Painful Transformation: Luigi's transformation into a zombie wasn't exactly pleasant to say the least, if all that painful coughing, choking, and one of his eyes shooting out of his sockets was any indicator.
- Plunger Detonator: Don Bellucio provides one of these as well as a bundle of dynamite to Vinnie and Paulie so that they can destroy the Constelli's tainted whiskey and brewery and leave no evidence for the police to find. Unfortunately, the zombies ambush the duo just as they were about to blow the place.
- Riddle for the Ages: Unlike in the games, the exact reason why the Constelli's alcohol turned drinkers into zombies is never answered. All we know is that the Constellis added or did something to the brew which causes this unintentionally, and that's as far as anyone else in the cartoon cared to know.
- Skewed Priorities: Both Vinnie and Paulie didn't really acknowledge the fact that they may have unwittingly set off a chain of events which led to a zombie outbreak and their city getting blown up by the cartoon's end.Vinnie: Oh, man, I bet we're all gonna get blamed for this.Paulie: Well, at least we got rid of the evidence.
- Sawed-Off Shotgun: Paulie's weapon of choice is a sawn-off double-barrel shotgun.
- Small Role, Big Impact: While Frankie the Fly had a smaller role in the cartoon (he was killed by the Mob enforcer duo within the first few minutes), he still set the entire plot in motion by blowing up the Bellucios' distillery plant on behalf of the Constellis, forcing Boss Bellucio to order Vinnie and Paulie to raid the Constellis' own distillery for new alcohol supplies and make up for their shortfall - and unintentionally set off a Zombie Apocalypse when the latest batch turned out to turn people into Zombies.
- Shout-Out: One of the patrons in Luigi's bar is the splitting image of Fat Tony from The Simpsons.
- Smoking Is Not Cool: While Don Bellucio smokes some fine cigars, he's not exactly as imposing as Don Corleone. In fact his cigar and habit of throwing his cigars down the toilet ends up killing him and exploding the entire city.
- Sole Survivor: Both Vinnie and Paulie are implied to be the only ones to survive the outbreak and the whole city getting blown up in a metropolis-levelling alcohol-combusting fireball by the end of the cartoon.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Exaggerated with the cartoon's ending, when the cask whiskey in the Constelli distillery is ignited all at once, resulting in a colossal explosion which took out the zombies, both Bellucio and Constelli gangs and the entire freaking city all at once.
- Truth in Television: While clearly Exaggerated in the cartoon, cask whiskey is in fact rather combustable, and the Constelli alcohol is portrayed as undiluted cask whiskey.
- Too Dumb to Live: Vinnie and Paulie only thought for a moment how unusual it is a distillery owned by the Bellucios' rivals the Constellis is left unguarded, only thinking that it makes their job of raiding their supply easier. Granted, they would never had suspected the alcohol the Constellis brew somehow turned people into zombies and that the Constelli guards are already dead because of that, but they never suspected for a moment something must be very wrong with the whole situation and never bothered to investigate just to be sure, leading to them shipping some of the whiskey they stole to Vinnie's associate Luigi and unwittingly spreading the outbreak.
- Zombie Apocalypse: Vinnie and Paulie accidentally set off a small one when the booze they stole from the Constellis turned out to be defective, though they can't figure out why it turns people into zombies.
- Zombie Infectee: Luigi ends up becoming the first victim out of several after he consumes a few glasses of the tainted whiskey. Vinnie, Paulie, and the viewers are even treated to his transformation. Justified Trope, as Luigi himself had no idea that he was even turning into a zombie at the time, nor did Vinnie and Paulie even know that there was something wrong with the whiskey to begin with.
