28 Years Later (2025)

JUNE 29, 2025

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

For a while there, it seemed like the 28 (something) Later franchise was done; Alex Garland and Danny Boyle seemed less enthused as time went on, while also noting that there were some issues with the rights holders (independent of the fact that they were put out by Fox, who no longer exists). But for whatever reason, the stars aligned to give us 28 Years Later (from Sony), which is kicking off a new trilogy of films, with the second due next year. Why they skipped 28 *Months* Later is a mystery, however, because the movie could have taken place simultaneously with Days for all it mattered.

Despite including some footage from Years in a montage, the movie’s ending of the virus spreading to Paris (and thus, presumably all of Europe, at the very least) is ignored – it’s still confined to the UK and the survivors all live on an island. And no one that survived the previous entries shows up, though apparently Cillian Murphy (who is listed as an executive producer here) will be in the next one. Instead, we focus on a kid named Spike, whose dad (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is basically the leader of their small island community and is eager to take his son to the mainland to find supplies, which is of course a dangerous mission that will involve him killing his first "infected." Through this process he realizes his dad is kind of a tool, and doesn't even seem to really want to help his sick wife/Spike's mom (Jodie Comer), so Spike takes it upon himself to seek aid for her sickness. So it's kind of a coming of age movie woith zombies, which is admirable!

But... you know, I was kind of excited to see the series continue getting bigger, and if anything this feels smaller and more contained than the original. And while they are free to ignore as much of the existing canon as they please to ignore Weeks' implications of a. further spread and b. a possible cure, they can *not* get around the fact that 28 Days was a breath of fresh air at the time for a mostly forgotten sub-genre, but in the 20+ years since, we’ve been inundated with zombie stuff. (And don’t give me crap about the use of “zombie” – they even refer to the “infected” with the Z-word *in the film.* They are and always have been zombie movies, despite pedantric claims to the contrary.) And so while the movie is perfectly fine, even great for a stretch in its final act, it’s also… not particularly interesting?

I mean, maybe I’m putting too much stock into the fact that Boyle and Garland returned after mostly sitting Weeks out (Garland took a pass at the script and Boyle directed a few sequences), assuming that their expanded filmographies since would have them bringing those bigger ideas to their old playground. But instead it’s mostly kind of anonymous, with the first hour or so feeling much like any number of undead movies (or episodes of Walking Dead and its infinite spinoffs) we’ve seen in the past two decades. There’s the religious nut who sees the whole thing as some kind of rapture, the supply runs that turn deadly, the should-be nailbiting scene where someone has to convince the person on the other side of a locked door that they’re not infected… we’ve seen all this stuff over and over, and there’s nothing to really distinguish it apart from (waves a hand at the “zombie” section on Shudder).

That is, except for the film’s photography, which is mostly trash. They shot the whole thing on iPhones, and at times it manages to actually look worse than the first film did. When they're outside and it's well lit, it looks fine, with the occasional image even striking depending on what's in it (the pile of skulls you've see in the poster is even more alluring in context), but whenever it switches to nighttime it's downright horrible to look at. There’s a scene where our hero Spike is talking to a village elder type in their dark kitchen, and I swear it’s the ugliest looking thing I’ve ever seen on a big screen. For the first film they said it had to be digital because they needed to get in and out of some of the locations quickly (using film would slow things down), but as this entire story is set in the woods and other isolated locales, I’m not sure what the excuse was. Digital photography has certainly gotten a lot better over the years, but you’d barely ever be able to know that from the evidence here.

So it’s pretty ho-hum and not much to look at for a while (unless you like zombie dong - by law I am required to mention that yes, this film has zombie dongs), with the scattered action seeming more obligatory than organic (a mid-film scene with a soldier unit comes in so abruptly I momentarily wondered if I had blacked out), but then Ralph Fiennes finally enters the narrative and things turn around. Without spoiling the particulars, he’s also a bit of a stock character for these things (the guy who turned his back on the group and went off to be alone/maybe go crazy) but the details – and Fiennes' performance – elevate it to the point that I stopped minding how meh the journey was to get to his sequence. It’s like those TV shows that take a few episodes to get going; you just need to sit through some pretty average (at best) stuff to get to the good stuff.

Of course that sucks for a reviewer, because the only thing really worth talking about is the movie’s third act, which I naturally do not want to spoil. And if you’re in the theater you probably aren’t going to just get up and leave – it’s not BAD, just not very interesting or involving if you’ve even kept half an eye on the genre since 2003. But if you’re reading this while watching it on streaming: stay the course! It gets better! And also sets up the next film, for which the people who survived this one will be returning along with Jim (the kids who supposedly held the key to a vaccine or cure from Weeks will presumably not be showing up). That one’s directed by Nia DaCosta, but thanks to the returning cast there will be some story continuity for the first time in this series, which is enough reason to seek it out. That said, for my money, Weeks remains the series’ high point. You can call it heresy; I know I'm in the minority there. But the first film's first act was its best before it petered out, and this one took forever to get to the part that I found most interesting. Weeks may be a little more "generic", but at least its tense (and better looking) all the way through, and consistency is always better to me than a series of highs and lows.

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

It Comes At Night (2017)

JUNE 9, 2017

GENRE: POST-APOCALYPTIC, THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I kept hearing how It Comes At Night's trailer was misleading and that it wasn't really a horror movie, so I rushed to see it on opening day (instead of The Mummy!) before I knew much else, as I had managed to not see a trailer yet and didn't want to press my luck. All I really knew was that it wasn't a full blown traditional horror movie, and that a lot of my friends liked it, so that was enough to be excited but also not have any specific expectations of what it might be. I point all of that out because I was still disappointed with the film as a whole; it had some really good ideas and performances, and I was on board for about 40 minutes or so, but as it went on, and again when it was over, I couldn't escape a certain "That's IT?" feeling.

And as I got further away from it (i.e. thought about it) I liked it even less, so this might have been a more positive review had I written it that afternoon instead of five days later. I wouldn't say it was a "bad" movie in the traditional sense, but more a frustrating one because it kept introducing these ideas that could have paid off beautifully - or at least, made the film more engaging - but then writer/director Trey Edward Shults would drop them without fanfare. For those who were as blind to the film's narrative as I was, the plot concerns a family of three living in their boarded up home to protect themselves against a deadly virus and also the types of evil humans that show up in 99% of post-apoc/zombie movies. One day a man named Will tries to break in and they capture him, but eventually believe him that he's just like them, trying to protect his family. After some hesitation, the dad (Joel Edgerton) decides to help Will pick up his family (and their supply stash), figuring a group of six is better than a group of three.

Well his son is a teenager who presumably hasn't seen a lot of women since hitting the point in a man's life where seeing women would be a very pleasant experience, and Will's wife is Riley Keough, who any man would justifiably be smitten with. The young man takes an instant liking to her and starts staring at her as she works a well pump, shifting his glance downwards when he should be looking at her face during conversation, etc. So when tensions eventually boil between the two families over a lack of trust, you start wondering if he'll turn on his own family out of desire to be on this woman's good side. But nothing even remotely like that happens! Keough barely even registers in the movie after she notices his attraction, turning the whole subplot into little more than padding. Yes, it helps get across the idea that he's lonely and growing up in a world that won't afford him a normal life (and, presumably, won't ever actually fall in love properly, given the seeming lack of options), but when they zero in on this particular thing for ten straight minutes of the film only to drop it and never mention it again, it's counterproductive.

I could list one or two similar examples, but given that the film seems to be polarizing (the D Cinemascore sure seems odd next to its 86% "fresh" rating Rotten Tomatoes) I don't want to risk spoiling, since half of you will likely love the film. Without spoiling anything else I will say that the script seemed like it was a draft or two away from really hitting it out of the park, which is part of what made it so frustrating - I'd almost rather watch a movie that was just a bust from the start. Oddly it's the 3rd film from A24 in a row that I've seen that left me feeling the same way - one was Blackcoat's Daughter (formerly February) and the other was the non-horror Free Fire. All three films had very direct, uncomplicated plots (though Blackcoat at least offers two such tales, with their connection being a very clumsy twist) that gave far too many talented people almost nothing to do. I mentioned Keough is largely wasted here, but so is Carmen Ejogo (Keough's co-star from The Girlfriend Experience) as Edgerton's wife, who I don't think gets a single scene to herself or even says much of anything when she's around.

But Edgerton gets plenty to do, and gives a fine performance that had me wishing that he directed it as well, since he did such a terrific job with The Gift. I mean I haven't seen Shults' other film (Krisha), but I know it ain't anything that would wind up in a "horror" category, unlike The Gift which does (even though, like this, it seems to fall on the other side of that tight line between horror and thriller), and Edgerton has proven he can handle that kind of situation and make a memorable film - not to mention one audiences had a better response to. It's funny though, he was in the 2011 Thing prequel and here, when the film's at its best, it's actually a better successor to Carpenter's film than that junk. Edgerton's paranoia about whether or not he can trust Will works like gangbusters, and Shults is smart enough to never inform us of Will's true intentions and/or if he's lying about one or all aspects of his story. There's one point where Edgerton seemingly catches Will in a lie about the existence of a (now dead) brother, but Will explains it away - was it the truth, or a lie to cover the lie? And was he only lying in the first place not out of some nefarious motive, but merely to protect himself?

We don't get those answers, and that's fine - because we're with Edgerton and his POV and if he doesn't know, neither should we. The problem is, we're not ALWAYS in his POV, as we shift to the son's perspective for several key scenes and stretches, and even Will's for a brief scene with his family. So that throws off the whole thing, because now that Shults has shown us he's NOT bounding himself to just Edgerton's perspective on things, it makes the unanswered questions all the more exasperating, because it's like he's randomizing what he chooses to reveal and what he leaves up to our imagination. He also blunders a bit by (vague spoiler ahead) proving Edgerton was right about one thing, which renders his earlier actions defensible when it seems like we're supposed to wonder if what he did was the right call. The ending is not a happy one, I assure you - but a few tweaks could have put it into The Mist territory in terms of ballsiness. Instead it's just... well, kind of a practical one.

Shults also plays with the film's aspect ratio, starting off in the traditional 2.40:1 range but going to 3:1 by the end. It's a techie gimmick that most won't notice (including myself, partially because the theater didn't have it framed correctly in the first place), and rubbed me the wrong way when I read about it later. Like he cares about this but can't be bothered to give either of his actresses anything of note to do, or resolve two subplots, or explain why they're so afraid of the virus that they sometimes use gas masks inside, but at one point Edgerton just takes his off for no reason when he's outside in an unfamiliar area. It reminds me of those obnoxious gamers who care more about whether or not the game will have a high FPS rate than they do if the game itself is actually any good. I mean if that's his deal, fine - but it will make me very hesitant the next time he's got a film out there, because it seems we care about very different things when it comes to movies. Nice cinematography though.

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Girl With All The Gifts (2016)

FEBRUARY 25, 2017

GENRE: POST-APOCALYPTIC, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

With Walking Dead scoring massive ratings and World War Z more than doubling the gross of the previous highest grossing zombie film, I don't understand why we never got glutted with zombie flicks at the multiplex as we were with found footage movies in the earlier part of this decade or torture-y/hardcore horror in the '00s. And in turn I REALLY don't understand why The Girl With All The Gifts, based on a popular novel and led by three known actors (the horror genre doesn't need stars to be a hit, don't forget), got this nothing release - even here in LA it only played on one (not large) screen, with no marketing even for its accompanying VOD release. In a few years this is going to be one of those titles that gets cited as a winner the way we do for the likes of The Babadook or Hush, while folks have to be convinced the likes of Bye Bye Man actually got wide theatrical releases. It's a broken system, and has been for years, and I don't see it ever improving again; I'm happy I got to see it theatrically, but it's a shame I had to double check someone's geographical location before suggesting they do the same.

Because unlike many of the horror films you have no choice but to see on VOD, there's actually a scope to this film that would be served well on a big screen. It's not the kind of zombie movie where everyone holes up in a "safe zone" that gets overrun - it's about that safe zone being overrun and forcing our group of heroes (five of them) to make their way on foot through their eerily quiet, crumbling city to another safe area some miles away. The zombies are formed by a kind of fungal virus in this particular story, and it affects the world as well as its inhabitants, spawning these giant vines and pods throughout the city. So it's overgrown like many a post-apocalyptic film, but it's not just a cool-looking bit of production design - it's actually a source of the danger, as the pods threaten to burst and send the virus airborne. The zombies themselves are incapacitated by these vine structures, so our heroes stumble across a few that look like that they are victims of Eldon Stammets from Hannibal (and some are in groups, so it's like a cross between his victims and Lawrence Wells' totem), which is both the creepiest thing I've seen in a zombie movie in a while, and also one of the most unique.

So it's kind of funny that this is not a traditional zombie movie. It has a number of the beats of such films, but the zombies kind of stand in spot, swaying back and forth (like grass, keeping with the plant theme), unless they smell a human target. Humans are issued a scent blocker spray that they apply to themselves like bugspray, and that keeps them safe unless they make eye contact - allowing for a nailbiter scene where they make their way past dozens of zombies who are standing in place like mannequins. Sure, it's not much different than Shaun of the Dead's "let's pretend to be zombies and walk right past" bit (other than the lack of humor, obviously), but the zombies just standing there adds a level of uneasiness that sets it apart. Also, even when one zombie is alerted, it's usually isolated, so when one of our heroes accidentally spooks one, it's not like they're done for - they have to silently (and quickly) dispatch the activated one before any others catch on (kind of like in a Metal Gear game when you trigger an alarm but if you kill the closest guard things are fine). It's genius; it allows the sequence to break tension and then get it right back, which, if I've ever seen that before in a zombie movie, I can't recall it at this time.

Speaking of Shaun, it's kind of funny that one of the aforementioned recognizable faces is Paddy Considine, who appears in the other two installments of the so-called Cornetto Trilogy but gets a rare lead role here as one of the three adults who are in charge of the titular "Girl", whose name is Melanie and may be the key to saving the human race. She is one of several children who were infected in the womb but did not become full fledged zombies like the others, but live as a kind of hybrid. Like the regular infected, they have a thirst for flesh and blood (animal will suffice, though human is preferred) and get a bit worked up at the scent of one, but unlike the others they are capable of speech, free thinking, etc. Considine's character is kind of a Capt. Rhodes type who just wants to kill her, but he works with (for? I missed some of the specifics) Caldwell (Glenn Close), who wants to dissect Melanie and the other children in order to find a cure, believing their hybrid state is the key to a vaccine. And then there's Ms. Justineau (Gemma Arterton), who is the childrens' teacher and has taken a particular liking to Melanie. Naturally, she wants to protect her, so you have this odd dynamic where Melanie is being kept alive by the three adults but for different reasons. And naturally, the thing about her that makes them afraid of her eventually proves to be essential to their survival, as she can make her way quickly through the zombies to find supplies or a scout the best route, or sniff her way to find a missing member of their group.

And the cool thing is, I agree with all of them. Considine's character is introduced as an antagonist, but he comes around and bonds with her in his own way, and never really enters full "evil human" mode. Close's character actually inches, er, closer to that territory, as she will seemingly stop at nothing to achieve the "greater good", but since we never see any of the people she's allegedly trying to save (there are only like ten named people in the entire movie; we never see any traditional civilization, even in a flashback), her goal, while noble, is hard to really consider when it means the possible death of the little girl who we've spent the past 90 minutes with - a flesh and blood reality vs. a vague notion. Naturally, not everyone survives this journey, but the script by Mike Carey (adapting his novel) smartly balances out the primary characters so that one is never more or less likely to survive than the others, and gives them enough time for us to really care if and when they are dispatched. Not since Dawn of the Dead have I seen a zombie movie (or show) where I literally did not want ANYONE to die, a relieving feeling that I probably won't experience again for a while.

My only real nag about the entire movie was the ending, which generally works fine but I have a major question about how one character is still alive (to be as vague as possible - the final scene is obviously some time later, so what is ______ drinking/eating?), and Melanie's final action against the zombie fungus seemed a bit abrupt. I later learned that the book had a scene that set up her decision (I can't recall if they said it was filmed and then cut from the film, or just excised to begin with), so I get it now and it smooths over some of that concern, but neither I or they can/should expect everyone to follow up with the novel (or movie news sites) to get that context. Not that the ending was confusing or anything, but it seemed like they rushed through the final moments after pacing the previous 100 so perfectly, so it was a bit of a bummer that they couldn't retain that near-perfect quality. Perhaps book readers can mentally fill in those blanks and not even notice (with Carey writing both, I doubt there are any major changes - just things that the movie didn't have time for), but that's the double edged sword of seeing a movie based on a book - you're always going to partially dampen the surprise of one by experiencing the other first. I tend to watch the movie first before diving into the book, because the book will be fleshed out (it's like a director's cut!), whereas watching the movie after reading will almost always feel like you're getting cliff's notes, but rarely do I feel I SHOULD have read the book first so I'd have a little more understanding of the final moments of the story.

But a few quibbles about the ending is nowhere near enough to take away the fact that this is a great addition to the zombie sub-genre, and is very much undeserving of its unheralded release into the world after some well received festival appearances - including Fantastic Fest, and I'm almost afraid to look up what I saw at the same time I could have been seeing this, as I wasn't exactly in love with many of the movies I saw there this year (update: turns out it was Call of Heroes and The Void; I liked this more than either of them, but I doubt I'd have the chance to see them theatrically, so I guess it evens out). Then again, this way I got to buy a ticket at a regular screening, and do my part to try to convince the money men that movies like this should be championed and given a chance to thrive on the big screen.

What say you?

P.S. I didn't even realize it at the time, but the director was Colm McCarthy, who directed Outcast - a HMAD book selection! Definitely a name to watch and one I won't forget next time.

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Rats: Night Of Terror (1984)

DECEMBER 29, 2012

GENRE: POST-APOCALYPTIC, PREDATOR
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

The most surprising thing about Rats: Night Of Terror (Italian: Rats - Notte di Terrore) is that despite coming from Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso (the guys behind Hell Of The Living Dead), it's actually not particularly gory or violent, and it saves its only truly batshit moment for the closing shot. Otherwise it's a pretty straightforward, somewhat too-slowly paced tale of a group of survivors who come up from underground to scavenge for supplies and end up trapped in a building with a bunch of bloodthirsty rats.

And by bloodthirsty I mean "occasionally the filmmakers will dump a bucket of the poor things on one of their actors". Those scenes are a delight, because it looks to me like they're actual live rats (not rubber) being tossed haphazardly over an understandably freaked out actor, but more often than not the actors will scream and fret about the rats, and then Mattei will cut to a shot of a bunch of the things just sort of chilling, sniffing around, crawling over one another... basically everything a rat can do EXCEPT advance or make any sort of threatening behavior toward the humans they're supposedly trying to kill. Sometimes they don't even bother with the cutaway; we just have to take the actor's word for it. To be fair, Mattei DOES use a bunch of rubber rats for one shot, where they're placed evenly on a conveyor belt or something and glide past the camera, so in comparison the real rats that are just hanging out look terrifying.

Now, this is the early 80s so obviously there's no CGI to use - but why did they opt for normal sized rats (actually guinea pigs painted brown/gray, according to an interview with Mattei on the disc) instead of giant ones, which they could use puppets or trick photography to give some sense of menace? I'm used to my Italian horror movies being silly, but not in this fashion - at no point did I feel they were in any real danger from the film's only villain. Even when they were just being dumped all over the characters, you can see the rats just sort of freaking out and scampering AWAY from their "target", so it all comes across more than a bit flat.

Otherwise, it's still pretty enjoyable. Mattei was going for a bit of a Night of the Living Dead thing here, so the survivors bicker fairly often, and one guy plays Cooper and turns on the others, but we have laid-back rats instead of zombies. Mattei stages a few memorable death (or, post-death) scenes, as the rats have a thing for crawling inside bodies and exiting when witnesses are around to see it - one crawls out of a woman's mouth, so you can use your imagination to figure out where it crawled IN, and at one point a body actually bursts apart as several of the things make their way out. They're also fans of propping corpses against doors and such like a slasher killer, so I found that pretty amusing even if it didn't make a lick of sense. It's not very gory (just about every makeup effect of note is seen on a corpse), but there's some variety to the 6-7 deaths all the same. And the hero is named Kurt and more or less dressed like MacReady from The Thing, so I'm completely on board with that.

It's also rife with bonkers dialogue, particularly from the character of Video (they all have stupid names), who bemoans never getting to play a real video game but yet can't recognize a computer when he sees one (he claims it needs "a kick in the balls" when he can't get it started). I also loved the bit where they find "food", which is mostly sugar and flour - a couple of them bite into sugar bags and eat it, which I kind of get (who hasn't eaten a sugar packet?), but when they do the same for flour I started getting confused (and also instantly began singing "Sal Tlay Ka Siti" from Book Of Mormon). This also has the movie's most delightfully weird bit, as a guy dumps the bag over the lone black member of the group as part of the celebration, and she immediately begins dancing around while shouting about how she's now whiter than the rest of them.

Well, 2nd weirdest. This movie has the odd distinction of having a totally bonkers final minute that I somehow managed to call 20 minutes before, albeit mostly as a joke. There's something admirable about it, to be sure, but at the same time it kind of diminished the power (lack of a better word) of the film's rather surprising social commentary, in that humans and rats had switched places. In our day, we ran the world while the rats were forced to live in the sewers, but now it's the other way around, and thus (considering the limitations described above) the rats spend the movie doing the same thing we do to any rats that surface just to find food or something - we exterminate it. And to some degree this is just hammered home by the finale, but does so in a silly way that puts the movie into full-blown Syfy movie territory as opposed to something more grounded (and thus more interesting).

Mattei doesn't talk much about the ending... or the actors, plot, etc on the 8 minute interview that serves as the disc's only extra of note (the typically overlong trailer - in which the movie is called Blood Kill - and a Mattei bio are also included). He only spends about two minutes on Rats before moving on to discuss Hell Of The Living Dead in greater detail, including the reveal that the infamous tutu bit in that movie was made up on the spot. It's odd that he doesn't have much to say about this film, since he's claimed its his favorite of all the ones he's made (early on in the interview he says his films are like his children, then later says he wishes he could reshoot them all - poor kids), but maybe the interview was conducted specifically for that movie and they just tossed it on here since he mentioned Rats a couple times. The bio is pretty good, giving some credit to co-writer (and co-director?) Fragasso, who worked with Mattei a lot back in his pre-Troll 2 infamy.

It's certainly no Of Unknown Origin, and probably a bit too slow and not violent enough for those accustomed to the gory nonsense of most Italian horror of this period, Rats is not without its own charms, and it's interesting to discover that Mattei and Fragasso once put together a movie that actually makes relative sense. If it's playing with something else at a repertory theater's double bill, it's worth sticking around for, but I wouldn't lead with it. I also wouldn't recommend watching it if you, like me, have been itching to play Fallout lately - underground dwellers in a post-apoc world coming up and encountering rats? Where are the stimpacks?

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Zombie Apocalypse: Redemption (2011)

NOVEMBER 21, 2012

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

When I first loaded up Zombie Apocalypse: Redemption, I thought it was a sequel to the surprisingly enjoyable Asylum film Zombie Apocalypse, which had Ving Rhames. And this one had Fred Williamson, who I figured was playing the same character since they're both black badass types who are undeservedly stuck in this sort of shit at this stage in their career. But I checked to see if they were indeed the same one, only to discover that this is actually a sequel to a DIFFERENT Zombie Apocalypse, one I never saw. However, I noticed no returning characters of note, so I figured I was safe to watch it, same as you can watch Romero's zombie films in any order that you like - the minor bits of continuity aren't significant in any way.

The weird thing about this movie is that it's basically the last 20 minutes of Dawn of the Dead stretched out to feature length. There's a team of survivors and a team of bandits endlessly fighting over some supplies, and the zombies are just sort of an obstacle. It offers enough z-action, but the intro tells us that there are 10,000 zombies for every human on earth, so I was kind of expecting to see them more often. Then again, most of the headshots are presented with lousy CGI blood, and the makeup is as basic as you can get (Walking Dead has really spoiled me on finding new ways to both design and kill zombies), so it's no big loss that we don't see them as often as human villains.

However, it IS a shame that the human villain is so cheesy. The film is mostly pretty serious, but the villain seems like he was modeled after Willem Dafoe's over the top cartoon bad guy from Streets Of Fire, except a. we don't get a sledgehammer fight and b. the actor here ain't no Dafoe. Every time they cut to him, and then again every time he opened his mouth, I felt my interest in the movie drop rapidly, which is problematic when it's not that interesting in the first place.

To be fair, it's not too bad, it just lacks personality. It's a typical action movie story of a guy with a dark past joining up with some folks, some of whom immediately distrust him, but by the end he's practically running the show. Replace the zombies with random prisoners and the movie is basically No Escape, with Williamson in the Lance Henriksen role and the same "we just got back from the bad guys' camp let's go to the bad guys' camp!" repetitive plotting. Some folks die, others live, and you won't really care much either way - though there is a rather endearing subplot about the hero's issues with Williamson's right-hand man. They butt heads for the first half hour or so, but then they bond when... well, when the hero knocks him out cold so he can take charge on a particular mission, which inadvertently results in one of the other guys getting killed. After that, they have a funny little exchange where they bust each others' balls, and from then on they are best buds. I dunno, it's weirdly executed but kind of charming all the same.

I was also impressed with the overall production; cheap CGI effects aside, they commit to their post-apocalyptic world and play it fairly straight, minimizing the potential to annoy me. I read the plot of the first film and it sounds like a typical zom-com, with two slacker types as the heroes, so I am relieved that returning director Ryan Thompson opted for something more dramatic here. Hell, a few more familiar faces in the roles (and if it was on film) and this could be any late 80s early 90s action/horror flick, something that would air on Cinemax after the big Wings Hauser movie for the night but before the softcore porn. And I would tape all three movies in SLP mode!

Really, Thompson's biggest problem is that there are just too many damn zombie movies out there these days, and he's merely hitting the expected beats without a lot of personality or creativity. One could assume he took the bad reviews of the original to heart and set out to do something more serious this time, but never really developed anything further than that. I didn't hate watching it (except for the villain scenes), but I never felt really engaged by much of it either, and at 100 minutes that's a bit much to ask anyone who has seen even 1/3 of what's come along in the past 5-6 years. Perhaps he should have reigned in the more ambitious ideas of the backstory (i.e. drop the opening text!) and cut the cast in half, giving everyone more time to be a meatier character while putting them in a story that was a little more exciting. With so many options in the genre, and so many ways to watch them (DVD, streaming, cable, etc), you gotta be more than competent to stick out. I mean, hell, I have to hunt for stuff almost every day and even I somehow missed the existence of these two films (the first one came out in 2010 and has a mere 76 user votes on IMDb - even a ), so it's not like they have a big marketing push or anything - make it weird or different so when people like me stumble across it we have a reason to help pimp it out! I can't tell people to check it out just because it's not as incompetently made as a number of the ones I've suffered through recently. Good try though.

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Beyond The Grave (2010)

SEPTEMBER 2, 2012

GENRE: POST-APOCALYPTIC, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

Maybe someday I'll understand why anyone is trying to make a movie (or even series of movies) out of Stephen King's The Dark Tower instead of a cable show in the vein of Game Of Thrones, where each season covers a book and the added length means it's done right by the fans. It will also allow them to dive into the crazy areas of the last couple books without losing the viewers, because people will watch any show on HBO or Showtime regardless of whether or not they like it (don't believe me? Check your Twitter feed after any episode of The Newsroom or Girls). But until some version of Tower gets off the ground, we can kill some time with Beyond The Grave, which is basically a love letter to the series.

See if this sounds familiar: in a post-apocalyptic world, a dangerous, somewhat quiet man roams the landscape seeks his arch nemesis, who has no proper name. Sure, that's not too damning on its own, but when you add in a young man who is a combination of Jake and Eddie, a variety of threats that span from supernatural to human, and even someone saying "Go then, there are other worlds than these", it becomes apparent that writer/director Davi de Oliveira Pinheiro got tired of waiting for someone to make a Dark Tower movie and opted to just make his own, changing enough to not get sued but making sure that the homage was clear to those who would recognize it (the credits also end with "Beware of the Walking Dude", which can also be a reference to The Stand but if you know your Tower it's part of the lore in that world as well).

So it's kind of amusing that, like the Tower series, the first half is stronger than the second. No, Pinheiro doesn't go insane and put himself in the movie (for the record, I enjoyed that aspect of Tower, but I would never argue with those who found it too much. Their loss, but I understand), but there's a crucial, rather shocking turn at the film's halfway point, and from then on it just doesn't have the same energy and creativity as it did early on. A major mystery is given a rather unsatisfying conclusion, and this plot point results in the loss of one of the film's strongest aspects - the dynamic between our hero and the two survivors he picks up early on and begins to train.

My favorite scene in the film demonstrates their relationship perfectly. It's right after they've all met, and the hero (no one in the movie is named, by the way) is silently driving with the two teens. The male teen tries to talk to him, but the hero isn't replying, so the kid just has both sides of the conversation himself, doing a pretty good impression of actor Rafael Tombini to boot. It's a fun scene (Tombini's deadpan stare as the kid carries on is hilarious), and it also delivers a bunch of exposition (who they are, how they came to be left alone, who they're looking for) in a way that simultaneously provides information about the one speaking and the one listening.

Later, he teaches them how to shoot without actually using bullets (he only has one left, and needs it for The Man in Bla-, er, The Dark Rider), and it's another creative, exciting scene that makes the most of the film's limited budget and strong chemistry between the actors. Somewhere in there is also a great line from the hero, about his solitary nature: "I'd rather be a crazed loner than have company six feet under ground." Hell yeah, this is awesome!

But then (SPOILER) the two kids are killed, and the rest of the movie, while still entertaining, lacks the first half's spark and creative approach to storytelling. From then on it's just more or less a revenge flick, with the hero taking out the folks who killed the kids, including a character who they thought was an ally. For someone who loves Dark Tower so much, I'm kind of surprised Pinheiro didn't see the value in giving his hero someone to bounce off of for the majority of the narrative (hell, King even brought young Jake back from the dead in the second book). Perhaps a back and forth structure would have helped, where we see the story of him and the kids in flashbacks, saving their murder for near the film's end to give us the final piece of the puzzle to explain his actions in the present (think Lost).

However, while the story loses some momentum, the cinematography does not - this is a gorgeous film from start to finish, and its slow pace is actually a blessing as it gives you more time to appreciate Melissandro Bittencourt's compositions and the Brazilian landscapes that aren't captured on film (well, digital) nearly often enough. Hell, if they ever DO get Dark Tower going, they might want to consider shooting there, as the layout and sparse locales provide this low budget production with a better "post-apoc" world look than some movies do with 100x the money.

And yes, slow pace. I only put this in the "zombie" genre for technical reasons. There ARE zombies (called "returners", or the cool sounding "Retornados"), but they don't do much - just wander around for the most part, and there aren't many of them to be seen (maybe 12 in the whole movie). But if you're burned out on typical modern zombie stuff, you should give it a look just on principle, as it at least offers something new, even if it's not as exciting as you might initially hope. In fact there's very little violence/action at all in the film, which is fine because the characters are interesting enough on their own, and the fake blood looks more like IHOP's strawberry syrup (but at least it's practical!) anyway.

So while not without missteps, overall I walked away impressed by Pinheiro's ambition and obvious love for the genre (there are some nice John Carpenter nods in there as well) - it would make a fine double feature with Doomsday, another love letter to these kinds of movies but not without its own ideas and style. Hell, maybe if he can get another couple movies under his belt before the producers figure out what to do with King's 7 (now 8!) book series, he can get the gig himself - I'd be way more excited about him doing it than Ron Howard anyway.

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Descendents (2008)

JUNE 4, 2012

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Quick, let’s get a Kickstarter going right away that will fund a remake of Descendents (aka Solos), which boasts one of the better ideas I’ve heard of for a zombie movie in ages. Because sadly, that idea is wasted on this flimsy, way-too-low budget attempt at a zombie apocalypse, burying the terrific concept under confusing editing, horrendous FX work, and a general lack of structure. Hell, I’d even be open to the same director doing it, dude just needs the money and maybe a better producer to do it right.

That concept is fairly simple: a fairly routine zombie movie as seem through a child’s eyes. As a series of flashbacks will tell us (repeatedly; this movie’s brief length would be shorter if not for duplicate scenes), our young heroine lost her mother and is now all alone, but she is also immune to the zombie virus for reasons unknown. So the film depicts her attempt to make it to the ocean, where her mom told her she’d be safe right before she died. At first she’s alone, eating bugs and such for sustenance, but eventually she hooks up with some other children and even enjoys a fun day in a playground as they head as one (even holding hands, awwww) to their shared destination.

The immunity thing might just be a way to avoid having to have too many zombie scenes; most of them are confined to the flashbacks. The real threat in the present day sequences comes from the usual evil soldier types who are seemingly unable to tell the difference between a little kid and a flesh-eating zombie, and I was actually a bit shocked to see a few of the kids gunned down by these anonymous military goons. Unfortunately, what should be shocking moments are often ruined by the atrocious digital blood that not only sprays on the camera lens (I thought this movie was supposed to be taken seriously?) but is also way too bright compared to the desaturated look of the rest of the film. Seriously, the little girl in Schindler’s List doesn’t stick out as badly as the blood here; it’s distracting and goofy and ruins nearly every big kill/scare moment.

Speaking of bad FX, what the hell is up with the orange sky? It’s obviously a digital effect (sometimes a character’s head will enter that part of the frame and turn orange as well), and I guess it’s supposed to simulate a “scorched earth” type of deal, but like the blood, it’s just an unnecessary distraction. While the background plates aren’t going to win any awards, they do a fine job on their own of selling this world’s post-apocalyptic state, as does the limited cast and rundown locales. The orange sky is poorly done overkill. That said, I did like the insta-transformation effect for the zombies, where they turn white/“scary” in mere seconds (often while the original zombie is still biting them); it’s well done and something I don’t think I’ve seen before, so well played!

Now I’m going to get into spoilers, or at least I think they are. If I’m understanding the movie right, the little girl was a zombie the entire time and was retaining her childish imagination throughout, which would explain why the soldier guys were trying to kill her (as well as her “immunity”). And it would certainly explain the batshit ending, where her crayon drawings (mostly used for the quite good opening scene that delivered the backstory) come to life – there’s a giant octopus attacking the evil military planes just a few hundred feet off shore, for example. So it’s kind of like Colin meets Life Is Beautiful, or something – right? Anyone have a different explanation? Because if I’m right, again, this is a pretty awesome idea, but the above problems weigh the movie down too much for it to really register.

The extra features are of no help; director Jorge Olguín discusses all aspects of the production except the script; we get like 5 minutes on the FX but not even 5 seconds on if the (oft-mentioned) quick shooting schedule and low budget forced him to change elements of his story. It’s not a bad piece, but (unlike the film) it’s in Spanish with subtitles, and he’s a motor mouth, so it requires your complete attention. Plus, whoever did the subtitles did a terrible job (“It is a creately way to of work”), so you have to put in a little extra effort to follow along. Then there are four music videos; 2 are just punk/rockabilly nonsense I had no interest in, but I did quite like Denise Malebran’s “Llevame” (performed over the end credits) despite the language barrier, and composer Claudi Perez’ “Main Theme” is also quite lovely, and much better than the 28 Days Later ripoff stuff that makes up most of the movie’s instrumental section.

It really bums me out when I see so much promise in a concept, and even some of the execution (the crayon drawn opening, the zombie transformations), but can’t get behind the movie as a whole because of numerous problems that could have been avoided with a little more money and clear-headed thinking. Dammit movie, why won’t you let me like you more!

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Collapsed (2011)

JUNE 3, 2012

GENRE: POST-APOCALYPTIC, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

It’s never a good sign when you’re an hour into the movie and still wondering when the plot described on the back of the DVD case is going to kick in. According to the synopsis, The Collapsed is about a family that “takes to the forest, only to discover the danger posed by other survivors may be the least of their worries”. Sounds cool, right? An inverse of the usual zombie movie motif of having a bunch of folks hole up somewhere and realize that the zombies weren’t as bad as the human element! But no, that movie never happens, and it’s not until the final 5 minutes (I’m rounding up) that anything but other survivors comes into play.

To explain what would be a spoiler, and thus technically so is the synopsis, as it’s not exactly LYING but cannot possibly be referring to anything but a twist that is revealed in its closing moments, as there isn’t as much as a wild animal posing any other threat to the characters besides those “other survivors” throughout the runtime. Basically, it would be akin to saying that Sixth Sense is about a ghost-seeing boy named Cole who learns to help the ghost he sees the most often – there’s nothing else it could be referring to. Hopefully most of the audience that might enjoy the film otherwise will go in blind.

Then again, I was already in the “not for me” camp before I took a look at the DVD case (to see the runtime) and noticed this oddity, so it might not matter. The synopsis issue doesn’t have any bearing on the fact that this is a slowly paced “character driven” version of a post-apocalyptic movie where the characters simply aren’t that interesting. At one point the father and son characters have a heart to heart about why the older man wasn’t around much (the mom cheated on him and thus he decided to focus more on work so that they could spend time apart), and that’s probably the closest it ever gets to compelling character drama. And not for nothing, but Clark Griswold talking to Rusty about why Aunt Edna is such a pain in the ass is more interesting (from Vacation - it came to mind because both scenes involve the son drinking a beer).

But at least they’re talking about their real lives, which is much better than the bulk of the film’s dialogue. More often than not, our heroes are just saying stuff out of a “How To Survive The Apocalypse” manual: arguing about food availability, the benefits of traveling by foot instead of by car (“it’s a huge target!”), ammo conservation… it’s like one of the worst issues of The Walking Dead come to life! It doesn’t help that two of the characters make an (admittedly shocking) exit 30 minutes in, which leaves less of an opportunity for different family dynamics. Then again, none of them look anything alike (the closest is probably the mother and father, oddly), so the less time we spend trying to believe that these folks are blood relatives is probably for the best.

And all of that is a shame, because there IS a decent film bubbling under the surface. There’s a pretty great nightmare scene that takes on new meaning later, and I like the idea of setting this sort of thing in a forest instead of the usual “deserted city” locales that almost always underwhelm given the production’s budget (or they use terrible CGI to destroy a few skyscrapers while the audience just laughs). And the deaths of two family members is perfectly placed; far enough into the movie to work as a shock, but not so far that it feels like they had to die just so we can say that something actually happened. From then on we fear for the lives of the other two, making the rare bits of action tenser than one might find in this sort of thing. I also liked being “duped” in a way; when some major things happened off-screen I assumed it was because they couldn’t afford to show it, making later ON-SCREEN events all the more shocking when they occur. It’s not that these guys didn’t know what they were doing, they just didn’t have the skill with dialogue and/or convincing enough actors to pull it off.

However, if you disagree with my take, you should quite like the commentary track by writer/director/editor/producer Justin McConnell and partner Kevin Hutchinson. They’re quite proud of their film (they're even a touch arrogant at times), and spend the 80 minutes complimenting it, each other, the actors, etc. while telling the usual production stories. It can be a bit grating at times as the two laugh at each others’ not particularly funny (or understandable to those outside of the production) jokes and anecdotes (and can we PLEASE stop with the “I hope you’re not watching the commentary before the movie” jokes? NO ONE DOES THAT AND NO ONE EVER WILL), but they do point out a few minor flubs and such, so it’s all good. The other commentary is by lead actor John Fantasia, but I couldn’t get through it as it sounded like they recorded it over Skype or something and it was actually hurting my ears (he also falls silent often, another red mark).

The rest of the extras are kind of annoying, because they’re not really on the damn disc. There’s a 71 minute making of documentary that you can either scan a QR code or go to a URL (not hyperlinked, so you have to type it out even if you’re watching on a DVD-rom) and type in a login/password. Either way it just takes you to a Youtube clip, which is just annoying. The piece was uploaded months ago, and the movie isn’t very long (the two combined would be just over 150 minutes) so there’s no reason it couldn’t be on the disc. Ditto the (quite good) soundtrack and the screenplay, which could easily have fit on the disc as well but have to be downloaded elsewhere. All that’s actually on here is a music video, some hilariously overzealous bios for the cast and crew, and a couple of trailers. As for the doc itself, it’s fine – it suffers from some of the same in-jokey feel that the commentary has, and at times feels like it’s something they made to sell themselves on prospective investors than to film nerds who might like to see how a low budget movie is made, but it’s well made, and despite the length doesn’t feel unnecessarily long (like Rob Zombie’s 4 hour endurance test of a “documentary” on Halloween), so, like the commentary, if you really enjoyed the film it’s worth the obnoxious way you have to access it.

It’s always a shame when the only thing that really makes a movie memorable is its final five minutes; if this stuff made up the entire third act they might have had something here. It’s a good twist, but the best twists serve movies that are interesting even without it – Bruce could have just gone home and given his wife a kiss and promised to pay more attention to her, and Sixth Sense would still be a damn good flick, you know? Nice try though.

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Zombie Apocalypse (2011)

JANUARY 15, 2012

GENRE: POST-APOCALYPTIC, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Guys, sit down. Take a deep breath. Calm yourself. What I am about to say can cause shock and panic.

…The Asylum’s Zombie Apocalypse is good.

And I don’t even mean “Good for Asylum”, I mean it’s a genuinely decent and fun zombie flick, with likable characters, a ton of action, and a lovably batshit finale. As long as you accept that the excess (and not very good, though I’ve seen worse) digital blood is allowing for more action, you should agree – especially since the dialogue is otherwise the worst thing about it. When folks are killing zombies, they're not stopping to talk.

To be fair, the dialogue isn't ALL bad – there are some decent exchanges here and there, and again, the characters are likable for a change. Even when some hardass humans show up in the 3rd act, they’re not “evil”, and they actually end up becoming good allies. Any zombie movie that skips over the usual “but MAN HIMSELF is the real villain!” stuff is already on my good side – not that the plot point is bad on its own, but it’s become such a cliché, and rarely seems thought out; the goals of the human villains usually make less logical sense than the idea of zombies in the first place.

But unfortunately, a lot of the dialogue falls on the exposition-y side of things, which can get tiresome. Our heroine is Taryn Manning (well, by default anyway - she doesn’t DO anything in the movie but she’s the most well-known of the female stars), and she’s not as experienced at killing zombies as the other characters. So we get a lot of exchanges where someone will say “Let’s pop and drop!” and she’ll have to have it explained to her. And then five seconds later someone will refer to a “runner” and she’ll need THAT explained to her. It borders on ridiculous as well; our hero is telling a story about how someone recently died, and says “we encountered a pack.” As always, she has to ask what that is – isn’t it kind of obvious what it is when discussing how someone was killed by zombies? It’s a bunch of fucking zombies! I’d almost rather they use weird terms and not explain them than over-explain things that are pretty damn self-explanatory.

Luckily, things never get too talky, a problem that plagues most Asylum films, where we see scene after scene of people looking at monitors from control rooms while Giant Octopus and Mega Shark do awesome things off-screen. In the first 20 minutes we get three big zombie fights, with lots of dismemberment and decapitations. Again, it’s all done digitally, and it rarely looks good, but I’d almost rather they were consistent instead of doing it right (i.e. practically) every now and then, which would just make the digital stuff look even worse when cut together with the practical effects. Their goal here was quantity over quality, and usually they botch BOTH.

I was also surprised how much Ving Rhames was actually in the film. I saw his name on the cover (which adds a “2012” to the title) but figured he’d be in the movie for like 10 minutes or so, tops. But nope, he’s there until the final reel, and there’s only one instance where I caught them using a double. Every now and then they find ways to keep him out of the camera range when his character is present (his character usually brings up the rear, so the camera will go in close on the guys up front, cutting him from view), but it’s a real lead performance, not just the usual bait and switch you get from these things. And for a guy far more respectable than many; no offense to Dean Cain, but when the distributor tries to sell a movie on his name when he’s only in it for five minutes, it just looks doubly desperate to me.

It also has some scope to it, again something that often escapes Asylum films. It’s obviously all LA when it’s supposed to be somewhere in the Midwest TO LA, but there are like 5-6 locations in the first half hour alone, and the characters never hole up anywhere for too long. A school, a sporting goods store, a shipyard, houses, lots of different exteriors… again, it’s like a real movie! Hell at one point they could have even stayed longer in a spot; there’s a fun bit where the survivors are trapped in a work van, surrounded by zombies on the outside while one of their number starts to turn. They could have milked the claustrophobia a bit more, but the matter is settled and they’re on their way again after a few minutes.

On that note, it kind of reminded me of Left 4 Dead. The plot is similar to any level of that game, where your four characters make their way to some sort of rescue vehicle (in this case, a boat). There are different kinds of zombies (including a “tank” type), the weapons are similar, and like the game, it’s remarkably straightforward. Again, no evil humans, but there aren’t too many other obstacles either – it’s just all run n’ gun, with zombies as the only real threat. That said, they took a bit from "The Walking Dead" as well – in addition to an off-screen character named Kirkman (someone mentions Pittsburgh as well – they did their homework!), our badass black female character almost exclusively uses a sword as her weapon. But hey that means they’re reading stuff instead of copying popular shows/movies like usual – Michonne hasn’t appeared on the AMC show yet!

The DVD has a pair of fairly worthless features; a gag reel in which I can’t even see what went wrong (if anything; some of it just appears to be random shots of people hanging out), and a brief making of that focuses mostly on the cast. I’d actually love a look at the Asylum “creative process”, and if they were ever to do such a thing I’d prefer it was on something like this, where the movie’s actually pretty fun, than some piece of junk like Amityville Haunting or whatever. But hey, if cutting corners on those other productions is what allowed this one to be pretty enjoyable (the co-production with Syfy probably helped, too), so be it. Good work guys; too bad you opted for your usual fake quote on the back – I would have given you “Best Asylum movie ever!” for real.

What say you?

P.S. Don’t comment “Why didn’t you mention the ____?”, because I won’t post it. Yes, it was awesome, but mainly because I didn’t know anything about it. Let people be surprised for once.

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Divide (2011)

DECEMBER 12, 2011

GENRE: POST-APOCALYPTIC, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

I'd like to think that Xavier Gens just has poor taste in scripts, but maybe he's just not the great filmmaker we were hoping. Hitman isn't fair to judge because of all the FOX mangling, but it's worth noting that they did the same thing to Kassovitz on Babylon AD and that was still at least pretty enjoyable. Frontiere(s) was well shot, but the script (his own) was painfully generic, running through sequences and situations lifted from every Texas Chainsaw/Wrong Turn ripoff you've ever seen. And now he's back with The Divide, which starts promisingly but just gets worse as it goes, becoming laughable when it's supposed to be at its most intense.

As I've said before, I'd rather a movie just suck throughout rather than piss away initial promise. Karl Mueller and Eron Sheean's script wastes no time in getting going - the first shot is of our heroine (the always welcome Lauren German) watching New York explode/disintegrate from her apartment window, courtesy of a few nukes (their origin is never explained, but it doesn't matter). Her and some other faces you might recognize in between edits make their way down to the basement, where the landlord (Michael Biehn) has created a makeshift shelter, except he wasn't planning on sharing it.

Our group is pretty typical - the heroine, a kid, some alpha males, a cool-headed black guy... nothing much interesting there. One of the movie's first signs of trouble is the fact that they seemingly skip over most of the "getting to know you" stuff - it's a while into the movie before you get anyone's name, and how they relate to each other is also pretty vague. I still am unsure if the Michael Eklund and Milo Ventimiglia characters were lovers prior to the attack, and it's not until nearly the end of the film that we learn about German's engagement to her boyfriend.

Still, the early stuff works - Biehn explains what they have and what they DON'T have, folks offer theories... standard "bunker movie" stuff, but filtered through an admirably eclectic cast and Gens' creative shooting, which keeps things interesting on a visual level despite the fact that the whole movie takes place in a basement with 3-4 rooms. There's a great bit when we think we're looking down a corridor at our heroes, only to discover it's a mirror and they're actually in a fairly small area - stuff like that makes up for the fact that the story is next to worthless, at least for a while.

Because you see, not even the best DP and director team in the world could make something good out of this particular script (assuming that the script wasn't compromised much for budgetary reasons - it couldn't have been a very expensive production, and I assume a lot of that went to the actors). Characters constantly change motivation; Ventimiglia is the guy that goes out to try to rescue someone, then he goes crazy, then he actually displays some sense with regards to the food... it's just too inconsistent. Rosanna Arquette's character in particular doesn't "work" - why is she suddenly uncaring about her daughter's circumstances?

Passage of time is also a trouble spot; we are told at one point that a combination lock was changed "two weeks ago", but there is nothing to indicate if said change was made instantly, or if there was a month or so in between the lock's first appearance in the movie and it being changed. Hell, I wasn't even aware that two weeks had gone by since the movie started! The male characters keep up with their shaving, so there's no real help there - there's not even a guy making notches on a wall, which is sort of a standard "look how much time has passed" scene in these sort of movies. And it's PARTICULARLY problematic here, since the core concept is that when people feel threatened they'll react with extreme measure regardless of the circumstances (and we get a few 9-11 references to hammer the point home), but without any understanding of how long they've been trapped together, it's unknown whether the characters were being rash or understandably crazed. If it was only two weeks, sure, they're just assholes - but if it was six months, I can see going a little stir crazy.

Ultimately I just started thinking of a great Onion article, where the survivors of a group trapped in an elevator wonder if they resorted to cannibalism too early (we ultimately learn they were in there less than an hour). Because if this WAS only a couple days, then the movie is potentially the most disastrous of the year (or a very subtle attempt at comedy). And if it WAS supposed to be months, then the missing info just adds to the film's overall problem, in that it takes a potentially great idea and largely mucks it up courtesy of what feels like a first draft script filled with far too many issues left maddeningly vague.

What say you?

P.S. Even if it's largely ripped off from John Murphy's 28 Days/Sunshine cues, the score is quite good - I'd never watch the movie again, but I'd love to have the soundtrack. Make it happen, Anchor Bay!

PLEASE, GO ON...

I Am Omega (2007)

NOVEMBER 25, 2011

GENRE: POST-APOCALYPTIC, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

A few minutes into I Am Omega, I wondered if the location that the main character had made into his home/fortress was on the same property that parts of Hatchet II were filmed on, in Santa Clarita. The layout and look of the buildings (more like glorified shacks) were quite similar, and it's a frequently used locale, so it must be pretty cheap (i.e. something that The Asylum could afford). I never did learn for sure (only that Santa Clarita was indeed a shooting location for this film), but either way, the two films have almost identical fonts on the end credits!!! Weird.

(Hatchet on left, Omega on right)

Anyway, for an Asylum "mockbuster" it's pretty good. While I don't doubt that it was quickly made in order to cash in on its big budget cousin (I Am Legend, obviously), it doesn't seem to be made up on the spot like Paranormal Entity and Monster were. Someone clearly actually wrote this thing; if not a whole screenplay at least a very detailed treatment must have been used for the actors to go by. Conversations are rare, but when they occur they have some semblance of structure, instead of lousy actors trying to improvise (which usually just results in people saying the same thing over and over). Only in its final scenes does it start to feel like they were just tossing ideas and subplots around at random - why does one character suddenly decide to engage in proxy necrophilia, pushing his buddy's corpse on the lady parts of our heroine? Furthermore, why does it serve as the finale of this zombie movie? Shouldn't there be, er, zombies around, somewhere?

The funny thing is that this problem exists in all versions of I Am Legend, even the original source novel: the first act is always the best; the third the weakest. Surely no one (or at least, I) didn't expect the Asylum version to be the first to figure out how to end this story in a way that fully satisfies, so I can't get on its case too much for not sticking the landing. Maybe someday someone will figure it out, but I'm not holding my breath.

Another thing I found amusing: this movie requires you to know the story that they are ripping off. Without any knowledge of Matheson's story or any of the previous film versions, you'd probably be pretty confused as to what exactly is going on for the first 45 minutes or so. Apart from a few random shots of an empty downtown LA (something you can see pretty much any weekend morning anyway), there is nothing to indicate that the world has been taken over by mutant zombies, and/or that our hero (Mark Dacascos) is one of the few people left alive. If you're ignorant to the "Legend" story, then this movie comes across more as the tale of a weird hermit who occasionally ventures out into the mountainous area near his home and plants bombs for some reason, and every now and then talks to a corpse that he may have killed himself for all we know. It's not until the end of the second act, when he goes into the city with a couple other guys on a rescue mission, that the whole "dead world" concept is made fully clear. And actually you're still sort of filling in blanks yourself at this point, it's just not AS impenetrable.

As for the bombs, you got me. He's setting them around the city right above gas lines, which are all helpfully marked by pieces of paper taped to nearby poles that read "NO DIGGING - GAS LINE". That much makes (horror movie) sense, but why he's doing it in the first place is a bit vague. Especially when he doesn't appear to be in any serious danger where he's at - he's got a well protected place to live, plenty of books to read, a running fridge, and even some beer! So why destroy the entire city, exactly? If Los Angeles was some sort of quarantined area and the rest of the state was fine, I guess it would make some sense, but as far as we know the entire country (world?) has been overrun by this unexplained event, so what good does blowing up the City of Angels do anyway?

I also wonder when he set the bombs in the Valley or even Hollywood, since he only sets one a day and they're all timed to go off at once - he'd have to have started like 2 years before and been a really good estimator to set those first few timers properly. How many hours in a year? Then again the whole countdown angle is remarkably botched - at one point we see a bomb actually counting UP as he races out of the city. Why they didn't just work in that he had to manually set them all off at once (Armageddon style!) is beyond me, but this lovingly stupid approach provided some entertainment value, so thanks for that.

Also thanks for hiring Mark Dacascos to play the hero (Richard instead of Robert), who can at least make the fight scenes a little more interesting. There never seems to be more than 2-3 zombies on-screen at once, and he takes care of most of them fairly quickly with a few gunshots, so the action is pretty dull for the most part. But every now and then he'll kick them around a bit before shooting them. This of course makes the whole "blow up the city" angle even sillier - he can take care of himself easily and doesn't seem to be too worried about the zombie "threat" anyway. Was he just bored? Does he plan to blow up the entire country city by city?

That's not even the silliest plot hole. The whole rescue mission makes zero sense, as the other guy (Geoff Meed, who also wrote the film) apparently plans to kill the girl anyway. So why even bother trying to rescue her? She's alone in a city overrun by zombies, and the city is going to blow up anyway (something Meed knows about). Wouldn't it be easier to just leave her there to die? Richard had no interest in her until they forced him to help (by blowing up his house, something he has zero reaction to) - did they actually just do all of this to rape her?

The direction can be as baffling as the writing at some points. Closeups of weapons firing rarely match the wide shots, particularly when he runs down a street shooting zombies - the closeups are of a non-moving individual firing a different weapon. Richard also flashes back to ancient Super 8 footage of his wife and son, even though he has a modern laptop that clearly sets the film in the present day. I also laughed out loud when Richard takes a piss while standing in the desert - they cut to a low angle of his legs, but we see no stream hitting the ground in front of him. So is he peeing on his own pants/shoes? Luckily I know the director got better: it's Griff Furst, the same guy who made Mask Maker. I don't know if he just wasn't trying very hard here or wasn't given the time/money to do things properly (like hand Dacascos a squeeze bottle filled with Mountain Dew to squeeze above the camera line), but it's good to know he was able to graduate from this sort of junk.

And to be fair, Furst DOES put some effort into the proceedings, particularly with a cool long tracking shot that goes from an interior closeup to an exterior high angle of the house, and a few other flourishes. And the stuff with Dacascos hallucinating and going crazy is genuinely decent - I almost have to wonder why they didn't stick with that (cheaper) stuff instead of trying to simulate big action that they couldn't afford.

But really, who cares? The movie came out on DVD in time for the theatrical release of Will Smith's film, and that's all that matters. Luckily it's fairly entertaining in its own clumsy way for the most part, and it only cost me 25 cents (the four pack was among the 99 cent DVDs at this morning's Black Friday sale at Best Buy - I also scored the awesome Walk Hard for the same price!). Hopefully the other films on the set will be as equally "eh, fine" and thus justify their cost. I could have bought a donut instead of these things!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...