Tag Archives: zombie

Anna And The Apocalypse (2017)

Imagine it . . .  You’re an angsty high school student in a small town, heading toward your imminent graduation and thinking about your future.  You’re hassled by your principal and being hounded by your ex, while your best friend won’t just come out and tell you that they’re in love with you.  What’s worse, it’s the night of the school Christmas pageant when the zombie apocalypse begins.  Maybe this isn’t you, but it is Anna And The Apocalypse (2017) — so break out  the melee weapons!

Anna And The Apocalypse is a huge ball of fun for the right viewer.  It’s a musical with dance numbers, set in high school during Christmas right at the beginning of the zombie apocalypse.  Frankly, I was playing it and barely watching when, about 20 minutes into the film, a zombie was killed in a hilarious and absolutely new and inventive way as far as zombie films go.  The music is also quite good and the song settings is perfect.  Oh, and did I forget to mention that the story is set in Scotland?!?

Anna And The Apocalypse just may be my new favourite Christmas movie.  My rating is Green Ooze, and Anna And The Apocalypse can be found on my list of BagpiperDon’s Favourite Zombie Movies!

Links

Dead Before Dawn (2012)

Dead Before Dawn (2012)A CURSE IS UNLEASHED in Dead Before Dawn!

A group of college friends — some of whom play football and wear cheer leader outfits for a high school, because that isn’t confusing — accidentally break an evil urn in an occult gift shop.  As the dust settles they inadvertently create a horrible curseis there any other kind —  UPON THEMSELVES!

SPHS
SPHS — yeah… usually HS means High School — so how are they college students?!?  Is it possible that these “college” students attend St. Paul’s High School in Winnipeg, Manitoba?

As a result of the malediction, everyone they make eye contact with will kill themselves and then become “Zemons” — a combination of Zombie Demons — and the high school college kids only have 24 hours to reverse the curse!  With the fate of the entire world resting on their shoulders, our heroes race through the night armed with a slew of homemade weapons, avoiding eye contact and hickeys, and filling their shopping list of items needed to reverse their curse.  Will they be able to reverse the curse and save the day, or will all of humanity be Dead Before Dawn?

spawn from Hell seeks loving gentleman
This gave me flashbacks of some of my ex-girfriends … oh yeah, good times.

Dead Before Dawn is not a serious zombie film.

If you come away from DBD thinking, “You know, as serious films of the zombie genre go … that sucked!”  I read reviews that essentially said this, and those people MISSED THE POINT.

Spoof – A humorous imitation of something, typically a film or a particular genre of film, in which its characteristic features are exaggerated for comic effect.

Dead Before Dawn is similar to Z Nation — they’re intentionally trying to be goofy and make fun of comedy zombie films (see “parody“).  For me this was an unexpected film and looked like what films of this sort should be — fun to make.  It made me feel like I was watching Fido for the first time again.

free candy
Emmett Lathrop “Doc” Brown, Ph.D. – a student of all sciences and the inventor of the first time machine built out of a DeLorean
Christopher Lloyd
If you don’t recognize this guy it’s Christopher Lloyd playing a high school senior in 1958

Give this blood-soaked adventure horrorcomedy a watch — it’s an unexpected fun zombie-demon flick from Canada, great for a laid-back kick-back chuckle with friends.

Written by Tim Doiron and directed by April Mullen, it stars a bunch of folks I’m not familiar with and presume are Canadian along with Christopher Lloyd — who I will always think of as Emmett “Doc” Brown.  88 minutes long, this is the first ever live-action, 100% Canadian feature film to be shot in Stereoscopic 3-D.  Filmed in 20 days in and around the Niagara Falls region of Canada in 2011, it features occasional adult humor and it achieves being a fun film without revealing adult body parts frequently found in zombie films.

I rate Dead Before Dawn — drum roll pleaseGreen Ooze!  Maybe moderately green, but definitely green — good job Canucks!

Links

The Battery (2012)

Wow — sometimes I really hate this hobby … reviewing zombie films.  Today I’m reviewing “The Battery” from 2012.  According to All Things Horror on the cover of the DVD, this is “The first must-see zombie film in a hell of a long while.”  If that’s the case, then we’ve been far more desperate than I was possibly aware.

So before I lay into The BAD-tery, let’s figure out a few things … more over, fail to.  I can’t find who “All Things Horror” is online because the name is way too general.  And when you cross your search-terms with “Battery” …. well, you get all-things horror and every brand cell in double-A, triple-A, C, D and so on.

What I can find is the usual Wikipedia, IMDb, and Rotten Tomatoes pages.  So here’s the score …  The film had a budget of $6000.  It was shot in 15 days in Connecticut*, and the scenes were not planned in advance.  There are only 6 zombies for the first hour of the film — that’s 1 zombie for every 10 minutes — so little that I’m not sure this can be called a zombie film.  The film stars debut  director Jeremy Gardner and co-producer Adam Cronheim.  Allegedly their characters are two former baseball players trying to survive a zombie apocalypse — but they’re both so far out of shape clearly they were more likely T-ball coaches trying to hook up with single moms.  Oh, and let’s not forget the gratuitous Z-film breasts …
(* For the record, I have nothing against Connecticut … at this time.)

Watch the extras — this actress said she hated doing the scene, dislikes the name her zombie is know by, and pretty much regrets the role …. and now there are pervy pictures and videos of her all over the net. Given the budget of the film … I doubt she even got a hundred bucks!

So let me give you my rating of The Battery, then tell you what is redeeming about it …

Long & Short, “The Battery” is lucky to get a Yellow Puss rating from me — think more of that putrid orange colour between yellow and red.  It’s dull, it lacks zombies, it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere for an hour, and I’m not sure if it went any where 41 minutes later because I skipped through that part then shut it off.  Frankly, you’ll find this on my “Zombie Films to Avoid” page.

Adam Cronheim and Jeremy Gardner

The Battery isn’t completely garbage —
here’s what I liked about it …

If you’ve read my other Z-film blog posts you’ll know that one of the things is dislike is the constant use of The Journey story arc.  This film doesn’t show the start or reasoning behind the “We have to get from Point-A to Point-B” — it just shows that the main characters are traveling through the zombie apocalypse (that mostly lacks zombies).  Also, one of the characters is frequently making a bid for the duo to stop traveling — to stop being on pointless Journey arc.  This is characteristic of what’s going on in The Battery — it is showing the human side of the experience, the relationship between the two men, that some people (understandably) seek normalcy.  For me this is the redeeming part of the film, what makes watching the first hour bearable … er, I mean, vaguely worthwhile — not much other zombie media offers this.

Outside of that, I skipped the last 30 or 40 minutes of the film — and I think you’d be just as well off to skip all 101 minutes of this film.  But … High Fives to Jeremy Gardner and Adam Cronheim — they got to live their dreams of making and staring in a zombie film and pretending they were baseball players.  Whoopie-Doo!

Here … if you really have to, you can watch The Battery on Tubi.

The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. CareyI became aware of The Girl With All the Gifts from finding and viewing the movie — which was AMAZING!

I recently completed the audiobook by M.R. Carey, narrated by Finty Williams.  Among other accomplishments M.R. “Mike” Carey  is the current writer on Marvel’s X-Men.  Finty Williams is an English actress and the daughter of Dame Judi Dench.

The basic premise of the story …
In the future humanity has all-but been wiped out by a fungus.  This new and powerful spore turns the host — human beings — into mindless eating machines, referred to as “hungries”.  When they are prompted to capture and consume some protein they can move at high speeds, without fatigue, and be deadly.  When it comes to food … birds, cats, dogs, humans … anything will do.

Melanie is a 10 year old girl living a controlled life on a military base.  She very smart, loves learning, and likes her teacher.  When the base falls under attack, everything breaks down — Melanie, her teacher, a scientist, and a few military men are thrust into the wild.

And this is where I don’t say anything more to avoid giving spoilers.

All that said …

I thought the film was good.  The book, so far as I could tell, had more going on in it — as books often do.  I would say that the film did a great job of honoring the content and spirit of the story — making changes as needed to achieve the film.  As I neared completion of the audiobook I reordered the film from my local library; it will be interesting to re-watch the film.  Also, I have become aware that Carey wrote a second book in the series — a prequel titled “The Boy on the Bridge“.

If you take nothing else away from this commentary — take this …

The book and the film are one of those rare pieces that change everything for its genre — the bar has been raised!

Girl With All The Gifts crosses multiple genres — zombie, military fiction, drama, and even sci-fi.  It gives story elements you do not expect.  Carey has made a futuristic declining-apocalyptical setting that could support many more stories — and with any luck …. it will!

LINKS

 

Zombie With A Shotgun (2019)

Zombie With A ShotgunWhen I heard about Zombie With A Shotgun, the title had me curious — it was a turn-around on the typical premise.  Usually the shotgun is used on the zombies, but in this case the zombie apparently has a shotgun.   The title also made me think of Hobo With A Shotgun.

I watched Zombie With A Shotgun on TubiTV — it was my first time using Tubi.  I had higher hopes about ZWAS because of the promotion I had seen online and the implied campiness.  Ultimately … the acting is thin, the dialogue delivery is hardly better, and the gratuitous Z-film boobs are further enhanced by some sort of hallucinations of lesbian kissing followed by some of the same Z-film boobs in the shower with boy-butt just to keep things in balance.  Outside of that, I barely have an idea what the point of the film was.  Were this a book a friend referred to me I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t finish reading it.

I appreciate the independent film spirit — and I honestly believe that the film wants to be something.  It has a visual polish — a certain professional look — but everything else falls short.  It is as though the filmmakers had the right money, cameras, etc to make the film but the story writing and actors weren’t much better than most of the self-produced Z-films on YouTube.  The development of whatever the story is hardly makes sense even 30 minutes into the film and it’s only 79 minutes long.

Before I finished the film I already began debating if I would rate Zombie With A Shotgun would receive my Red Blood or Yellow Puss zombie-film rating. Conclusion … maybe I need to come up with some kind of orange rating.  ZWAS isn’t a great zombie film, but there are worse Z-films.

Links

The Dead 2: India (2013)

HEY — if this reads a bit like a draft … it’s because it is!

Similar to The Dead (2010), I give this film a Yellow Puss/nearly Green Ooze score.

Similar story elements as the first film however seems that the Ford brothers have honed their craft both with storytelling and film making

A good looking American engineer is working in an economically depressed foreign country, he must make his way out with the assumption that he can get to safety

In this movie, the action is set in the Indian states of Rajasthan and Maharashtra.

Uses local talent as part of the story line more than The Dead (2010) — which is really clever if you think about it.  This and the first piece were made by independent film makers for rather little money.  By going to these other countries and writing stories that work within the local atmosphere the can get more resources and actors, making a bigger film for less money.  When it comes to India, bear in mind that Bollywood produces some goofy stuff, they also produce skilled actors, quite a few more films annually than HolloWood, and nearly-as-good special effects for less money.

Links

Once again the production encountered a number of problems.  Most of the extras playing zombies were not proficient in English and required translators.  Joseph Millson also mentioned that they did not get a permit from the Indian Government to shoot the movie in India.

If National Geographic made a travel show through a foreign country ravaged by zombies, it would be this film

Undead (2003)

PSST — if this reads like a draft, it’s because it is — I never went back to finish writing it …. so I figured better to publish this than nothing!

Undead (2003 – US release 2005 … shucks, why’d we have to wait?!?)

Undead is a 2003 Australian zombie science fiction comedy horror film written and directed by Michael and Peter Spierig and starring Felicity MasonMungo McKay and Rob Jenkins.

(Not to be confused with the 1957 horror film, The Undead (film).)

Budget AUD $1 million (which in USD that’s $0.75 million)

A fisherman punching zombie fish and when that doesn’t work he starts shooting them …. and then inconveniently gets abducted by aliens.  I hate it when that happens …

Links

 

 

The Night Eats the World (2018)

The Night Eats The World MOVIE POSTERFrankly, I’m not sure how to rate the French-made zombie film “The Night Eats The World” — Green Ooze or Yellow Puss?!?  From the looks of the set, the considerable number of zombie extras not to mention their make-up and training, there seems to be some money behind this.  It mostly has just one actor, however — and he’s good, don’t get me wrong — but when a film does the artsy focal on one lone-character story … is that an artistic thing or lack-of-funding thing?

One man against the world … and zombies … armed with a drum.

So, the story starts out with this hipsterish guy in Paris showing up at his now ex-girlfriend’s big house-party to get his most sacred of personal effects (cassette tapes with noise-music he’s made) when she does the “Let’s Be Friends” thing with her new boyfriend with a better beard wrapped around her like corndog breading.

Let’s be friends …. LIAR!

When she insists that he ought to stick-around and hang out (AKA brushing him off), hipster ex-boyfriend goes pensive and waits around for his stuff instead of dude’ing up, asking for his STUFF and NOW so he can GTF out of there and on with his sappy life.  He locks himself in one of her rooms and falls asleep.  When he wakes up the next morning he leaves the room to find that her flat is a wreck.  He seems to be thinking “It must have been some night … but can I get my STUFF now and get on with my life, PLEASE.”  Then come the zombies, he’s apparently the only one alive, and he locks himself in the building — surviving on the former tenants’ food stocks and a shotgun with an endless supply of ammo.  But that’s only the beginning of the story …

He initially has one of those awkward “I’m secure with myself but no one believes it” beards … don’t worry, he later shaves it off … which might be a part of his character arc.

The film then becomes a touchy-feely interpersonal-view of one guy’s loneliness.  In other words, it’s “Home Alone” but with far less laughs, more zombies, and one bought of shaving.

meow
See — even zombies get their heads cut off in pictures …

So was The Night Eats The World a
bad, okay, or a great film?

The DVD box touts on the cover …

“The most innovative zombie movie since Shaun Of The Dead
Indiewire

I’m not buying it!  In content these are two very different films; in context … yeah, okay …. maybe.  The quotes on the back of the case by Bloody Disgusting, AV Club, and Dread Central range from “possibly accurate” to “I think somebody got bribed”.

The film description on the back of the DVD case is blaughze’, poorly written, and arguably inaccurate.  To me, the title doesn’t apparently have anything to do with the story.  The promotional photos make this look like more of a straightforward zombie-fight gore-fest when in reality it’s more of … I don’t know, an art film?!?

In the end, all I can say about The Night Eats The World is … is it “Good”, yes …. but is it “Great” …. sorry, no.  I think you’re better off getting a copy of my book followed by making some cookies, and re-watching Shaun Of The Dead

The Night Eats The World LINKS

Overlord (2018)

Overlord 2018Frankly, I’m not 100% sure the 2018 D-Day film Overlord is a zombie film.  But, given all that encompasses how-zombies-come-to-be in films these days, I’m not 100% sure it isn’t.  So I’m reviewing Overlord just to make sure it’s covered.

The basic premise of Overlord is that on the eve of D-Day, as some of the pre-invasion sabotage work that was planned and performed, a paratrooper squad is sent to destroy a German radio tower located in an old church. Their plane is shot down and crashes, and a contingency of the remaining squad continues forward with the mission.  As they head toward the village where the church is located they run into Chloe — a young French woman who is a badass.  As the few paratroopers work their way into the church, they find that it’s not just a Nazi radio location but that they’ve been conducting extensive experiments in the basement.

Backpacking through Europe

I’ll stop here to avoid any spoilers — but in truth you really can’t state any spoilers about this film BECAUSE WE’VE ALL SEEN THIS BEFORE.

A badass with a flamethrower that is!

The film stars a bunch of people whom we’ve never really seen.  They do a fine job at acting and it’s nice to see unfamiliar faces — otherwise this would have starred Ray StevensonJohn Turturro, and/or Tom Sizemore.  In addition, it has directors and writers and people we don’t know … but the one familiar name is J.J. Abrams.  I draw attention to this because I’m surprised his name is at all attached to this!

This film is familiar and predictable.  Apparently it had a budget of $38 million … off hand … I don’t know why.  I think they were going for a 1960s-1970s film noir thing — and they nailed it without all the dead-space that Quentin Tarantino fluffs his films with — and I think they were going for a B-movie feel, and it works in that way.  But $38 MILLION?!?  And here I thought governments were wa$teful!!! Seriously, this film ought to have been made for half with about $20 million going to creating jobs.  And yet, it made $41.9 million at the box office … which $4M is a lot of money … but for films with this sort of budget, my understanding is that profiting so little makes it a financial flop.

Castle Wolfenstein
Remember this?

Frankly — speaking of Ray Stevenson — although it takes place in modern-day, I think Outpost (2008) was a better film.  I could see Overlord as a  back-story film, and it sure as hell would be better than Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz (2013), which WAS the disaster of a backstory to the 2008 film.  I could see Overlord as a different project in-line with the initial Outpost project … kind of like a back-backstory.  That for me is the only real saving grace for this film!  In the end, it looks like a rip-off mishmash of Outpost and Castle Wolfenstein without paying for the rights to either.

And that’s not even going into the gross historic WWII inaccuracies built into this film — most of which was to make the PC-crowd not loose their self-righteous factless minds.  On the whole, I give this film a Yellow Puss rating.

Good News – There’s no way to make an Overlord 2
… hopefully.

I will add — there are cool special effects shots at the beginning of this film when planes are flying into France and at the end when its star, Jovan Adepo as Boyce, does a one-shot running out of the laboratory/church.

One Shot
When you see this, count your blessings, the film over!

Links

The Cured (2018)

Is it just me or does that guy look like a vampire?

The Maze Virus came and outbreak followed — but what happens when the infected are cured and returned to being human? That’s the question The Cured asks … or at least eventually does … I guess?

I learned of The Cured from a preview. My understanding was that this was another zombie film, and as I started watching it I wasn’t sure if it was zombies or vampires. Checking the DVD case clarified things:

“In a world ravaged for years by a virus that turns the infected into zombie-like cannibals, a cure is at last found and the wrenching process of reintegrating the survivors back into society begins.”

So — let’s clarify — if the ‘monsters’ are ‘zombie-like’ then they weren’t zombies. The sentence does say that they were ‘cannibals’ … so I guess this is a post-cannibal virus-apocalypse film and not technically a zombie film — but just to be safe, I’m going to review it as a Z-film.

Let’s start with the fact that …

Satellite image of Ireland
Ireland — it’s small

My library considers this a “Horror” film. I would call it a drama, that eventually has a modicum of horror, and then goes back to drama. And at that it is a dower drama film … which takes place in Ireland … because historically Ireland needs more dower.

Paula Malcomson

The film stars Ellen Page acting as Abbie, who is an American woman in Ireland for no apparent reason that I can tell except to better sell this film to American audiences***. It has other Irish actors that did great but I don’t recognize their names, and they have lighter Irish accents which I suspect also helps to sell this film to American audiences. Lastly, it has Paula Malcomson as Dr. Lyons … which really doesn’t matter, or the fact that she has a light accent that’s good for American audiences. What’s cool about Paula Malcomson being in this film is having seen her as Amanda Graystone in the new Battlestar Galactica spin-off series Caprica.  By the way, I remember hearing her in one of the Caprica episode commentaries and she is HILARIOUS!

What I do like about this film is that — for the most part — it takes a very different approach to telling a cannibal story … remember, these are “zombie-like cannibals”, but for the moment let’s say that it is a zombie story (which I’ll come back to). This is after the hordes, after the apocalypse, it is during a time that people are rebuilding — and in z-films that’s, well … I can’t think of another film I’ve seen that does that. Also, there was a virus — and a cure was discovered that worked for about 75% of the infected people … which is 100% more cure than other z-films I’ve seen. The story-tellers use of ‘the virus’ approach to zombies quite possibly makes the most sense yet — it makes people mindless cannibalistic pack-hunters as opposed to other zombie-virus films where folks get the virus/infection and essentially go wild.

HERE’S A SPOILER

There is a point where the virus and infected reemerge, a new round of chaos briefly rampages through the streets (before turning back into a dower drama). Had that been 80% of this film rather than the maybe 20% and they replaced Ellen Page, this might have been my new favourite over 28 Days Later.

But no …

SPOILER OVER
Time For My Conclusion

This film holds a moderate rating at IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic. With me, that would be about right – it’s a thinking-viewer’s zombie film, it’s a drama zombie film, it’s dower, and it’s too Ellen Pagey. I am somewhat generously giving The Cured my moderate score of Yellow Puss — there are too many things that didn’t work for me, but in many ways it is a well made film.

LINKS for The Cured

The Cured at Wikipedia, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic.  Better yet, go read a book, re-watch 28 Days Later, re-watch the new Battlestar Galactica or Caprica if you haven’t seen it, or buy a copy of my recipe book on Amazon and make some cookies.

*** The other mistake about Ellen Page acting in this film is that she’s Ellen Page. She’s barely more interesting to watch than that boring chick in the Twilight films. Remember — the brunette that has the same paralytic facial expression for every emotion — you know, the lead actress?!? I get the impression that the way HolloWood works these days is that an actor or actress rises through the ranks — not because they’re good at acting because most of them aren’t, so they’re elevating some other way — and HolloWood milks as much as they can out of that person until they have a few too many flops or the individual has a personal & public melt-down that’s too big to handle. When it comes to Ellen Page and “The Cured”, I got the sense that she was in this film because she’s just big enough to get attention for the film but not as so big that the Irish filmmakers couldn’t afford her. Furthermore, when it comes to reading about Ellen Page’s personal life and her “I know better than everyone else” high & mighty millennial attitude … quite frankly, were she and I in the same room … I don’t think I could politely excuse myself and exit stage left fast enough.