Pre-Halloween Horror-watching: Zombies of Mass Destruction
So, I meant to start this earlier this once, but I was a bit busy. The plan is to watch as many horror movies as I feel like watching in the run-up to Halloween, thanks to Netflix, and then review them (inspired in format by Jethrien's much more worthwhile habbit of reading actual books and posting about it)
There will likely be some actual theatrical trips involved as well, but most of these are definitely not the kind of thing you want to pay actual money to see. :P
Anyways, up first:
Zombies of Mass Destruction
Genre: Zombies
Director: Kevin Hamedani, 2009
Starring: friends & family of the director and 6-8 actors
TL:DR: Fun individual moments, but never really finds its own tone.
I really want to like this film. I love zombie films that make an effort to play up Romero's underlying themes of a Rockwellian America torn to pieces under its own dead, necrotic culture while also trying to work in a little camp and humour to keep the film going. The music is really good, the effects are solid for an indie film, and the acting is decent if unexceptional, and there's a definite humour behind the initial introduction of the town as a self-deceiving Everytown USA.
Unfortunately, ZMD tries a little too hard with the set-up of the idyllic community about to be undeadified. Each side storyline gets its own fairly long setup, and for the most part, the actors and director aren't quite up to it. Conversations become explanations, and after several of these scenes, despite the occasional hint of "omg, why can't they see the first stumbling zombies that are clear harbingers of the apocalypse?!", you just want zombies to fucking kill someone to speed things up.
It wouldn't be quite as annoying if only there was any sense that any of these set-up scenes were anything but setup to later zombie scenes. There isn't any character development or plot events; it's only setup. So finally, when the actual zombie scenes come along (and many of them are actually pretty good and fun), I felt so impatient that I didn't care about the under-the-hood stuff getting worked out, I just wanted someone to get eaten.
It's a shame; I actually like Janette Armand. She's one of the better performances, her story is interesting, and on a personal level, I think Americans as a group need to fucking get it through their heads that the children of immigrants are fucking American. But within this film, it's just another slow, unnecessary plot point that never amounts to much in comparison to the time spent setting it up.
There will likely be some actual theatrical trips involved as well, but most of these are definitely not the kind of thing you want to pay actual money to see. :P
Anyways, up first:
Zombies of Mass Destruction
Genre: Zombies
Director: Kevin Hamedani, 2009
Starring: friends & family of the director and 6-8 actors
TL:DR: Fun individual moments, but never really finds its own tone.
I really want to like this film. I love zombie films that make an effort to play up Romero's underlying themes of a Rockwellian America torn to pieces under its own dead, necrotic culture while also trying to work in a little camp and humour to keep the film going. The music is really good, the effects are solid for an indie film, and the acting is decent if unexceptional, and there's a definite humour behind the initial introduction of the town as a self-deceiving Everytown USA.
Unfortunately, ZMD tries a little too hard with the set-up of the idyllic community about to be undeadified. Each side storyline gets its own fairly long setup, and for the most part, the actors and director aren't quite up to it. Conversations become explanations, and after several of these scenes, despite the occasional hint of "omg, why can't they see the first stumbling zombies that are clear harbingers of the apocalypse?!", you just want zombies to fucking kill someone to speed things up.
It wouldn't be quite as annoying if only there was any sense that any of these set-up scenes were anything but setup to later zombie scenes. There isn't any character development or plot events; it's only setup. So finally, when the actual zombie scenes come along (and many of them are actually pretty good and fun), I felt so impatient that I didn't care about the under-the-hood stuff getting worked out, I just wanted someone to get eaten.
It's a shame; I actually like Janette Armand. She's one of the better performances, her story is interesting, and on a personal level, I think Americans as a group need to fucking get it through their heads that the children of immigrants are fucking American. But within this film, it's just another slow, unnecessary plot point that never amounts to much in comparison to the time spent setting it up.