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score 2/10
Okay, so first of all I do commend the director and writers for trying something different in the zombie genre, but along the way they stumble through many zombie cliches.
The film opens on a convoy of survivors trying to get to Harmony, a fictitious city. I'm assuming it's fictional because I don't remember any cities so far north to have perpetual blizzards and yet also skyscrapers (observe poorly designed and obviously fake backdrops in the early shots of the film), seriously it snows all the time, did the zombie outbreak also change the weather? (Actually that's probably a better film idea than this one deserves.)
Anywho, after an extremely inane action sequence to explain "how we got here" (that includes multiple silent stealthy deaths by a large crowd of screaming zombies), we learn in the present the main characters hate each other for some reason and dummy A (I will refer to them as such for the remainder of the review for obvious reasons shortly explained) takes care of dummy B's daughter and raises her as his own because "he ain't right" according to dummy A, or some such reasoning to shut up a "daughter" he treats like utter garbage in an apocalyptic situation (seriously, I get he's trying to be stern but it's a world where 99.9999% of the earth was eaten, including her mom, lighten up dude).
So, yeah, in a world of complete destruction and death, the only two people that they know of are choosing to be little babies and are feuding like warring neighbors in a FREAKING ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! Are you kidding me? I'm led to believe in a world of almost all dead that they wouldn't put such things aside, for the sake of the baby girl they are trying to raise?
The movie trudges on, more dumbness, dummy A watches dummy B nearly die "cuz feud", then dummy B has a subplot where voices in his head tell him to kill people (okay?), dummy A invites dummy B to dinner, ruined "cuz feud", etc. (side note: the director was obviously a HUGE fan of "The Walking Dead" due to multiple ripoffs, from limb hacking to avoid zombie infection, to "hit everything then hit nothing" good guy aim).
We learn the zombies are back and evolving, now they are blind but they hear good. (Not sure how that's a evolutionary possible since evolution is to make a species better hunters, not worse, and they haven't been living underground.) For some reason this makes them...worse? Not sure why? They also no longer spread infection. Sweet. For some reason a pretty lady shows up to be pretty and talk about a survivor story. Seems condoms must be zombie food, otherwise I can't explain why you wouldn't use protection in a zombie apocalypse. Seriously, this is a world to raise a child? Maybe wait until after the cannibals are gone, 'kay?
Yep, she's pregnant. Although that subplot means absolutely nothing, other than showin some belly it's never referenced in the movie again.
So dummy B decided to cut up the first Uber zombie they met and keep it as a dog or something because pretty lady sees it and rightly shoots it dead because these suckers are pack hunters and he's been calling his buddies for a few days. Seriously, these guys are so dumb. How did they survive 9 years let alone 9 minutes?!
Pretty lady is the only smart character, she informs them they are all dead meat, and they await the horde. The child gets unexplainably locked up in the basement so her dad can keep her outside of his view, safe in such situations I know. Things go bad, then well when the characters realize sound is bad (sidenote #2 : Did John K. from "The Office" get drunk and watch this movie and that's where "A Quiet Place" came from? Seriously, it has sound hunting monsters with wicked ears, who are killed by sound, and includes a Dad who dies at the end to save his kid....o crap.) and play some classic rock to mess the zombies up. Works until the generator that has been (conveniently blasting music day and night for weeks) conveniently dies, mid zombie battle. Nice.
Dummy B decides to be a hero and lead away sound hunting zombies using his fleshy body instead of, ya know, throwing a rock or something. He gets Rambo'ed by God and shoots everything easily until he forgets to grab a sidearm or any extra bullets and gets eaten and dies and blows up. In that order. (Somewhere along the lines we learned Dummy B is the real dad of the child but he was a drunk and let mom die so dummy A raised the baby, this was an act of self sacrifice to atone for being an idiot. Didn't work. Still dumb.)
Movie ends, mercifully for the audience.
bs-33435 14 August 2018
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4284850/ |
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