Rob Freeman plays an engineer with the US Army who is the only survivor of a plane crash meant to transport several civilians out of West Africa, which has been plagued by zombies. He pairs up with a local military guy (Prince David Osei) who is looking for his wife and son. The two must work together to make their way through hostile flesh-munching territory.
I’m beyond sick of the zombie subgenre of horror movie, hell I’ve even stopped watching “The Walking Dead”. But this film from writer/directors Howard and Jon Ford is undoubtedly a standout effort, with the West African setting offering up a different vibe in a frankly stale subgenre. The closest I can come to comparing it to anything is “Dawn of the Dead” meets “Dust Devil”.
The film grabs you right from its intense and unrelenting opener, and is visually striking. Some might find it a tad racially insensitive that all of the zombies are black Africans, but it’s set in West Africa, what’re you gonna do? At least you don’t have to worry about the horror cliché of the black guy dying first. They die second too. And third. And fourth, etc. The zombies prove an interesting and unique visual among the other zombie films out there at any rate. The landscape, meanwhile, looks really stunning at times, and unlike anything I’ve seen of late.
I found the opening twenty minutes in particular to be among the most terrifying and intense experiences I’ve had in any zombie movie in years. Maybe since the original “Dawn of the Dead”, but that’s not a terribly grand statement given how un-terrifying most zombie movies have tended to be since that landmark film. It’s a little disturbing and unsettling, and very well-done for what was probably not a huge budget (though still large enough to fly to Africa and shoot the thing).
Although it gets a little more verbose as it goes along, I really appreciated the rather no-nonsense approach, with sparse dialogue in the first half. After that the film has some “Blood Diamond”-esque character interplay, and the second half isn’t as impressive or effective as the first half, but it’s by no means a letdown. It’s just not as great as it starts out being. In fact, descending into a two-character story allows us to get to know the protagonists, gravitate towards them, and appreciate their interplay. I’d rather this than the same boring, party-hardy 20ish morons who populate most horror films.
There’s lots of lovely munching going on and quite a good music score by Imran Ahmad, but the flash-cuts are annoying as they always are, and completely unnecessary. There’s some shaky-cam here and there, but not enough to be a nuisance. It’s a fairly gory film, but not amazingly so. There’s a nice machete to the head, though.
This film feels like two films in one, and whilst the first half is better than the first half, this was a real pleasant surprise to me. Perhaps a bit long, but never dull or even slow, really. Pretty impressive, with a terrifically bleak and predominantly defeatist ending to boot.
OVERALL SUMMARY
A really effective film in a subgenre that has a real sameness to it. Definitely one of the best horror films of its year.
