Once again a film has managed to acquire a great reputation with fans and critics alike, despite being one of the worst films I have ever seen.
There is no denying that The Spierig Brothers have talent, drive and ambition, but sadly the film is a wasted opportunity as it is boring from start to finish.
I can totally appreciate what the guys were trying to do but they were a long way short of the mark as the film has absolutely no point to it whatsoever. It is essentially sequence after sequence of the main protagonist shooting zombies and flipping about with his guns a blazin’ and having the rest of the cast insult him.
None of the characters come across as likeable here, as we are never afforded the chance to get to know them, something which is a must in a film of this nature. In NOTLD we care about Barbra and Ben, and even in the Dawn of the Dead remake we get to know the characters…hell some of them even have character arcs, so there is no excuse. Nor should it be argued that no one cares about characters in horror movies…we do!!
The saddest thing about the film is that it tries too hard. The humour is completely forced the entire time and you kind of get the feeling that the Spierigs were sitting debating about what they could do to ensure fans would spout out quotes at screenings, horror conventions and the like. Rocky Horror this ain’t!!
From the moment the tacky score began to play, I knew this was going to be an out and out farce, and I was right. If you want to see a balls to the wall horror movie you need to see ‘The Janitor’ as it is far superior and it was made for a hell of a lot less than this!!
The fact that the Spierigs ‘only’ had a million to make this doesn’t even come into it…look at what Steve Sessions and countless other indie filmmakers achieve with a fraction of that budget…christ look at ‘Halloween’, Carpenter had nowhere near that amount of cash to play with.
I was actually quite insulted watching this movie as it pissed on the memory of many of the greatest genre films out there and did it without any originality. Comparisons to Peter Jackson and Sam Raimi are unfair as their movies were considered to be groundbreaking back in the day. This film just ‘borrowed’ their ideas and tried to pass them off as their own, unsuccessfully.
I was absolutely bored to tears and even considered switching this off at one point (something I actually did do recently with a film called ‘Island of the Damned’ which was much worse than this) but I understand how hard it is to accomplish anything in the field, and could appreciate the effort by the Spierigs that went into making the picture.
Aesthetically the film is far too blue (covering up some day for night shots aye boys?) and whilst the effects were good, you can tell that they were done on a PC (or two to be precise) so I don’t know why people act shocked when they find out.
OVERALL SUMMARY
In the end, the film was not to my liking and that is my own personal opinion. Credit to the Speirigs, they have a completed feature under their belts, they are evidently hardworking and dedicated, and they have distribution and even some critical praise. In short, my opinion won’t mean shit to them, but it’s my job (and a privilege) to tell people what I thought of a film. I had intended to give the film one star but on reflection I feel it deserves a two. Coincidentally this is the second time this year that Anchor Bay have released an over hyped movie which has left me dissatisfied. I hope this doesn’t become a regular occurrence.
