Movie reviews (titles starting with Z)

[goodcop2000]

ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction (2009)
2.5 tasty brains

This low-budget production (IMDB estimated $500,000) has some good moments. It actually tackles some deeper issues than your average zombie flick, including racism, fear of terrorism, and how hard it is for a gay man to reveal his lifestyle to his family. The acting is alright and the story line is adequate for a zombie movie. It's worth a watch for zombie aficionados. If you don't like zombie movies in general, it's very doubtful you will like this one.

Zombie Apocalypse (2011)
2 buckets of digital blood

Zombie Apocalypse is only the second film I've watched which was put out by the production company "The Asylum". The first one, a bad movie I saw several years ago, was Death Valley: The Revenge of Bloody Bill. Recently I read about The Asylum which is known for putting out very quickly made, poor quality, low-budget versions of expected blockbusters which the critics call "mockbusters". For example they made Transmorphers and released it at the same time as Transformers and similarly put out I Am Omega to compete with I Am Legend. I decided to give Zombie Apocalypse a chance because I saw that it had Ving Rhames in it. I'm not sure what blackmail The Asylum used to get Rhames but it must have been good! There is not much good about this movie. I will say that while Rhames was not at his best, most of the actors did a decent job, particularly Gary Weeks and Lesley-Ann Brandt who played two members of the core group of human survivors in the story. The glaring exception is one of the leading actresses, Taryn Manning, who was so unbelievably bad that I was shocked to learn afterward that she actually has other movies on her resume. The storyline is unoriginal and while there is a lot of zombie carnage there is no sense of dread or suspense that should be there in some of the scenes. Even the all-out battles scenes are rather boring. The worst thing about the movie is the horrible special effects. The zombies are not well done and instead of just throwing a few buckets of fake blood around (acceptable in low-budget horror) the entire film is full of really badly done CGI effects. I won't reveal the surprise but the lameness of the CGI reaches its height at the end of the film when the heroes basically have a boss battle. Do what you will but I have learned my lesson. Life is too short to spend time watching Asylum films.

Zombie Honeymoon (2004)
0.5 tasty brains

When I read the description of the movie (basically a man on his honeymoon turns into a zombie as his new wife tries to help him), I thought that it had a chance to be a really funny zom-rom-com in the vein of Shaun of the Dead. Surprisingly, the film makers did not explore any comedic angles but instead tried (unsuccessfully) to make a serious zombie drama. However, I just did not find it believable that a woman would stand by her man as he developed the inconvenient habit of eating everybody in sight. The lead actress, Tracy Coogan, was alright but the rest of the cast was pretty bad. Zombie lovers will be disappointed that there are only two zombies in the entire film, including one that makes a very brief appearance. There are also some noticeable continuity issues. All in all, this movie was painful to sit through.

Zombie Lake (1981)
1 wet zombie Nazi

Zombie Lake is an utterly horrible French-language film about a group of zombie Nazis that emerge from a lake to prey on the nearby town. There is so much wrong with this film that it is hard to choose what to report. The special effects are comically bad, consisting mostly of green paint for the zombies' faces and red paint for blood. The paint is not even water-proof as can be seen by some of it coming off the zombies when they are doing scenes involving the lake. The manner in which the zombies attack people is ridiculous. They are like vampires with no teeth, as they nibble on their victims' necks but only smear blood around. The plot, dialogue, and acting are all terrible. There is no attention to detail as evidenced by serious continuity issues. Director Jean Rollin attempts to distract the viewer from all of these problems by throwing in fully naked women at every opportunity, but even that can not save the film.

Zombieland (2009)
4 tasty twinkies

Second only to Shaun of the Dead among zombie comedies, Zombieland offers up a lot of laughs. The movie pauses to teach the viewer various "rules for survival" which are very entertaining. The cast does a nice job, especially Woody Harrelson as the zombie-killin' redneck. There is a significant amount of carnage (both human and zombie) but the movie is never scary. Luckily, I was too busy laughing to care.