2004
This movie promises zombies and satirical political commentary and delivers... crap. The zombies are less than impressive, the budget is low, leaning heavily on poor digital effects, the sociological critique is obvious and heavy handed, and the acting is spectacularly poor.
Spoiler:
The movie opens up on a news cast about current zombie conditions, when it ends we see what’s going on in the studio and we get to know the insipid news crew. The film wastes some time on a failed attempt at character development and then the filming crew is called off to do an interview with the governor. The pothead camera man, the vacuous female anchor and the military escort all go to the capital building and find a pair of armed guards flanking a TV with a prerecorded speech. Why the governor couldn’t just send this tape to the TV station I don’t know. He launches into a speech about how the zombie threat is all but eliminated and people should continue in their day to day routine with no concern. Zombies come and chaos ensues as the television continues its erroneous claims in the midst of the carnage. At gunpoint, a spook steals a tape documenting this scene from the cameraman and the film crew goes back to the station empty handed. They all leave work for the day.
The military escort goes to scary looking guy with a big scar on his face in a creepy basement (this guy is the best actor in the movie, I suspect the scar is real because none of the makeup was that good). The military guy asks if they’ve made up the girl to look like the vacuous anchorwoman he likes. The guy with the scar assures him it’s all as he asked and sits him down in front of a peep show window. There is a woman in a blond wig who takes off her shirt and dances around and the military guy begins to “squeeze the Charmin”. Just before climax he hits a button and a zombie bursts into the room and eats the woman. Meanwhile the cameraman goes back to his apartment and chats with his sickly roommate and goes to bed. The next day when he wakes up the roommate is a zombie and the cameraman narrowly escapes. We neither know nor care what the news woman does when she leaves work.
When they all go back to the office the next day it’s being run by some guy from the government. He tells them that the fraudulent claims of safety in the governor’s speech were necessary because the economic repercussions of people not going to work and not buying things far out weighs the risk of more deaths. There is arguing and the crew leaves. The fed who has taken over the station is doing his own news cast when one of the guys who works there, patches through a live feed for our rag tag trio of protagonists, then dies and becomes a zombie, thus assuring that nobody will change the feed back. The first thing they film is an argument between a funeral director and the creepy guy with a scar. The dispute is over who gets to take away a female zombie that they have captured in a net. The funeral director has been commissioned to re-kill her and give her a proper burial. The guy with the scar presumably wants her for something unseemly. Scar face kills the funeral director and the military escort gets out of the news van and shoots him. The news crew then goes to another part of the city where the zombies are eating the people on a bus, they begin filming but the military guy knocks out the anchorwoman stuffs her into the news van and drives away. The cameraman is only momentarily distraught by his abandonment and then says “Hindenburg, baby.” and films the advancing zombie horde until they take him (even though a determined power walker could outpace them). And that is the disappointing end to the disappointing film.
No comments:
Post a Comment