Last of the Living.

New Zealand has already made its mark on the zombie genre.   But does New Zealand have more to offer?  This 2009 effort from first time, and thus far only time, writer-director Logan McMillan has some pretty big New Zealandy shoes to fill.  PLAY MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!

[...]

[Character Introduction.]

Lovelock: I don’t know if it’s just the accents, but I already love these dudes.

Starkwell: It may be the accents.

[Character makes a fuss about needing a bookmark rather than folding the corner of the page.  During a zombie apocalypse.]

Starkwell: Alright, it’s probably just because they’re awesome.

[...]

The soundtrack was already getting on Starkwell’s nerves, but it’s not necessarily a deal breaker.  Lovelock already made a comment about how the zombie and blood effects so far are terrible… but “if the characters hold up, it won’t really matter.”  Starkwell agreed, saying “character and story are number one, the rest is just bonus if it’s any good.”

[...]

[Characters loot a CD store.]

Lovelock: Probably the first place that I would loot too.

Starkwell: Not really practical…

Lovelock: A proper soundtrack to live through the apocalypse is essential to living through the apocalypse.

[...]

[Characters find Girl and her Dad, zombie attacks Dad.]

Starkwell: Jesus, you weren’t lying when you said that the effects were garbage.

Lovelock: Seriously, is that a zombie priest or a carnival clown or... ?

[...]

[Johnny tries his trademark HURRICANE punch… it fails.]

Lovelock: I love that he keeps trying it out.

Starkwell: It’s so slow.

Lovelock: Best thing since the foot sweep in “Napoleon Dynamite.”

[...]

So after picking up Stef, they join her in her plot to get a zombie blood sample back to the scientist island and save the world.   They'll have to get there by plane... Ash flies apparently.  Pretty convenient.  Starkwell and Lovelock were pretty quiet.  They were laughing here and there, because the jokes were actually funny.  The film clearly owes a lot to “Shaun of the Dead” and other recent zombie comedies, but it’s not like it’s a blatant rip-off of anything…

[...]

[Ash gives Morgan shit about how badly he treats women.]

Lovelock: Ash is the best.

Starkwell: Agreed.

[...]

[Johnny gets bitten, says he’ll be a decoy for them, so they can get away.]

Lovelock: Awwww man… that’s the only problem with a movie having characters that I actually like… when they die it’s really sad.

Starkwell: Are you crying?

Lovelock: What? No, it’s just eye sweat, from being so manly.

[...]

There was this really dragged out driving sequence that annoyed Starkwell.  He keeps claiming that the movie is good, but “some of the director’s choices are preventing it from being REALLY good.”  Lovelock told him he was being a jackass.  But then there was a shot of a zombie saying “brains” and then farting, and Lovelock was all “yeah, maybe you’re right.”

[...]

[Ash lands the plane.]

Lovelock: Movies really have a tendency to make flying a plane and landing it ridiculously easy.

Starkwell: That’s why it’s called MAKE-BELIEVE.

[...]

Lovelock: Lesson number one, never go to a small island in a zombie apocalypse scenario.

[...]

Outside of a HUGE plothole wherein Morgan turns IMMEDIATELY into a zombie, even though Stef the scientist said earlier in the film that it takes an hour to turn, the movie was perfectly alright.  Starkwell claims that at that moment they jumped the shark, Lovelock disagreed.  Cookie cutter stuff, but well worth a watch.

Doctor Blood's Coffin.

What can one say about this early-sixties mad scientist romp?  Who the hell knows?  Let’s let Starkwell and Lovelock do the talking.

[...]

[Dr. Blood is kicked out of the lab and then TITLE SCREEN with intense music.]

Starkwell: Man, they just don’t make intros that are that cool anymore.

[...]

[Stranger is going around at night injecting people with something, and kidnapping them.]

Starkwell: It’s been a while since we’ve seen a good ol’ day-for-night shot.

Lovelock: Did you ever notice that older movies always have a bunch of older and more mature actors and characters?

Starkwell: Seriously, the leading 'young' man looks to be in his fifties.

[...]

It turns out that there is a Dr. Blood junior and a Dr. Blood senior.  Junior is now back in his hometown and wants to set up a lab there.  I don’t think ol’ Daddy knows he was kicked out of his research lab… As Starkwell noted, “Judging how he stared at the nurse’s ass, I don’t think research is his only desire”.

[...]

[Cop comes in to talk about the kidnappings.]

Starkwell: They’re making it a little obvious that Blood Junior is the culprit.

Lovelock: Unless that’s just what they want you to think…

[Turns out it is Blood Junior who’s been doing the kidnapping.]

Starkwell: Well, they didn’t wait very long to let us in on the secret.

[...]

The film then moved pretty slowly, but the story was intriguing enough.  Lovelock is still waiting to figure out why I told him this was a zombie movie, but it doesn’t stop both of them from watching somewhat enthusiastically.

[...]

[One of Blood Junior’s victims escaped, the cops find him, they bring Blood to the scene.]

Starkwell: So, Dr. Blood injects him with something at the scene of the crime, and the guy immediately dies, and… the cops don’t even suspect anything weird is going on?

Lovelock: Whatever, hopefully the dead guy comes back soon and starts tearin’ it up, because, honestly,  my eyelids are getting heavy.

[...]

Although there was talk of putting a heart into a corpse to re-animate it at one point, Lovelock is very discouraged, since, with less than half an hour left, he is really starving for some kind of zombie, any kind of zombie.  Starkwell is unbothered.  Well, he’s bored as hell, but not because of the lack of zombies.

[...]

Starkwell: The music is the only thing in this movie with any action in it.

Lovelock: Seriously, the score is action packed.  The movie... BOREDOM PACKED.

[...]

With three minutes left, we get a walking re-animated corpse, which proceeds to kill Dr. Blood Jr.  Lovelock admitted that it actually was kind of worth the wait.

Mutants.

While combining dramatic love and zombies isn’t necessarily new, perhaps this French film from 2009 will have an original take on it.  French is the language of love, after all.  Lovelock is just happy it’s a language that he speaks, so that, even though this is not an English language film, he is not forced to read subtitles.  He doesn’t like reading much, especially if it takes away from the watching of the action on camera. After a cool intro explaining that most of the population has been wiped out by the virus, we begin.

[...]

[Girl wanders through forest of zombies and gets exploded by an ambulance.]

Lovelock: I thought that girl was going to be a character in the movie and then BAM, hit by a car and explodes.  Way to go, movie.

Starkwell: Dare I say that the film has an explosive beginning?

Lovelock: This one already looks better than most, so don’t ruin it with you stupid stupid.

[...]

[Cop shoots Autistic Kid, Marco is covered in blood, Sonia shoots Cop, Cop shoots Marco… etc.]

Lovelock: So wait, was the kid infected or just autistic?

Starkwell: Not sure exactly… a little hard to tell… is Marco infected or just shot?

Lovelock: Sonia shot that bitch in the head.  Sonia is awesome.

[...]

Slightly confused and heavily stressed out, Lovelock and Starkwell sit on the edge of their seats, captivated by the film, and already totally caring about the main couple Sonia and Marco.  As Starkwell said “it’s not easy for a film to make me care about characters this quickly”.

[...]

[Sonia and her man are hauled up in a hospital, seems like he is infected.]

Lovelock: “Mon amour?”  Is this a fucking love story?

Starkwell: Only you would worry about that.

[...]

[Marco’s BULLET wound has healed overnight, a sign that he is a MUTANT!]

Lovelock: Wait, she’s denying it?  Love is blind I guess.

Starkwell: I don’t think that’s what they mean when they say that.

[Marco pukes blood.]

Lovelock: Yeah, Sonia… time to fucking leave.

Starkwell: Dude, she can’t just leave… she loves him.

Lovelock: Love is blind.

[...]

[Sonia is immune, it would seem.]

Lovelock: I swear if it ends up that LOVE is the antidote I’m going to puke all over your head sir.

Starkwell: Oh grow up.

[...]

There was a scene where Marco was crouched in front of the toilet, with his hair looking all patchy, pulling out his teeth and spitting blood into the bowl.  Starkwell just sat with his eyes wide open and yelled out “GROSS”.  The loud noise startled Lovelock, who proceeded to let out a nervous fart.

[...]

[Marco is acting insane, and wants more morphine.  Stung out, he attacks her, pulls a gun on her, then goes and pees blood.]

Lovelock: That’s why I say no to drugs.

Starkwell: Yeah, that’s why…

Lovelock: Crack is whack.

[...]

As the infection spreads more and more within Marco, the acting, writing and visual effects are so incredible and convincing that Starkwell and Lovelock sit there GLUED to the tube, occasionally letting out gasps of shock and horror as Marco chases and tries to, basically, kill Sonia.  Still Sonia won’t give up on him.

[...]

Starkwell: She gives a whole new meaning to that song “Stand By Your Man”.

Lovelock: If you ask me she brings a whole new meaning to the word STUPID IDIOT FACE.

Starkwell: That’s three words.

Lovelock: Love is blind.

[...]

Apparently some bad dudes, let's call them Frank, Frank's Girlfriend and Machete, heard Sonia over the radio when she was trying to contact the army, and now they have joined her.  Lovelock let out a solid, loud and lengthy “boo”.

[...]

[Sonia tells Machete she’s pregnant.]

Starkwell: If that’s why she’s immune, then you were partially right, being in love could have something to do with immunity.

Lovelock: Only if you’re a woman though.  What a sexist movie.

[...]

[Machete kills a mutant with his bare hands and a hook.]

Lovelock: Sonia has just been demoted. Machete is my new favourite character in this movie.

[After killing a bunch more mutants, Machete dies.]

Lovelock: Ok Sonia, looks like you’re back on top.

[...]

The bad guy starts beating the shit out of Sonia, due to her betrayal, and Mutant Marco lets out some kind of war cry that attracts all of the mutants in the forest to come and kill everyone.

[...]

[Bad Guy Frank sets off a smoke bomb in the hallway, mutants come through the smoke seemingly out of nowhere.]

Starkwell: Reducing your own visibility in a fight against super strong mutant killer things… not your best plan ever.

[Frank closes his girlfriend in the smoky room with a mutant.  She dies.]

Lovelock: Now there’s a solid plan.

[Mutant eats Frank immediately after.]

Lovelock: Short-lived, but solid.

[...]

[Mutant Marco saves her as she tries to GET TO THE CHOPPER!]

Starkwell: I guess he can feel the baby inside her…

Lovelock: Enough of this lovey dovey shit, GET TO THA CHOPPAH!

[Sonia pushes Mutant Marco into barbed wires, runs a huge pipe through his neck.]

Lovelock: BAM!  In your face, love!

Starkwell: I think you missed the point.

Lovelock: “He’s blowing off some steam.”  Nice.

Starkwell: She didn't say that.

Lovelock: She should have.

[...]

She makes it to the chopper and the crowd goes wild.  Seems like this was the director’s first, and thus far his only, full length film.  Hopefully he makes more, but if he doesn’t, it might be alright, you know, quit while you’re ahead.

Brain Dead.

Considering that the Peter Jackson CLASSIC zombie film “Dead Alive” is known through most of the world as “Braindead”, it takes some serious balls to name your shitty movie “Brain Dead”.  This is yet ANOTHER one of these ‘comet lands and spreads zombie virus’ movies.  Why do so many no budget movies try this storyline?  As expected the film begins with a terrible CGI comet floating through space.  What does make this one special, however, is the intensely bad music playing during the intro credits.  Kevin Tenney directed the original “Night of the Demons”… so maybe this one has some promise.

[...]

[Fisherman turns zombie, gauges out friend’s eyes, rips his head in half.]

Lovelock: I think more movies need to start off with a guy’s head being ripped in half.

Starkwell: Not really sure most movies would be able to pull that off.

Lovelock: Name me a movie.

Starkwell: “St-Elmo’s Fire.”

Lovelock: Add a scene at the beginning of Rob Lowe being high on coke ripping Demi Moore’s head in half.  He goes to jail and then we don’t see either of them for the rest of the movie.  Film improved.  You're welcome.

[...]

[Girl flashes her enormous breasts.]

Starkwell: It’s gonna be this kind of party?

[In the next scene a huge breasted girl strips and jumps in the lake, and splashes around… in slow motion.]

Starkwell: Seriously?

[Her friend strips and joins her, displaying her full frontal nudity.]

Starkwell: Why?

Lovelock: To establish that the one girl is a lesbian?

[Blonde girl showering, extreme close-up on breasts.]

Starkwell: Ok, I’m out.

[...]

Usually showing tits and ass for no other reason at all than to show tits and ass, is a show stopper for Starkwell.  It doesn’t help that the escaped convict duo, Clarence and Bob, is INCREDIBLY lame.  Lovelock is sticking around because he liked the scene where the guy got his head ripped apart.  But it’s been a while since that happened.

[...]

Lovelock: Why is Clarence still making jokes?  Bob blew the cop’s head off, point blank range, in cold blood…  Why would a guy THIS insane and homicidal have been just hanging around a little county jail?  Uncuffed? WHHHHYYYYYYYyyyyy?!?!??!?!

[...]

I think that the movie just broke Lovelock.  Plus the ‘zombie cam’ they keep using is clearly a cheap effect on a cheap camera, and if Starkwell were around, it might have made him vomit.  The movie went on for a while longer, and, though the gore was fair and the effects on the head explosions weren’t awful, the movie lost Lovelock’s attention with its horrifyingly slow pace, bad characters and BULLSHIT BULLSHIT.

[...]

Lovelock: So, the demon zombie thing can tear apart handcuffs, but the little boards on the windows stop him from entering the cabin?  FUCK THIS FUCKING FUCK!

[...]

He says that, but I know he’s sticking around because the gore is decent.

[...]

[Close-up on girl’s vagina, it spits out black goo.]

Lovelock: Ok, I’m done too.  That was unnecessary.

[Girl’s head gets ripped off.]

Lovelock: Alright, fine, I’ll stay.

[...]

It ends with Clarence being blamed for everything and getting life in jail.  The movie tries real hard to be funny, but instead, it just sucks.  It's the gore and effects that saved this from being  straight up unwatchable.  That being said, the film shoots its load pretty quickly, with that head rip scene being right at the beginning.  Sets the bar high and then disappoints for eighty minutes.  FAILURE.

Dance of the Dead.

It would seem like zombie comedies are a dime a dozen now.  For every “Shaun of the Dead” or “Zombieland”, there are a dozen or so “Dead and Breakfast” level movies.  According to the box, this movie seems to have won awards at various things.  Anyways, let’s see where this one ends up falling, according to Mr. Starkwell and Mr. Lovelock.

[...]

[Gravedigger collects limbs of dead people that have been attacking him.]

Starkwell: So even if the limbs are cut off they still move?

Lovelock: I’m cool with that.  “Dead Alive” style.

[...]

For the next little while, we are introduced to various characters.  It seems to be a typical high-school comedy.  Typical characters.  The jocks, cheerleaders, punks, class clowns, nerds, bla bla bla…  Starkwell and Lovelock seemed somewhat uninterested, but at the same time, seemed hopeful from the opening scene.  The dialogue wasn’t terrible, and Lovelock felt that “it had the feel of those campy eighties high school films”.

[...]

[Zombies EXPLODE from their graves, move super fast.]

Starkwell: The “BRAINS” is a nice shout-out to “Return”.

Lovelock: I think the Prom is about to get all fucked up.

[...]

[Jimmy and Kyle fight zombies.]

Starkwell: What the… ?

Lovelock: Did he just elbow drop that zombie?

[...]

Starkwell seemed pissed off that the nerds were making jokes and seemed calm, even though their friend was just eaten.  Also that apparently the mindless zombies can drive cars.  Lovelock, on the other hand, was having a grand ol’ time.  Eating popcorn and feelin’ fine.  As time goes on though, Starkwell seems to be coming around.

[...]

[Kyle, the tough RUDE DUDE, saves one of the nerds, then dies.]

Lovelock: Redemption is a cold hard mistress.

Starkwell: They’re crying over Kyle, but when Rod was eaten in the cemetery they were cracking jokes.  What the fuck?

Lovelock: Well yeah, Kyle’s fucking hardcore.

[...]

Lovelock: Best character, JULES THE NERD.

Starkwell: Of course there’s a gym teacher that has a stockpile of guns and a hummer, and they obviously meet up with him.

Lovelock: Worst character, Gwen the cheerleader.

[...]

They didn’t say a whole hell of a lot for the rest of the movie.  It was a decent movie.  The jokes usually work, which is rare for this type of film.  It doesn’t offer any scares, but I don’t think it’s supposed to.  Starkwell came close to walking out when the Cheerleader and Steven started making out and then eating each other as they turned zombie, but he said “I’m glad I stayed” once he saw the whole thing through to the end.  That's about as good a stamp of approval as any of these movies can hope to get here. 

Bowery at Midnight.

Wallace Fox directs the original Zombie master Bela Lugosi in this 1942 crime epic.  Epic?  Well, maybe not.  But the director’s name is Wallace Fox.  How cool is that?  I think Starkwell and Lovelock would settle for “watchable” at this point.  Not knowing much about this film going in simply means that this isn’t over before it even starts.

[...]

[Prison break?]

Starkwell: Who surrounds a prison with a rickety old wooden fence?

Lovelock: Apparently, prison guards in the forties that SUCK AT AIMING.

[...]

[Lugosi takes ‘Fingers’ the escaped convict into his secret office.]

Lovelock: They just don’t make secret offices like they used to.

[...]

[Lugosi uses the jewellery from his big score to give his ugly wife a present.  Also, he’s a psychology teacher.]

Lovelock: She’s easily thirty years younger than him.  Awesome.  And she doesn’t even like the pearls.

Starkwell: Wait… how many lives is he leading?  Soup kitchen owner, author, teacher, husband, crime boss  and thief… ????

[...]

Lovelock and Starkwell were more than confused by the absurd number of characters popping up, and the fast moving, and seemingly incoherent story.  The fast pace did impress them, but not enough to overlook how little sense it all made.

[...]

Lovelock: Don’t the police know by now, that when someone says “I’d be happy to cooperate with the police” that something is very fishy?

Starkwell: I guess in the forties they still hadn't figured that out...

[...]

[Lugosi kills another stooge, and buries him in his basement.]

Starkwell: I think if I killed people, I wouldn’t keep them in graves in my basement WITH SIGNS INDICATING THEIR NAMES.

Lovelock: Well, that’s one way to do it.

[...]

As confused as they were by all the characters on screen, Lovelock and Starkwell still laughed at the fact that the Judy girl turned down the dude’s proposal.  Starkwell is pretty sure Judy’s boyfriend is the hero… Lovelock isn’t sure if he realizes that the soup kitchen owner is his psychology professor.

[...]

[Dudeface poses as a homeless man to gain access to the soup kitchen.  He realizes that the soup kitchen owner is actually Lugosi, and then he confronts him about his secret identity.  Lugosi kills him.]

Lovelock: That’s why I never moonlight as a homeless man.

Starkwell: Yeah that’s why.

Lovelock: That’s also why I never talked to professors in college.

Starkwell: Dudeface must be the oldest college kid in the world.

[...]

[Apparently the schizophrenic janitor at the soup kitchen revives the corpses that Lugosi has been killing and keeps them in the basement below the basement.]

Lovelock: Zombies!

Starkwell: Well… why are there… ?  Wait, what?  I’m… umm…

[...]

Honestly, I think the convoluted plot just broke Starkwell’s brain.  It was so ridiculous that when Lugosi killed his wife (the one from the Psychology teacher side of his life) Lovelock asked “Wait, who was that?”  Whatever... as the police close in on Lugosi, Dr. Schizo sends him into the sub-basement where he is keeping all of his zombies, and the zombies all kill him.  Then, cut IMMEDIATELY to Judy’s house, and not only is Richard (a.k.a. Dudeface) no longer dead and a zombie, but Judy’s planning to marry him?  What the…  So the schizo janitor wasn't making zombies?  He was legitimately resurrecting people?  My brain is broken now too.

Zombie Apocalypse.

Lovelock and Starkwell haven’t exactly had good experiences with made for Syfy channel TV zombie movies.  This is the most recent one that I know of, and I felt it would be a whole bunch of fun to subject them to it.  Ving Rhames is in this?  Really?  Did I mention this is an Asylum movie?

[...]

[Six months after the outbreak, world is essentially all post-apocalyptic and shit.]

Lovelock: Well, at least the zombies are slow zombies.

Starkwell: Well, at last the special effects look like garbage.

Lovelock: Well, what is Ving Rhames doing in this?

Starkwell: Well, what was the last thing you saw him in?  “Zombie Apocalypse”? More like “Career Apocalypse”.

Lovelock:  Well, ouch.

[...]

Starkwell: Obviously there’s a SEXY girl that uses a samurai sword.

[...]

Lovelock: Wait… there are different levels of zombie speed?  Scratch what I said earlier.

Starkwell: I guess it’s a way of explaining why some of the extras in the movie decided to move faster than others.

[...]

At one point they mention a guy named Kirkman… an obvious shout out to the author of the recently made famous “Walking Dead”.  Unfortunately this Kirkman guy had died looking for coffee beans.  As Stakwell said “When lame movies try and reference cool stuff, they just come off even lamer.  And it ALWAYS feels forced.”  Since this is clearly The Asylum’s mockbuster to go with the now popular television show based on said work by Kirkman, this is even more offensive.

[...]

Starkwell: Obviously she stays up at night sharpening her samurai sword.

[...]

Starkwell: Obviously they sit around and eat pasta in an Italian diner.

Lovelock: This movie is one enormous cliché.  I feel like we don’t even need to watch it to know what happens, basically.

Starkwell: Don’t tempt me.

[...]

Starkwell: Obviously there’s a zombie dog.

[...]

It’s like the movie is trying SO HARD to be clever, but it feels like it was written by teenagers.  Not smart ones either.  Starkwell is looking more and more annoyed by this phenomenon.

[...]

[The zombies ‘ambush’ the group.]

Lovelock: Yeah, that makes sense… the zombies knew that they would come to this exact high school, and would end up in the gym, and planned to lock the doors and ambush them.  SURE.  I'm sure that's exactly what happened.

Starkwell: This movie should come with a warning label that reads ‘Watch out for plotholes.’

Lovelock: Either that or simply ‘DO NOT WATCH', you know like, do not watch if you generally like movies.

[...]

Starkwell: Obviously Ving Rhames finds a chainsaw.

[...]

Starkwell: Obviously they meet an archery professor and his two sexy student girls.

Lovelock: It's totally insane that you're not even making that up.

[...]

Lovelock has been quiet for a while now, and Starkwell just realized it’s because he has been asleep for the last twenty minutes.  Oh wait, he’s up.

[...]

Starkwell: Why do some of the zombies have white eyes, but then most don’t?

Lovelock: Probably for the same reason that some of them run and the others don’t.

Starkwell: What reason is that?

Lovelock: SHITTY FILMMAKING.

[...]

With very little runtime left in the movie, Starkwell decided to leave when they had Samurai girl mow down a pack of zombies with some kind of sub-machine gun that she had in a shopping cart, that they had abandoned much further back in the film and somehow just magically had once again in their possession.

[...]

Lovelock: Well, Starkwell would be happy to know that he missed BAD computer graphic ZOMBIE TIGER ATTACK!  And Ving Rhames saying “meow bitch” when he killed it.  And a happy ending.

[...]

What a piece of shit.

Quarantine 2: Terminal.

The first "Quarantine" was a carbon copy of the Spanish film "REC".  While the actual Spanish sequel to "REC" apparently picks up right where the first one left off, this film has absolutely nothing to do with anything ever.  Or so I’m told.  I feel like they must have seen how GREAT "Flight of the Living Dead" turned out and thought, yeah, let’s do that shit on a plane, and then they'll be stuck in a terminal... DIE HARD STYLE.  That has to be how these people think.  Anyways, let’s see what Starkwell and Lovelock think.

[...]

[Opening shot, stewardesses in a taxi, one of whom is putting her shirt back on.]

Starkwell: What is the need to show her with her shirt unbuttoned?

Lovelock: Obviously we need to establish that they are in a rush.  Or that she has boobies.  Whichever.

[The stewardess shows her friend her autographed copy of the new “Band of Horses” album.  And pictures of her with the band.]

Starkwell: Dear movie, showing a cool album doesn’t help your movie.

Lovelock: If anything that product placement hinders the band and their album.

Starkwell: "Cease to Begin"?  More like "Cease to Be Cool."

Lovelock: There it is.

[...]

Lovelock: Obviously there’s a lame twelve year old with a BAD ATTITUDE.

Starkwell: And a fat guy.

Lovelock: And the stewardesses are all SEXY and wanting to get all SEXYSEX with the passengers that they deem to be SEXWORTHY.

[...]

It’s honestly not horrible, at least the film is keeping them guessing as to who the virus will originate from.   There’s a decent amount of characters, but it’s a small enough plane that it’s not too over the top.  The movie isn’t wasting too much time trying to develop characters.  Starkwell was like “it feels like the film knows that its characters are lame”.

[...]

[PhD guy, lets call him PhDude, is watching the news, and there is a story about an apartment building being quarantined.  Fat Guy turns into a rabid lunatic.]

Starkwell: Wait, so they tie it in to the first movie by showing the building, but then they make the actual infected people look and act completely differently?

Lovelock: I smell a “SEQUEL IN NAME ONLY” type of a deal here.

[...]

The plane lands and the passengers end up in some weird part of the terminal and are placed under quarantine by army.  Or by police.  Or something.  Starkwell and Lovelock were mostly quiet as the film was playing out.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, there were definitely a few places where Starkwell pointed out plotholes the size of Canada, but other than that, they weren’t saying a whole lot.  This could also be because not a whole lot was even happening.  Around the halfway point, it starts to finally pick up some steam.  Not enough to really spark much conversation though.

[...]

Lovelock: Fast FAT zombies are so played.

[...]

[Stormtroopers go into quarantined area.  Shit goes down, and then they aren’t let back out.  They bust out and are gunned down by their own people instantaneously.]

Starkwell: Why would they ever go into the quarantined area if it’s so obvious that they won’t be let out?

Lovelock: For fun I guess.

Starkwell: Who’s fun?

Lovelock: I don’t know.  Certainly not ours.

Starkwell: That whole scene was pointless.  Maybe the most pointless ever.

[...]

Teacher Scientist PhDude ends up being all evil and in on it and shit.  None of the virus explanation really makes any sense with regards to the original story.   It completely changes the whole thing around.  It would be like if someone other than Romero made a sequel to "Day of the Dead" and totally made up their own origin for the zombie apocalypse.   Sounds familiar.  I mentioned this to Starkwell, and he just yelled out “CONTAGIUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and ran out of the room crying.  MOving on.  Honestly, not even the gross out factor of a dude sticking a needle in his eye is going to make Lovelock hate this any less.

[...]

Lovelock: Of course the twelve year old kid knows how to use night vision goggles and that hand gun.  And his aim is perfect.

[...]

There was one shot near the end when Stewardess smashed PhDude’s head in, which was pretty sweet.  But that’s about it, really.

[...]

Lovelock: Holy shit, of course the kid starts crying.  Shit, Stewardess looks fugly in night vision.

[...]

After like five more minutes of the kid crying through his night vision goggles, he escapes.  And then it shows that the kid’s in Vegas.  I’m not sure if this is to imply that they want to make a follow-up called something like “Quarantine 3: Double-Down”.  But I can name at least two people who won’t want to see it if they do.  Good thing they don’t have a choice.  I makes the rules.

Invisible Invaders.

Alien invasion was all the rage in the late 1950s. Combining this with the earlier concepts of zombies surely will have a fantastical outcome. Surely is a strong word. The movie starts fast.  The scientist who died developing the bomb, rises from his grave after weird invisible legs walk over said grave.  Apparently these are invisible invader legs.  As an alien (or rather, possessed by the footprints), he visits his old scientist friends, and explains the entire alien invasion plan. Starkwell and Lovelock almost missed the whole story.

[...]

[Alien Zombie shows Dr. Penner material from their space ship.]

Starkwell: Yeah, on earth, we call that “crumpled up aluminium foil”.

[...]

[Newspaper headlines ridicule Dr. Penner’s claims of an invisible alien invasion.]

Lovelock: Damn dude, the papers were fucking harsh back then.

Starkwell: I think the best one was the front page with the huge blank photo, claiming to be the ‘first’ picture of the ‘Invisible’ alien.  SUCH A GOOD BURN.  Eat that, Dr. Peener.

[...]

[The group goes back to the cemetery to find the Invisible Alien, and the film just replays the invisible  leg moving footprints sequence from earlier.]

Starkwell: I guess that was expensive to shoot twice back then.

Lovelock: What was the point though, he didn’t even possess the dead body?  I know you usually leave, but man… fuck this, I’m outta here.

[...]

Lovelock left and went directly to his room and fell asleep.  Oh actually, first he made and ate a sandwich.  Starkwell was hanging on, STILL trying desperately to prove that he can sometimes be the one to sit through a full movie, even if Lovelock leaves.

[...]

[Zombie kills hockey announcer, broadcasts the alien plan to the whole arena.]

Starkwell: Everyone just believes it’s an alien right away?  What a paranoid era that must have been.  Nowadays people would be like “am I being Punk’d? DERRRRRrrrrp!”  Also, why are the aliens telling everyone their plan?

[...]

Very quickly, the aliens take over.  There is a montage of buildings and stuff blowing up, and zombies walking around looking creepy.  Most looks like stock footage… well, not the zombie stuff, hopefully.

[...]

Starkwell: You know, using a narrator to constantly explain what is going is cheap… but at least it takes away the confusion that most shitty movies conjure up.  Plus his voice is awesome.

[...]

It honestly wasn’t terrible, but Starkwell didn’t really say anything for the last half of the movie.  He did make a MERMAN joke when we finally saw what the Invisible Invaders really look like.  He also made fun of the ridiculously slow and inefficient laser that they used to kill one of the now visible invaders.  He also made fun of how small the alien spaceship was.  I guess maybe he did say a lot.  It just wasn’t the same without Lovelock, and frankly, I was half asleep too.

Infection: The Invasion Begins.

Although it’s nice to see that no-budget movies are alive and well even in our current decade and economy… the fact that it is cheaper to make movies, means everyone with a camera and a Mac thinks they’re the next Tarantino or some shit.  Also, it means that there is a whole lot of crap out there.  And since no-budget filmmakers often lean towards the horror genre, and more specifically, the zombie genre, Lovelock and Starkwell have had their share of turds to sift through.  Occasionally there is a diamond hidden in the turds.  Granted, the diamond is still covered with turdness, but a gem nonetheless.  The opening credits certainly aren’t making this one look very polished.

[...]

[In the future… ??? ...]

Starkwell: In the distant future, the landscape looks like it was designed on a computer by a high-school student.

Lovelock: In the distant future, backgrounds look fake.

Starkwell: In the distant future, the monorail in the distance looks blurry.

Lovelock: In the distant future, people drive early 21st century SMART cars.

[...]

This went on for a while. My favorite one had to do with people dressing like it's "The Matrix".

[...]

[Rando Woman visits other random Old Woman in an institution, she talks about the plague of ‘09.  The old woman is played by someone who looks like a college student.]

Starkwell: I’ve never seen a young person successfully play an old person with out sounding really lame.

Lovelock:  Seriously, just hire an older fucking actor.

[...]

Then the movie flashed back to 2009, and they spent an incredibly long and dragged out amount of time establishing the characters.  Sometimes this is something that Starkwell would appreciate, but in this case, he seems more bored than anything else.

[...]

[Sheriff and weirdo find a meteor, worm crawls up weirdo’s pant leg.]

Starkwell: I think you could see the string dragging the worm across the ground.

Lovelock: What?! Rewind! I wanna see.

Starkwell: No, please, we’ve already lost too much time that we’ll never get back.

[...]

[Billy and his gang show up to BEAT UP recently released from prison Deke.]

Starkwell: The ‘gang’ looks like three lame white dudes coming back from a round of golf.

[Pantleg Weirdo shoots a worm from his mouth into one of the Golf Buddies’ mouths.]

Lovelock: That looked like a gummy worm.  In the shape of a penis.

[...]

Anyways, so Deke is arrested, and then the Golf Get-Along Gang come by all possessed and shit, and help Deke look even more crazy.  Plus Pantleg Wormcrawl has turned up dead, so they assume it’s Deke.  I believe Starkwell already said, at least three times “what a fucking mess.”

[...]

Starkwell: The actors constantly look like they’re about to laugh.  Like they just can’t contain how excited they are to be in a movie… Spoiler alert guys, you’re movie ends up sucking, and none of your careers go anywhere.

Lovelock: Harsh.

[...]

So far no 'real' zombies, more of a Body Snatchers type of a thing.  Lovelock seems like his patience is slowly being drained.

[...]

Starkwell: If you take “Slither”, and take away all the good dialogue, good acting, good pacing, good effects, and good music… you’d still end up with something infinitely better than what we are currently watching.

[...]

Lovelock: It takes a special kind of movie to make forty-five minutes feel like three hours.

Starkwell: I’m hoping for a power failure.

Lovelock: You could fit this whole movie into a ten minute short film.

Starkwell: Would still be ten boring minutes.

[...]

I wasn’t really following the movie, or the guys’ conversation at this point.  I think Lovelock got up to take a dump, and it appears that Starkwell is browsing the internet on his laptop.

[...]

Lovelock: I’ve seen better computer effects on educational math video games from my childhood.

Starkwell: I’ve seen better acting in an instructional video about the anti-lock brake system in my car.

Lovelock: Probably had a more interesting story as well.

[...]

They aren’t exaggerating.  The end.

[...]

[In the future, the old lady version of Sarah gets a visit from Deke?]

Lovelock: Hahahahahah!!!! In the distant future, people ride on Segues.

Starkwell: Why was the whole movie a flashback?

Lovelock: Holy shit, they left the ending open for a sequel.

Starkwell: It takes a lot of nerve to name your shitty movie “The Invasion Begins”.

Lovelock: I think that for most of the cast and crew it should have been called “My Career Ends”.

Starkwell: That’s the one.

Lovelock: In the distant future, the sequel never gets made.

[...]

Now for real, the end.