This is probably the fourteen hundredth zombie film to come
out this year. The box promises that the
film is a “worthy successor to ‘Shaun of the Dead’”. I find that hard to believe. A lo-budget UK film apparently centered on a
janitor fighting for his life at an office Christmas party while the zombie
apocalypse begins in full swing. At the
very least there is potential for some good office humor.
[...]
[Maintenance Guy enters bathroom to fix stuff, he goes to
fix the speaker in the ceiling, a rat falls out and hits him in the face.]
Starkwell: Maintenance Guy is kind of a Jack of all trades.
Lovelock: That’s likely to come in handy when all of dem
zombies come gunning for his yummy guts.
[Janitor, after handling the dead rat, pukes in the
TOILETTE.]
Starkwell: Gross.
Lovelock: That’s why I don’t touch dead rats.
Starkwell: That’s why?
Lovelock: Also, disease.
[...]
Then two girls dressed in bikinis (for some reason) enter
the bathroom, and rather than spying on them, Maintenance Guy starts playing
poker on his phone and falls asleep. He
wakes up when they start kissing and undressing and decides to spy on them
after all. “Fair enough”, said Lovelock. The movie keeps it light, in that they don’t
show boobies and whatnot.
[...]
[Bikini Girl #1 suddenly goes full zombie and eats Bikini
Girl #2.]
Lovelock: Cheap, but
effective.
[Other office dudes barges in, all zombie.]
Starkwell: Well, at least they didn’t waste any time.
[Maintenance Guy gets stuck in a bathroom stall, armed with
a screwdriver, with bunch of zombies outside the stall, and the title shot
shows… STALLED.]
Starkwell: Brilliant.
[...]
The jokes, so far, are fairly juvenile and ‘silly’, but
they’re done with enough flare, so far, that it still works. And, so far, both Lovelock and Starkwell
really dig the main Maintenance Guy. Then it turns out there’s a girl in the
stall two stalls over from Maintenance Guy.
[...]
[Jeff from IT barges in, armed with a fire extinguisher, and
plans on saving them and getting the girl.
Maintenance Guy shoots a severed finger down Jeff’s throat, Jeff chokes, Jeff gets
eaten.]
Lovelock: Ummm…
Starkwell: Solid plan, Maintenance Guy.
[...]
Maintenance Guy has drawn a picture of the girl he can’t see
on the stall wall and is basically having a conversation with his own
drawing. The whole thing is playing out
in one small location, with only one or two characters, and it makes the whole
thing feel a lot like a play.
[...]
Lovelock: I’d go see this play, if it was a play.
Starkwell: You know you’d have to put pants on…
Lovelock: Oh… well… then… PASS.
[Every time the girl talks, they focus on the drawing.]
Lovelock: That’s getting a bit weird.
[...]
[Maintenance Guy recovers his toolbox, it is full of money,
then the girl throws him a pill, that he takes, and gets MEGA HIGH.]
Lovelock: This bitch sucks.
[Long scene of Maintenance Guy dancing while super stoned.]
Starkwell: Ummm…
[Transitions into a whole dance scene with the zombies.]
Lovelock: The “Thriller” dance joke, never fucking works. NEVER. I wish everyone would stop doing it.
[...]
As the deep, heart-to-heart, conversation continues between
Maintenance Guy and the drawing on the wall, Lovelock bails on the film. Starkwell is surprised, but nonetheless,
plans on seeing it through until the end.
[...]
[While trying to get his hammer from one of the zombies,
Maintenance Guy gets bitten.]
Starkwell: They’re really taking this in a sad sack
direction…
[Zombie had dentures, so the bite didn’t count.]
Starkwell: Well alright then, it’s been done before, but at
least there’s still hope for Maintenance Guy.
[...]
Then Maintenance Guy breaks into the crawl space behind the
wall and makes his way to the girl, who, as it turns out, is not the “hot”
girl he thought she was, but actually the “fat” girl she said she wasn't. A bit
of an obvious twist, but a less obvious twist is that the girl then feeds
herself to the zombies while Maintenance Guy watches through a hole in the
wall. It’s totally fucked and Starkwell
isn’t sure how to feel.
[...]
[The zombies start chanting “brains”.]
Starkwell: Why? They
weren’t even eating the brains… that’s just unnecessary.
Lovelock: Almost as played out as the "Thriller" dance joke.
Starkwell: And we're back?
Lovelock: I wanted to see if she was actually the fat chick.
[...]
Maintenance Guy manages to finally get out of the bathroom by wrapping
himself in toilet paper, that, somehow, acts like a suit of armor (?). All in all, it’s not a bad movie, and it is
interesting that the whole things plays out in one room up until the final few
minutes, but Starkwell can’t help but wish that the girl had actually made
it. I guess he’s a bit of a romantic. The film ends with him being stuck inside a
phone booth, surrounded by zombies.
[...]
Lovelock: That's why I never go to office Christmas parties.
Starkwell: Yeah, that's why.
Lovelock: Well, also, I've never had a job.
[...]
I didn't realize that there were still phone booths anywhere in the world. I smell a sequel… BOOTHED.
How coincidental that my mother was streaming this from Netflix while watching the baby a couple of days ago. Poor baby. Then I made things worse by not immediately turning it off when she left. Props for getting ninety minutes out of a guy in a bathroom stall, but still . . .
ReplyDeleteWOuld have worked really well as a short, I felt, but as a full feature, it just gets old fast.
ReplyDelete