Chernobyl Diaries.

Most humanoid mutant movies can be graded on a scale from one to 'C.H.U.D.'.  'C.H.U.D.', of course, being the high end of the spectrum.  It's not that that film is somehow a perfect ten, but I'm hard pressed to think of a better mutated-human-gone-cannibal film.  Knowing full well what this film is up against, I mercilessly put it in front of Starkwell and Lovelock, as they prepare to dissect and annihilate.

[...]

[Montage of young adults on a Euro Trip.]

Lovelock: This movie needs to either change gears FAST, or take it up a notch and start including some boobs in this montage.

Starkwell: Weak.

[...]

Older brother Paul decides to take the rest of the group (made up of younger brother Chris, Chris' girlfriend Natalie, and some chick named Amanda), on an EXTREME TOURISM TOUR of the abandoned city next to Chernobyl.  Obviously, it's not going to end well.  Chris is apprehensive, but immediately gives in and they take off immediately with tour guide Uri and two random people who joined the tour.  The "official" way into the town has turned their excursion away (armed guards and whatnot), so Uri takes them in the back way.

[...]

Lovelock: The back way into an abandoned radioactive city… probably NEVER is the right way in.

[...]

[The gang tours the ghost town.  They see a mutant fish and have a run in with a bear.]

Starkwell: Filming there must have been pretty interesting.

Lovelock: I guess.  What if someone needs to go to the bathroom?

Starkwell: Is that all you think about?

Lovelock: No... maybe.  I don't know.  I gotta run to the bathroom, pause it, please.

[...]

The movie doesn't waste much time.  They get back to the van only to find that the engine has been tampered with, so they're stranded.  They hear what sounds like crying babies, and Uri decides to venture outside with a gun.

[...]

[Chris joins Uri outside the van.]

Lovelock: Wait, suddenly, mister "this is a bad idea guys" is just going to head out into the dark woods with an ex-military dude in a ghost town?   Now he's all mister "be right back hand me that gun"?

Starkwell: Um… yes.

Lovelock: That's why I never take extreme tours.

Starkwell: You don't take ANY tours.

Lovelock:  Because tour guides always tend to shush me when I try to make jokes about what they're saying.

[Movies don't shush or talk back, right guys?]

[...]

Then it gets more intense as they drag Chris back into the van and his leg is all fucking chewed up, and apparently 'they' got Uri.  I assume he means the dogs.  The battery in the van dies, so they sit in a dark van, trying to help Chris' disgusting leg.  As they all sit around breathing heavily I heard at least three or four nervous farts from Lovelock (who blamed them all on the squeaky couch).  Morning comes and half the group tries to go out and find Uri, while Chris and two of the girls stay behind.

[...]

Lovelock: So much for captain adventure.  Nice leg, asshole.

Starkwell: This ain't DREAM STREET.

[Ex-Tween Sensation, Jesse McCartney, plays Chris... the reference was very out of character for Starkwell.]

Lovelock: ... ?

[...]

[They follow Uri's blood trail down into an underground something and find dead Uri.]

Lovelock: Maybe this is all part of his special "extreme" package…

Starkwell: I'd be asking for a refund.

Lovelock: "Too late I'm dead", says Uri.

[...]

[Chris and Natalie stay behind in the van, the rest go to get help and promise to come back.]

Lovelock: They don't have any water or food… and it's already been over a day.

Starkwell: Small detail…

[...]

So far other than "hearing" a CHUD, we've mostly just seen dogs chasing them, and one of the dudes got munched by a mutant fishy.  After a 'found footage' moment of Natalie's phone, showing, I assume, the CHUDs taking Chris and Natalie.  The acting is decent overall, although there have been a few cuts of the actors smiling when the characters really would not be and should not be.

[...]

[They find Natalie.]

Lovelock: I need to see more than just a fucking FLASH of the CHUDs.  SHOW ME THE CHUDS!

[We see a child CHUD and the shadow of a CHUD and then Natalie is ONCE AGAIN, taken and dragged away… again, I assume by a CHUD, but we haven't really seen them yet.]

Starkwell: You're not one for tension building.  I bet during Jaws, you were all "hey show more shark".

Lovelock: Wasn't everybody?

[...]

These people tend to abandon one another quite quickly.  I'm not sure if that makes it more or less realistic than most films like this.  We get a bit more of a glimpse of the CHUDs and Starkwell and Lovelock get into a debate as to whether or not they remind them more of Sloth from "Goonies" or the Toxic Avenger.  They eventually settled on "they look like Sloth and Toxie's butt baby".

[...]

Starkwell: I feel like the acting is getting worse.

Lovelock: They were better when they were just playing "vacationing idiots".  Now that they have to ACT, scared, hurt, confused and whatnot, they are NOSEDIVING.

[...]

Eventaully Amanda is the only survivor, but the crazies that "rescue" her bring her to their lab, and you find out that this is all some kind of experiment.  She is then fed to the CHUDs.  A little low on the actual CHUD content, but otherwise a fun little number.

Helldriver.

The Japanese zombie scene is a mixed bag.  It’s mostly not a good mix.  For every “Versus” there are a few “Big Tits Zombies”… Or that one with the swim team where half the movie is softcore lesbian porn... So yeah…  Anyways, The bigger issue here is that the film’s run time is about two hours… TWO HOURS!  It’s about a princess and her post-apocalyptic quest to kill her mother the zombie queen, or something like that.  Sounds fun enough.

[...]

[Dude scales a wall, sits atop it, and feeds a severed head to a bunch of zombies.]

Lovelock: Sweet grappling hook.

Starkwell: Is his suit electric?

Lovelock: The Japanese always have blue zombies, for some reason.

[...]

Then, to a soundtrack of gentle Japanese pop, Electric Ninja uses his grappling hook to rip off a bunch of zombie heads and rip off their horns (?) that they all seem to have growing out of their heads, and then falls off the wall and is swarmed by zombies.  Then a pickup truck comes flying in (doing flips and spins) bowls over the zombies and out emerges our heroine (I assume), Kika, wielding a chainsaw and doing pole-dancing moves while severing zombie heads.  Lovelock and Starkwell sit, as confused as these Japanese zombie films usually make them.

[...]

[Flashback to Kika’s past, where her crazy mother and the crazy mother’s crazy boyfriend are trying to kill her, and then an asteroid hits the mother and makes a huge crater in her chest, and then the mother rips out Kika’s heart and puts it in her crater replacing her missing heart, and then they both are covered in glowing gold goo, and shoot black smoke that covers Japan and turns everyone into zombies.]

Starkwell: Ummm…

Lovelock: Well at least the narrator is helping explain it.

Starkwell: Is the mother the girl from “Audition”?

Lovelock: I’ve blocked that film from my memory.

Starkwell: KURI KURI KURI KURI.

[Lovelock drops to the floor, weeping, in the fetal position.]

[...]

Then we see a montage of news footage and whatnot explaining everything.  The weird horn is apparently ground into a powder and used as drugs in this horrible future.  Meanwhile Kika is in a hospital, sleeping for a year, through the apocalypse where, for whatever reason, people eat fried cockroaches and the film makers have decided to show it.

[...]

Starkwell: I think they really fried those roaches!

[Lovelock started to respond, but then vomited mid sentence when the dude started chewing on fried cockroaches mouth open.]

[...]

[Kika wakes up, and is attacked by zombies and some sort of band of marauders, dressed like Klu Klux Klan wizards, then discovers that she has been turned into a cyborg superhero with a chainsaw sword.]

Lovelock: CHAINSAW SWORD!

[...]

The fight goes on for a while, Kika soon realizing that even if you chop off a chainsaw wielding zombie’s arm, that arm will come at you with a chainsaw.  She saves two dudes, we’ll call them Hat Guy and Video Game Character, who then take her with them back to some drug kingpins that they are apparently selling horns to.  Hat Guy also apparently rescues orphans (?).

[...]

[Kika has a nightmare about her past with her mother, and then, in the present, the mother breaks out of her golden glowing cocoon to reveal that she is a super zombie.  The Queen zombie, if you will.]

Lovelock: Is that a giant chicken foot wrapped around her head?

Starkwell: I don’t know, but it’s kind of gross.

[...]

So amidst the whole “Kika wants to get revenge on her now Zombie Queen mom” storyline, there is also a larger plot wherein some rogue government dude wants to overthrow the president and launch a plan to exterminate all of the zombies.  This plan includes using Kika as the weapon that she was designed to be.  THE ULTIMATE ZOMBIE KILLER.

[...]

Lovelock: I’m not sure who the good guys or bad guys are in the government, I just know that I want Kika to kill Zombie Mom.

Starkwell: Agreed.

[President gives a speech, Rogue Diplomat Guy blows a whole in the wall and President is eaten.]

[...]

One thing is certain… the movie doesn’t skimp on blood and gore.  It’s fucking everywhere.  There’s a decent mix of CG and old school, making it pretty over the top and insane.  But in a good way.

[...]

[The opening credits start rolling, fifty minutes into the two hour film.]

Lovelock: I’m confused.

Starkwell: There’s still over an hour left? DA FUCK.

[...]

The Rogue government guy has declared himself the new Prime Minister, and for some reason, now wears a military outfit and has a Hitler mustache.  Kika, Hat Guy, Video Game Character and the Drug Dealers have all been recruited to head into the zombie territory to find the queen.

[...]

[The group is attacked by a few hundred zombie heads being launched at them.]

Lovelock: Well that’s new.

[One severed zombie head bites drug dealer girl in the crotch.]

Lovelock: Well, that’s unnecessary.

Starkwell: The movie was doing so well avoiding that kind of thing too.

[Hat Guy, Video Game Character and Kika survive, saved by a Cowboy, that they just ran into… somehow.]

Lovelock: Right.  A Cowboy.

[...]

[A zombie feeds on a bouquet of severed penises.]

Lovelock: And just like that, they lower THE WHOLE FUCKING MOVIE.

Starkwell: First crotch bite, now penis bouquet?  Shit is weak.

[Cut to a zombie bar, zombies doing “Thriller” dance.]

Lovelock: Houston, we have a problem.

Starkwell: What is happening?

Lovelock: Absolute nosedive.

[School Girl has her shirt ripped open, zombie bites her bare breasts for a little while, and then she is held down while she squirts blood out of her nips like a firehose, as her breast are milked by the surrounding zombies.]

Starkwell: And, that’s my cue to leave.

Lovelock: What is going on!??!?!

[Only in Japan.]

[...]

There really is a strange split.  It feels like two different films, the one before the credits in the middle, and the one after.  Even the special effects seem to have gotten worse.  Why would a shotgun blast make their heads blow up in a little burst of flames?

[...]

Lovelock: Wait, is the firehose nipple girl a spider zombie now?

[...]

The next half hour was basically non-stop action, for better or for worse.  There was a zombie baby, naked spider girl zombie fighting with a fork, a zombie car made out of zombies, a zombie getting chainsaw sword up the ass for like two minutes, and eventually, Hat Guy yelling BANZAI as he “kamikazes” himself off of a cliff.

[...]

Lovelock: How is there still another twenty five fucking minutes?

[...]

[Zombie Mom sits atop a Colossus Giant made out of zombies.]

Lovelock: Guh?

[...]

They fire a missile at it, it partially explodes, but then the chicken foot alien creature sitting atop Zombie Mom’s head starts conducting the zombies like a symphony.  Then the Giant Thing catches the next two missiles and uses them like jet engines and turns into a huge plane made out of zombies.  Lovelock’s brain breaks.  He was trying to say something, but it was just coming out as a series of confused grunts.

[...]

Lovelock: I think it’s safe to say that I am completely desensitized to spurting blood at this point.

[...]

Definitely WAY too long, but if you go in knowing that it’s just a nonsense ride of zany insanity, you’ll come out pleased as Lovelock did.  Or you’ll leave long before it’s over, as Starkwell did.

Nazis at the Center of the Earth.

Well, it’s a movie from “The Asylum”, so you already know that there is a fifty percent chance that Starkwell will leave before the film even gets going, and at least a twenty-five percent chance that neither of them will finish the film.   This turd takes on the Nazi zombie theme, and hopefully isn’t too long of a film.  It starts off with a horrible action scene wherein Dr. Mengele escapes on a plane sometime at the end of the war I guess.

[...]

[Researchers digging (?) in Antarctica find some kind of Nazi bunker (?)]

Starkwell: Wait, that’s supposed to be Antarctica?

Lovelock: That Nazi just walked up from behind them, what was he just hiding behind a bush all that time?

[Then something blows up, the explosion is blue and we’re all confused.  Apparentky the Nazis took two of the researchers and dragged them away.]

[...]

The acting is really really bad, even by “Asylum” standards.  I think Lovelock was the one who wondered how they found so many bad actors willing to be in a film.  Including Jake Busey.  The whole group of “researchers” (bad actors) go to find the missing researchers.

[...]

Starkwell: Good thing that the snow and heavy winds of Antarctica have PERFECTLY preserved those footsteps that they are now following.

[...]

After expressing his desire to save the next hour of his life from the agony of watching this, Starkwell leaves.  Lovelock stays, actually a little intrigued.

[...]

Lovelock: That dude’s head blood looks like fruit punch.

[Mengele rips off a dudes face.]

Lovelock: Seems like a face wouldn’t just come off that cleanly…

[...]

It just gets worse and worse as the researchers venture into a “cave”, where Captain Jake Busey claims that they must be “fifty feet below the surface”.  Wow.  So deep.  I’m surprised they haven’t passed the equator yet.

[...]

[I guess Mengele took all of the researcher guy’s skin and put it on a Nazi?]

Lovelock: Can one just slip in and out of skin like a leotard?

[...]

Holy shit the girl slid down an icy hole to the CENTER OF THE EARTH like a scene out of “The Goonies”.  Then two of the researchers discover a whole word down there… that appears to have its own sun?  Also, what’s their plan for getting out of here?  They seem to be sliding down tubes and abandoning all of their gear… so…  Anyways, the whole group walks right into the Nazi building they found in this secret world and are immediately surrounded by a bunch of undead Nazis.

[...]

Lovelock: Hopefully they all just die immediately and the movie ends NOW.

[Dream big.]

[...]

[Captain Jake Busey is a secret Nazi and planned on bringing all of them to Mengele.]

Lovelock: Oh shit! Obvious twist!

[...]

Admittedly, this is bad, but it’s almost captivatingly bad.  The old actor dude playing Mengele is pretty sweet too.  So Mengele wants all of them to help him with his immortality / undead soldier research, and so far they’re playing along, I guess waiting for their moment to strike.  There’s no real explanation as to why Mengele looks EXACTLY as he did seventy years ago, but the soldiers are all rotting zombies.

[...]

[One of the women gets gang raped by a bunch of nazi zombies.]

Lovelock: Are they eating her or… ?

[...]

The movie makes little to no sense.  Also it sucks.  Lovelock just left.  He was just in time to miss Captain Jake Busey rip out his own baby fetus from his girlfriend and use the stem cells to revive Robot Zombie Hitler.  Oh also the Nazis have a flying saucer apparently.  It’s even worse than it sounds.  In the end, the UFO explodes over the Antarctic and the two surviving Americans jump out and find their jackets somehow.  I guess the UFO didn’t actually move at all?  And their jackets managed to find their way to where they ended up? Fuck dis shit.

Legion of the Dead.

You’d think I’d learn from past experiences and stop feeding shitty Asylum movies to Starkwell and Lovelock.  But where would the fun be in that?  Although this is the director’s only turn in the director’s chair, he has written mockbusters like “The Da Vinci Treasure”, and produced bullshit like “Sharknado”.  This one explores the “Dawn of the Mummy” idea of using mummies as zombies.  Unlike that one where a bikini model photo shoot stumbles upon an Egyptian tomb, this one starts off with… dirtbikers stumbling upon an ancient tomb… in the middle of the California?

[...]

[Opening credits look like they come from a Shareware game.  The kind that came on floppy disks.   When I was a kid.]

Starkwell: Ugh.  I don’t know if I have the stomach for this one.

Lovelock: Let’s keep that remote handy.

[...]

And fast forward a bunch… Apparently there’s a class on a field trip doing archaeological research.  Bad acting, bad writing, BAD EVERYTHING!

[...]

Lovelock: The ‘hieroglyphics’ look like crayon markings on posterboards.

Starkwell: If it looks like a potato, it's probably a potato.

Lovelock: Don't bring lovely potatoes into this.

[...]

More fastforwarding and WAIT, the Queen Mummy is apparently reviving.

[...]

[Queen Mummy sits up, is glowing red, and is naked.]

Lovelock: I guess back in the Egyptian Mummy times, the queen would often get breast implants.

Starkwell: And end up buried in California.

[...]

There’s a girl named Kevin who seems to have a dick (?)… I don’t know.  We’ve been fast forwarding a lot.  But I think the Queen pointed at a dick print in her jeans.  Basically the Queen is roaming around and sucking the souls out of dudes.  But she, for whatever reason, always gets naked right before she melts dudes.

[...]

Starkwell: Where is the ‘legion’ of the dead?

[Eventually a handful of Mummies do show up attacking some of them… they easily defend themselves with pool supplies like a Shepherd's Hook or one of those skimmer poles.]

Lovelock: I think the writers had a "Lesion of the Head".

Starkwell: Solid.

[...]

After some more minor mummy mayhem, complete with mummies that belong in a “PARTYMANIA” or “HALLOWEEN SUPERSTORE” commercial, the main character(s) stop the Queen from sacrificing a virgin and start making out.  The girl named Kevin may or may not have a penis, I’m still not sure.  I am, however, sure that this movie sucks.  Ironically, the shitty song playing during the credits contained the lyric “fast forward gets me through”.  The band must have watched the movie too.

Extinction.

After trying to make Netflix start this movie TWICE and having it somehow exit to the Blu-Ray player’s home screen both times, the movie actually started playing on the third attempt.  If ever there was a sign that the Universe is telling us not to bother with a film… But, Starkwell and Lovelock are dedicated, and decide to press on.  The film has a long running time which obviously has all of us concerned, however, at the very least, within the first five minutes, it’s clear that the production value is above a lot of the garden variety cheap as balls Asylum-esque material that is generally passed off as zombie fare these days.  But again, that doesn’t mean anything yet.  Put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.  But then again, sometimes pigs are cute.  After a scene of a dude flipping out and saying that everyone is dead, we get the title shot… apparently it’s ACTUALLY called “Extinction: The G.M.O. Chronicles”.  Then the main guy puts a gun to his head and the movie is all “3 DAYS EARLIER”.

[...]

[Dude drives around, zombie mayhem is all around.]

Lovelock: Green zombies?

Stakwell: They look like Lou Ferigno as the Hulk, except rabid.  And not as jacked up.

Lovelock: Ho-ho-ho, greEEeen zombies.

Starkwell: I hate you.

[...]

It’s a German movie, so all of the actors have accents.  It’s not like the film is set in the states either, so it’s strange that the characters would speak English.  But there is decent character development so far, and though the film hints at the fact that it will be pretty slow moving, it hasn’t gotten boring… yet.

[...]

[Main character is hauled up in an old military base, and kills slow “walkers”.  Apparently, there are also “runners”.]

Starkwell: So… absolutely nothing new under the sun?

Lovelock: I don’t know, they spit yellow stuff and have white blood… that’s different.

Starkwell: I guess.  Well, at least it’s competently made.

[You’d be surprised, but COMPETENCE really makes a zombie film stand out in today’s overcrowded market place of mockbusters and turds.]

[...]

[The zombies hibernate at night.]

Starkwell: So it’s just “I Am Legend” with an AM/PM switch?

Lovelock: It’s European.

Starkwell: Huh?

Lovelock: I don’t know, I thought it sounded cool to say.

[...]

[Main Dude, Tom, runs into some other survivors.]

Starkwell: The accents are kind of… WHY WOULD THEY BE SPEAKING ENGLISH?

Lovelock: I’m gladly, since because there ain’t none subtitles.

Starkwell: ...

[The survivors have an American with them.]

Lovelock: There.  There’s a reason for them to be speaking English.

[The survivors, one has been shot, all head back to Tom’s base with him.]

[...]

There are definitely all sorts of weird things going on with the zombies.  There are different types.  Some run, some walk, some hibernate, most can’t move unless they are in light… interesting ideas, but a bit scattered at the moment.  The zombies definitely have varied behavior, and seem to have some reasoning abilities… again… only some of them.  Lovelock and Starkwell are both curious and intrigued to see where this is going.

[...]

[During one of their recon missions they find a survivor guy named Luke, who has apparently survived off of toilet water and toilet paper.]

Starkwell: Nutritious delicious... toilet paper?

Lovelock: It’s not a bad idea… Your shit would wipe your ass on its way out.

Starkwell: ...

[...]

Wait, it turns out they are in the U.S…. ?  Well that just… wait, what?

[...]

Starkwell: Well, I’m gonna say it.  This movie is too fucking long.

[Lovelock, I assume, agrees… since he’s asleep.]

[...]

They’ve collected a bunch more survivors at this point.

[...]

[Toilet paper eating dude gets yellow dust spit in his face by a zombie.]

Starkwell: That looked like pollen… is this a plant thing?

Lovelock: It’s anti-vegetarian.  The plants are fighting back!

Starkwell: So, zombies plus a dash of that M. Night Shamadong movie?

Lovelock: I’m pretty sure that’s not his name.

Starkwell: Like you know?

Lovelock: M. Night Shama… Lamma... Sharbee… Nahgonnaworkherenomore.

[...]

One of the main-ish dudes dies and it drags a bit and Lovelock is all “ah let’s go movie hurry up”.  I don’t blame him for feeling this way.  We’ve had a good ten or so minutes of focusing on the main girl’s slow emotional breakdown, and Tom’s compassionate leadership, and shit.  Maybe more.  It’s hard to tell.  It feels like time is standing still.

[...]

[Interesting turn of events, Tom sees a special queen (?) zombie, that has no eyes and shrieks to call all of her zombie minions.]

Starkwell: Okay, okay, I’ll bite.

Lovelock: This should have happened forty-five minutes ago.  It’s too late for me.

[...]

During the five minute long soccer scene, Lovelock fucked right off.  The film keeps on going… it reminds us all of that Canadian film “Autumn” in that it is quite epic and large in scale, has a fairly interesting story, and takes the time to develop characters.  But much like “Autumn”, it takes an awful long time to really get anywhere and should be way shorter.  Be less movie.  That’s my advice to this movie.  And to “Autumn”, for that matter.

[...]

[They go to find Tom’s sister, she’s a zombie, but somehow her baby is alive.]

Starkwell: Right, because babies don’t need much to survive…

Lovelock: WOAH! Green zombie!

Starkwell: You’re back?

Lovelock: I thought it would be done by now… there’s another twenty minutes left?  Good God…

[...]

Then during a fight with the Hulky green giant zombie, Tom trapped it in a car and blew up the car with his bow and arrow.  Then the group ended up with a creepy priest, and I think they know what’s causing all of this, and then there’s romance and then I don’t know.  The zombies show up at the castle and these are the night kind that are afraid of light and seem to be painted up with the always offensive BLACKFACE, and we are ALL just as confused as ever.  The movie ends with the surviving characters shoving off for Africa... By land?  From the U.S.?  What the... I give up.  And then TWIST, the baby is infected!

[...]

Lovelock: There’s nothing quite like hinting at a sequel that will likely never happen.

Starkwell: Correction - a sequel that will THANKFULLY never happen.

[...]

Harsh.

Zombie Night.

I’m not sure how these SyFy originals keep getting made.  Or how they seem to keep getting semi-decent actors.  Nick Lyon’s turds featured actors like Trejo, Levar Burton, Mariel Hemingway, even Ving Rhames.  This one, directed by John “Piranha 3DD” Gulager, manages to get Daryl Hannah and Anthony Michael Hall.  Considering the dude who wrote the story also wrote and directed The Asylum’s “Abraham Lincoln Vs. The Zombies” stinker, and previously worked on Playboy Videos, I’m not expecting Lovelock and Starkwell to be all that impressed.  What’s more, the screenplay was written by the same team that wrote “Rise of the Zombies” for last year's SyFy Orginal zombie piece of shit.  Yuck.

[...]

[Anthony Michael Hall and his daughters drive home, they hit a dude, it’s a zombie.]

Starkwell:  Well at least they’re not wasting any time.

Lovelock: Obviously they’ve stopped RIGHT next to a cemetery.

[A bunch of corpses rise from the graves.]

Lovelock: I’ll give it points for at least TRYING to having the vibe of the old school.

[They seem to be going with an older school approach to the effects as well, seemingly using minimal CG.]

[...]

It makes no sense, but somehow even though it seems like the zombies JUST started rising, it seems like looting and craziness is already breaking out everywhere.  It would take longer than that.  Hopefully.

[...]

[Cop at the morgue fights reanimating corpses.  Dies.]

Lovelock: Nice.

Starkwell: It is actually sort of refreshing to see someone move away from the whole "rabid-virus" theme that plagues recent zombie fare.

[...]

Then Anthony Michael Hall loses one of his daughters.  She falls in a grave and is eaten.  He and the surviving daughter try to figure out what to do.  Anyways, the action continues pretty steadily as dead people continue to beat the shit out of and eat people.  Meanwhile, there was a scene where Daryl Hannah watches, through the peephole in her door, a girl get killed and dragged away.  It was legitimately pretty sweet.  We are also introduced to the family of Anthony Michael Hall’s daughter’s boyfriend.  The father is Cameron from Ferris Bueller.  Also, he’s a complete asshole.  For the next little while Lovelock and STarkwell didn’t say much.  This is all pretty by-the-numbers zombie stuff.  It’s all been done before, and usually much better.  But then again, often much worse.  There was a scene where Anthony Michael Hall killed a zombie with a wrench, and that was pretty sweet.

[...]

[Daryl Hannah helps her old mother around.]

Lovelock: DEAD WEIGHT.  They need to lose that shit.  She’s gonna have a heart attack any minute and turn.

Starkwell: That’s a little harsh dude.

Lovelock: Survival of the fittest.  Or at least, the less old.

[...]

I think she’s practically blind.  And then, as Lovelock fucking called it, once she is put down in the basement, something startles the old bag and she has a heart attack and falls down dead.  When Daryl Hannah and Neighbor go to check on her, she attacks them.  Predictable, but still pretty sweet.

[...]

Lovelock: And that’s why, you always put the oldies in a home.

Starkwell: You are an awful human.

Lovelock: Awfully right all the time.

[...]

There are WAY too many characters in this thing.  That would be fine if they were developed at all, or at least if the acting and dialogue were any good.  But in an hour and a half, trying to squeeze this many people into the story feels forced and Starkwell is losing his patience.

[...]

[Some character leaves her kid in a room alone, and the kid ends up facing a zombie.]

Starkwell: This movie is just a series of scenes where people get left in a room alone and end up face to face with a zombie.  And then people come to check on them, and then it's like "OH NO TOO LATE".

Lovelock: I feel that basically nothing has happened so far.  This movie could have been two minutes long.

[...]

They are slowly losing their patience.  It’s not that the action is bad, it’s just that without a story of ANY KIND to really make any of it matter, all we are left with is meaningless zombie kills.  I’ve lost track of who’s who.  Daryl Hannah, I think, is married to Hall, but now I realize that the girl from the beginning who fell in a grave and was eaten wasn’t their daughter?  Who knows.

[...]

[Cameron from Ferris Bueller turns Hall, Hannah and family away, and then he wants to shoot his son in the head.]

Starkwell: Stone cold.

Lovelock: Well, at least we know he’ll probably be dead soon.

[Since this movie is insanely fucking predictable.]

Lovelock: I feel like there's probably a good "Ferris Bueller" joke to be made here, but it's just been too long since I've seen the film.

[...]

The movie continues, SLOWLY, as they all fight for survival.  There’s a greenhouse scene that stuck out and was pretty sweet, but yeah, then it goes on seemingly forever and eventually ends, happily for a few of the characters I guess.  Overall this was a decent amount of fun and head and shoulders above the Nick Lyon SyFy Originals.  Still, all in all, it’s fucking awful.