The zombie
marathon continues with yet another newer take on the genre. Here we get to see
the story of a man and his wife dealing with being trapped in their house after
the zombie apocalypse has already started. I saw this one on the shelves at my
local big box chain store and bought it. Mostly because they have a decent
looking copy of Wacko
as an added bonus. When you have to toss in a couple movies to sell yours at
ten bucks that might not be a good sign. Just saying.
An alarm
goes off and a man rolls out of bed. We see his morning routine of making tea
and getting fresh oranges from the tree in his back yard. His wife gets up and
they start their day together. Seems like a normal day except that they are surrounded
on all sides by zombies struggling to get thru the fenced in yard. This routine
repeats itself until some cracks start to show. First the wife complains about
the dead neighbor locked in the apartment out back. This leads to a fight where
they dare each other to “kill” their dead friends. They make up for a while,
but things go to hell again when she figures out he has been sabotaging her
efforts to get them rescued. Hiding signals and ignoring pamphlets dropped from
a passing helicopter. You find out that he was a stressed out professional and
that they were about to lose the house. To him the zombies are a blessing. Now
he can wander around the house without being stressed out. This is a weird
movie.
I was torn
on this movie until the very end. I liked that it was telling a different kind
of story set in the zombie apocalypse. We just have two characters with
speaking roles for the vast majority of movie. That means Better off Zed is all
about the dialogue, characters, and acting chops of the leads. This is less
about survival and more about their relationship. Right there I know we lost a
lot of horror fans, but I kept watching. The actors are quite good, and I found
myself caring about the characters they were bringing to life. They also do a
nice job with the fighting as they have the chemistry to make arguments feel
real without being over the top. This was the reason I stuck around until the
end.
 |
| The zombies |
The
zombies look decent and each has their own unique look. They are all fresh, so
things aren’t much more elaborate than the obvious wound that killed them. Pale
skin, gross teeth, and creepy eyes are also on display. The kills… well there
aren’t any really. A couple of zombies get finished off, but that happens off
screen, at least until the very end. There is a fun bit with an arm in a
garbage disposal, but it is pretty tame for a movie about walking corpses.
Better off Zed is almost a gore less zombie movie which doesn’t thrill me.
None of
the things above made me not like the movie. What finally did that for me is
when they broke the one cardinal rule of independent zombie movies. They
referenced Night of the Living Dead. Not only do we see the characters watching
it on a portable DVD player, but they totally rip off the ending. Spoilers so
be warned. She gets bit and turns so he has to lop her head off. He is cradling
her head unable to speak due to his emotional state when the rescue team comes
in. No talking means he gets shot in the noggin’. End of movie. Damn it why did
you have to do that? Let me say this again. You might think your movie is super
cool, but it isn’t as good as the one that launched the entire zombie genre. Do
not remind me of a better movie while I’m watching yours. I’m going to
recommend that you skip this one and pop in a copy of Romero’s Night of the
Living Dead instead.
© Copyright 2018 John Shatzer
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