The zombie
marathon continues with this independent flick that I found on Amazon Prime.
The name seemed a bit silly, but I figured that I’d give it a chance. Plus, it
was a zombie movie and I wanted to watch a bunch of new stuff for the marathon.
Things
start off right in the action as we see a guy, who we later find out is named
Chris, running from the zombies. The catch him and bite him but before he dies
some science dude and his armed guards show up. Later Chris wakes up all fixed
from being “killed” by the zombies. He makes his escape from the house he woke
up in and ends up finding a ghost… Not kidding there is a ghost who asks him to
bury his body. Some more nonsense happens, survivors are found and killed, the
ghost reanimates his body to come to the rescue, and the cure is found. Then
they go to Chicago to get more of the cure made only to end up in another big
fight. The end?
I was
worried when I read the name that this movie was going to try and reference
Romero’s great zombie movies. While it doesn’t totally try and rip them off, we
do get a couple interesting and well-done references early on. There is a
zombie at a window that is very familiar and a musical stinger that is close to
Night of the Living Dead. The movie is also in Black and White which I found
weird and distracting. But again, this was a different way to pay respects to
the granddaddy of all modern zombie flicks and was interesting. Sadly, from
there on it is downhill.
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| This is the movie poster... |
This is a
zombie movie, so I need the gore and makeup effects work on the individual zombies
to be at least decent. All of the zombies look generic and basically consist of
some greasepaint and black circles under their eyes. Even Night did a better
job with the occasional bit of latex and dressing them differently. Here these
are clearly coming off of an assembly line without the tiniest amount of
creativity. Maybe they tried to give them some personality with the zombie
wielding a chainsaw or the one that is suddenly smart enough to run away, but I
wasn’t buying or enjoying it at all. The zombies are a total failure.
The kills
aren’t any better. The gore is all off screen which means we don’t get any pay
off for the gags that the movie tries to setup. How can you have a zombie movie
without any gore? I mean thank god for no CGI, but still would a single bite or
rubber gut munching be too much to ask? The fights with the zombies are staged
terribly and appear awkward on screen. You can see more than once where they
are milling around waiting their turns to attack. This might have been fun on the
old Adam West Batman show, here it is just dumb.
Some other
observations. The movie is way too long and could have used an editor. The
tonal shifts between comedy and scares are handled badly. As a viewer I didn’t
know what Late Afternoon of the Living Dead was trying to accomplish and
neither, I think, did the filmmakers. Seriously what the hell is up with the
ghost? Why movie… why? I could go on, but I think that I’ve made my point. This
one is a pass from me. Don’t waste your time.
© Copyright 2018 John Shatzer
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