A New Mission Review for Z Nation 302 By A. Zombie
Ditching some of the played-out character story lines may be wise rolling into season three. They’ve brought in another surviving “super-power” with the Chinese. They number only two-hundred-thousand total, but they’ve at least got functional technology—sign me up for one of those laser-guided zombie grenades. Murphy and the unknown hacker did their parts to kill the communication network which would have eventually allowed the scattered American survivors to band together. What Dr. Sun Mei, Lt. Mong, and their people don’t have, and what their tech cannot give them, is a cure. Their mission is simple: Capture Murphy and fashion a cure from his blood. It’s the same thing tried by so many. There is no cure just sitting in his blood. But they’ll try to synthesize one anyway or die trying. Hope is a powerful tool.
Roberta isn’t the only one making new friends. Citizen Z is out of the blizzard, and into some strange woman’s bed. In what can only be described as a desperate attempt to get the resident geek character laid at last, we’re introduced to Kaya. She’s the one who dragged Citizen Z and Dog through the storm. She also shared body heat to keep the scrawny dude alive. Not to make it awkward while he’s wandering around naked, but her family lives with her; they don’t speak and have the personality of furniture. So, like before, Citizen Z’s story line is filler to toss the ridiculous jokes they couldn’t cram in Murphy or Doc’s dialog. But at least he speaks to more than a dog now.
We’re introduced to a new class of human—Enders. These lunatics want to kill and end everyone’s suffering, undead and alive alike. These Enders see an opportunity to get ahead in the world just a little after Dr. Sun orders her air support to drop her supplies. The delivery has everything, even a vehicle, whatever’s necessary to launch another Great Murphy Hunt. Catch is, that’s the last of their gear. If someone else claims it, the Chinese and anyone who’d benefit from Dr. Sun’s possible cure are good as dead.
The episode is a really drawn out race to the gear, with the main conflict lasting only a blink once everyone finally makes it to the warehouse where the supplies landed. Things progress predictably. The casualties are many, but only one person of any importance keels over.
The episode sets up the three new missions ruling the season’s plot. First mission: Roberta, Addy, Doc, Hector, and Dr. Sun will obtain enough of Murphy’s blood to make a working cure. Mission two: Murphy will take Dr. Sun’s equipment and create a way to spread his blended human/zombie genes in order to stop humanity from devolving, and the undead from devouring each other. Lastly, The Man and his Zona handlers have a mission of their own: Bring in Murphy and use him as their personal fountain of youth.
Why are you gnashing your teeth, readers? I covered everything important. Oh, 10k! Well, about him . . . .
Wonder if he’ll see the irony after a few days enthralled by the big blue guy. I also called this huge character change at the end of his first scene in the episode, though they held off exposing the bite mark until the very end. It shows Murphy has a soft spot for the kid, but also his ability to use anyone and everyone to see his will done.
You all ready for the Murphy World Order? It’s coming. He’s ruthless enough to see his plan through. With his hybrids at his back, not even The Man can touch him. Bring on our blue overlord.
No Mercy Review for Z Nation season 3 premiere By A. Zombie
Once the story smooths out, it’s more than obvious when in their history we’ve landed. Unfortunately, that time frame didn’t give us another chance to see Mack, but we get ample time with Zmurphed Cassandra and newborn Lucy—a pair who shouldn’t be left together, honestly; it leads to weird story beats and makes Cassandra a babysitter instead of any part of the team. Which may explain why, not long after this additional story takes place, 10k has to put her down for good. They couldn’t contain the rabid dog once she completely changed personalities. There’s only so much to do with a primarily non-vocal predator to make her interesting.
Z NATION — “No Mercy” Episode 301-302 — Pictured: Joseph Gatt as The Man — (Photo by: Daniel Sawyer Schaefer/Go2 Z/Syfy)
Since hearing about this flashback I’ve wondered, why take them so far back in the time line? What is so important, it has to be said now? It’s far easier to strip an unused script and redistribute the information throughout the upcoming story than to cut together a movie explaining vital information about the incoming probably-bad guys. Except it seems The Man and his mysterious handler—possibly top-ranked Zona personnel—are vital to upcoming events. The unseen man has the markers for Zona leadership, judging from what Dr. Merch told Murphy before he double-crossed her in the season 2 finale. Two-hours of The Man ramming through a small settlement like a tank is a tad overkill. Entertaining, but overkill. The inevitable outcome was set in stone, leaving much to be desired from The Man—like his bald head on a platter.
The story is one we’ve seen before. The gang rolls past a settlement, desperately low on supplies and devolved to bickering nonstop. Unbeknownst to Operation Bitemark, the poor survivors inside are being harassed, threatened by someone far more powerful than them. After a crow-raised boy is abducted, the settlers call on the gang to help, since they’re so ferocious and all. The rest really is just various stages of planning and executing the plan, with some close-calls, another abduction, and mass murder.
Oh, did I mention the glowing, exposed-brain zombies locked in a contaminated laboratory? They’re kinda important. Dr. Howard Teller is the only reason The Man is interested in the settlement to begin with. To The Man, Harold is just another name on a list he’s tasked with gathering. For Harold, there’s so much more at risk. His wife, Sarah, is one of the not-quite-zombies locked in the lab. The reason the fungus-infected lab team aren’t dead is because Harold is the only soul brave enough to feed them. It’s not until Murphy translates their plaintive cries that Harold understands she’s been begging him to give them mercy for four years. Murphy’s interaction with these poor souls is heartbreaking. Kudos to Keith Allan for an incredible performance.
The opening sequence is tense and beautifully shot. People overlook this show often when searching for simply beautiful footage when they shouldn’t. The team behind the camera is brilliant.
On the flip-side, the writing team needs their ability to write puns stripped for a little while. If I took a shot for every crow joke said at the kid’s expense, I’d have no brain or skull left.
I wanted to be irritated over the flashback, but in the end, saw the necessity. It’s still not cool to leave us hanging with 10k’s fate. We want to catch up with the others, too. I mean, Citizen Z finally met another living being without fur! Plus, Warren and her team have a new ally in Hector . . . except he’s also cornered on the beach by Chinese soldiers. Murphy and Vasquez are the only ones with the freedom to do what they want. Will they return to save their former travel companions? Guess we’ll have to tune in on the 23rd to find out.
A. Zombie Reviews . . . Dead Set Episodes 3/4/5 By A. Zombie
It’s no great surprise when the plot runs a predictable course from here on out. Know what? I don’t care. There’s some golden moments when the entire surviving cast is finally together in the BB house.
First, they need to save Angel. Or not. Then they need to save Grayson . . . . Whoops. Okay, third time’s the charm. Kelly and Space are bullied across the studio lot to escort Patrick and Pippa to the house. That’s pretty much the beginning of the end. Once Patrick’s ego enters the room, unrest takes hold and chaos reigns.
How crazy does a guy have to be to sit there laughing like a kookaburra while disemboweling someone he spent weeks watching via the BB cameras? Reality TV producer crazy is the correct answer. This guy is so certain he has the right idea, he never slows while cobbling together his hair-brained plan. Patrick’s ability to manipulate people is the final nail in the coffin. Despite the others attempting to contain His Lunatic Highness, the Force is strong with this one and Patrick convinces Joplin to free him—based solely on the fact that the housemates loathe Joplin.
Things aren’t much better for Tariq, Kelly’s boyfriend, and his skittish savior, Alex. She never sits still. Always scans for trouble. We get little on her background or why she’s more prepared than most to deal with the zombie fallout. The pair are holed up in a farmhouse alongside a river. Alex feels confident they can stay there, but he’s ready to move on toward the studio. A plan Alex wants nothing to do with, yet still she grabs some gear and off they go. She is right to fight against leaving the farmhouse. The act of kindness is repaid when ‘Riq mercy-kills Alex after she’s bitten. Explains why she didn’t get a backstory.
When Riq makes it to the BB lot, it’s surrounded. He barely clears the fence, with zombies on his heels. The studio greeting party needs to work on their gift basket. Marky fires several shots before Kelly stops him, realizing the “zombie” below speaks coherently and is actually her boyfriend.
Try as he might, Riq can’t get Patrick to believe him about the destruction beyond the gate. Once the producer’s plan rolls into motion, it’s just a matter of waiting for the inevitable. There’s never a chance that Joplin and Patrick can get it together enough to make it past the horde at the gate. Nor is there chance the bumbling housemates, plus Tariq, will rescue Kelly when Patrick holds her hostage as leverage to get outside. The story is told once the gates open, we simply hang around to watch the bloody outcome.
The latter half of this miniseries is much more palatable. I won’t say it’s because the obnoxious housemates started dying like moths around a campfire, but it is a bonus. Going into the first episode, I was sure it’d be the worst. Thankfully, there’s ample gore to balance the reality aspect in the plot. Paired with decent special effects and satisfying character deaths, it produces an entertaining couple of hours.
I give Dead Set an overall three and three-quarters butchered reality stars out of five.
A. Zombie Reviews . . . Dead Set Episodes 1 & 2 By A. Zombie
I’ll tell you right now, two episodes into Dead Set and I still have nothing emotionally invested in the show’s contestants. That’s not to say I haven’t found someone to root for during the end days—Kelly steals every scene she’s in, vastly improving what could have been five episodes of uninspiring reality stars wandering around until they were eaten.
I’d totally cheer if they were all eaten. I might even wave pompoms.
The show opens with a typical afternoon leading up to another eviction from the BB house, as dictated by fan votes. The household prepares, some touching up their nails, others banging out their nerves behind closed doors. In the production office, Kelly delivers an endless stream of coffee to the crew. The producer, Patrick, demonstrates what a skuzzball he really is while cutting together highlight reels for the event and barking orders at his frazzled staff. Nothing is amiss until we catch snippets from news reports—strange deaths, attacks on police, etc. The reports grow in severity, leading Patrick to worry his precious eviction episode will be preempted in favor of a news bulletin. God forbid.
Eventually, the chaos reaches the remote location for the BB house and production office. The first zombie to arrive is a company driver—injured and brought to the studio by a production assistant who was sent with him to fetch a guest for the show. From there, the infection spreads through the gathered BB fans. By the time the evicted housemate, Pippa, makes it to the interview room, most of the crowd has turned. It takes mere minutes for the undead to overrun the offices.
The housemates hear the screams and think Pippa is a smash hit with the crowd. They crack open a few bottles, a few drinks to celebrate surviving to see another eviction night.
Little do they know, they’re probably the only ones celebrating in the UK.
The real story isn’t the housemates or their skeezy producer. Kelly provides the heartbeat, and common sense, for the show. While her love life is a feature in the beginning, it’s a non-issue by the time the second episode rolls out. There are a few amazing solo scenes with Kelly doing whatever it takes to survive. It’s not until she takes refuge in the BB house with the remaining cast that we realize she’s the entire braintrust. Where they are keen to believe for as long as possible that the weird things going on are staged, she’s ready to beat anyone to death who so much as looks undead. She’s also the only one with a plan to get medical supplies when a housemate is bitten.
The zombies themselves are minimally made-up, background creatures relying on pale faces, a few wounds, and blood to convey the undead message. We see a few hero zombies with better makeup, mostly in the second episode. There’s great detail in the close-up gore shots, though they’re so shaky, it’s like a toddler was thrown into the fight scenes with a Go Pro strapped to their head. These are also some seriously fast undead. It raises the stakes drastically when the living cannot outrun the dead. Something missing from other shows relying on compelling characters to drive the plot. Who needs to relate to the characters? Just give us zombie action.
While I’m enjoying Kelly’s story, and it’s the only reason I’ll watch the three remaining episodes, this would be much more entertaining with a better-written cast behind her. Patrick is a toad, utterly disgusting and should’ve died in the initial murders. The housemates barely have a brain cell between them. It makes their scenes difficult to endure to get to the actual story. Hopefully with Kelly breaking the barrier between the BB production team and the housemates, it’ll make their scenes bearable.
In a wicked case of, “Too soon, a-hole,” I was given Burying the Ex to review not long after Anton Yelchin’s passing. Guilt ate at me until I finally watched. It’d be a disservice to an incredible actor to not watch everything he did on the screen. Spoilers, this film delivers exactly what it promises—a lighthearted horror romance with plenty of off-kilter jokes.
The relationship between Max and Evelyn is beyond ridiculous . . . yet not completely off-base in some areas. Keep in mind, Evelyn doesn’t go off the deep, deep end until magic changes the terms of their relationship. The earlier issues Max has with Evelyn are grounded in reality. She’s holding him back from his dream to own his own horror prop shop. All their meals are vegan. Though, Evelyn does have Max’s back when it comes to his hyper-sexual, skuzzball half-brother, Travis. Brotherly love does not extend to banging chicks on your half-brother’s floor just so they don’t know where you live, just saying. There’s no love between girlfriend and half-brother. Evelyn chews Travis out every time he lets himself into their apartment.
Evelyn’s magically-amplified jealousy left a bad taste in my mouth after Olivia’s introductory scene. Evie was unhinged and so neurotic over ice cream, it hit ludicrous fast. The point was to show Evelyn spiraling out of control, eventually leading to her death. Instead, the scene killed all pity for the character and made Olivia the side chick for trying to do her job. Hell, she didn’t ask for Max’s phone number or offer him a lap dance. They both just happen to know a lot about kid’s horror-themed cereal. The clunky jealousy bleeds over to zombie Evelyn’s on-screen time, but isn’t as problematic until the film’s climax.
On the flipside, the secondary romance story is something which would make one sigh, save Max being distracted by a friggen zombie who won’t move out of his apartment. Olivia is the cool, but weird chick most people write as death-obsessed, practically sleeping in a coffin Goth. She’s funny, refreshing, Most importantly, at no point did her scenes become, “Everything you can do, I can do better,” with Olivia doing out of character things just to prove she’s not Evelyn.
On the effects side, things are a little light. Evelyn’s makeup morphs wonderfully from freshly risen to mottled, withered walking dead as the film’s second half plays out. What few other practical effects are in the film are graphic. Viewers can dang near feel the sticky embalming fluid vomit. By the way, there’s a post-credit add-on showing the FX team pumping the goo into Yelchin’s face. He reacted out of character about the same as he did in character.
Burying the Ex is an “It gets better,” note to any weirdo feeling stuck in every aspect of their life. Sure, they won’t end up with an unhinged, jealous zombie sharing their bed, but Max did eventually move on from everything holding him back and making him miserable. I give the film three and a three-quarters cracked skulls out of five.
A. Zombie Reviews . . . Pet Sematary II By A. Zombie
Rated: R (Violence, adult language, sexuality, rape)
Starring: Edward Furlong, Anthony Edwards, Clancy Brown, Jared Rushton, Darlanne Fluegel
Synopsis: After his wife’s violent on-set death, veterinarian Chase Matthews and his son Jeff move to Ludlow to rebuild their lives away from Los Angeles. Harassed endlessly by the neighborhood kids, Jeff finds a friend in Drew Gilbert, who fears his abusive stepfather, Gus. After Gus murders Drew’s other best friend, his dog, the boys take the body to the nearby Indian burial grounds—rumored to resurrect any dead buried in the soil. When evil returns, the boys realize sometimes dead dogs should be left to lie.[Official Synopsis]
Because I wanted to question every decision I’ve made this week, I opted to pick what film to watch by drawing a title from a hat. The pickings weren’t great to begin with, given my options, but I believe I scraped the bottom of the barrel labeled “Trying Too Hard.”
The script came from someone who missed the mark in the struggle to create a comprehensive love note not only to Stephen King’s original Pet Sematary script, but his works in general. Bumping up the age of the children involved brought the interpersonal drama in line with what King fans found in IT and Carrie. Where the writing failed was when the bullying never panned out to anything except trauma-porn to make the script darker. There’s no satisfying end to the bullying where lessons are learned. It just keeps going until the movie has to end.
In order to make sure viewers know they’re watching a horror flick, it takes place over Halloween week. They also included far too many unnecessary quick camera jumps to mangled animals to make up for the lacking story line. Not to mention logic jumps beyond comprehension. The bad guy died. Two thirteen year old boys hauled him up that terrifying path—for non-readers, the path to the burial ground could kill you two-thousand different ways and no one would find your body—and then dug through hard as hell dirt up there? Add in the dog seemingly capable of teleporting, plus giving Chase sex dreams with his dead wife, and it’s too much. King’s books are weird, but animals don’t usually inspire sexy things.
Casting is one of the few things going for the movie. Furlong is appreciatively creepy. Edwards makes a decent straight guy facing all the weird. Clancy Brown is a personal favorite, though his character had no depth beyond being a bully. The supporting cast isn’t too shabby, either. Too bad they didn’t get a better script to work with.
The effects are on par with the original film. There may be a few more gallons of blood in the sequel. The major time effects failed was, unfortunately, in the opening death scene. Through no fault of the effects team, though; the sequence was about two minutes too long. Better editing would’ve made it far more jarring. There’s many instances where effects are overdone in an effort to shock. Again, this completely misses the mark trying to honor King’s work.
Overall I’m giving Pet Sematary II two mangled paws out of five. One for casting, one for the effort put into the effects. This is a pass for your animal horror movie marathons. Watch Cujo or the original Pet Sematary.
Rated: R (Strong language, graphic violence, and gore) Starring: Vegar Hoel, Ørjan Gamst, Martin Starr, Jocelyn De Boer Synopsis: If the worst day of your life consisted of accidentally killing your girlfriend with an axe, chain-sawing your own arm off, and watching in horror as your closest friends were devoured by a zombified Nazi battalion, you’d have to assume that things couldn’t get much worse. In Martin’s case, that was only the beginning. [Official Synopsis]
Most of the film is Martin sprinting here and there to save everyone’s bacon with his accidental zombie mojo. He’s joined by the Zombie Squad and a random guy he reanimated who dies in several horrific ways, only to revive again. They eventually figure out that in order to defeat the Nazis, they must fight fire with fire and revive some Russian soldiers. Sure. That makes sense. Whatever, Martin needs an army and there happens to be a frozen one not far away.
There’s a load of fighting in the film. Fear not, those who want blood and gore. All the fake blood in Europe went into the numerous full-scale fight scenes and many more skirmishes. What I love about the filmmakers? They didn’t avoid daylight. The fighting pretty much all takes place out in a brightly lit field.
All that light means the makeup must be on point. They did not disappoint. A few designs didn’t stand up to the harsh glare—looking at you, Russian dudes. But the tried-and-true Nazi zombies were brilliantly detailed, along with the mundane zombies turned along the way. The death gags were insane. So many were wrong to the point I couldn’t stop laughing. This is how you add laugh beats to violence. Just silly, unexpected intestine humor to bring up the mood before more blood flies.
The local cop side story bogged things down a little. For the most part, they’re slap-stick comedic relief. It’s like the streams crossed somewhere and a story line from Hot Fuzz came over to screw with the timing. They did have a few good laugh lines.
Overall, I’m giving Dead Snow: Red vs Dead four bars of Nazi gold out of five. This series continues to amuse me while never failing to stun visually. It’s something to show your friends which won’t make them groan and walk from the room.
The Asylum stepped into some large footprints when they opted to take a zombie film and set it in a Jurassic Park situation. They went for broke, too, holding nothing back when it came to zombie gags, perfectly placed irony, and an attempt to tell a coherent story through most of the film. It really held in there until they’d killed off so many characters, the hero, Ellen, basically had to say, “Forget everyone, I’ll do it myself.” Which still fits the theme laid out in just about every dino-flick when women finally have enough dying and get things done. There’s the usual parallels—mocking the infamous t-rex chase with infected lions, one character ditching the others and running, children coping way better than adults about man-eating animals, etc.—which make the film tolerable. The plot is simple, characters are just deep enough to provide tension, and the sense of funny-wrong doesn’t miss the mark. While there are times where plot points are dragged out for too long, it’s not so bad it bogs down the 90-minute format.
The easiest way to get to know characters where all your effort on a film is spent figuring the logistics of zombie apes is to trap them in vehicles throughout the three acts to do info dumps. It isn’t ideal, but for films like this, it isn’t about the characters so much as putting characters in outlandish situations to see if stereotype personalities will make it out alive. This movie has an okay mix of decent characters and some which needed serious reconfiguring just so fans don’t spitefully throw a beer at the screen when they finally shut up and die. Even Ellen, who we are supposed to like in the end, has character traits which can just stop happening in everything always forevermore, especially her need to repeat how much she feels she’s failing a dead guy. Family obligation isn’t the only reason a wealthy woman would show remorse for So Many Dead People.
The other main characters are the zombie animals. As with all Asylum features, don’t place your bets on being blown away by the computer graphics. There’s a few great shots featuring the lead gorilla character, reaction shots for smaller zombie monkeys, but for the most part the undead characters are blurry and laughable. When the zombie giraffes stepped on screen, I gave up and laughed through the entire thing. It’d take Marvel-sized budgeting to fully render the amount of shots needed to make the zombies work. When it came to fight scenes, they made it even simpler. The actors clutched wadded faux fur for the small animal attacks, and batted away a hand puppet for the terrifying zombie giraffe scenes. The humans who are attacked get slightly better zombie treatment. My favorite gag involves the nesting instincts of a bald eagle. You’ll know when you see it.
Zoombies gets three gnawed cow hooves out of five. It’s a decent Saturday night drink-and-watch with friends.
Starring: Jay Gallagher, Bianca Bradley, Leon Burchill, and Keith Agius
Rated: Not Rated (Contains violence, adult language, and mild nudity)
Synopsis: Barry is a talented mechanic and family man whose life is torn apart on the eve of a zombie apocalypse. His sister, Brooke, is kidnapped by a sinister team of gas-mask wearing soldiers & experimented on by a psychotic doctor. While Brooke plans her escape Barry goes out on the road to find her & teams up with Benny, a fellow survivor – together they must arm themselves and prepare to battle their way through hordes of flesh-eating monsters in a harsh Australian bushland. [Synopsis written by Kiah Roache-Turner and Tristan Roache-Turner]
This film came through the food slot on my cell door a while ago . . . and was promptly lost under a bone pile in the corner. I found it today and decided to give it a go—it’s not often I’m given the chance to watch a zombie flick from another country and I had hopes this would be an Australian La Horde in some way. Spoilers: It isn’t. Nor did it deliver a Mad Max vibe, as billed in the majority of press written by their marketing team. Homemade safety gear does not automatically make a film a skip away from entering the Thunderdome. Pair all this with a disjointed story telling gimmick for the first forty–five minutes and the film falls a little flat. Once they get past the getting-to-know-you bit with the characters and setting the apocalypse, it’s a tolerable hack-n-slash flick with enough comedic moments to overlook some flaws. I mean, how can one dislike a film with golden phrases like mouth farts?
One thing the movie has for it is an original approach to the ecological repercussions of the undead during the apocalypse. Surely people turning into freaky creatures at the drop of a hat means other things are wrong. Turns out, whatever airborne virus changes humans also makes combustible materials inert. How’s a guy supposed to save the day if he can’t drive? Simple, use zombies as fuel. The gas they emit is highly flammable. And smells like farts. That’s a key take-away from the film.
Okay. Not really.
As much as I enjoyed the witty banter between characters, there’s not a lot of depth to anyone except Barry. His story through the first half is gut-wrenching. However, once he gets back on track to finding his sister, the story unravels into a series of deaths designed to have little to no actual impact on the hero until he pairs up with Benny. Side note: There’s three lead characters with similar names. It’s like they got stuck on the B section in a baby-naming book while penning the script. Barry’s sister, Brooke, becomes the sole female survivor in the story. As such, she’s bogged down by metaphysical gifts to make her unique and special, and more powerful to the men holding her captive. It’s like the writers couldn’t fathom an everyday woman capable of escaping. While, yes, Brooke’s ability to control zombies is pretty neat, it becomes a plot crutch, leading to several long moments where she’s supposed to call the undead and leaves the action to happen around her, without the only woman on screen really doing anything aside from standing and scowling.
The hero zombie makeup is pretty decent, featuring sunken eye sockets and mild wounds since most zombies turn without being bitten thanks to the zombie gas in the air. However, there’s a few background zombies who get close-ups and their splotchy greasepaint makeup breaks the continuity established for the dead. It’s jarring to see four zombies in a row in detailed FX makeup with full-face appliances, only to zoom in one another which looks like their makeup took maybe fifteen minutes to apply in the back of a car with a palm-sized mirror.
Overall, Wyrmwood proved slightly disappointing. I wanted something grander, crafted with care for the genre. What they delivered needed more time in editing to make it flow better and maybe a few reshoots to elaborate more on everyone except Benny. I give the film three decaying hearts out of five. It’s an okay film to add to your zombie-flick marathon come October.
Major’s game of freeze tag is over. The FBI push hard on the Chaos Killer case, landing the newly re-zombied trainer in jail. Without food. Yes, this is a rehash from when Liv was arrested. Yes, crisis is averted just in time, yet again—even after Major is arrested a second time for the Meat Cute incident. Blaine, of all people, is the one to smuggle brains from Don E.’s stash after the tight-belted businessman wanted Liv to pay for a brain she plans to use to keep Major from turning the city’s jail into ground zero for the apocalypse. While she handles the food problem, Ravi and Major use video game metaphors to hatch a plan—retrieve a zombie from the freezer, defrost, show as proof Major didn’t kill anyone, release from jail. Simple. Easy. A cake walk.
Max Rager stole the bodies. DuClark also set out hits on Major and Liv as a gift to celebrate selling the company to a military contractor. Ravi gets caught in the crossfire, killing Janko when the mercenary drugs and attempts to abduct Liv. She’s fine. He’s shaken. The dead guy on the floor gives Liv the perfect chance to peek behind enemy lines. Later, she has a vision starring Major’s zombcicles, all nicely defrosted.
In order to get Major out of jail in time without a victim to hand over, Liv finally clues Clive in about Team Zombie. Okay, it takes stabbing herself in the gut to convince him, but he gets the idea and Major is a free man shortly after. I hope Liv bought Clive a new knife. Clive uses a loophole in the case against Major to secure his release. Bozzio is, understandably, livid. His hands are tied. He couldn’t knowingly leave Major in jail to start another zombie outbreak.
During the zombie antics, Boss sends his guys to clean house. The case against him is gone. He should be sitting pretty, save for his competition hitting the streets again. Chief takes a bullet to the brainpan. Don E. talks his way into a gut shot instead of a headshot. Poor hapless Blaine ends up exposed to Boss’ guys and has a hit put on his head. They use Peyton to lure Blaine into a trap. It gets a tad buddy-cop when Ravi and Blaine team up, armed quite impressively, to rescue her. Which is a joke, really. Blaine wiped out the men holding Peyton before Ravi made it in the door. Major joins Liv on Janko brain. They plan to infiltrate Max Rager during their big bash to celebrate the sale properly. To access the secret lab’s elevator, they’ll just take Janko’s hand along for a walk like it’s Thing. Clive disavows any knowledge of said plan—which lasts as long as it takes him to realize the zombies aren’t going to make the rendezvous time. The party scenes are chaos even before a group of idiots turns themselves into zombies with tainted Utopium. The party’s theme? A lockdown. They’re trapped. Just about everyone dies or is turned.
There’s a new savior in town. Vivian Stoll—the woman from the military contractor—saves Team Zombie when they’re trapped during the outbreak. Liv and Major are fine. Clive has a target on his chest being the sole human left on their feet. Stoll’s people clear the building. She gives them free passage to the secret lab.
In the lab, Rita and her father wait to make things just that much worse for the team. She’s ready to promise her front teeth in order to get free or get a cure. He’s hell-bent on winning at least one battle. The gang is separated in the zombie containment area. Drake, unfortunately, is no longer a coherent zombie. The test cures MR forced on them turned him Romero. Man, dating Liv is a curse. More so when VDC forces Liv to choose between saving Clive or Drake. She shoots her boyfriend. There’s really no choice. Drake was doomed to die the day they introduced him. VDC tries twice to gas everyone. Both times fail, with the final attempt ending after Major breaks a glass wall, following VDC into the elevator, and leaving the bad guy trapped in there with ravenous zombies. Upstairs, they open the elevator to find Rita chowing down on Dad brains.
Major takes the kill shot on his ex. Sense a trend? Stoll’s people take over the situation while she snacks on Rob Thomas. Surprise! The military contractors are zombies hell bent on making Seattle their new homeland.
I’ll admit, it’s one hell of a surprise. Unfortunately, I sense this may devolve into a Buffy situation—everything blamed on a mysterious government body who answers to no one, really, and does convenient bad things to make tension for the show. We’ve seen this trope a lot on genre shows. While this new plot twist did bring a lot of dead bodies, it could be foretelling a rather predictable season three.
Ditching some of the played-out character story lines may be wise rolling into season three. They’ve brought in another surviving “super-power” with the Chinese. They number only two-hundred-thousand total, but they’ve at least got functional technology—sign me up for one of those laser-guided zombie grenades. Murphy and the unknown hacker did their parts to kill the communication network which would have eventually allowed the scattered American survivors to band together. What Dr. Sun Mei, Lt. Mong, and their people don’t have, and what their tech cannot give them, is a cure. Their mission is simple: Capture Murphy and fashion a cure from his blood. It’s the same thing tried by so many. There is no cure just sitting in his blood. But they’ll try to synthesize one anyway or die trying. Hope is a powerful tool.
We’re introduced to a new class of human—Enders. These lunatics want to kill and end everyone’s suffering, undead and alive alike. These Enders see an opportunity to get ahead in the world just a little after Dr. Sun orders her air support to drop her supplies. The delivery has everything, even a vehicle, whatever’s necessary to launch another Great Murphy Hunt. Catch is, that’s the last of their gear. If someone else claims it, the Chinese and anyone who’d benefit from Dr. Sun’s possible cure are good as dead.
The episode sets up the three new missions ruling the season’s plot. First mission: Roberta, Addy, Doc, Hector, and Dr. Sun will obtain enough of Murphy’s blood to make a working cure. Mission two: Murphy will take Dr. Sun’s equipment and create a way to spread his blended human/zombie genes in order to stop humanity from devolving, and the undead from devouring each other. Lastly, The Man and his Zona handlers have a mission of their own: Bring in Murphy and use him as their personal fountain of youth.
Once the story smooths out, it’s more than obvious when in their history we’ve landed. Unfortunately, that time frame didn’t give us another chance to see Mack, but we get ample time with Zmurphed Cassandra and newborn Lucy—a pair who shouldn’t be left together, honestly; it leads to weird story beats and makes Cassandra a babysitter instead of any part of the team. Which may explain why, not long after this additional story takes place, 10k has to put her down for good. They couldn’t contain the rabid dog once she completely changed personalities. There’s only so much to do with a primarily non-vocal predator to make her interesting.
The story is one we’ve seen before. The gang rolls past a settlement, desperately low on supplies and devolved to bickering nonstop. Unbeknownst to Operation Bitemark, the poor survivors inside are being harassed, threatened by someone far more powerful than them. After a crow-raised boy is abducted, the settlers call on the gang to help, since they’re so ferocious and all. The rest really is just various stages of planning and executing the plan, with some close-calls, another abduction, and mass murder.
The opening sequence is tense and beautifully shot. People overlook this show often when searching for simply beautiful footage when they shouldn’t. The team behind the camera is brilliant.
First, they need to save Angel. Or not. Then they need to save Grayson . . . . Whoops. Okay, third time’s the charm. Kelly and Space are bullied across the studio lot to escort Patrick and Pippa to the house. That’s pretty much the beginning of the end. Once Patrick’s ego enters the room, unrest takes hold and chaos reigns.
Things aren’t much better for Tariq, Kelly’s boyfriend, and his skittish savior, Alex. She never sits still. Always scans for trouble. We get little on her background or why she’s more prepared than most to deal with the zombie fallout. The pair are holed up in a farmhouse alongside a river. Alex feels confident they can stay there, but he’s ready to move on toward the studio. A plan Alex wants nothing to do with, yet still she grabs some gear and off they go. She is right to fight against leaving the farmhouse. The act of kindness is repaid when ‘Riq mercy-kills Alex after she’s bitten. Explains why she didn’t get a backstory.
Try as he might, Riq can’t get Patrick to believe him about the destruction beyond the gate. Once the producer’s plan rolls into motion, it’s just a matter of waiting for the inevitable. There’s never a chance that Joplin and Patrick can get it together enough to make it past the horde at the gate. Nor is there chance the bumbling housemates, plus Tariq, will rescue Kelly when Patrick holds her hostage as leverage to get outside. The story is told once the gates open, we simply hang around to watch the bloody outcome.
The latter half of this miniseries is much more palatable. I won’t say it’s because the obnoxious housemates started dying like moths around a campfire, but it is a bonus. Going into the first episode, I was sure it’d be the worst. Thankfully, there’s ample gore to balance the reality aspect in the plot. Paired with decent special effects and satisfying character deaths, it produces an entertaining couple of hours.
The show opens with a typical afternoon leading up to another eviction from the BB house, as dictated by fan votes. The household prepares, some touching up their nails, others banging out their nerves behind closed doors. In the production office, Kelly delivers an endless stream of coffee to the crew. The producer, Patrick, demonstrates what a skuzzball he really is while cutting together highlight reels for the event and barking orders at his frazzled staff. Nothing is amiss until we catch snippets from news reports—strange deaths, attacks on police, etc. The reports grow in severity, leading Patrick to worry his precious eviction episode will be preempted in favor of a news bulletin. God forbid.
The real story isn’t the housemates or their skeezy producer. Kelly provides the heartbeat, and common sense, for the show. While her love life is a feature in the beginning, it’s a non-issue by the time the second episode rolls out. There are a few amazing solo scenes with Kelly doing whatever it takes to survive. It’s not until she takes refuge in the BB house with the remaining cast that we realize she’s the entire braintrust. Where they are keen to believe for as long as possible that the weird things going on are staged, she’s ready to beat anyone to death who so much as looks undead. She’s also the only one with a plan to get medical supplies when a housemate is bitten.
In a wicked case of, “Too soon, a-hole,” I was given Burying the Ex to review not long after Anton Yelchin’s passing. Guilt ate at me until I finally watched. It’d be a disservice to an incredible actor to not watch everything he did on the screen. Spoilers, this film delivers exactly what it promises—a lighthearted horror romance with plenty of off-kilter jokes.
Evelyn’s magically-amplified jealousy left a bad taste in my mouth after Olivia’s introductory scene. Evie was unhinged and so neurotic over ice cream, it hit ludicrous fast. The point was to show Evelyn spiraling out of control, eventually leading to her death. Instead, the scene killed all pity for the character and made Olivia the side chick for trying to do her job. Hell, she didn’t ask for Max’s phone number or offer him a lap dance. They both just happen to know a lot about kid’s horror-themed cereal. The clunky jealousy bleeds over to zombie Evelyn’s on-screen time, but isn’t as problematic until the film’s climax.
On the effects side, things are a little light. Evelyn’s makeup morphs wonderfully from freshly risen to mottled, withered walking dead as the film’s second half plays out. What few other practical effects are in the film are graphic. Viewers can dang near feel the sticky embalming fluid vomit. By the way, there’s a post-credit add-on showing the FX team pumping the goo into Yelchin’s face. He reacted out of character about the same as he did in character.
The script came from someone who missed the mark in the struggle to create a comprehensive love note not only to Stephen King’s original Pet Sematary script, but his works in general. Bumping up the age of the children involved brought the interpersonal drama in line with what King fans found in IT and Carrie. Where the writing failed was when the bullying never panned out to anything except trauma-porn to make the script darker. There’s no satisfying end to the bullying where lessons are learned. It just keeps going until the movie has to end.
Casting is one of the few things going for the movie. Furlong is appreciatively creepy. Edwards makes a decent straight guy facing all the weird. Clancy Brown is a personal favorite, though his character had no depth beyond being a bully. The supporting cast isn’t too shabby, either. Too bad they didn’t get a better script to work with.
The Asylum stepped into some large footprints when they opted to take a zombie film and set it in a Jurassic Park situation. They went for broke, too, holding nothing back when it came to zombie gags, perfectly placed irony, and an attempt to tell a coherent story through most of the film. It really held in there until they’d killed off so many characters, the hero, Ellen, basically had to say, “Forget everyone, I’ll do it myself.” Which still fits the theme laid out in just about every dino-flick when women finally have enough dying and get things done. There’s the usual parallels—mocking the infamous t-rex chase with infected lions, one character ditching the others and running, children coping way better than adults about man-eating animals, etc.—which make the film tolerable. The plot is simple, characters are just deep enough to provide tension, and the sense of funny-wrong doesn’t miss the mark. While there are times where plot points are dragged out for too long, it’s not so bad it bogs down the 90-minute format.
The easiest way to get to know characters where all your effort on a film is spent figuring the logistics of zombie apes is to trap them in vehicles throughout the three acts to do info dumps. It isn’t ideal, but for films like this, it isn’t about the characters so much as putting characters in outlandish situations to see if stereotype personalities will make it out alive. This movie has an okay mix of decent characters and some which needed serious reconfiguring just so fans don’t spitefully throw a beer at the screen when they finally shut up and die. Even Ellen, who we are supposed to like in the end, has character traits which can just stop happening in everything always forevermore, especially her need to repeat how much she feels she’s failing a dead guy. Family obligation isn’t the only reason a wealthy woman would show remorse for So Many Dead People.
The other main characters are the zombie animals. As with all Asylum features, don’t place your bets on being blown away by the computer graphics. There’s a few great shots featuring the lead gorilla character, reaction shots for smaller zombie monkeys, but for the most part the undead characters are blurry and laughable. When the zombie giraffes stepped on screen, I gave up and laughed through the entire thing. It’d take Marvel-sized budgeting to fully render the amount of shots needed to make the zombies work. When it came to fight scenes, they made it even simpler. The actors clutched wadded faux fur for the small animal attacks, and batted away a hand puppet for the terrifying zombie giraffe scenes. The humans who are attacked get slightly better zombie treatment. My favorite gag involves the nesting instincts of a bald eagle. You’ll know when you see it.
