Survival of The Dead Review

Survival of the Dead Review

Reviewed by Nyquill of the Gutter

Ok I know I have been slacking but this is one of those movies that have been sitting in my download cue for like 3 months and I finally put it to work and watched it. Man I wished I would have watched this earlier to save myself from the ups and downs that is George Romero’s newest chapter in his Zombie lore. Survival of the Dead kind of picks up where the Diary was going; if that’s what you want to call it because I felt that movie was going nowhere. There was a scene in Diary of the Dead where the kids in the film crew were robbed by a group of soldiers and these soldiers (or what’s left of them) are the new stars of this latest entity of this still existing franchise. There is also a small island off of Delaware that has 2 old Irish families as its leaders (on some Hatfield and McCoy’s type stuff) that the residents have completely parted ways due to the issue that some want to try to keep the dead there and make them perform duties that would suit them (um slaves George? Seriously?). Then the rest of the island natives want to kill off all the dead and keep the virus out of their land. Of course the smartest decision (to kill all the zombies) gets cast aside and they exile the Captain O’Flynn from the island that he called home because they did not agree with his slaughter them first ask questions later tactics. This is a zombie world, and I don’t know about you but I would have been right on the boat with Flynn, I slaughter first that’s why I have over an 80% percent chance of surviving a zombie attack, but that’s for another time. Anyway, the soldiers are doing what they can do to survive and I’ll be honest with you for the first couple parts of this movie I had no problem. I thought it started off with a lot of potential it was way more aggressive in the first 10 minutes than the whole film of Diary, and yes the zombies were moving slow just like they were supposed too. One of the beautiful aspects of all prior to Land of and even Land of to some extent (though I will never agree with you guys that that is a good film) is that Romero always gave you enough of the characters in the film that you related to them. They became your neighbor, you police officer, your butcher at the deli, daughter etc. He always did a good job of making the common folk the hero and staying very political on his distrust and views on our government and military forces. In this film, just like diary the characters really don’t matter except for the O’Flynns and Muldoon who bring the movie to their home for the conclusion.

Now I know there were a lot of problems with this film as the soldiers found a way to get to the island through various hicks and a spotty internet reception. They also come upon an abandoned armored car that has over a million dollars in it. After some maneuvering around the last of the dead at a nearby dock, in which one of the soldiers swims to retrieve a ferry and decides to bite off the finger of the contaminated that is reaching for him under water (like we don’t know what happens from here) they make it to the island to find weird things going on. I know you hated the zombie on the horse but if you have been followings Romero’s films religiously (like most of you) then you would understand since Day of the Dead (my personal favorite) Romero has always been showing an evolution of the creatures. Whether it’s shooting guns, coming to the mall, or riding horses Romero has shown us that no matter how carnal and primal we as humans become familiarity is a trip we can’t get rid of in this narcissistic lifestyle we have created for ourselves. So let the dead zombie ride her horse and shut up. The only part of interest in this section of the film is when Muldoon has a theory that they could stop the dead from eating humans and have them eat others things like horses, pigs, you know all the things they ate when they were alive. It seems as if it’s a failed experiment and the clash between Flynn and the soldiers against Muldoon escalates to a magnitude where I swear there were guns fight scenes that had zombies walking right behind the shooters and not attacking? Then it just got out of hand with all the remaining zombies on the island getting set free and of course the over used and abused by Romero himself person on the grown being pulled apart by multiple zombies scene is there and by the conclusion of the film I start to wonder if this movie was supposed to be a comedy that fell flat.

I’m sorry folks but with all the fast zombie movies and virus quarantine type things out there unfortunately I don’t see any need for Romero to be in the genre anymore. He reinvented and put a stamp on it that no one will ever be able to take away from him. Seriously though George I think it’s time to call it a day. I’ll be a fan forever of you and your franchise but it’s time to step out of the zombie movies if you do anything else in horror. I know you can and I’ll be waiting and so will everyone else! Wait for this on Sci Fy 31 days of Halloween, it will be on there I promise!

5/10

The Zombie Diaries Review

 

 

 

The Zombie Diaries Review

Reviewed by Nyquill of The Gutter

 

So it looks like Dimension Extreme Films deiced there can be more money made off the the George Romero flick Diary of The Dead. How you ask? By making the same exact film as he did and just switching it up a bit. Showing it from all these different angles and things. Wow extraordinary! What I don’t get is how these films just continually get crapped out one by one and I think out of all the Dimensions Extreme Films produced so far, only “Machine Girl” and “Inside” have sparked my fancy. But oh well let me give you the crappy details of a movie that was actually better than Romero’s flick.

Now it’s been done from film to film. Blair witch to Cloverfield, REC to Diary, and in the film you get more of the same. Yes I’m talking about the tiresome real camera feel. Look if I wanted to see movies in this way. I would get a camera of my own and go terrorize a couple catholic schools. Believe me it would be a lot scarier then some of this stuff that comes out. So it’s future time blah, blah, blah, and there are some blokes kicking about London trying to make a documentary. The Documentary is about a unknown virus that is spreading from town to town. It has flu like symptoms except for one thing. It kills people! As our young filmmakers are sorting out key evidence about the virus there are news reports that the virus has spread completely throughout England and there are strange things happening with the bodies. Our filmmakers arrive at an old town that was labeled as hit by the virus and they soon notice the town is deserted. Of course they have car troubles which leaves them stranded in the town. Once the sun goes down they have some unexpected visitors that look dead but are not acting that way.

The second segment shoots to a group that survived the first wave of attacks from the zombies. They are traveling out of the city towards the hills looking for small towns to scavenge for food now. It’s one month later and the zombies have taken over all of Great Britain. There is also a group living in an abandoned barn surviving as well hunting zombies and scouting for ways out. The characters are all very strange and similar to Cloverfield you get just enough back story to either like em or hate em. There is one guy who you will hate for sure. Once you see what he does it will make you despise him even more.

Just like Diary I was not overwhelmed by this film because it constantly moved towards nothing and granted the guy I was mentioning above Is a sick character , It was not an ending that made me stand up and say wow! I just don’ understand how you can make a movie about zombies and not make them the central part of the films. How about some one make a film about a zombie with a camera attached to it and the call that the Zombie’s Diary while he was dead or some shit. I don’t know. The film has too little scenes of destruction by the Zombies. I’m just dying to see that film that shows end of the world possibilities with zombies for real, not this made up melodrama shit. It’s out on DVD so go peep it.

5/10

 

Quarantine Review

Quarantine Review

Reviewed by Nyquill of The Gutter

 

Shaky camera shaky camera is all I’ve been hearing for the past couple days. Finally I got to experience it for myself. I never saw the original film Rec, but I hear it was pretty damn good. Usually when an American company takes on a foreign film they go over board and focus more on big blockbuster effects then keeping the true nature of the story. One of the reasons I was anxious to see Quarantine was because when you think of the premise, a TV reporter follows local firefighters for the night and they go to an apartment building filled with zombies, really how far can you stray from that? The movie stars the sister of Dexter miss exorcism of Emily Rose herself Jennifer Carpenter, who I didn’t know is actually dating the guy that plays Dexter on the show. Anyway Eli Roth’s buddy Jay Hernandez is in the film, and he is one of the firefighters she is following and it just seems to be a routine call until they get there. Supposedly there is an old lady that screamed from her apartment and all the neighbors (rightfully so) are concerned. There is a lot of commotion at the building and when they get to the apartment the lady seems disoriented and foaming at the mouth. After repeated attempts to get information from her she attacks one of the police officers. Then all hell breaks loose as everyone freaks out and one by one tenants start showing signs of a sickness that’s looks very familiar. Lets just say if you ever find out you have it you get a bunch of shots to the stomach. The plot thickens, as it seems as if they have locked the doors from the outside and they are not letting anyone in or out. Not one time during the film was I worrying about character development or acting issues I think everyone did a great job in the film. The whole time you are watching the film you believe that you are the camera man which is far different from a movie like Cloverfield or Blair Witch that screams for you to tell them to put the damn camera down so we can see what the fuck is going on. Not to take anything away from 1-18-08 but these guys did a better job of making you feel like you are there. Let me tell you this, be lucky you were not because everything goes to shit once this bitten bodies decide to get up and come after you. Very entertaining and there is a scene that would make anyone jump out there seat. The gore is there, the jump scenes are there and since they can’t leave the building you know the body count is there. Movies like this are intense because it scares you that with the world we live in nowadays some of this shit may one day happened. Just make sure you live in a house instead of an apartment building! Go see it.

7/10

 

Diary of The Dead Review

Diary of the Dead Review

 Reviewed by Nyquill of The Gutter

 

So here it is finally my netflix video arrived in my mailbox and I understood where my 14.00 a month was going to. It was going to my trust in the horror movie genre that 1 day there will be a shot of glimmering light that would restore the underground love of the zombie culture. To be honest in this review would be vain. To lie in this review would be a travesty. So I’m just going to give it to you uncut and raw. This movie is fucking horrible. I read all the reviews saying there were two sided opinions on if the movie was artistic or bad. I would agree with the ladder. There was no art involved in this at all.

           The story follows a group of college kids who are filming a ridiculous scary movie when there is an outbreak of zombie attacks in the area. They decide to flee back to campus so they can contact their loves ones but on of the guys (the star of course) goes back to his house and invites them all. They say no except for the slut and move on. They go to hop in the trailer and along the way they run into some zombies. Now let me stop there. The reason is because they only manage to have about 100 zombies total in the flick. I guess budget purposes? Did they even do a casting call for the movie? I mean if you film a movie in PA and it’s about zombies, it seems as if the whole fucking state would show up to be in the film. I mean this was filmed in the same area where they broke the Guinness book of world records for their annual zombie walk. Oh well maybe they thought a complete take over of Zombies in the world could be shown with a few zombies, I beg to differ.  So our heroes stop at a hospital because one of their friends decides to blow her head off in the name of the lord, but of course they cannot let her die because if she does then she becomes part of the undead. So of course she does and someone else in their clan gets bitten, only a matter of time before he turns too and they must dispose of him also. They meet up with some revolutionaries it gets more boring and less scarier they see more zombies and they end up at the house of the guy that left them. They have a couple scenes that are descent like a farmhouse part with a Amish man and another scene at home for one of the stars that goes very wrong. It’s sad but this movie really didn’t have chance from the start and never got any better. I would have to say in my own words that George may want to give it up. Why not do a Masters of Horror for us, shit they could have achieved all they wanted to in this film in 1 hour. But they waste almost 2 on this one. So I leave you all with the idea that the genre may be done in regards to zombies. With the zombie’s strippers and British rage zombies and all we see now, I don’t think there will ever be another movie that even George Romero himself could live up to. Oh well it was a good run while it lasted. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ended up being a cult phenomenon but it shouldn’t. Rent it if you please and watch Land of the Dead afterwards because it would even make that movie better.

4/10