No.305 : Wyrmwood : Road of the Dead (2014)

Wyrmwood : Road of the Dead at the IMDb

‘Wormwood’ comes from the book of revelations in The Bible and is a star or an angel. I don’t know why they have the spelling ‘Wyrmwood’ here or even what it has to do with anything. I guess it’s just an ‘end of days’ type of thing.

This is an Australian effort that tries to add a few new twists to the zombie movie - ridiculous twists that don’t make a lick of sense, but twists all the same.

The film opens with three men in leftover costumes from Mad Max 2 running from a garage and taking on a horde of zombies. They attach chains to a truck and wheel it back indoors as they dispatch a lot of zombies in a fashion that says ‘we’ve paid for this head exploding software and we’re going to use it’!

We don’t really know what’s going on but don’t worry - it’s one of those films that start in the middle and then go back to the start. The three men, now without their helmets, discuss how they got to be where they are. The first chap who is an Aborigine, tells of seeing loads of shooting stars before his brother turned flesh eater. He shoots his legs off but he keeps on coming so he finishes him off.

Another chaps says he doesn’t have a story as he had just killed his wife and child with a nail gun. We then get a long flashback with him trying to escape the madness with his wife and child before he, you’ve guessed, kills them with a nail gun.

The guys go full ‘Scrapheap Challenge’ on the truck and soon it’s a vehicular death mobile, complete with a harpoon gun that was just lying around.

Elsewhere three ladies are having a photo shoot which involves one wearing skeleton makeup - how prophetic of them! Two go full zombie and the other has to take refuge before being rescued by the military. It’s not much of a rescue however, as they turn her over to a bad actor mad scientist who injects her with zombie blood. The science, as it is, has determined that only people with O negative blood are immune to the zombie virus. It’s not made overly clear but I think the injections are to see where the tipping point is. I could tell them that - 3pm on ITV, weekdays.

Our original heroes set off to save the girl, who is one of their sisters. What follows are endless zombie kills and the deaths of most of our heroes. Who will survive and will the zombie plague be halted?

This was an alright film which has little to set it apart from its many contemporaries. As often happens a few unique properties to the plague are added to differentiate the film from the rest. Here it is that the zombie blood is flammable, so much so that you can use it to power your car, which is handy given that petrol is now inert. There was no science behind this and I’m glad they didn’t try. It did allow for a couple of gory deaths including one chap who was left with a delicious looking tandoori face.

I wasn’t invested in any of the characters and the non-linear narrative jumped around so much that I stopped bothering to keep up. The zombies were the white faced with bloody clothes type and, to be fair, the make up was good as were the many splattery kills. The tone seemed to shift regularly with pain and anguish followed by slapstick and comedy. At one point a bitten chap asks for the medical box and opens it to reveal two bottles of beer. Oh those Aussies!

There wasn’t much of a story to speak of and the majority of the film was spent putting our characters in place and then bringing them together. The end revelations were extra daft and no attempt was made to explain the crisis or solutions offered to halt it. I guess if you sign up for all of the standard zombie tropes and some above average kills you won’t go away disappointed.

Best Bit : Family Day Out  ‘W’ Rating : 14/23

No.243 : World War Dead : The Rise of the Fallen (2015)

World War Dead : The Rise of the Fallen at the IMDb

Towards the end of this British ‘found footage’ horror one of the soon to be scoffed characters does an earnest piece to camera. “This is the craziest shit I’ve ever experienced” he says. Well, he’s half right - it certainly was shit!

Of course, with a title like this one you can’t expect much and it certainly delivers nothing at all, except for a series of predictable jerky encounters with some out of focus and anachronistic solder zombies.

Still I’m getting ahead of myself - let’s do the plot - that should cover a sentence! The film opens with some captions and stock footage about the Battle of the Somme - neat way to pad the already skinny 75 minute run time. We learn that a distinguished documentary film maker (who seemingly works out of a Transit van with a bunch of amateurs) has gone missing and what follows is cut from footage that was later found. So far so very predictable.

The characters have none to speak of and they all bitch about each other and argue pointlessly to either build up the tension or to disguise the fact that there is no script and that the zombie extras have only been paid for 20 minutes. The shoot is interrupted when mysterious figures appear in the background and a ‘French’ passer-by advises that it is ‘tres dangerous’ to be in the area.

There are plenty of false starts before the expert starts pulling on a chain that was next to a lake. This reveals a skeleton which belongs to a soldier from an African regiment who practiced bringing the dead back to life. He has a handy amulet in his stomach which the expert pockets, oblivious to its deadly powers! In no time flat the crew is besieged by resurrected soldiers from the Somme battlefield who strangely seem to be wearing World War 2 uniforms. They also have a taste for flesh which is unexplained apart from that’s what zombies do, I guess.

Some of the cast get chomped and another lot find an abandoned, but curiously well stocked, bunker and plot their salvation. Some handy 100 year old dynamite may help their fight and if they can rebury the skeleton (which wasn’t buried in the first place), maybe the dead will rest again. Can’t fault logic like that!

This was a shocker of a film and in no way is that a compliment. For starters I’ll bet the whole thing was filmed in England with one stuck on number plate and a dreadful ‘local’ the only nods to the actual location of the Somme battlefield. To be fair there is no way rubbish like this would get permission to film there, and if that’s the case you have to wonder about the inclusion of old footage of real and dead soldiers from the time. Regular readers will know PC isn’t my thing but real dead soldiers being used to set the scene for this tosh was plain disrespectful.

The acting was ghastly, as was the script which I don’t doubt was improvised throughout. The jerky cameras were vomit inducing and the added crackles and interference offered only annoyance, not authenticity. Very little was done in the was of explaining the zombies’ motivation or the fact that after 100 years the only decay they exhibited was that pasty face make up that students do at Halloween.

The only scares were of the usual ‘jump out’ variety allied to a screech on the soundtrack which wore thin the first time, never mind the fifth.

OK it’s hokey garbage with no pretense at great art or even competent movie making, but this was an embarrassment to all concerned not to mention an affront to common decency in general.

Best Bit - Head gets pulled off
‘W’ Rating 3/23

No.208 : World War Z (2013)

World War Z at the IMDb

 
Zombie films are just like the walking corpses they portray - no matter how many you put down plenty more spring up to mine the last few morsels of original concept from the genre.

‘World War Z’ isn’t anything original apart from it having Brad Pitt in the lead and a budget greater than all the Romeros put together.

Brad plays a family man who has retired from his covert military job. He’s on holiday in Glasgow, sorry Philadelphia, when all sorts of trouble kicks off. It’s not immediately apparent what’s happening and I quite liked the confusing reveal of events as that’s how it’d play if you were in that situation. Anyway Brad and family steal an RV and head away from the troubles only to find that the unrest is nationwide.

He gets called up by his former bosses to lead a taskforce to identify and cure the virus that has caused large sections of the population to turn into fast moving and homicidal zombies. He gets a young scientist to help as well as a team of gun totting marines. Alas it goes tits up early on when his genius falls at the first hurdle and none of the answers are found in the chaos that is now Korea.

Not to be disheartened Brad follows some thin leads to Israel where advance warning of the plague allowed them to build a big wall to keep the zombies out - that’ll work. With destruction in his wake Brad heads to Wales where he’s unlikely to cause any noticeable damage. Once there he and Malcolm Tucker try to find a cure that will save humanity.

I thought this was going to be a total turkey and only watched to see what the set dressed Glasgow would look like but it turned out to be half decent. Glasgow only figures in the first five minutes and it was a bit jarring to see George Square next to establishing shots of the Philadelphia skyline - I guess the audiences in Arkansas wouldn't be similarly disturbed though! The action was pretty good with the carnage in George Square only marginally worse than that on a regular Saturday night.

Brad’s family, who figure significantly in the first half hour, are quickly sidelined and that has to be a positive given he has a plain wife and two stage school kids. Once Brad starts trotting the globe the action hots up with the scenes in Jerusalem particularly impressive with the CGI zombies a million times better than those in ‘I am Legend’. It is quite lucky that Brad manages to survive several moments where all around him were killed, including a decent jumbo jet crash - still if I was paying him $20 million I’d look after him too!

The last scenes in the lab are somewhat drawn out and the solution seems a bit pat and ridiculous at the same time. Is the curse worse than the disease - very probably!

Over all the film did feel a bit padded and somewhat disjointed - the three acts were almost like snippets from separate films and although I know the source book was in a diary style it was somewhat uneven. Brad does his usual solid job but got little support from the rest of the cast who were relative unknowns. The zombies were good in the long shots but up close they didn’t seem to do a lot of damage - maybe the blood was toned down for a more favourable certificate? It’s certainly a film you won’t hate but it won’t be toppling the ‘28’ films from the top of the pile either - no matter how many zombies swarm over it.

Best Bit - Gonna Need a Bigger Wall   16/23

No.200 : World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries 2 (2011)

World of the Dead at the IMDb

 If you thought 2011’s ‘The Zombie Diaries’ was terrible you should see the sequel, or rather you shouldn’t.

In truth it’s not much of a sequel more of a similar premise that they’ve tacked on to the original to give it brand recognition. They’ve also shamefully used the ‘…of the Dead’ title format to suggest it may be an offspring of ‘Dawn’, ‘Day’ or ‘Land’. Of course it isn’t, a fact that is clear from the off with a terrible scene of a family holed up in their house that was taken lock and stock from ‘28 Weeks Later’. In this version a family are having a birthday party for their daughter. The man reminds the woman that they can’t go out due to the infection warning. Literally a minute later he hears something outside and he, soon followed by the wife, head out into the dark to have a look. The whole event is recorded on a shaky camcorder and ends abruptly as a predictable zombie appears.

We then cut to another camcorder - authentic = cheap! - as a solider says they found the tape of the birthday party massacre and are now making their own so ‘people know’. I doubt people are interested as a bunch of poorly drilled squaddies talk in clichés and try to look tough. Their base is secure but someone leaves the gate open and several zombies saunter in. Despite their fire power they soon give the order to ‘Fall Back’ which is heard relentlessly throughout the film. The soldiers take a civilian lady with them, who seems disturbed and a poor collection of hardware that looks like it was raided from a toy box.

The team start heading to the coast where they have heard that boats out of Britain are leaving for Holland. Britain has seemingly got the worst of the outbreak and they’ll be safe in Europe. I guess no one told them the title! As the crew continue their journey we jump to footage of men in haz-mat suits burning bodies and, tearfully, a child’s doll. We see these guys a lot and we are seemingly meant to wonder who they are. The big reveal that they are actually the only people they could be will surprise you not at all.

Our squad soon encounter another group of survivors, but these are nasty people who abuse the zombies - sometimes by dry humping them! They have a couple of encounters including a needlessly graphic one where a special needs man is egged on to rape and then murder a female soldier. I imagine the idea is to show that people are worse than zombies but it just seemed like a tacky way to get some blood and breasts on screen.

As our heroes head towards Hopes Point we all hope it ends soon, but there are two big surprises in store. Actually there are none - only that this tosh managed to secure a release.

To be fair the film didn’t promise much. There is not one familiar face on show and the whole thing is short in a field and a barn with a camcorder. OK it may be a film school project with delusions of grandeur but how can they justify dialogue like “It’s Quiet”, “Yeah, too quiet” and “Something doesn’t feel right”. They should have set it on a dark and stormy night and be done with it!

The zombies were of the slow moving ilk and for the most part looked like pale students dripping taco sauce from their mouths. The kills were the usual mix of screams and spaghetti being pulled from their trousers. There was no attempt at characterisation and the acting was dreadful. It looked like you’d get a starring role if you supplied your own ketchup.

Overall this was a squalid unlikable film with austerity budget visuals and a script that was as interesting and innovating as Dan Brown’s recycling bin. In the worst scene a leering fool, looking at a bound and topless woman, says “ I spy something beginning with ‘T’” - if you answered ‘Terrible film’ you’d get the prize!

Best Bit : Mmmm Low rent chase through field of zombies?  ‘W’ Score 3/23

No.193 : Warm Bodies (2013)

Warm Bodies at the IMDb

Bloody zombie films - there’s none for five minutes and then another twenty appear on the horizon. They multiply like, well, zombies. The trouble with this crowded genre is that you have to position your zombie film so that it sits apart from all the rest of the zombie films and that means you have to spend time explaining your rules and zombie conditions.

‘Warm Bodies’ predictably has the world overrun by zombies but these are special zombies - they have an inner monologue! We meet up with a Zombie Nicholas Hoult (him off ‘About a Boy’) as he talks us through his day of shambling around an airport with  the rest of his horde. He laments the loss of his humanity but does have a friend in the shape of  Rob Corddry who memorably had bum wiping issues in a ‘Harold and Kumar’ film.

We also learn that our zombies are nice zombies and that there are nasty zombies out there called ‘Bonies’, who have shed all traces of humanity and become CGI instead. Meanwhile a human settlement is planning a supply run with leader John Malkovich reluctant to send his daughter Teresa Palmer along - good call John, she got into bother in recent ‘W’ outing ‘Wish You Were Here’. Of course she goes along and her group encounters that of our zombies who quickly rip the humans to bits - apart from Teresa to whom Nicholas takes a shine.

Strangely she plays along and soon the pair are holed up in an old plane and getting to know each other through records and pop culture. Initially Teresa, who is called ‘Julie’, is just playing along with our zombie who gives his name as ‘Rrrrrr’ - Romeo and Juliet - geddit? - but soon she sees some spark of humanity in his zombified face.

The two soon have a rare old time driving cars and learning to talk, but their friendship hasn’t escaped the attention of the Bonies who, quite correctly, feel humans are there to be eaten, not socialised with. The pair are eventually split up and Julie returns to the compound but, not to be denied, Rrrrrr rounds up his pals and heads to the human camp - with the Bonies in hot pursuit. Will true love prevail and may this signal an end to human/zombie hostilities?

This was an enjoyable film but it wasn’t distinctive enough to set it apart from the rest of this cluttered genre. Fair enough it has some original ideas such as the slow journey back to humanity and the Bonies but for the most part the clichés were clear and present. Some of the gags such as the driving sequence and Julie overacting as she pretended to be a zombie offered small smiles but nothing more. Given they were going for the romantic angle the kills were toned down with only the Bonies offering any real menace.

In its favour it was a good looking production with a strong cast. I’m just not sure I want my zombies rehabilitated however, and soon as the die was cast I knew where the film was ending up. The film had a lot to like, but like its zombies it was barely showing a pulse in many places and exhibited more than a little decay around the script and plot.

Best Bit  : Bonies showdown.   W Rating 15/23

No.173 : War of the Dead (2011)

War of the Dead at the IMDb

When the two most recognisable faces in a production are refugees from ‘The Bill’ you could be forgiven for assuming the result may not be at the high end of the quality scale. We at the ‘W’ blog would never make such an assumption, and will scrutinise each detail closely before declaring the film ‘shit‘.

Well it is. The IMDb summary suggests it was filmed in 2008 but hung about like a rotting zombie for two years before being excreted by the studio. Should they have bothered? Let’s see…

The film is set in the Second World War. We get the unsettling camera and industrial lighting that screams either disorientation or ‘we can’t afford a tripod’. A group of Russian soldiers are being led down a corridor in an underground base. There is a confusing bit of gunplay but eventually one Russian makes it to the door where he is met by some men in lab coats. Maybe they had arrived to cart the producer off in a small white van - it isn’t clear.

Anyway, they hook the Russian up to some apparatus and after a while his eyes go black, which signifies they found the contact lenses in time. We then cut to a caption - everything on a caption must be true - which states the Germans are doing experiments on Russians to stop death or something and Finnish and American soldiers are charged with having a look. It’s not clear why the Americans are involved but I’m guessing they had the uniforms and the guy from ‘The Bill’ couldn’t do a Finnish accent.

The unit makes its way towards the not so secret bunker and encounters some heavy resistance. This cuts the bill for extras drastically and we are left with half a dozen or so soldiers against the Nazi/Commie zombie army. The guys make some headway and capture a young Russian in a World war One trench set that they forgot to clear away after another, probably better, film was shot.

The Russian tells them some exposition stuff and they get to a small cottage that has a convenient big car - right in the woods too - fancy that. Anyway lots of zombified troops appear. I say lots, but it’s about 5. Luckily they don’t stay dead so they keep popping up which saves on extras and on continuity as they don’t have to worry about where the bodies should be. After a few skirmishes the guys make good use of the props budget and drive about in the big car for a while as some zombies jump on and off it. It literally travels at 5mph and one guys says ‘my granny could walk faster than this’ - quite.

Things progress slowly but after a fallen comrade reappears as a zombie and they discover the old ‘headshot’ rule the guys finally arrive at the bunker. Can they stop the source and waste the stockpile of the Nazi zombies? Will there be enough time for some noble sacrifice and heartbreaking loss? Can those same five extras get up once more before the CGI planes begin their bombing run? Of course they can!

I can safely say that you’d be hard pushed to find a worse film than ‘War of the Dead’ even in the cluttered zombie genre. Of course every cliché is carefully mined and exploited, you expect that, but this effort goes the extra mile in terms of hammy acting and stilted dialogue.

These failures can be forgiven if you get some kick ass action, but alas no - these must be the bluntest toothed zombies ever - but at least they are persistent, those uniforms must have looked like sieves by the time they were returned to the costumers.

The dreadful acting was cringeworthy stuff with the ‘American’ the worst of a terrible pile. Every face was a grimace and every line spat out like he had piles. The villains, as they were, were poor with some proto-Nemesises ripped straight off from ‘Resident Evil’ the only splash of colour. They were rubbish too - who ever heard of a super powered zombie losing a fist fight?

Even the basics like the uniforms and gun drills were shoddy- I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure you don’t fire a sub-machine gun holding the magazine, side on, gangsta style.

Anyway to split hairs is to suggest that the film may have treaded a line between piss-poor and passable but it didn’t, it was crap.

THE Tag Line - This Film is Rubbish, This Much is True  7/23