Romero had exactly two good zombie movies in him. Unfortunately, this was not one of them.


Georgie shot his wad early, on his first two undead flicks (he had some other, non-zombie, movies between the first two Dead pix...including an OJ Simpson documentary, "Juice on the Loose," but they are of little consequence). "Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead" set the standard for all brain-eating movies that came after, and still hold up, even after cultural memory of them has been scarred by remakes (several by Romero himself, who should have known better).

And that was it. He tried to recapture that sweet vintage in "Day of the Dead," where he added a couple extra shots of interest to the mythos (Do zee-boys retain rudimentary memory? Can they be tamed?), but still fell flat. Then he went back to the well for 2005's stinkerific "Land of the Dead," which should effectively killed his involvement in the franchise ("Mr. Romero? These nice men were sent over by the studio...yes...yes...no...put the camera down, Mr. Romero....it's time for you to stop making zombie movies....").


And yet...and yet....some chucklehead gave him some more money to make this clunker. Or paid him for a half-assed script, anyway. And told him to direct it.

In the vein of all those innovative, cutting-edge horror flicks done in the documentary, first-person sorta way ("Blair Witch," "Cloverdale," "American Movie") this one decides to not be cutting-edge or innovative at all, by lifting that conceit. This could work, as shown in the first five minutes of the film, when a newscrew captures an actual zombie attack after they are sent to cover what they believe to be just another story (ahem...the coming "Quarantine," anyone?)...but it falls apart right in the next scene, when a group of film students, making a horror movie in the woods, becomes the focus of the rest of the story. One of them carries a camera around...yaaaaawnnn....

Whatever. You know it all already.

There are some flat characters, given no life by the trying-too-hard actors giving flat performances (as if Romero, in Director Mode, had them all sit down and watch cliched performances from other films, and said, "Okay-- do THAT"). The makeup is cool, and the gore is nifty...but that's what we expect by now, even from low-budget yokels, much less the master of the form. There are one or two things that are pretty cool ideas we haven't seen before in zombie movies...and I won't spoil those by giving 'em away here...

Really, I have no idea why Romero did this, or why someone let him...other than them both thinking, "Hey, people will see this."

And, of course-- they're right. I did. Other zombie nerds will.

Which means he might make more.


So someone needs to shoot him. In the brain, okay?













If you dug this review, you might like my books, which you can find on Amazon, by typing "Ben Malisow" into the search bar. Enjoy!

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age