Director: Andreas Lutzelschwab
Year: 2014
Country: Germany
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Zombie
Plot:
With a massive viral outbreak striking the world, a man enters a hospital looking for his pregnant wife only to find it overrun by the deformed zombies of a deranged mad scientist looking to institute a new world order through the virus implanted in the creatures and forces him to battle the creatures to save her.
Review:
This was an incredibly enjoyable effort. The film’s at it’s best when it delves into the non-stop action and over-the-top gore which is nearly constant throughout here. With the premise set up like a video-game where the constant need to move forward and meeting up with new foes creates a breakneck pace to the film, and that leads into numerous encounters with the zombies and other deformed creatures at play inside the hospital. The sweeping camera movements to denote the weaponry being utilized in each of the confrontations here add to the unease experienced walking down the hallways waiting for the various encounters to strike generates far more suspense as well as action.
Due to this setup, the film’s continuous encounters provide all sorts of fine gore and bloodshed. Whacking them over the heads with chain-mail fists, hammers or close-range gunshots leaving massive entry wounds offers up plenty of fine bloodshed here, much like the decayed and deformed look of the zombies. They look quite disgusting with the wrinkled skin, monstrous fangs and ferocious movements which manage to create a nice imposing group of villains to get through, and when added to the other kills here involving ripping out intestines to strangle people, sliced at with cleavers or brutalized with crowbars manages to bring out some fine make-up and gore-gags.
As well, the film scores quite a lot with it’s absurdly cheesy and fun setup. The video-game footage in the beginning detailing the origins of the infection and how to spot the symptoms offers a goofy introduction to things, and the start-up to the mission playing out like a video-game is quite hilarious as the notion of treating each level of the hospital like a video-game creates plenty of silly moments within the straightforward storyline. Added to this cheese are the hilarious one-liners and move-quotes used to explain the fun he’s having during the various encounters that provide some chuckles here and there, this one features a lot of rather enjoyable and likable elements.
There are a few minor flaws featured here. The main problem is the utterly unbelievable manner of this one using the letters and notes left behind to denote storyline beats and points that flesh out what’s going on. This is a necessary factor of saying what’s going on but these are so clumsily inserted into the film as he finds them at just the right moments to give him the next clues to complete a mission and just feel so awkward and unnatural as if anyone would leave such evidence laying around the hospital for anyone to find. Some of the game-play simulations look incredibly shoddy, which is to be expected for this type of film but there’s no excuse for the switchover to actual video-game style for the massive swarm of zombies being gunned down which is a huge cheat. These are what hold this one down the most.
Overview: ****/5
Despite some hiccups here and there, the fact that there’s quite a lot to like here with the general style and action present here that it’s enough to hold off those few issues that some might not even have much of an issue with anyway. Give this one a look if the concept is intriguing or looking for more of an action-oriented horror effort while those that are turned off by this low-budget style of film or turned off by the flaws should heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment