MadS (2024) by David Moreau


Director: David Moreau
Year: 2024
Country: France
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Zombie

Plot:
After picking up a strange woman, a man begins to descend into a bizarre psychotic degeneration after being bitten by her while on the trip and tries to resolve everything himself, eventually causing him and his friends to be infected with a zombie virus that spreads throughout the city.

Review:

This was a solid enough if overall flawed genre effort. One of the main positives to this one is the sense of manic chaos and confusion that occurs during the film as it starts to introduce what’s going on. The manic start with the discovery and removal of the strange woman and how that sets everything off for him brings about a wild start that continues on with how his friends try to take him out to the party while he’s still battling the effects of everything while being unsure of what’s going on. The laser scenes involving the strange figures hunting him and tracking him down bring about all sorts of frantic confrontations with the authorities hunting her down and managing to get him and some of his friends involved which causes things to spiral out of control to an alarming degree as this goes along. Featuring some great action, tons of gore, and some surprising setups as a result of the frantic scenario presented here, this has a lot to like about it and helps to hold up a lot of what’s going on in this one.

That said, there are some issues with this one. Among its biggest drawbacks is the usual sense of moronic behavior that drives everything forward as it all could’ve been avoided had there been some intelligence behind their actions. With this one going through an admittedly clever excuse by making his drug-addled brain not that comprehensive about everything happening around him, the fact that there are quite a few instances of his reluctance to do anything about what happened during the night makes this more infuriating than anything. After meeting the strange girl and noticing her behavior, the need to visit a hospital that he was on the way to during the situation is completely ignored after being bitten which should exacerbate the situation more than anything. The whole partying and drug-fueled lifestyle that goes on here is another big part of that, being so clueless and blind to the situation that their friend is facing that it makes their blindness to what’s going on feel too contrived than anything else with how this comes about.

Moreso, there’s also the issue of how the film’s one-take filming style is more of a hindrance than anything else that goes on here. The whole concept comes off like a gimmick more than anything after a few minutes with it becoming far too apparent this guy isn’t interesting enough to warrant following in this manner as it just goes off and follows a few random individuals in his circle before someone circling back around to deal with him that never makes it feel like anything more than that initial gimmick. This story would’ve been far more intriguing and worthwhile following him in a regular format rather than doing a single-take uninterrupted format as it goes off on these divergences with his friends rather than following the burgeoning idea of his being infected that this one seems to want to follow. It can’t bring much information to this because of how it’s structured, and it makes the whole concept feel useless, all of which brings this down overall.


Overview: ***/5
A creative if not overly problematic zombie outing, there’s enough to like here overall that it’s somewhat watchable even though there are a lot of issues holding it back. Give It a shot if you’re intrigued by the subject matter or the presentation as well as a fan of the creative crew, while most others out there should heed caution with this one.

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