Director: April Mullen
Year: 2012
Country: Canada
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Zombie; Horror/Comedy
Plot:
After accidentally unleashing a strange curse, a group of friends find their small college town overrun by a swarm of vicious, demon-possessed zombies and must try to fend off the creatures before the true nature of the curse reveals itself threatening all of humanity.
Review:
This was a surprising amount of fun and really had a lot of great points about it. One of the best points of this one is that it manages to introduce a rather novel concept here for not only getting the group set up but also unleashing the curse. The opening here going around offering a fine introduction to their plight while in college offering up the trouble with their classes and assignments while also looking to continue engaging in clandestine romantic engagements serves as a great way to get to know who they are. This works well enough as a lighter teen-comedy to then introduce the horror in the form of the possession angle by featuring the curse causing everyone around them to commit suicide before becoming among the horde of ravenous undead. Also, it changes around several big cues in their behavior according to this new concept of fueling their ranks which makes for a pretty fun time throughout as this manages a few pretty original and rather inventive concepts. These not only give the film a rather nice amount of action throughout but also give some rather impressive comedic chops here that are wholly welcome in this so it's got a rather funny air about it at times.
Even without the comedy, though, there's enough action here to be truly enjoyable and still maintains that kind of silly tone to where the jokes and physical humor can work with the more serious themes which is well handled with the ability to keep the creatures as threats throughout so they're still something to be feared instead of a joke that doesn't warrant the kind of extreme behavior they undergo in trying to keep themselves out of harm's way. These are generally quite fun with the first scenes involving the group discovering the curse has taken place with encounters involving the friends at the football game, the realization that the mother has been caught up in everything, and a confrontation while trying to escape in a motorhome out of the city. Given that these manage to mix together a kind of comedic failing-upwards slacker mentality consistent with the tone and rest of the action featured but also keep them still keeps things interesting as the quest-like storyline structure to find a curse makes everything feel tense throughout, these all go a long way to make the film effective.
For all the fun it has, there are still some problems with this one. The main drawback to the film is the fact that this features the utterly annoying trope of having the finale make everything completely useless and renders the film a complete wash. It had already done fine with the original ending presented here, yet the fact that it adds on another makes for quite a frustrating ending since it comes off as a total cliché on its own right before the fact that it tacks on needless bits on the running time. Also, some of the jokes and attempts at re-writing the zombie rule book that it presents here do cause this to come off as a little amateurish when it really shouldn't be, not offering enough to make the changes worthwhile, and getting in select humor that might not appeal to all. These here aren't up to really knock off the positives so it makes for a rather fun time all around.
Overview: ***.5/5
A surprisingly fun take on the zombie film, this one manages to be quite likable with quite a lot to like and only a few minor drawbacks which are not too detrimental overall. Those who are fans of this style of genre fare or are big aficionados of this kind of zombie effort will want to give it a shot while most others out there should heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment