Director: James Plumb
Year: 2013
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Zombie
Plot:
After a strange disease outbreak, a man races through the countryside trying to return to his loved ones and manages to seek shelter in a remote farmhouse with a family struggling to keep themselves and their loved ones safe from the encroaching zombie hordes trailing them through the area.
Review:
For the most part, this was an absolutely pitiful effort with nothing worthwhile to it. The main problem here is just the fact that nothing outright happens in here, as all we really get are utterly dark and bland sequences of the family sitting around waiting for something to happen, as all they do is simply sit around discussing the events that occur, which is absolutely draining all the way through. From the beginning, this treats the drama at the farmhouse as the more interesting storyline to sit through, with the parents trying to deal with their bitten and turning daughter, the pent-up sister trying to seduce the husband of her pregnant sister, and the pregnant wife trying to go through labor while in the middle of a zombie outbreak which are fine subplots to handle the action in such a film. However, these are placed so front and center that it's so devoid of zombie action that it tries to replicate the format of the original, but it fails on the intriguing subplots part to keep this one interesting.
Even if the film were interesting, though, the cheap production and presentation of everything keep this one down for the most part. That there's barely any zombie action here means the film has to rely on the group staying at the farmhouse for safety, yet there's little about this that evokes any kind of suspenseful attributes with the way it's presented. It's all so simple and cheap-looking in terms of the overall look, especially with the series of utterly ugly filmmaking tactics that are on display, where everything is shot way too dark to make anything out or so out-of-focus that it takes the fun out of the sequences with these unnecessarily blurry sequences of people doing random tasks. Given that the zombie make-up here looks immensely underwhelming with the lack of any real change in their appearance beyond the application of grey splotches and bloodsplatter all across their face to denote the ew bits of gore in here, there are some pretty big issues with this one.
While it’s filled with pretty detrimental flaws, there are some likable elements here. The opening setup within this one manages to be quite fun, getting a solid enough introduction to the chaos within the situation, as the series of early confrontations of him wandering through the countryside trying to stay safe from the slowly dawning fact that it’s a zombie outbreak, before going to the farmhouse, where he meets the family and their issues. Those first few zombie encounters aren’t that bad as he tries to make his way through a grocery store and other encounters out on the highway with the revived bodies coming after him, and set the stage for the great finale when the rescue attempts try to force them to leave the house away from others, featuring some fun scenes trying to outmaneuver through the creatures arriving at the house. Some of it works, but not all of it does, as the lack of gore does hurt it, but it’s one of the few likable factors within here.
Overview: */5
A wholly underwhelming and disappointing take on the formula, there are some pretty detrimental and damaging issues here that overwhelm the few positive points, mostly centered on the few genuine zombie sequences. This ends up leaving the film mostly for hardcore zombie fans or those who are curious about it, while everyone else out there should outright avoid it.
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