Tuesday, September 16, 2008

All Zombie Films Are Not Created Equal

There's a certain type of charm to lots of bad films. There's a certain type of soul that shows that even though the film might not be the best or the brightest, it was still loved and cared for.

Bad films can transcend in ways that well put together soulless pap cannot.

Bad films can be great films.

I've seen quite a few great bad films --Street Trash comes to mind immediately, virtually any Troma film directed by Lloyd Kauffman, John Waters films. These films rise above their humble beginnings to attain something greater.

Then there are the truly soulless abominations of cinema that contain neither soul nor substance. These are the films that look like bad film school projects.

Very rarely do I encounter a film that fails within the first few minutes. Usually if the film fails that spectacularly, something brilliant may follow. Sometimes not so much.

Day of the Dead 2: Contagium is one of those abominations.



I will now summarize the first twenty minutes of the film (the part Roxanne and I watched before shutting it off):

In the late sixties there is a hospital with a mad scientist in it creating zombies from a Russian soldier who is apparently a super-zombie. There is a soldier who steals some of the zombie formula and puts it in his thermos. Then the military rush in and start shooting everyone, including a host of zombies who were apparently running rampant at said military hospital. Dude manages to run away from all the killing with all the subtlety of a GI Joe cartoon. Then he turns into a zombie and they shoot him. During the commotion he drops his zombie-juice filled thermos into the weeds.

Flash forward to the present. The military hospital is now an insane asylum populated by bad actors with little direction. This is the point where the movie becomes a strange combination of attempted Tarantino dialogue and girl interrupted. We have crazy guy in glasses, crazy guy who may be gay, crazy other guy, crazy possibly retarded or just stupid or burned out on drugs black guy, and crazy guy who has visions and has a girlfriend who is a cutter with a friend who wears devil horns.

Hooray!

Didn't even get to the zombies in the present. Could. not. do. it.

There is a making of documentary on this DVD which I feel I must see. I am curious if the makers of the film realize how terrible the film is.

Some directors can overcome horrible acting and bad scripts to make something good.

Very few directors can overcome horrible acting, a bad script, bad editing and horrible direction to make something good.

The worst part is the association that this film had with Romero's Dead films due to the title. That is the saddest thing.

I am now done talking about this movie.

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