State of Emergency (2011)

Directed by: Turner Clay


Writer: Turner Clay

People turning into bloodthirsty monsters because of a toxin of some kind? A small group of isolated survivors fights to stay alive? Count me in! When done right (such as here), this type of movies always brings joy to my heart.

First of all, a small technical matter: I think correct terminology is very important, so it always pisses me off when people talk about 28 Days Later or [REC] or some similar movie and call the creatures that appear there zombies. Those are NOT zombies! Zombies are living dead. Those are not dead, they are just infected and very angry. Basically, you have zombies (which themselves can be divided into two groups - Romero style zombies and fast running zombies, like in the Dawn of the Dead remake) and creatures like in 28 Days Later, which we will call infected. State of Emergency deals with this latter group.

The setting is rather minimalistic, both character-wise and location-wise. There are only four principal characters and two locations. Our lead hero is Jim, a guy who has just lost his fiancee while they were on the run from the chaos. He barricades himself in a barn, where he spends his time in sorrow and anxiety until he receives a call from a nearby warehouse. He goes there and meets another three survivors - Scott, his wife Julie, and a mysterious newcomer Ix, who refuses to talk to anyone (that's a girl, by the way).

Two most important things here are the following: 1) For an infection movie, this one has a rather small body count. Surprisingly small, in fact. Actually, it's so small that the fact they managed to get away with it is a small miracle. Turner Clay has concentrated more on the lead characters and their relationships and while that normally makes me puke, he succeeds against all odds because the characters are likeable, they don't spend every damn second fighting about some stupid crap (like in most low-budget films) and the actors did a very good job, all of them. Of course, the writing isn't always top notch, with lines like

"I lost my only friend."

"Maybe we can be friends."

I mean come on! REALLY???

Fortunately, this is probably the only moment that made me cringe, other than that the dialogues are OK.

2) This movie is much better directed than your run-of-the-mill zombie/infected film. So much better, in fact, that I'm eagerly awaiting Turner Clay's next movie about apocalypse. Instead of violence, he builds a nice atmosphere of isolation and hopelessness, which of course wouldn't have been worth crap if the characters weren't so believable. There are also some great scenes that would've made any great horror director proud. For example, check out the 15 minute mark, when Jim finds out that he had forgotten to lock the barn - suddenly his safe place becomes potentionally lethal. Suspense at its finest.

The ending leaves a lot of room for improvement, but despite that this is highly recommended for anyone who likes low budget horror films, especially of this type.

Blood Rush (2012)

Directed by: Evan Marlowe

Writer: Kerry Finlayson

This is simply unwatchable. I don't remember seeing something so profoundly devoid of any talent in a long time. Recently I was very critical of Mr. Hush but compared to Blood Rush, that one looks like The Godfather. Cheap photography, stupid characters, actors that look like they had just failed the audition for a porno movie, horrible special effects... actually, speaking of porno, this entire movie looks like a horror setup for a hardcore scene that never comes.

 

In between the periods when my brain's defense mechanisms took me far away, to a beautiful land where I'm tied to a chair and forced to listen the water dripping, I was able to make out a story about some kind of infection spreading through a small town, but that's really completely unimportant when you're faced with the horrors of filmmaking at its absolutely lowest. This tries to be some kind of horror comedy, with "humor" that's obviously inspired by the Japanese authors like Yoshihiro Nishimura (for example, the gag where we follow the POV of a flying shovel), but they only manage to rip off the cheap special effects, while completely missing the spirit of those gags.

 

After all, see this trailer and decide if this is your cup of tea. As for me, I implore Marlowe and Finlayson never to make another movie. Ever. Please.

 

 

The Demented (2013)

Directed by: Christopher Roosevelt

Writer: Christopher Roosevelt

Last night some of my friends and I were choosing which horror movie to watch. So I'm browsing through my catalogue (I'm using EMDB by the way, wonderful stuff, highly recommended) and I stumble upon this thing. So I start reading the plot outline aloud: "Six college friends..." and I'm immediately interrupted by an unanimous "That's it! We're watching it!"

 

Of course, a movie about six college friends is hardly going to deliver any surprises. These guys (and girls) get together for a weekend, but their amazing fun is interrupted first by a scary-looking and aggressive dog and then by a news of a mysterious attack. It appears to be a biological attack of some sort and people are turned into bloodthirsty homicidal maniacs. Led by a dumb as a doorknob white guy, our group of heroes begins an unlikely fight for survival.

 

The most important mistake made by the author of this movie is that there are no zombies and apparently no contagion. The infected are aiming to kill rather than to infect the survivors, which is really disappointing. We all know that in movies like this the main source of tension is the moment when you're supposed to shoot your dead girlfriend who's attacking you. The Demented has no such moments. Speaking of the infected, one cool thing about them is that they stand completely frozen and only move (i.e. attack) when they're awaken by noise. However, the director completely missed this great opportunity. The attacks are not all that exciting and there are no scenes of women taking off their tops and tying them around their shoes to make less noise. Oh well, I guess I'll have to put that in my screenplay.

 

The beginning of the movie is dedicated to... ahem... some kind of "character" "development". And it's really boring. The aforementioned white guy loves his girlfriend to death, but she feels she's being smothered by his love. Of course, she doesn't tell that to him, but to her best friend. The same guy professes great friendship to some black guy. The host of the party is an irritating moron who cheated on his girlfriend with the girlfriend of that black guy. She finds out about that and gets really pissed off. The girlfriend of our (seemingly) main hero had already told her earlier that she was skeptical about their relationship. And so on. Yet only one of these relations has any consequence on the future proceedings. Talk about wasted time.

 

And their weekend also sucks ass and is actually improved by the appearance of that rabid dog. First they talk about how great it's going to be, the time of their lives, blah blah blah, turns out they spend their time sliding down the grass and shooting one another with water guns. Wow! Massive respect! I must say I support the absence of drugs and heavy drinking, but they could've at least had an orgy or something. All in all, this is not entirely unwatchable, but there are many, many much better low budget movies with similar story.

Infected (2013)

Directed by: Glenn Ciano

Writers: Glenn Ciano, Robert Rotondo, Jr.

Obviously, with a title such as this one, there can be little doubt about what's going to be "happening" in the movie - i.e. yet another story about zombies that aren't actually zombies, because they're not dead, they're just... infected (insert some scary music). But does that make them any less dangerous? Hell, no! In fact, thanks to not being zombies, they can move fast, and they can also talk a bit, providing them with an occasional opportunity to fool someone and eat them.

 

Glenn Ciano (the guy who directed Incubus with Robert Englund, which I haven't seen, and after seeing this one I'll be sure to keep not seeing it for as long as possible) came up with a story about... hold on a second, did I say story? I apologize, there's none here. Just some people being killed and then the movie ends. But what serves as a great testimony to Glenn Ciano's writing and directing skills is the fact that the movie, despite being virtually plotless, manages to be more confusing than Primer and Southland Tales combined. There are some people there. Who are they? We have absolutely no idea. What do they do? Some of them seem to know each other. What is their relation? What are those other people? How do they know the main characters? Why did they come there? No clue. Where the hell is that place anyway? Sorry, no answer.

 

The ever decreasing collection of "normal" people is led by Michael Madsen and William Forsythe. I had absolutely no idea their careers have sunk so low. I could have perhaps expected Lance Henriksen, but those two? Hardly. Anyway, Madsen's voice over opens the movie by solemnly declaring that "the world has changed", to which I thought "Bitch, please, if you now tell me that you can feel it in the water, I'm gonna track you down and kill you!". Then they show us some cabin in the woods where Madsen and some other people are horribly upset about some creatures trying to break in and eat them. We then go back twelve months to find out what had happened earlier and discover that nothing actually happened.

 

Another hilarious feature here is the passage of time - everything seems to take place in a very short time span, like two or three days. But then you suddenly find yourself watching that scene from the very beginning and realize that actually a whole year has passed (and I'm not even sure Michael Madsen ever changed his shirt during that time). Time flies when you're having fun, right?

 

Is there a saving grace here, perhaps? Probably no. There's no nudity by any of the major female characters, some of the killings are watchable I guess, but that's hardly a consolation when absolutely nothing works in the movie. There's just one absolutely hilarious scene - Michael Madsen's pregnant wife locates a little girl whose father is turning into one of those things. She takes her away to protect her, but the father wants her back and starts a really tear jerking monologue of the "I am perfectly OK, please bring me back my daughter!" sort. The catch is - every once in a while he stops, looks to the side and lets out such a hideous monstrous growl that has to be heard to be believed. And after that, he continues with his talk pretending that nothing happened. The (probably unintentional) hilarity of this scene is far beyond the rest of the movie.