Ax-London

Rubbish, boring, unfunny... go somewhere else to find a zombie flick Nothing new in this film..literally nothing, I didn't know if it was meant to be a comedy as there were so few gags in the whole film (I'm being over generous there!), the zombie effects were fine but we've seen so much zombie action we need a new take on it.. as I said nothing new here Spoiler Bit There's no chance of spoiling this film as it manages all on it own, but just in case... what was the last scene about.. the speech bit by the new mayor, did we have to listen to that boring speech just in order to see the 'oh so hilarious' kids pictures, 'I miss my dad' with blood spurting out..repeated with arm missing ha ha. 'I hate Arabs' is that funny? Or did we have to listen to the speech so that we get the twist ending that there is no twist ending and the last laugh is on the film makers who got to make us watch this tripe... very poor, can wait, preferably a lifetime, for the sequel

Help me out here, did I watch a different film to everyone else reviewing this? OK so this is a slow speed hunting chase across a desert movie... its got some lovely camera work in places, but to be honest that's about all, you good see Collora getting excited about some of his shots so he either repeats them or just lingers far too long on them... mostly because there's so little content to the film he has to waste time wherever possible. OK so you'll all start harping on about the low budget, yes that's a good excuse for not having lots of sets, effects etc but is it an excuse for making do with such an awful script, the acting is lame but look what they had to work with! In short if this was made as a short 15 minute film then I would have quite enjoyed it, Collora could have shown us all of his talents in that time... and perhaps more seeing as he'd have less film time to spend his budget on and we wouldn't have had to suffer a feature length amount of time.

SPOILER bit The main problem with the film (other than the rubbish listed below) is the fact that you know straight away that this is all you're going to get, once we're down to two guys you realise the film is going to be two guys and a desert, and knowing there's not enough plot to sustain 90 minutes you know you're going to suffer…so I did… all the lovely desert shots, and the huge skeleton and ..erm well that's about it, can't distract from the very poor script and lack of plot

So the Bobba Fet guys are really aliens, ooh we didn't see that coming, OK so we did, but please don't waste our time with the 'stabilizing your system to cope with the atmosphere' business to keep us in suspense... just keep the helmets on because they got handy Heads Up Displays in them. Talking of which why is it that Clea can track our man an give a good display on the HUD until the point when they're close up and then its of no use at all at which point we lose a couple of guys... rubbish.... but then the whole Clea thing is total rubbish anyway... so this I pod thing is really important as it can track stuff, sort out your health etc but it gets carried in a useless belt holder that it keeps falling out of (get a cheap arm band I pod holder from Sardonian EBay my friend) and it comes with a battery life of about a day, despite being the size of a early 90s mobile... get a grip. I don't even want to think about how poor all of the chatting with Clea is, the fact she can detect a spaceship coming into orbit but not sense the prey 100yds away with a sensor stuck in his neck etc etc, and it only appears to work when its plugged in (perhaps the battery is in the back pack and really huge!), but can still administer the health support when its not plugged in (despite needing battery power to do so according to the script)... OK so the technology is flawed, no great shakes but its annoying to be distracted from a film by flaws in the plot..lets move on

So we get to the excitement which is the chase... OK the slow ramble through the desert, yes its hot and rocky and all that but you think we could have seen a little more excitement from the actors, they're meant to be being chased/chasing and they leisurely step between rocks etc... that is until the hunter and prey are both badly injured, each in a leg with an assortment of additional arm/shoulder wounds too... the limp for a little bit, and yes the heat is really bearing down etc but then a couple of minutes (that felt like hours in this film) later they're running around like they've never run before.... rubbish... lets move on

Other stuff that was really rubbish... the hunter finding the tranq dart... its bad enough that he's following a non existent trail without any tracking help anymore, but then to find a little dart amongst the rocks...get real When the prey leaves the hunter alive but poorly tied up (he's no boy scout despite being a hero) he then leaves the gun beside him...what? What the hell....? OK so the reason he did this so the Hunter can then have the Prey lined up in a shot later on... but couldn't Collora have helped him find a rifle elsewhere..perhaps of the rescue guys the prey has just killed... really really lame. ...and the hunter gets told by his nostrilled Captain that the prey is the last of a race that they wiped out, but that's all he's told, when he ends up chatting to the prey (in oh so convenient Space language on the oh so convenient Bluetooth that doesn't need the I Pod to make it work bla bla) he somehow knows he's human... the captain never mentioned it...rubbish All the morality between the two was garbage, I've got a wife and kids, I lied I haven't got a wife and kids, I tricked you, you're rubbish etc... so poorly written its atrocious The list goes on, I've bored you enough, perhaps I'm just trying to get some payback for the boredom I suffered, my apologies, rant over

So where to begin, well the actors were truly hate-able, I hated the English guy the least and he was really bad... so work it out for yourself how bad the other lot were, so perhaps I'm being unfair to the cast, perhaps its just their characters were so hard to sympathise with that I hated them... lets just leave that be. You don't need much of a plot for a zombie-flick as long as we're convinced the world is ending very abruptly with some skin tearing, bone crunching mess... but come on, film students hear radio reports of the dead rising and decide to go on a trip to drop everyone off at their parents, who conveniently all appear to live in a similar direction to Scranton? Its kind of like a less convincing Damnation Alley with a lower tech Landmaster. So that's it, that's the plot, whoops saw a dead looking guy so lets start shooting anything that moves... the realism is lost at the first instance zombs start getting shot, surely these oh so thoughtful college students would try reasoning a little before deciding its fine to kill everything in sight. I've never been in an Apocalyptic situation myself but reckon it would take me more than 3 hours to be truly convinced that the world had ended and it was every man for himself. So then we get to the documentary idea, yes its been done before, but at least try and convince us of your illusion... so why wasn't Jason's film called 'Diary of the Dead' that would have been nice and perhaps dragged us in a little further in, then there's the whole Jason obsessed with filming everything, fine but surely whilst your girlfriend is being attacked by her zombie little brother you would see some sort of reaction but no, Jason is so into his filming he doesn't even flinch and keeps the action perfectly centred, oh and again when Tracy is getting chased around the garden... pathetic... OK so they made a joke of the slow moving zombie thing, all well and good, but how does he lose a screaming girl and her chasing slow moving zombie, only to have them appear right in front of him... come on Romero this is hopeless. So its going to be hard to keep one guy filming everything so we need some help... I know lets just find a video camera in the hospital and one of the other idiots can help heh why not also throw in Jason's camera running out of battery, that not only ties him to a socket in the hospital (ooh the suspense) but also conveniently gets rid of any of our camera charging worries yes he carries the charger with him at all times, Apocalypse or not! OK so now how about throwing in some security camera action... no problem, but we're going to have to show them editing in the footage to make it convincing... oh and we're going to have to show close ups of the cameras to prove they exist.... help I'm being spoon fed this tripe! So the documentary style fails dramatically by taking you further into disbelief. Add to this the constant howlers, ooh the alarm in the house is either 120 or 210, and surprise surprise Debra gets it wrong... Its only 3 digits and you only get one chance at success with the code... hmmm perhaps that's why its wired up to a single circuit with no battery back up to keep the alarm ringing when the power is cut? Not everyone would be infuriated by this (not so) technical detail but it was so unnecessary, why not just leave the alarm ringing through the scene, that might have actually added something! How about an easy one for you goof trivia fans... how many bullets were there in the gun... why should this error ever come up in a film again.... awful although perhaps Jason also carries spare bullets in his pocket with his camera charger? The list goes on and on and on, who saw the guy have the heart attack then let him 'wander off' , why did the warehouse guys give up so much good booty upon the threat of ooh 'we'll just stay here then'...spare me. Lets not even include the deaf Amish guy scene, its not even worth that mention, nor the terrible makeup and lets not even go near that awful commentary that seems to only be used as an excuse to use flashbacks from the nearly all of the rubbish we've already watched. A hideously disguised ploy to cover up the fact that Romero either didn't have enough footage at the cutting table or ran out of money or ideas to film any more. One thing I actually did like, no really, was the zombies in the swimming pool, its always nice to see zombs in impossible situations and in the bottom of the pool was great…. I could have left the cinema at least pondering the fact that the zombs were going to be in there for ever.. but no, Romero allowed us to see one of them climbing out of the pool… oh well So is this the death of zombie flicks? Has Romero proved that all has been done to death as it were? I'd like to think not as I love zombie films, I love imagining that its real and what would I do in that situation, and although Romero ruined any of that belief in this film perhaps he's not entirely to blame, perhaps the rebirth of the zombie film (the rising of the risen dead) has had its hay day and needs to return to lay dormant (dead) for a while until someone can come up with a new twist… but please Romero no more…. And can I have a refund please?

I've seen better things come out of the rear end of a horse... I love rubbish films but this one is so dire its unwatchable. If there's one thing that ruins it is has to be Richard Driscoll, unfortunately seeing as he wrote, directed, produced and starred in the lead role then there's very little without his 'terrible' input. Just watch the extras making of documentary to see how bemused this guy is, does he really believe all of the garbage he spouts? From the look of his body language I should say not. This film is a blatant rip off of Silence of the Lambs/Hannibal without any of their qualities, Driscoll eludes to this briefly by stating he borrowed a few things in a tongue in cheek manner.. hmmm so he borrowed lines (washed down with a glass of chianti etc), sets (eg poorly copied cell scene), plot (well that's a bit rich as the plot of this movie is unintelligible)... oh and to add the final insult, lets not forget, the horrific acting of Lucien Morgan who attempts to copy Anthony Hopkins acting... It was claimed Morgan was a fantastic theatrical actor, well stick to the stage mate. My only hope is that the fact Driscoll has not been able to finance the sequel (was it a trilogy he claimed?), and has thankfully been off the scene for a long time, means he's realised he has no ability at any of his 'talents'... perhaps, hopefully, he and the Kannibal sound producer are still arguing, at the bottom of a very deep bottle of whisky, over why their talents have not been recognised. It would be sad to note that the highlight of Driscoll's career is the lowlight of everyone else's opinion, however he's not even charismatic enough to warrant ones pity. Its a shame on today's society that such deluded people are allowed to roam so freely.

I would love to say this was the worst movie I've ever seen but I love 'Worst movie' movies, this is just rubbish. There should have been plenty of scope for something good to come out of a dwarf Southern vampire biker flick even if it was only made for $500... but there really isn't anything redeeming about the film. I can only imagine the $500 was due to the 'Sword' containing the blood of the last tall vampire (or whatever they were on about in that Southern dwarf droll). Not that the sword cost $500, but the guy must have lost $500 out of his back pocket on the way back from the toy shop where he bought the 'Sword'.... either that or the particularly gay looking African American Dwarf Biker Homie vampire borrowed the cash to go and get himself a slightly more hetro looking Dwarf Biker vampire outfit to replace his white vest and pants! The film is just dull from start to finish, boring, poorly shot, immensely poor acting, script..erm..was there one? If you live in the town that gave up a weekend to film this rot then it might be fun to see but then you'd probably already be a member of the HMD trike and Rod Riders of Belton and have seen the premiere during a club meet! OK so I wouldn't normally insult a biker gang but really... they couldn't even be bothered to turn up wearing a 25c pair of plastic fangs each.. and if that's them looking menacing then I'll worry more about the local church coming round for donations!

To sum it up this isn't the worst film ever made as candidates for that have some kudos by being so rubbish. This will just make you tired, I've given it three to try and keep the thing out of site of true bottom of the pile hunters!

Now don't get me wrong I love bad movies... no I adore bad movies, Troll 2.... ouch painful, Manos The Hands of Fate... just watch Torgo go, Guru the Mad Monk.. is that traffic noise in the medieval background? OK so that's clear, but this is one of those films that was quite obviously trying to be something better, but didn't make it. Why not? Well it would be easy to blame the plot, but heh we've seen worse, there weren't too many holes and heh I know there's not a lot of originality in it but then that needn't kill a film. The effects aren't bad (if you completely ignore the last scene), the monster is OK, the truck quite menacing so where did it go wrong? Well I'd love to blame it on the 'Chris Moyles' look-a-like Harley... so I will! Comedy and horror are difficult to mix well, bad comedy and horror even worse and there's the problem. I loathed this guy from the moment he stuck his head up (literally), the continual bating of the overly meek Adam becomes annoying, so annoying that you lose belief that the mildest of people wouldn't react by pushing him out of the moving car door... and I thought it was the monster bits that the director was meant to have trouble convincing us of. Why are bad movies fun? Well you have great fun poking holes in them, laughing at the script, all the howlers etc. This film doesn't make the coveted category of 'Worst Movies' because its just bad due to being annoying nuff said. Don't bother, go watch anything else and you'll be a better person for it... I promise! (Fade to chants of Torgo Torgo Torgo)