Humans vs Zombies

After getting the opportunity to watch this movie I decided to write my very first review on IMDb. Not because I found the movie to be exceptional in itself but because the previous reviews puts the movie in an unfair light.

Mostly it's about expectations, if you watch it expecting some multi billion $ academy award winning production you will be disappointed but if you watch it expecting the kind of movie you often get when you watch a movie that has a 3 star average on IMDb you will have a much better experience. I was expecting a 3.

Humans Versus Zombies is not the best zombie movie ever but it's also not the worst movie ever made, it's actually pretty average, or at least not much worse (I watch anything with zombies in it, at least once, so I've seen a lot of really bad zombie movies..this is not one of them). The script is decent which in zombie land means that someone actually made an effort here, it's coherent enough to not be intrusive but it wont win any awards. Pretty much everything used in the movie is in the range of below average to average, the script, the acting, the effects, etc.

Don't let "average" discourage you from giving HVZ a chance though, this is one of the movies where the cast and crew makes good enough use of what they have to make you wonder what they could have done if given a larger budget to work with. There are people involved here that know what they are doing, making a movie with average tools often yields a terrible result but here they've done a much better job than you might expect.

Most of the acting is in the range of average to slightly above average, very little of it is actually bad (there's a few of the supporting actors and a few scenes where the acting is... less than stellar, but most of it is OK). Dora Madison Burge's (Tommi, the gamer girl) performance in some scenes was definitely above average and Brad (Chip Joslin) was hands down my favorite character who if this had been a big budget Hollywood version definitely would have been played by Jack Black (not that Chip did a bad job, on the contrary, Brad wouldn't have sucked if Chip hadn't played the character the way he did).

The effects were so so but they too were used effectively (ie with moderation, no long scenes zooming in on fake looking zombies or gore), there was some obvious CGI used in a scene (I wasn't looking for CGI so there may have been more that I didn't pay attention to but if so, good job then.) but it made sense where it was used and the scenes were shot in a way that made it not matter whether you'd notice the CGI or not (ie, this movie obviously is not a made for TV SyFy movie...SyFy shouldn't be allowed to use CGI at all, ever.).

If you watch the movie with reasonable expectations you'll most likely enjoy it. It's not Shaun of the Dead so don't expect it to be, it's not Resident Evil so don't expect that either. Expect an entertaining zombie movie that is far from perfect but also could be much much worse.

Speaking of SyFy, the previous zombie movie I watched was Zombie Apocalypse, a SyFy original! Humans Versus Zombies is a much better movie.

It takes a lot for me to not allow a movie to finish so I know what the ending is like. I even finished "2012:Ice Age" and that has got to be one of the most ridiculous movies I have ever seen or reviewed.

Now before anyone says that I don't get the genre, I love "The Walking Dead" and have seen almost all the zombie apocalypse movies out there but this one was just...BAD.

The plot was err...lame, although with some creative writing it could have been made into something.

The dialogue for this must have been written by an eight year old because in reality, my cat could craft better dialogue. Now that doesn't mean that all good movies have great dialogue because there are some out there with very cheesy dialogue, but with a good actor or actress it can be delivered very powerfully.

Unfortunately for this movie, only one of the actors appeared to have actually studied the craft. I think the casting interview consisted of one question, "Hey, want to be in a zombie movie?" I place this movie into the category of: "There are some thing we just wish we had never seen."

Another ruinous no-budget zombie flick that helps to drive this particular sub-genre further into the ground. HUMANS VS ZOMBIES is apparently based on a live-action roleplaying game of the same name, one that's popular in colleges across the USA. As a film, it's entirely devoid of wit, intelligence, and merit.

A toxic leak at a chemical plant results in a zombie epidemic and some geeky roleplaying kids are the only ones who have a chance to fight back. That's the extent of the storyline, and for the rest of the running time we get stuck with a group of annoying teenage characters as they outrun zombies over and over again.

There are the requisite shoddy gore effects, crowds of bloody zombies, and low rent action, and all of it is captured by a director barely capable of shooting a watchable film. In the end, though, it's the poor quality script - one which is entirely derivative of pretty much every zombie flick that's come before - which scuppers this mess of a movie.

It's not a bad film.

It's definitely not a good film.

The acting is so so.

The effects are alright.

The story is okay.

But if next-doors dog doesn't require you pushing back in its piles, then this is a pleasant way to spend am hour & twenty minutes.

This is such a mind numbingly terrible movie I was at a loss of words, years from now there will be contests held to see how long you can sit through it. Terribly shot, with mediocre acting at best, it chooses to saturate itself with internet jokes and watered down video game references instead of developing a plot or believable characters. The pacing is all wrong, and the failed "action" scenes left much more to be desired.

It actually appalled me how little they put into their characters, it seemed that with so much useless dialogue clogging the scenes of the movie, you'd be able to at least personalize one character, sadly this wasn't the case. HVZ is a terrible movie that isn't worth the 103 minutes it took from me, avoid it if you can.