DustyReels

I'd been going through a number of horror titles from 2012 on my favorite film site & quite honestly, a lot of them were not just bad, but sad as well.

There were some that had competent acting, directing, scenery & sometimes a combination of all three (very few times) but failed to deliver the story well enough to make it interesting. Now while some of the acting here is definitely low tier, I wouldn't necessarily call it "incompetent." While no one in this film was cheated out of an Oscar for their performance, it can also be said that none of he actors were deserving of membership in the "Bad Actor's Guild of America" either.

The two main leads in this movie deliver their characters in a relatively credible, albeit (at least initially) more subtle & lowkey than might be given by more seasoned veterans, in the first act, but once the threat becomes more actualized they do both hit their marks.

Without including spoilers, two obvious topics/scenes that are included in this film which are almost always avoided in the more vanilla zombie stories (& will disturb some people) contribute to giving this film more grit & credibility & sets a tone (as well as closes it) to the level of barbarity that a reconstruction of "civilization" would likely bring.

There's a decent story here about hope & starting again that doesn't defy credibility, or come off as cliché despite the Zombie aspect.

Like many watchers/writers & readers here, I've seen all manner of gore, ghouls, undead & even real life brutalization that often makes me callous to seeing the same thing over & over again, but this film kept my attention from beginning to end.

After adding this to my film watching history I have no regrets about viewing this movie & I think most who aren't expecting a Lucio Fulci, or George Romero tier knockoff, won't regret it either.

"In a land ravaged by the undead, Ben and Mickey must learn to survive each other." This is the tagline of the film, but it's pretty much the warning to the viewer; if these two two dimensional characters can't bear one another, how is it we as the viewer are supposed to endure them for almost an hour & forty-five minutes!?

There are one, or two very very brief moments that might have you chuckling, but they are as few and far between in this film as the zombies, who make remarkably infrequent appearances despite supposedly raveging the Earth.

This is a movie that should be reserved for viewing by those who are imprisoned & convicted of only the most heinous crimes.

If you want to slow time down to a literal "crawl" (& NOT in a good way) & feel like you've been cheated, then this is the film for you.

Nice country scenery & perhaps music (for the less discriminating listener), but a "plot" that, like the pair we are subjected to watch, goes nowhere.

Maybe this could've been done better by a more capable director, writers, actors, etc. But watching grass grow will offer more entertainment than this.