Among the Living

While watching a decidedly low-budget film, I often ask myself why the filmmaker's chose to devote time and money to making it. Was the story so compelling to them that they felt it must be told? Did they believe they'd make a killer sale to Netflix? Or did they receive a government grant that needed to be spent?

It's hard to say what motivated the team behind this film to undertake this talky, static production that barely qualifies as a zombie entry. It features an ineffectual and deceitful sod wandering around the countryside supposedly looking after his sister as he tries to find their father. Along the way they meet some other folks, have long conversations, drink beer - or get smacked about.

You meet a few "infected", but this is mostly a film about hiking and camping, punctuated by gabby intermissions and the main character - the author of his own misfortune - weeping at his self-inflicted fate.

With surprisingly few edits, this could be sold as stock footage of the English countryside.

I happened to stumble upon the 2022 horror drama "Among the Living" by random blind luck. And with it being a movie that I hadn't already seen, and it sounded like a zombie movie of sorts from the synopsis, of course I had to sit down and watch watch writer and director Rob Worsey had to offer.

"Among the Living" is not an archetypical zombie movie. No, it is more of an infected human type of movie, though there is no explaination given to the infection, the cause of it, or how it started. So in that aspect writer and director Rob Worsey followed the blueprint of most zombie movies.

The storyline in "Among the Living" was adequate. Sure, it was a watchable movie, but the storyline was a little bit too uneventful for my liking. There was a whole lot of just milling about without anything much exciting happening throughout the majority of the movie. And it was a shame, because that approach to the narrative was sort of holding the movie back.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in "Among the Living", but they had gotten a handful of interesting and talented actors and actresses together for the movie. Dean Michael Gregory (playing Harry) and George Newton (playing Karl) really carried the movie quite well with their performances.

Visually then "Among the Living" was okay. It is not a movie that makes use of an excessive amount of blood, visceral gore and mayhem like many other zombie movies. So if you're expecting a zombie movie with special effects rivaling "The Walking Dead", you'll be sorely disappointed. The make-up was adequate for the infected beings that were in the movie, though the black shark-like eyes made no sense. It looked cool, but it made no sense. Nor did the growling sound that no human throat is capable of producing make any sense. Or the fact that the infected could smell blood from a long distance, much akin to the ability of a shark sensing blood in the water.

"Among the Living" made for an adequate, albeit something bland, viewing experience. It definitely had its moments, but the overall impression after having sat through 85 minutes is that of it being a somewhat mediocre movie.

My rating of "Among the Living" lands on a five out of ten stars.

There some iconic scenes in zombie movies - 'Dawn of the Dead's' shopping mall full of staggering corpses, Cillian Murphy wandering round an empty London, Rick on horseback riding down a deserted freeway towards a desolated city. All of these work well because they're all normal settings we're all used to, only turned on their head so that they're absolutely horrific.

Now we come to 'Among the Living.' Have you ever walked through a wood and thought, 'This is like a zombie apocalypse!' Probably not. Because you can walk through a wood right now and it would be like you're on the set of this movie.

Yes, there are some nice landscape shots of the British countryside, but the budget (or lack of) prevents the story from ever becoming anything truly terrifying. It's about a man and a younger girl (brother and sister - presumably to move away from the far more famous plotline of 'Last of Us' travelling across the countryside in order to reach their family.

It tries to ramp up the tension when a zombie appears (and there's rarely more than a single ghoul on screen at one time) by dramatic music, but not enough happens to justify the score. Plus the zombies operate on weird rules. Maybe I missed a single line of dialogue where zombies are afraid of light, because everyone seems fine with shining torches in the dark and even creating pretty light shows with lanterns without fear of getting eaten. Plus the undead seem to operate on random rules. Are they totally braindead, existing purely on instinct? Or do they retain some form of human logic? Sometimes they act like mindless beasts, other times they'll stalk and hunt their victims - mainly on what the plot dictates at the time.

There's long periods of talking where not much happens, but then that could be a good thing as the actors are hardly top quality and don't get me started on the two child actors. I know it's difficult for kids to act sometimes, so many films don't rely on them too much. This one did - and it probably shouldn't have. Then the adult actors play characters who aren't that likeable in the first place.

Overall, there are so many zombie films and TV shows there are dozens that are better. This one might have been more novel if it came along almost twenty years ago. Now it's a dime a dozen. There was a nice scene midway through with some decent dramatic tension when someone had been bitten was trying to find a 'way out,' but apart from that there really isn't much here to recommend.

This film is worth the watch if:

• You enjoy watching low budget films
• You're open to a blend of genres (drama on a horror back drop)
• You like a slow burn

Among The Living includes thought provoking moments and steers away from stereotypes - this is not your typical horror zombie movie.

The film showcases some amazing locations, which contrasts the grim reality of living and surviving in a world in crisis. This film brings an element of social realism to the horror genre that isn't often seen.

Although this film doesn't include loads of gore or zombie action, it presents the realistic threat of other humans.

When the world falls apart, be thankful you aren't in the UK. Harry is quite possibly the worst survivalist in all of Europe. He's weaponless the entire film, and bloody useless. He screws over the only decent guy that previously helped him. Way to go Harry, you're a dick.

His little sister pretty much whines the whole time and contributes nothing to their survival. She wanders off constantly and is about as useful as a football bat.

If anyone deserves to get killed and eaten, it's these two sods. They wander around with such lackadaisical attitudes, it's like they are begging to killed.

You're injured, stop make your wound open up

Some of the scenes honestly make no logical sense at all. Middle of the night, some girl tries to get in their tent.

Apparently, European tents are impossible to breach, because Harry pushes her out, closes the zipper, and that's, that! She disappears, and later some Zombie tries to get in, but I guess, he can't break the forcefield.

The whole story is dull and interesting, save the beautiful countryside.

Hard pass.