Aaah! Zombies!!

I found Wasting Away on the shelves of Fopp recently after its Region 2 release here in the UK. I didn't buy it the first time I saw it because I find myself in a permanent state of skintness and therefore have difficulty justifying buying DVDs. However, packaging can be a powerful thing and the DVD cover for 'Wasting Away' looked great, had an intriguing synopsis and some positive reviews, so finally after watching the trailer (and, admittedly, after checking to see if the film was available online, which it wasn't) I bought it on DVD for a very reasonable £10, which is still the most I've spent on a DVD for about 2 years.

To cut to the chase it was worth every penny, and probably more. This is an independent film from California, with a fairly low budget of $1m, but it's nearly impossibly to tell this from the finished product, which is bright, ballsy and polished. Presumably the filmmakers must have had to cut corners to keep within their meagre budget but it's hard to see where they did so and this look of the film easily competes with higher-budget studio fare.

'Wasting Away' fits neatly into the "romzomcom" genre pioneered by 'Shaun of the Dead', but I hasten to add that 'Wasting Away' is not 'Shaun of the Dead', and is not trying to be. Four twenty-somethings spending time in the bowling alley where Tim (Michael Terry) works are unfortunate enough to eat soft-serve ice-cream composed of beer and the toxic waste from a military experiment gone wrong, subsequently die, and wake up as zombies. Except they don't know it. Their confusion is quickly compounded by an encounter with Nick Steele (Colby French), who has also been zombified but insists that they have all been transformed into 'supersoldiers' whilst everyone else in the city has been infected by an inferior brand of the same chemical (in fact, no one else has been affected).

Director Matthew Kohnen bravely tackles the zombie perspective and all the problems that come along with it (sample problem: if living human beings see zombies, as slow, lurching and groaning, how do zombies see us?) and clearly has a lot of fun doing so. The plot races along fast enough that the audience is never bored, but well-paced enough that we have time to get to know the characters and meditate on the ridiculous situation they are in. The dialogue is rife with humour and the actors sell it perfectly. Honourable mentions should go to Colby French, whose hard-nosed, sincere performance as "black ops" soldier Nick Steele is played straight rather than camped up and wouldn't be out of place in any Romero zombie film, and Matthew Davis, who delivers every line handled too him perfectly and never fails to bring the humour out of it.

Before I get too carried away I should point out that this film isn't perfect. At times it is laugh-out loud funny but at others the humour falls flat, or is just a little bit lame. Also, while the acting is mainly strong, particularly in French and Davis' performances, in other places it is weak or wooden. Some of the plot points feel a little contrived and the humour is occasionally too juvenile to be genuinely funny. But at the end of the day, these flaws are not only eclipsed by the positives, they even add to the film somewhat, making it more likable because of its imperfections.

This is a strong directorial debut from Matthew Kohnen, a filmmaker whose other credits seem to mainly consist of clerical or technical jobs, and I will certainly be looking out for more of his work. 'Wasting Away' stands out amidst the boggy mire that is modern horror cinema, a diamond in the mud of tired remakes and boring sequels that is all Hollywood seems capable of producing. It's refreshing, original, gleefully gross and most of all, it's fun. It's fun to watch and it looks like it was fun to make. The only thing that particularly disappoints me is the marketing failure. As far as I'm aware, 'Wasting Away' did not get a theatrical release over here and were it not for Fopp and their avid promotion of smaller independent films I would probably ever have heard of it. So watch it, enjoy it, and pass it on to ensure it gets the recognition it deserves.

I leave you with a quote from the film's theme song, which pretty much says it all: "You know your day will suck when the dead start walking the streets, And their only source of nourishment is Human meat."

All I can say is, wow. Caught this after wading through a slew of basic slasher/spooky ghost stuff at Screamfest, films basically like any of 20 others that I have in my personal collection. Didn't have much expectation going in to this, since there hasn't been a 'new' zombie movie in a while. 'Diary of the Dead' was cool, but Romero basically falls back on the same old stuff, nothing new there. It took me a bit in the beginning to warm to this film, since I came in looking for straight horror, and it's not really horror, it's a comedy, that has horror roots. Guess that's why they took it in Screamfest. That, and it's a damn good film. And there were some slow moments where I wanted they to get past the 'feelings' and get onto the action/comedy. But when I let them work on me, they were great, and I laughed even during the 'slow' stuff. Basically, it's just freakin' funny, and a totally different thing. Glad I saw it, it's the kind of thing that might be too unique and cool for the Studios. Their loss...

Turning the zombie film on its head, this film is an oddball comedy from the perspective of the brain munching monsters themselves.

Beware of people posting raves. They worked on the film. You can tell who they are because they only have ONE review posted.

That said, this is actually a really good humorous zombie flick. It's well acted and has a really good mix between horror action and comedy.

I'd recommend you give it a try. It's well written too. The switcheroo is the zombies all think they are normal and when they talk to each other, they see each other as normal but those who aren't infected see them for what they really are. And it provides a lot of humor.

I've watched a huge number of films, including a zombie theme, including those that show the other side - the story from zombie side, not people side. And this is, in fact, a great idea, since there are few such films and the story is not boring yet. But this film did everything to ruin a great idea and make it not at all interesting to watch: too lurid performance, seasoned with flat humor in almost all scenes, which were supposed to be funny. As a result, we have a third-rate comedy about zombies, with killed potential.

A military experiment goes awry when a strength-enhancing serum turns test subjects into flesh-eating zombies instead of super-soldiers.

Oh no!

The rest of the serum, shipped in 55-gallon drums, is accidentally unleashed upon the local populace. Due to some unknown X-factor, the contaminant turns four unsuspecting young people into invincible mega-humans, while transforming others into shambling undead.

In WASTING AWAY (aka: AAAH! ZOMBIES!), it's all a matter of perspective, since we're shown a reality through the eyes of the zombie hordes. They are the ones caught up in a bewildering chaos, not understanding the "plague" of crazed maniacs around them. From their point of view, they're "normal" and everyone else has gone berserk!

While this works fairly well most of the time, it does get pretty silly. It also feels padded out. It could have been cut down to about 20-30 minutes in length and made into a glorious short film or horror anthology segment.

As it stands, it's still worth checking out...