The Vanguard

I've seen The Vanguard at the BIFFF in Brussels. A got drawn by the Poster 'refreshing, will leave you craving for more' Yeah Right. This film is extremely low budget (there's nothing wrong with low budget films if they're well made, but this one obviously is not) and has the look and feel of a student's project. The idea is OK, but the horror in this is totally absent. THere's no gore either. The one scene where blood splatters out of a guy's chest, it's so fake it's not even funny. The plot is full of holes and doesn't work up to a climax. There's only a flat line. The zombies are unconvincing and confused: do they attack you always, or just when they feel like it? The playground is a field and a couple of hundred square meters of wood. The characters only run around in the wood and go nowhere (just like the plot). This film is a total waste of your precious and expensive time. If you want to see zombies, go see Romero's latest: Diary of the Dead, at least that one is well executed.

Before I add my comments, please read below and see how the first person to review this film felt about it.

Author: malvolio-5 I saw a preview of this and it is without a doubt one of the most spectacularly invigorating and exciting movies I've had the pleasure of seeing in years! It has cult classic written all over it! It's an unashamedly violent, rough, gory, terrifying thrill-ride. With bold, exciting direction and some of the scariest most menacingly dynamic "zombies" ever committed to celluloid, this makes 28 Days Later and I Am Legend look like The Teletubbies. The lead protagonist, Max, sets a new template for proper, masculine heroes that have been sorely lacking from Hollywood movies since the '70s, and I guarantee his "look" is set to become truly iconic. Do yourself a favour and seek this movie out! It simply kicks ass!.

OK, Now my comments.

I have no vested interest in this film, and my comments I think will be endorsed by far more people than will say "they are rubbish" The storyline has been used a hundred times before, and often far better. The cinematography, which completely over-uses filters, is dreadful, The Cameraman either has Parkinsons disease, or was drunk. The main actor, if he is to become Iconic!, will have to find another way, because this isn't it. (People with Parkinsons disease, that was not meant to make fun of your condition.) I don't often comment on movies, but I do try to take the things written about the movie seriously, hoping to make an informed judgement whether to watch or not, but after reading the comments above, well, I just had to write.

I love Science fiction, it is without a doubt my favourite genre, and will often find some good in bad films, but this is dire.

When I read the above review, I wanted to believe it, but come on, either the guy is heavily involved with the film, or he his just having a laugh.

People will still watch it no matter what is said, and thats great we all have a choice, in fact I encourage you to watch it, simply to show that my comments are honest and truthful, unlike some.

I myself am English, this is a British film, and I wanted to so much show the world yet again that we can produce good quality work on a limited budget, and we can, but not with this.

Trust me the film is bad, way too bad to be released, but it will, and you will watch, and? well hopefully you will comment, and your comments will be heard, preventing anything as awful as this ever being shown again, but then again I'm an optimist, well for 90 minutes I wasn't, but am recovering now.

I'm all for people trying something different with the zombie/infected movie, UNLESS it's at the expense of all that is enjoyable about the genre. The Vanguard attempts a vaguely art-house approach, with a contemplative mood, introspective narrative, a degree of quirkiness, and an attempt at social commentary about racism, but offers none of the stuff that usually makes these kind of films fun: gore, excitement, scares, and more gore.

The Vanguard does have a couple of good basic ideas: they're the same ones used for I Am Legend and 28 Days Later, only here they are completely wasted by film-makers with no idea how to turn them into an entertaining movie. The acting is mediocre, the action is dull, the splatter is restricted to some arterial spray (some of it crap CGI), the characters are irritating, and the 'zombies' are very disappointing, loping along like apes, growling like lions, and sporting naff zebra stripes drawn on with face-paint (I realise they're supposed to be like animals, but this is too silly for words).

Somehow, this film garnered some decent comments from Fangoria and Gorezone (who are proudly quoted on the DVD cover), and was selected for the Dead by Dawn horror festival; I'm not quite sure how that happened, but take it from me (and the majority here on IMDb who have voiced their opinion)—The Vanguard sucks, even rivalling The Zombie Diaries for the title of worst British zombie film.

Plot: The Earth is overrun by zombie-like people that reacted badly to medicine administered (or something like that, I can't remember and didn't understand at the time either), one guy runs around Versus style chopping heads and mashing zombies, and apparently his blood holds the key to saving humanity, so he and a few other over-actors try to reach safety to fix the world.

Budget: About $8.50.

What was so horribly wrong then Smart-Guy? To start with the zombies ran just like either gorillas from the Planet of the Apes remake, or the crawlers from The Descent, take your pick. They have little or no makeup aside from messy hair and they snarl a bit to appear scary.

They do the whole "run past the Hero so that he can hit you with the hatchet in a theatrical manner". If he didn't hit them they would simply run straight past with no effect. What kind of attack is that? The acting is abysmal, point blank. I am no master of acting talent, but these guys just suck. The plot is a rip of several other better films, only this movie looks like a student film.

Final Rating – 3.5 / 10. Redefines low budget crap.

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What more is there to say..? This film sucks! Everything is bad; the acting, directing, the filming and the effects. The DVD-cover was attracting, but the film was rubbish!

A friend of mine bought the film for 4 dollars, and we thought that this would be THAT good film because of the cover, as I mentioned earlier. It started as a pretty bad film, and transformed into something more worse as the time went. So, after watching it, I will not hesitate to put it on the list of the worst films I have seen in my life. And for those who say that it could have been worse: It could not have been worse!