Ever After

World premiere at the 43rd Toronto International Film Festival - TIFF18.

This is the second feature film by Swedish director Carolina Hellsgård, working in Germany. The post-apocalyptic zombie setting benefits from some impressive production design and the existentialism embedded adds some layers to the story.

Alright, well I will agree to the fact that "Endzeit" (aka "Ever After") was a different zombie apocalypse movie. But that doesn't necessarily mean it was a good movie.

In fact, the cons severely outweighs the pros for this movie, making it a less than mediocre, if not downright laughable addition to the zombie genre. And I use the term 'zombie genre' lightly here, because the zombie apocalypse was actually nothing more than a mere backdrop in "Endzeit".

I was sorely disappointed with the movie, and I had expected more of a proper zombie movie, but was instead served a movie about a girl's journey of coming to terms with her guilt and thoughts, and coming to accept the death of her younger sister. Zombie movie? Not so much. I think you actually only have zombies in the movie less than 5 minutes combined. So this hardly qualifies as a zombie movie.

Now, I will say that the movie is nicely produced and the production level of the movie is great. But the movie just failed on so many other accounts that it had no chance of being salvaged. I mean, a zombie movie without zombies.

And the zombies that were there were running. Yeah, running, fast and agile zombies - that is not my cup of tea at all. The zombie make-up was adequate, but you shouldn't be getting your hopes up.

Writer Olivia Vieweg and director Carolina Hellsgård tries to pull a vegan and environmentally awareness bag over the head of the viewers. It just didn't work, and it was so tactless. I mean, people and zombies turning into plants, come on... And the ending and what was being said there as the movie ended was just a slap to the face.

My rating of "Endzeit" is three out of ten stars, and that is solely because of the production level and the acting performances. The rest of the movie was questionable and not particularly enjoyable. Actually, the entire movie didn't prove to be particularly entertaining.

If you are looking for a proper zombie movie, then you should find another movie to watch, because this is not going to rock your boat.

Maybe it would make more sense if I were German. But I doubt it very much. Basically a mental, idiotic, entitled and useless young woman is making her way in a Zombie apocalypse. Has some very odd characters like a plant women and plant infested zombies to add to the mess. Skip it. Terrible.

Pout, brood, sulk, zombie, repeat. If you like watching a sad girl wander around the beautiful countryside and occasionally hang out with another sad girl then you will enjoy this movie. The zombies are fast, everything else is in slow motion.

The problem with going back to plant based nature as a solution to human based destruction, is that plant warfare is a thing. So this film suffers from a serious logical fallacy.

The zombie virus is clearly a plant based doomsday device, and plants kill each other all the time, it's not like plant life is any different from that of any other living organism. Plants, fight to death over Earth's limited resources, like any other form of life.

But I get the charm of the concept of an egalitarian mother nature, and the idea of a nurturing female energy. Unfortunately, reality doesn't car what the screenplay writers wish to be the case.

Either way, I love it when art has something to say about existence and human nature, wrong or not. At least "Ever After" tried to participate in an important discussion, so the film isn't a complete failure.