Monday, August 31, 2015

Zombie Undead (2010)

Redundantly titled, Zombie Undead starts with chaos in the aftermath of a bomb, which apparently contained a virus that turns those who die into zombies.  After fainting in the hallway as a doctor tries to revive her father, Sarah awakes alone in a hospital room.  Heading into the hallway, she finds it empty and silent. So she shouts, "Hello?" repeatedly, which isn't the best idea since she was aware of the chaos that was taking place.

When a zombie comes shuffling towards her, Sarah screams and falls over, which isn't the best way to deal with any threat, even if it was one as benign as a rambunctious kitten. Lucky for her, a new character arrives to save her from certain death.  But Sarah isn't very quick and doesn't catch on that the herd of shuffling bloody people are going to kill her. So it takes awhile for her to warm up to the new guy.

Sarah and her new friend Jay both have injured family members at the hospital. Jay decides they should search each floor, and once they find their kin, then get the hell out of there. Sarah's brain slowly churns as she wonders which reaction is appropriate at a time like this.  She usually picks the one that makes her completely useless.

They locate a few other survivors, and try to compromise regarding the best survival options.  The group makes some bad decisions because everyone seems to be void of cultural references that would make it possible for them to understand what is going on.  Seriously, why is it that people in zombie movies don't seem to have any point of reference for zombies? Even if you think it's ridiculous that the dead could return to life, at the very least you'd think someone would go, "Hey, this makes no sense, but what's happening totally reminds me of what I've heard about zombies."  Instead Sarah's brain smokes and hiccups as she tries to comprehend what is going on.

This is a low budget outing where the characters aren't that interesting.  Sarah is annoying right from the first scene.  She's whiny and of indeterminate age. Is she thirty or a well preserved fifty?  It's hard to tell.  But she needs to strop drawing on her eyebrows.  When there essentially crayon drawn  eyebrows instead of actual eyebrows,  it just looks very odd.

Sarah's whining at inappropriate times may have been the reason I couldn't understand her when she kept repeating Jays name.  First I thought she called him Jake. A few scenes later, I heard Jerry, and then I heard Jay.  Then it was back to Jake and Jay again.

We are also treated to the horror cliche of a poorly charged flashlight that goes out only when needed. And most confusing of all, the scene where Sarah and Jay run outdoors into an area where it says "No Parking Here" on the wall. Yet Jay says there is no way out. Huh?  If there was no other way out, then why did they paint "No Parking Here" on the walls? It make no sense.


Continuity error:  dead girl with eyeballs looking down...
...and in the long shot her eyeballs are looking up 
ladies and gentlemen, your main characters
consider yourself warned
Sarah wondering if it's time to whine, cry, or just act useless
The confusing No Parking Here sign in the area
which supposedly has no street access
Another inappropriate reaction by Sarah. 
Jay wonders why this is Sarahs response to a zombie attack

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