Mark, his girlfriend Amber and daughter Emily are driving home from a week at a cabin when the news reports a nuclear war has begun overseas. In the few minutes they’re listening, it goes from war overseas to martial law in this county to the undead are attacking Washington. There is no explanation of why the dead are rising.
When their car dies, Mark decides they need to hide in a nearby warehouse. They hole up in the basement where they find candles, blankets and emergency supplies. After a few days Amber and Emily want to go out, but Mark says he’ll check to see if there’s any radiation or fall out. Hopefully someone tells him nuclear fall out is radiation and that he’d need more than his eyes to determine if it’s safe out.
Mark meets David who asks for help with his wife and they walk to a nearby building. His wife is already dead. Mark, who did not believe David when he said there were zombies even though the news said the dead had risen, begins to believe when David’s dead wife tries to attack him. A group of survivors show up out of nowhere. Mark assures everyone the building he’s in is safe so they grab the groceries David has and head out.
The villain of the story is revealed when Derek steals a bag of groceries for himself. Later that day he decides to leave and demands food and water (even though David provided it all). After leaving and discovering it’s not safe, he breaks down the door to get back in, thus risking the others lives.
They look for another place to stay, meet another group of survivors while skulking past bikers and find another building. Derek tries to get a bunch of people to steal food and weapons, and leave with him. Although David realizes Derek is a problem, others want to show mercy which is of course their undoing. You never show mercy to the weasel as he’ll get you killed.
The group barricades the staircase to the second floor in the laziest way possible by putting a stack of boxes on the landing and tying a rope around it for support. Why not put two rows of boxes together and more boxes on the stairs? As you’d expect, Derek creeps in at night with his crew and cuts the ropes, thus allowing the zombies up the stairs.
Questions are plentiful:
- How is Mark going to determine if radiation is outside? All he brought from his car was a pillow.
- Why do the dead only rise at night?
- Why were the bikers even in this when they never interacted with the others?
- How did no one die with the generator running inside?
- Where did the extra groceries come from?
- How did the dead get under piles of boxes?
- Why don’t the survivors have the self preservation to close the door?
- Why did the group not safe guard their food and weapons from Derek after he’d already stolen some the first time they were together?
- Why does Mark change his shirt between saying goodbye and jumping off the roof? Was there a continuity person on the film?
- Why look for Derek in the woods at night when it’s too dark to see him and he’ll see you coming from far away since you have flashlights?
Did they have more than one make up person? Sometimes it looks pretty good, but other times it’s just gray greasepaint. I once worked on a zombie movie where there were some amazing make up artists and others not so amazing. We could always tell when the head make up artist did the zombies because they looked like raccoons.
Ridiculous dialogue
You know under normal circumstances, I might have hired you to tile my bathroom floor at best. But under the circumstances, I can’t think of a better man to take care of my family.
The siege of the zombies is now being declared a national emergency.
David: I owe you.
Mark: I’m going to take you up on that.
David: Good because I don’t like to be in debt.
Aggressive attacks in open areas is the only way to survive this.
David: Are you finished?
Old guy: No. Yes. My wife.
I didn’t know you smoked. [after only knowing him one day]
I beat cancer. I’m going to beat this too. [after being bitten by a zombie]
Only take what you can carry.
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| The good make up |
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| Did the same person go with clown white here? |
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| A pillow is essential to survive a zombie attack |
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| He wants safety from the zombies but leaves the door open |
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| Our main character is dead |
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| Mark’s girlfriend and child have no reaction to his dead body |
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| The zombie who uses the handrail |
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| The incredible stack of boxes meant to keep out zombies |
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