Tag: Horror

Uh oh. This is the second movie I have reviewed with the name Aftershock. The first one, Aftershock, was an amazing Chinese drama film from 2010, over two hours long, on netflix, fantasticles. I could not say enough good things about it.

This one? Well, it was made 2 years later, and is a disaster/horror film, written by Eli Roth. You know, the Bear Jew on Inglourious Basterds. I mean, technically this one is foreign too, kind of. So maybe it will be just as good?

Maybe, just maybe, this one will make me cry?

Hooray, parties!

Apparently Chileans really love to party. That is why Gringo (Eli Roth) is hanging out with his two “Friends”. I actually don’t know why he knows them, but he came down from California to visit and live it up. Maybe even get laid. Ariel (Ariel Levy) and Pollo (Nicolas Martinez) are is guides around town. The only thing I really know about them is that Pollo is disgustingly rich, and has a famous dad, who is also rich yo. So they get all of the hookups.

Later, they are at a literal underground nightclub. Seriously underground, with all of the cool kids. There they meet up with some chicks they talked to earlier, some of which are siblings, models, and friends. Monica (Andrea Osvart), Irina (Natasha Yarovenko) and Kylie (Lorenza Izzo).

They try to split them up for hooking up, but drama blah, OH FUCK BIG ASS EARTHQUAKE. Shit starts falling everywhere, people dying under the rock, and lots of people getting trampled. Ariel is such a good guy, he helps a girl escape from the bar, but loses his hand in the process. His mother fucking hand!

It turns out, getting out of the club into the open isn’t actually too hard. Surviving on top, however. Shit. Looting, turned over buildings, transportation all but gone, no phone service, and the aftershocks which knock down even more shit. Is that a tsunami warning? You bet your ass it is! What is that? The prison in the area had its walls knocked down, so prisoners are running around town, killing and raping things? Shit. That is bad.

Good luck random group of unlikable people! Watch your holes.

Beard guys is the rich guy. He literally has everything going for him.

What can you say really about a disaster horror movie? Well, the only thing you can really hope for, is that it is entertaining enough, and people die in creative ways.

And boy do they!

So many people die, a variety of ways. Crashing infrastructure, fire, bullets, axe to the back, falling from long distances, and of course drowning and pounding.

I felt dirty writing that sentence.

Needless to say, the acting is kind of shit, and it takes maybe too long for the earthquake to occur, but once it does, it is kind of entertaining. Also pretty gross and graphic I am surprised how far they went. They made tons of allusions at the beginning of the film, and by golly, did they deliver them later.

So it gave me what I can hoped for. I wish the jokes they attempted worked out better. Maybe less subtitles too, but I am just lazy. It was decent for what it was going for, and entertaining just a tad bit. But I do work on earthquakes for my job, so maybe I just find the subject appealing.

Fuck.

Sorry, didn’t mean to alarm you. But I should note that now that I don’t write reviews for every theatrical movie release, I can now post some of them quicker and with less edits. Yay multiple reviews for the newspaper! So I threw in a fuck, because I don’t have to self censor myself for this review. I just type endlessly about random shit, because it really doesn’t matter when it just on this website. Quality be damned!

See, I haven’t even said the movie title yet, 85 words in. I am such a shithead.

There is no need to be upset.

Insidious: Chapter 2 takes place immediately after Insidious. So, spoilers, yo.

Well, Elise (Lin Shaye) is dead and strangled, but by who? A ghost? Preposterous! I bet it was Josh (Patrick Wilson) back from Astral Projection, so do the cops, minus the astral part. His wife, Renai (Rose Byrne) isn’t sure what to think, but she is happy to have her child (Ty Simpkins) back.

Either way, they decide to go live with Lorraine (Barbara Hershey), Josh’s mom, after the incident. Different house, same shit.

It is almost as if the evil demon spirits are attaching themselves to a person and not the house like we learned in the first film. Hmmm.

Because Elise had to go and die on us, we are introduced to Carl (Steve Coulter), Elise’s assistant from way back when Josh was a kid. Leigh Whannell and Angus Sampson still exist too, as the younger, yet also technically formerly assistants of Elise.

Insidious: Chapter 2 delves deeper into astral projecting. But also, shaky cams, possessions, abandoned creepy hospitals, and more back story than you knew was necessary. PLOT PLOT PLOT. Imagine those plot words came at you with a loud shrieking noise, like the title INSIDIOUS did in the first movie twice…and in this movie…twice as well.

A lot of similarities between part 1 and 2, is all I am sayin’.

James Wan likes to make some weird movies, that is for sure. If you saw Insidious you may have found it scary, but you definitely would have also called it unique. It was doing stuff that had not been touched before, just to ensure it stood out.

Well, Chapter 2 continues with the weird, but potentially fails to deliver any real fears or tears. Seriously. I was in a packed theater opening night, and I don’t really remember the audience reacting in any way outside of laughter. Not the “I’m too cool to be scared, so I will laugh” laugh. But Chapter 2 has lots of jokes in it, and some slapstick humor, thanks to the bumbling assistants.

But no scares, which seems fundamentally flawed as a horror film.

The story itself was interesting though. Stylistically, it felt like Wan didn’t know what kind of horror film he wanted, and kept changing a few things. Like, suddenly, a wild abandoned hospital appeared. Who the fuck has one of those in their cities, just taking up space? Astral Projection of course eventually returns, and almost reminds me of the time in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey when they went to Hell and ran through their past fears. A lot of it was kind of clever, just unexpected for this movie.

Major props to Lindsay Seim who had to play “Young Elise” in this movie. Shit, she looked and seemed like Elise, my mind was freaking out about the excellent make up. Well done no name.

Overall, I’d say it is less scary than the first Insidious, and thus technically an inferior film. Other parts were better overall as the the universe was expanded. The ending was stupid though. Fuck that ending.

Watching random horror films is almost my go to now. Since I am so far behind, I look for one with a shitty or silly cover, and just go for it.

Smiley? That shit creeped me out. Dude has some sort of skin face, with eyes and a smile face stitched in, no real other features.

What is more surprising, regardless, is that the director of this film is Michael J. Gallagher, who you haven’t heard of. Why? Because as of Sept 1, 2013, he is only 24 years old, directing Smiley when he was 22/23. He has been directing shorts and other things since 2005, when he was 16, so the dude knows what he wants. It is just strange to see a movie at all directed by someone younger than 40, more or less. Kevin Smith directed Clerks when he was only 24, and look what happened to him. Can this guy be the next K. Smith?

That smile is like, mocking me. Go away creeper.

Trololololololol.

This movie takes place in a super modern world, where teenagers and college kids actually know about the internet. They have 4chan, Reddit, Anonymous hacker group and all of that shit. They also have a strange version of Chat Roulette. Okay, it is identical yo Chat Roulette minus the name. However, there is an urban legend going around that there is a dark entity that can kill people over video chat if you summon him.

“HOW DO YOU SUMMON HIM?” you ask, quite loudly. Well, you just have to type in the magic phrase three times.

“WHAT IS THE MAGIC PHRASE?” stop yelling.

I did it for the lulz.
I did it for the lulz.
I did it for the lulz.

Yeah. I am serious, this is true for the movie. You also have to want the person to die, it won’t work if you don’t believe. But when some college kids start testing its limits, they begin to freak out when they realize that Smiley knows what they look like, as he can see them through the other webcam. What if, after he kills for you, he eventually comes for you?

Starring Caitlin Gerard as our heroine, Melanie Papalia, Shane Dawson, and Andrew James Allen as other college kids, Keith David and Toby Turner as cops, and Roger Bart as an ethics professor.

Wait. Roger Bart? That dude. He was the singing voice of Young Hercules in Hercules. Weird as fuck.

I did your mom for the lulz.

Smiley is beyond ridiculous. You can tell from my description I hope. A young director does mean we get to see a movie about things that teens and college people know about today, so that was interesting.

The ending featured a twist I can say I didn’t see coming, but I loved, even if it didn’t really make sense. What they were trying to get at was pretty cool, and the implications of it in the real world can be felt. Sorry, trying to not give away the twist, but I am just sounding like a Vague Valerie.

Shit, just watch it maybe. Or let me spoil it for you. Or look it up. Either way, kind of a shitty movie, but it was a bit entertaining.

Shit, this movie came out in like, May or so to theaters. Just didn’t come out where I was living in a 60 mile radius. Why not? It is an independent Rob Zombie horror movie. I thought people loved Rob Zombie stuff?

Either way, I found out like a month later The Lords of Salem was already out in Europe or VOD or something, so I quickly bought it and forgot it. A few months later, oh yeah.

I slack so hard some times.

See, even these old bitches love Rob Zombie.

Heidi Hawthorne (Sheri Moon Zombie, wife of Rob) is a local radio DJ in the town of Salem. She is a cohost of the most popular segment in town, along with her friends Whitey (Jeff Daniel Phillips) and Munster (Ken Foree). She personally receives a package in the mail from The Lords. It is a band they never heard of, but they listen to it anyway, and it sort of fucks with Heidi a lot.

So sure, why not play it on the radio? It is a strange eerie tribal chant like noise, with no actual lyrics, just noise. Pretty metal, in that regard. Their guest on the radio that night is Francis Matthias (Bruce Davison), a man who researches the Salem Witch Trials. He really finds the track they play unnerving, and the band name itself, so he goes on a research binge as the side story. The music itself causes all of the women in town who hear it to go into a trance like state. Very odd.

Anyways, long story short. Witches yo. Curses yo. They cursed Hawthorne’s bloodline, claiming it will eventually bring Satan into the world, and the witches will return and take over. Can they do it?! Judy Geeson, Meg Foster, Patricia Quinn all play witches.

My mind is all sorts of wat right now.

Well, this is a weird movie. I haven’t seen any of the other Rob Zombie horror movies, so I can’t tell you if this is weirder than them or not. But it has to be weirder than Halloween. How could have made that one super weird?

I HATE the song by The Lords of Salem so much. It really grinds to the bone, which I guess is the goal. It is just a horrible sound, and I find it hard to believe they would have ever played it on the radio in the first place.

I wouldn’t say the acting is bad in this movie, it is just not an important part to the movie. It isn’t bad acting, it just isn’t good either.

As a certified coward, I can say this movie didn’t scare me in the slightest, just made me feel all sorts of weird. There was very vivid imagery, with low levels of special effects that made the whole thing look cheesy. Grotesque imagery is not what this movie was advertised as, and I was just left mostly confused. No, not of the plot, but confused at why I watched the whole thing.

The ending also is pretty lackluster, not really ending the story, but almost feeling like a strange 10 minute Jazz Fusion set in the middle of a rock concert. What in the what?

It took awhile, but You’re Next is finally in theaters. Originally premiering in a film festival in 2011, for some strange reason it took two years to hit theaters.

Maybe in 2011, the world wasn’t ready for a movie like this. Maybe we needed the Scary Movie franchise to officially drive itself into the ground before people were willing to accept a horror movie with comedic elements in it. Or they made dozens of changes and had legal issues to deal with. Who is to say, really?

Blood is the new make up.

Paul (Rob Moran) and Aubrey (Barbara Crampton) are about to celebrate their 35th Wedding Anniversary. They also just happen to be rich. Paul used to work for a defense contractor, so he left the company with a very snazzy severance package, and now they live in the lap of luxury. They decide to host their entire family to a nice dinner in a mansion in the middle of the nowhere. Because that is what rich people do.

Usually the 35th anniversary is coral/jade, not gore and violence. Oh well, the times they are a changing.

They also have four children, all in relationships. That just means there are plenty of people who can die. The main son is Crispian (AJ Bowen) with his girlfriend Erin (Sharni Vinson). He often butts heads with his younger brother Drake (Joe Swanberg) and Drake’s wife, Kelly (Margaret Laney). There is also the only sister, Aimee (Amy Seimetz) with her film making boyfriend Tariq (Ti West), and the youngest son Felix (Nicholas Tucci) with his girlfriend Zee (Wendy Glenn).

During dinner, an argument breaks out. Then suddenly, one of our poor house guests finds a crossbow bolt through their head. Ouchies.

Panic ensures, as bolts continue to rain into the dinner room. The family knows only one thing. People are outside (and maybe even inside) the house and looking to kill them. They don’t know why or who set it up. What the three masked killers did not know, is that Erin grew up on a survivalist reservation until she was 15, so she knows how to handle herself in emergency or life threatening situations.

Yep, looks like we have an blood bath on our hands.

Animal masks haven’t been cool since the 70’s. They’re bringing ’em back.

The weird thing about calling You’re Next a comedy/horror film is that it is not a parody or a spoof. I’d say that You’re Next is unique, and almost its own new genre of film.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of death, a lot of gore, and a lot of creative deaths. It is just that some of the deaths happen to be humorous. The banter between brothers is humorous. The inability for certain characters to die (and instead just get hurt over and over) is humorous.

If you have never heard the song Lookin’ for the Magic by the Dwight Twilley Band from 1977, then you will find it stuck in your head by the end of the film. Who says upbeat music can’t be in horror?

What I enjoyed most about this film is that I really couldn’t guess what would happen next, and believe me I tried. I would say I had a 30% success rate at actually predicting how certain characters would die, what the traps would do, and who was responsible for it all.

The movie itself isn’t too long and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It is doubtful you will recognize any of the cast members from other acting roles. The brother Drake was great, and our leading lady Erin was incredible. It is refreshing to see such a BAMF actress kick so much butt. I could be wrong, but I think only one character actually fell down while being chased, a normally overused horror staple.

You’re Next might not scare everyone, but I think it is a refreshing take on the genre, with high levels of slasher and gore thrown into the mix. Above all else, it is certainly entertaining.

I should have seen Insidious two years ago when I worked at Blockbuster. I have never been great at the horror genre, so back then I didn’t watch them. However, there was a huge lull of no horror movies coming out, so when they would ask for new good horror, I basically had to recommend Insidious for two months.

That’s right. I was recommending a movie without seeing it. For shame. Which is why I had to watch it now to redeem myself, but also because of the sequel coming out in a few weeks, shockingly named, Insidious: Chapter 2.

I don’t even know man. I don’t even know.

The Lambert family has recently moved into a new home, as is the usual for a haunted house movie.

Josh (Patrick Wilson) is a teacher, and Renai (Rose Byrne) is…not a teacher. I guess she is a house wife. They have three boys, and one of them, Dalton (Ty Simpkins), likes to pretend his a super hero who can fly. Silly Dalton. I know him as that annoying kid added to Iron Man 3 because Disney.

Well, he plays in the attic, falls, hits his head, and goes into a coma. A coma that no one can really explain either. Oh well.

Three months later, shit is rough. No sign of Dalton awakening, and their marriage is getting rough. Josh spends more and more time at work, and his wife is freaking out at home. She is starting to see people where there are none. Hear voices over the baby monitor. Shit like that. Her mom is freaking out too. They think they are haunted.

So they get Elise (Lin Shaye) a family friend to investigate the house, since she works with the paranormal. Elise and her lackies (Leigh Whannell, Angus Sampson). They agree. Shit is fucked up in this house.

But that isn’t the worse part. The eerie behavior might not even be attached to the house at all. It might be attached to several family members.

Oh a nice image of a bed room that is p- OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT THING OVER THERE?

The first half of Insidious is your standard haunted house movie. Things go bump in the night, demons and spirits appear, noises abound, and people freak out.

Then it gets a bit weird.

Like. A lot. Really really really weird.

So weird I didn’t want to expand upon it in the plot outline. It is just incredibly different, which is a good thing. They are starting to think outside of the box and try new things. So it gets all sort of looney and I like that.

What I thought was weaker was the scares. I think this movie was applauded for the lack of jump scares in it, but at the same time, they use loud crashes and piano cords several times, which are just jump scares in noise form. It does benefit from being scary without a big loss of life, or blood, or gore.

I also feel as if the acting was a bit poor from our lead two actors. I haven’t seen Rose in much, but I have seen Patrick in a lot, and I know he could do better. The ending is also a bit strange, but given that we know there is a sequel, I guess it will continue right from where we left off.

Maybe.

TL;DR – Weird unique horror movie. Okayish.

Hooray sequels! If you missed it the first time, I reviewed V/H/S only a few months ago and thought the whole thing was interesting and rather creepy.

Then I found out the sequel, V/H/S/2 (good name) would be out soon. It actually went out on Video on Demand in early June, theaters in early July, and here I am, mid August finally watching it. No good excuses for that one, especially when I had it since June. You will forgive me eventually, I can only hope.

The whites around this photo are like the whites around your eye. I guess.

This movie comes with four new stories and a new narrative.

Our “main characters” are far more likable than the first film.. That story is named Tape 49, is about two private detectives searching for a missing college kid. His apartment his abandoned, with VHS tapes lying everywhere, and a mini video blog on his laptop. They realize they have to watch the tapes in order to figure out where he went. Those stories are…

Phase 1 Clinical Trials: A guy gets a free robotic eye! But they record everything for testing, and there may be glitches. Uh oh.

A Ride In The Park: A guy goes on a bike ride in the park with a go pro camera! He then gets attacked and turned into a zombie. Whoa.

Safe Haven: A documentary crew go to a cult like area in Indonesia, with improper behavior amongst the leader and his subjects. Also, sacrifices. Eek.

Slumber Party Alien Abduction: Well, this one sounds self explanatory.

Did you see the last picture? Robot eye yo. This is just your standard Indonesian male suicide room.

Shit, I don’t even really need a new review for this.

All of what I said before applies. The short story concept is neat, and lets stories that might not have worked as a full movie shine. The grainy-ness adds a bigger element of fear.

By far, the coolest story was Safe Haven, which I think on its own could be a full movie. Or at least 70 minutes in length. It was twisted and had a nice plot.

A Ride In The Park was not the best thing to watch while eating dinner. Zombie POV, shit was creepy.

The Phase 1 Clinical Trial was decent, could have been a bit more expanded. Felt a bit rushed.

I hated Slumber Part Alien Abduction. I also think the main storyline was a bit weak and just…meh. But hey, they all can’t be winners. And I think 3 of the 5 being pretty decent makes this a pretty damn decent horror flick. Sure I didn’t describe a lot of this, but at least I actually watched it before my review, unlike Rex Reed.

The Conjuring is the second horror movie to come out during the 2013 Summer Season (the other being The Purge) and I can honestly say I didn’t see this one coming. Seriously. I saw zero previews for it in the theater. I didn’t even know it existed until about a week ago. The good news is that I never actually watched the trailer ahead of time, which is a rarity now in my position, so the movie could be a completely new experience for me.

Check out the rating for The Conjuring. It was rated R “for sequences of disturbing violence and terror.” You hear that? It was rated R literally for being too scary. No nudity, no language, no gore, no sex, no drug usage. Just R on terror alone. As a well established coward, let it be known that I am freaking out already.

Shit, matches in the 70s used to be awesome as shit.

The Conjuring tells the “true story” of a case studied by Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) in the early 1970s. I agree that those two were real human beings, with Ed being a Demonologist, and Lorraine a clarivoyant. They traveled around, helping with exorcisms, clearing houses of spirits, and other similar activities. They are most famous for helping the Amityville people.

The family they end up helping in this film are the Perrons: Roger (Ron Livingston) and Carolyn (Lili Taylor) and their FIVE daughters (Kyla Deaver, Mackenzie Foy, Joey King, Hayley McFarland, Shanley Caswell). Poor Roger, you can tell he needs help before the ghosts come.

Well, strange things start occurring around their house. All of their clocks stop at 3:07 am. Their dog died, birds fly into windows, their daughters get tugged on at night, sleep walking, ghostly spirits. Not to mention doors slamming in their faces and literally having demonic ghosts jumping on them.

They cannot move, having put all of their money into this house and land. Sucks to suck. Thankfully the Warren’s agree to help. They bring along their crew (Shannon Kook), set up cameras, microphones, and other devices, pre-modern day ghost hunters. After confirming that there are indeed spirits in the house, they set out to determine if they are sinister or just playful.

Yo dawg, there are rancid feet behind you. DO YOU NOT SEE THAT?

To me, The Conjuring felt like it was celebrating horror at its most basic roots. The story itself combines a bit of Poltergeist with The Exorcist, but into its own unique tale. The major elements in this movie are things we have seen before, but the smaller details are what make it something special.

I always talk about how hard it is for me to figure out a rating for a horror movie. Presumably it is based on some hidden formula combing entertainment and scare factor. After all, people go to horror movies to be scared, so if it ends up just being entertaining, you will be disappointed, and if it is just scary imagery, you will be confused.

I think The Conjuring combines these two elements in a pretty even fashion. It didn’t make me jump out of my seat every minute, but after the intro, I found myself at the edge of the seat until the credits rolled. The chill that something could go wrong at any moment stayed with you. It teased really well, and similarly had well placed humor moments just to throw you off guard.

The Conjuring proves that ghosts and hauntings are still scary. but even more surprising is that this movie was also well acted with a decent plot, truly the scariest thing about it. Similarly, this is the first horror I have given this rating in the last two years of hardcore movie watching.

Honestly, I was willing to let Sharknado go by the wayside and ignore it forever. Sure, it is one of the most hyped SyFy original B-Movies in a long time, but it was even met with less than average number of watchers. Go figure. Most people just talked about it, very few watched it.

So why am I reviewing Sharknado? In honor of the life of Cory Monteith of course. Made famous by his character Finn on Glee, (and only that), he was an actor who recently died due to alcohol and heroine.

But no, Cory is not in Sharknado. He is now forever associated with the film for a different and worse reason. Case in point, here are his last two tweets before death. (For those who don’t know how to twitter, the bottom tweet is the oldest).

You’re damn right I retweeted them.

Maybe he actually died as a Canadian Government cover-up, as he was able to figure out the Sharknado conspiracy, but I doubt we will ever know for sure.

The vague plot of Sharknado is that a hurricane decides to hit the California coast. Los Angeles is right in its line of fire. The storm is causing sharks to run from it towards to coast, so there are dozens (hundreds) of sharks on the beaches, attacking people in about a foot of water. But when the rain comes, so does flooding, so the sharks are able to get further in land, still running from the storm or whatever. Even going into the sewer system! The sharks are also pissed off, so they will bite and eat anything they get near, except other sharks.

Eventually tornadoes hit LA as well, which pick up the sharks, and then in addition to destroying stuff, they also hurl sharks conveniently at anyone nearby. Well, it takes fifty minutes before there are sharks in a tornado, everything else before that is just flooding or minor wind based.

To add some plot to it, our main character’s name is Fin (Ian Ziering) which is funny now for two reasons. His two friends (Jaason Simmons, Cassie Scerbo) agree to help get to his ex-wives (Tara Reid) house, to protect her and his daughter…while also battling flooding, random sharks, and I guess the weather.

Because once the tornadoes start, clearly they have to find a way to stop the tornado itself. Not just wait it out like people have done for every other tornado in history.

Most of the movie is void of sharknadoes. I guess that is why the images were so hard to find online.

See, there are two types of B-Movies. Because B-Movie generally just means really low budget and they usually are overly campy as well. Still, there are two types. There are the types that are either entertaining through good dialogue or action, and those that are made on purpose to be bad. Those ones that are only enjoyable if you are drinking and making fun of it with friends. The first one is doable, just hasn’t been true recently. Just ask Bruce Campbell.

Sharknado fits into the second category. Seriously. Watching it for actual entertainment on your own is impossible. You will just get mad. It does this on purpose, but most of the best action happens off screen, which just means I am left bored. The danger they have to get through is boring, the dialogue is boring, and there isn’t even that much shark tornado action! The fuck. What if Anaconda had the snake only in the final quarter? You’d be pissed.

So I am pissed at Sharknado. They could have made it ridiculously awesome, but chose not to, because fuck it, low budget movies don’t need to make too much. Just enough. Dumb ass teenagers on the internet are hyping it up, and now there is a sequel. Shit. How can they do a sequel when they didn’t even have enough material for one movie?

It is a strange time for zombie movies, with the last few serious ones never really living up to the “George A. Romero” Standards. Who decides these standards? Well, fans of the old stuff, who hate everything new, basically. Thankfully with films like Warm Bodies, zombies that break the mold are becoming a bit more accepted by movie watchers.

However, the fact that World War Z (Trailer) has really fast moving zombies doesn’t seem to be the major concern with most viewers. It is the fact that the movie is almost nothing like the book (According to book author Max Brooks) that the name comes from.. I never tend to care about source material with reviews. If a movie is good on its own merits, it should be judged on its own merits. But even I can admit that making it nothing like the material and only borrowing the name is just a bit scummy.

I tried to tell Brad Pitt that I was disappointed in that fact, but with a face like his, how could I stay mad?

Let’s not even get into the luscious hair that he sports for this film.

The movie begins with a series of news reports letting the viewer note the currents state of the world. After that, we are introduced to the main family in this story. Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is now a stay at home dad, with two young daughters and a loving wife Karin (Mireille Enos).

About seven minutes into the film, they stop with all the boring drama nonsense, and get straight into crazy zombie madness! All around the world, zombie outbreaks are occurring, with many major cities falling. The Lanes are in Pennsylvania and find themselves on the run with the world crumbling beneath them.

However, it turns out Gerry used to be a pretty big deal in the United Nations, a smart guy, very tactical, and good at the surviving in extremely volatile locations. His former boss John Garang (Fana Mokoena) is able to lift him out of Newark, New Jersey, giving his family a space on the fleet in the Atlantic. Far away from any mean old zombies. Unfortunately, this lift to freedom doesn’t come without a price. Gerry has to go with a small team of seal soldiers and a scientist to help figure out the cause of the outbreak, or you know, the end of the world.

Let’s also not forget that Matthew Fox is in this movie as the important role of “Paratrooper.” Arguably a big name actor, he has less than a minute of real screen time I’d estimate. Danielle Kertesz plays a female Israeli soldier!

They would make great mindless cheerleaders. Dat pyramid.

Did I mention I loved that the action in the movie started so dang early? I thought I was going to be left with a lot of family drama, worrying about protecting the kids, but within the first half hour they are dropped off on the aircraft carrier and only a minor nuisance after that. When watching this movie, you are not going to care about his family, or any other character. Really the only important person in this movie is Brad Pitt. His youngest daughter is particularly distracting early on, mostly because she is a nine or ten year old girl acting like a four year old.

Another potential issue is that this film is only PG-13. The lack of blood and decapitated bodies seems to be a problem for the die-hard zombie fans, but it was a problem I could ignore. My biggest issue is with the sometimes sub par CGI. The mass hoards of zombies would often appear more blurry, which just ruins otherwise fantastic action scenes.

Despite the narrative flaws and less than stellar effects, the movie kept me interested throughout its almost two hour run time. I jumped out of seat on multiple occasions, often surprised how much fear was in the movie. Yes, it is zombie based, but the trailers made it seem like it would be action/adventure oriented. Brad Pitt survives some ludicrous situations, almost making me laugh at how ridiculous it all is. But he is a big movie star, I know he is going to survive inconsequential things like airplane crashes and stab wounds.

As a zombie movie, it is actually pretty tame, but I think it adds something unique to the genre.