Before Dawn (UK/2012)

Drama and zombies meet in this 2012 directing debute from Dominic Brunt who also takes one of the lead roles as Alex.
The combination of drama and horror does work, but it kind of takes the pace out of the movie in the beginning. It takes a good while before the action really starts, but when it does it does it with style.

To sum up the story in short:

Alex and Meg go on a holiday to the country side to safe their troubled marriage.

Meg goes out for a run after another fallout with her husband and when she’s attacked by a "rabid" man, things turn ugly.

Alex has to use everything in his powers to fight of the zombies and after his wife turns he has even bigger things to worry about.

It's all put together pretty well. The acting is quite good, well filmed, great exciting action, the zombies look sick and there's a decent amount of blood. The suspence factor is quite high in this movie and that's just what alot of this genre is missing at the moment. The dvd extra's like "the making of" is very interesting and enjoyed watching it. It seems like the entire crew was casted as a zombie for the end of the movie.

Good effort, but could have done with a bit more zombie action in my opinion cause that was great executed imo, but that could be me just not being too much into drama.

BBQ's score

Director: Dominic Brunt

Cast: Dominic Brunt, Joanne Mitchell and Nicky Evans

Running Time : aprox. 82 minutes

 

 

A Cadaver Christmas aka Zombies At Christmas (USA/2011)

A bit too late, or well in time for Christmas...you decide.

Came across this 2011 movie on ebay and thought what the hell, lets order it cause it looked fun.

At Christmas, a university professor's experiment, once again goes wrong and it's up to the janitor to clean up the mess.
With the help of a local drunk, a barkeeper, a fired cop and the town's perv, they go up to the university to get rid of the undead before the automatic doors open at dawn.

It's a hit and miss with this movie. Some parts are done pretty well and remind me of Braindead and Re-Animator and some parts just seem rushed a bit. The zombie slaying could have been more fun if they used a more slapstick aproach in my opinion. Sometimes it's just not convincing enough while at other times the effects of blowing a zombies brain out does look cool.
It could have used a bit more gore, although the Janitor's face is covered with it the whole movie through

The unlikely band of heroes are a fun bunch to watch and make most of this comedy/"horror" worth to watch. And the wide range of weapons used to kill are original.

The zombies don't look too spectacular, but that didn't bother me too much. I generally enjoyed myself watching this movie.


Director: Joe Zerull
Cast:   Daniel Rairdin-Hale, Hanlon Smith-Dorsey, Yosh Hayashi
Running time: aprox 85 minutes

BBQ's Score:

Trailer:

Stake Land (USA/2010)

For one time only I am going to post a vampire movie.

The only vampire movies that I really enjoyed as a kid were The Lost Boys and the original Fright Night. After that I never really could be bothered with the genre with a few exceptions once in a while. The whole Twilight saga hype and all the other teen horror vampire movies just never really apealed to me.

And then there was STAKE LAND!!

This is a vampire road movie as you never seen before!

In this post apocalytic story we meet Martin who gets saved by a vampire hunter simply called "Mister", when his house gets attacked by vampires.
With his whole family killed, Martin joins "Mister" as his helping hand. They soon band together with a few other very interesting characters and embark into a bloody, violent trip to a safe haven somewhere far away.

The thing that I liked about these vampires, was probably that they were a bit liked crazed, violent mindless zombies. No romantic charming vampires to be found in this thrilling movie.

The whole setting/story is brilliant imo. Locked down American towns, dangerous streets at night, violent religious cults, creepy, filthy and scary vampires and a great atmosphere.
The acting is top notch which makes you care for the characters, the vampires look crazy as fuck and the little detailed things they do to survive is well thought of and makes it really believable.

My compliments to the makers of this movie which is definitely my favorite movie of this year so far!

Not going to spoil anymore. If you see this lying around, pick it up. It's worth it!

 

Director: Jim Mickle

Cast:  Connor Paolo, Nick Damici and Kelly McGillis

Trailer:

 

Zombie 108 (Taiwan/2012)

Let me start with saying, that for me, this has to be the first zombie movie I've seen to hail from Taiwan, so I wasn't really sure what to expect.
Too bad I never really got into this movie. The several storylines are all over the place, which at times makes it a bit hard to follow and the parts that meant to make people laugh, never were really funny to be honest.

When undead hell breaks loose in the dangerous district 108 which is run by a crime lord, a swat team send in to rescue survivors and the local criminals have to cooparate to escape the feeding frenzy. We also get to meet a mom searching for her daughter, who gets caught by some sort of creepy serial killer, two Americans caught up in the shit and some other survivors.

It isn't really clear to me what direction they wanted to go with this movie. Is it meant to be funny, creepy or what?
Where I find some zombieflicks of their Japanese counterparts absolutely hilarious, this one like I said, just couldnt make me laugh.
The serial killer part didn't creep me out at all and at the transformation scene of the crime lord into some superzombie I more rolled my eyes instead of thinking it was awesome. The effects in general were a bit on the cheap side it seems.

+ The zombies look alright, the action is not bad and some of the actors did a decent job. But these are the only things that kept my eyes on the screen.

- Too many storylines,not really sure which way they wanted to go with this one, jokes that I didn't think were funny, cheap CGI, weird characters.

Director: Joe Chein

Cast: Morris Rong, Yvonne Yao and Sona Eyambe.

 

Trailer:

The Zombie Diaries - World Of The Dead (UK/2011)

Follow up of the 2006 Movie Zombie Diaries.

Now I was unlucky enough to read some reviews on IMDB.com while looking up some info and they were a bit harsh in my opinion. Most "experts" down there were slating it like it was the worst zombiemovie ever made. Total nonsense!

Like the first one, it has it's flaws but it's a pretty decent effort.

We follow a group of military men and women, who after 99% of Brittain is infected, try to reach the coast to escape the island for mainland Europe.
This all is filmed by some military press guy with a handycam. A lot of it shown I thought was pretty exciting and made me wan't to see what's next. The random zombie encounters, other survivors who also are out for their blood made this an entertaining watch.
The acting is quite alright, the gore could be a bit more and the zombies are of the cheap kind but convincing enough. And there are lot's of them too.

Isn't there anything bad about this one? Yes there is and that's why I gave it a score of six instead of a seven.
A lot of things just don't make sense in the story and action scenes.
I mean why waste a hell of a lot of ammo when the zombies are so damn slow, you could do a sackrace to reach the other side.
One time in the dark, the zombies can't see the mainactors when almost standing nose to nose and the other time when it's even darker in a tunnel they can. The cameraguy seems to be bulletproof while filming. More than once he get's out of cover while the bullets are flying everywhere.

But most of the time, I was entertained and that's what it's all about.

BBQ's score

Director: Michael Bartlett, Kevin Gates

Actors:  Philip Brodie, Alix Wilton Regan and Rob Oldfield

Runing Time: 88 minutes.

Trailer

 

Opstandelsen aka The Resurrection (Denmark/2010)

From Denmark comes this dark semi-short movie (50 minutes) Opstandelsen where a family is gathered at a church for the funeral of Simon, when the dead rise from their graves .

Not much more of a story than that, but who cares? There's enough gore in it for a full length feature.
It's pretty well done with a great dark atmosphere throughout the entire flick. Not much humour to be found in this one, which is a rarity these days where every zombie movie is turned into a comedy.

The zombie are of the cheap kind, not lot's of make-up effort in them but that's compensated with a lot of blood and gore which makes it work anyway and there are quite a few of them.

The shakey camerawork sometimes makes it hard to see what's going on, because it's a pretty dark movie, but somehow it didnt bother me too much, cause it made it just that bit scarier.

All in all, pretty good effort and for the people who found the dvd, take a look at the extras too. There are four pretty gorey music video's in there that are shot by the same director as well.

BBQ's Score

Director: Casper Haugegaard

Cast: Mads Althoff, Marie Frohmé Vanglund and Jonas BjØrn Andersen

Running time : 50 minutes

Trailer:

Zombeer (Netherlands/2008/short)

Still can't understand that I somehow overlooked this beauty from my own country.

Shit hits the fan in the "Mokum Blond Beer" brewery. When factory worker Herman falls into a kettle and mysteriously infects the beer, things get out of hand.
Japanese tourists on a tour at the brewery get infected and turn into the undead and shortly followed by the nation when the dangerous brew is put on transport for the celebrations of queensday.

Very entertaining short zombie flick which sadly is over before you opened your second bottle of beer. Lucky enough they just continue after the credits roll on, so we have some little more to enjoy. People must had fun making this one. I know I had fun watching it. Hope to see more one day.

Well done and way too short.

BBQ's Score

Directors: Barend de Voogd and Rob van der Velden
Cast:  Rogier Schippers, Eric Porcu and Edo Marinus
 Running time: 12 min.

 

Humans vs Zombies (USA/2011)

Humans vs Zombies game on campus turns into reality in this movie.

It starts out with the usual contagious virus in a secret (goverment) lab, infecting people routine and the opening score with mutating cells kinda thing in the background.
The jocks hooking up with the nerds on campus beginning made me fear for the worst.
I was wrong though. Although the usual college love movie bullshit is still in there, it very quickly turned out to be a pretty fun fastpaced and more gorey movie than expected.

Like said above, plenty of zombie killing, gore and even drama and humor mixed well together. Likable enough characters like the paranoid Frank, the nerdy Danny and Brad who looks and behaves like Jack Black, who we follow in their fight and survival against the hordes.

Not bad at all.

BBQ's Score

Director: Brian T. Jaynes
Cast: Dora Madison Burge, Melissa Carnell and Frederic Doss
Running time: Aprox 90 min.


Trailer:

    

And we're going to continue this bitch in English!

 Can't be bothered anymore typing all this shit for just a handfull of Dutch people. And since most Dutch people speak another language, I'm going to continue this blog in English. Any members of the grammar police.....GET TAE FUCK!!

Thanks!

Vinnie B.

Zombie Apocalypse (Syfy film) (USA/2012)

Niet te verwarren met de al eerder besproken film met de zelfde titel uit 2010.

Het was te verwachten na het succes van The Walking Dead, dat andere tv zenders het genre ook zouden uitproberen.
Nu staat de naam Syfy nu niet echt altijd synoniem voor kwaliteit, maar ik was toch erg benieuwd naar deze film, want de trailer leek toch veelbelovend.

Na de film gezien te hebben kwam ik wederom tot conclusie dat een trailer vaak niet representatief is voor de gehele film.
De regiseur en/of degene die het script in elkaar geflanst hebben, zijn volgens mij nooit verder gekomen dan het bekijken van 1 of 2 zombieflicks in hun leven. Wat een kommer en kwel qua verhaallijnen, cheesy oneliners en onnozele dialogen etc.
"Look smoke....it must be a fire!" (Of iets in die geest)

Ook qua details is het huilen met de pet op. Zo lijken de hoofdpersonages ongelimiteerde munitie te hebben. Pijlen worden niet voor een tweede keer gebruikt maar dat is blijkbaar ook niet nodig, want de ene keer heeft 1 van de actrices nog zo'n 5 a 6 pijlen en de volgende shot weer een stuk of tien.
Ook blijken er zombies op miraculeuse wijze meerdere keren op te staan uit de dood en krijgen ze dus nog een kans om de  personages aan te vallen.
CGI bloed vliegt weer in het ronde en de acteurs blijken bloedafstotende kleding te dragen.


Ving Rhames speelt wederom z'n oude bekende rol als norse, verstandige tough-guy neger, met enige verschil dat ik hem verdomd heb zien lachen in deze film.

Al met al niet al te best, maar toch met iets meer budget en tijd een regiseur die tenminste iets af weet van het genre had dit mischien iets kunnen worden.

BBQ's Score

Regiseur: Nick Lyon
Cast: Ving Rhames, Eddie Steeples, Taryn Manning
Speelduur: 87 minuten

Trailer: