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HORROR 101: THE A-LIST OF HORROR FILMS AND MONSTER MOVIES VOL 1
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HOME - INTRO - REVIEWS - FEATURES - MYSPACE - BLOG - STAFF - CONTACT HORROR 101: THE A-LIST OF HORROR FILMS AND MONSTER MOVIES VOL 1
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(2007) Okay, first of all, let me say that I do give the filmmakers credit for getting this movie made. For the budget of only $30,000, only shot in nine days, that in itself is an amazing feat. But, all that aside, it doesn’t mean it’s a good movie. And this one is an example of that.
So the bottom line is if you’re looking another bloody zombie film, you might enjoy this one. Just don’t expect anything that you have seen before. Sure, there is lots of blood, lots of gore, and lots of no-brainer scenes. If that’s what you’re looking for, then you will probably enjoy this one. The DVD was released by on Dimension Extreme Films, and is full of extras. There are deleted scenes, music videos, a making of featurette, and a short film by director Miller. There is also audio commentary by director Miller, and producers William Clevinger and Mark Thalman. |
It’s pretty
tough for me to criticize this movie since I know they were really trying hard.
But it seemed that this is a prime example where passion overplayed talent.
There are sequences that didn’t make any sort of sense. Sure, maybe that was
their point that they didn’t care about plot or continuity. They just set out
to make a gory zombie flick. Even on the commentary, the director points out
“Automaton is just about running, and jumping, and diving, and killing.” If
that was the case, then that is why to me, this film doesn’t stand out amongst
the countless other low budget zombie movies out there. It’s nothing different
than we’ve seen countless times before.
The story is
pretty much about a zombie attack, where the main cast is a bunch of college
students. They eventually do give us kind of a back-story, but it’s really
nothing new. So if you aren’t going to do anything that is any different than
what has come before, you need to have something else that is going to raise the
bar. And here is where I feel the film fails. Sure, there are some over the top gore, but once again, nothing really new
or different. Not saying that it's bad film, it's just the same as
countless other zombie films the line the video store shelves. Sure it was
made for very little money. But then again, so were a lot of those other
films.
There are many
influences from 28 Days Later with the running zombies, including the quick and
jerky camera work. I thought we were past all the MTV-style of filmmaking.
Apparently not. Sometimes the zombies run. Sometimes they slowly stagger like
classic Romero style zombies. But it’s usually done for effect. What that did
for me was show me the inconsistently. Even the film quality seemed to
jump back and forth from a grainy look to a more normal and clear look.
I will say that
the makeup effects are pretty good for the budget. There is an effect with a
girl’s jaw that I thought was pretty cool. The rest are your standard zombie
type effects, but at least are done well.