I’ve definitely become more discriminating about which zombie films are going to make it into my movie collection these days, and one of these two very different zombie films did. Read on to find out which!
FOR A FEW ZOMBIES MORE (2015)
It’s crazy that it was a decade after the low budget zomcom Hide and Creep came out that it scored a sequel (I wasn’t aware of it until it hit Prime).
Soooo…there was only one thing I remembered clearly about the first film. A guy runs around completely naked. I had to read my blog to refresh myself on the rest of the film, which makes sense, because my final line in that blog is “You might get some enjoyment watching Hide and Creep, but you probably won’t remember a thing about it a few weeks later.”
So trippy. It’s like the past me knows exactly how the future me is going to feel.
For A Few Zombies More actually brings back some of the original actors, which is cool, and it’s a more polished presentation, so it feels less like a cheap film made by struggling directors and more like an authentic, financed production.
There are crisp visuals, gory special effects, and rich zombie makeup (They are blue-faced as in Dawn of the Dead, yet still look better), but the plot is a harsh reminder that the zombie genre has been decimated by oversaturation. There’s just nothing original here, mostly because there’s very little left to bring to the zombie genre.
In an effort to make this more than just another zombie survival film, the main characters have a bigger enemy this time: zombie eaters. Yes, in between excessive conversation scenes, there are fights for survival against a Mad Max-like community of baddies that party, eat zombies, and kill people. You have to wonder in all these post-apocalyptic films dating back to the 80s…how the hell do these baddies have the time or products to keep up a kick ass Mohawk under the circumstances?
Most of the action in this film consists of gunfights between humans! It’s like watching The Walking Dead with some low budget camp and meta zombie references thrown in.
Future self, if you’re reading this, you didn’t remember a thing about this film a few weeks later and have no need to ever revisit it. I think I just blew future self’s mind.
PATIENT ZERO (2018)
The title is as generic as it gets. The movie starts and I’m like YAWN. Secret military base, they’re trying to find patient zero after infected outbreak, one guy has been bit but didn’t change and can now communicate with the infected.
After one brief subtitle scene to make it clear he speaks in a different language when he interviews the infected about patient zero, the film gives up on creating a zombie language, and he and the infected just speak English to spare us all the reading.
Aside from one soldier being sizzling hot, the most entertaining part of the film at first is that they name each infected after a classic rocker—Joe Cocker…Pete Townshend…
It’s all very predictable until…Stanley Tucci shows up. Holy shit! Brad Pitt, Glenn Close, and now Stanley Tucci? Also keep an eye out for one of the Dr. Who actors as the lead. Can zombies get any more mainstream?
It’s everything that happens from this point on that convinced me to buy the Blu-ray, which is when I noticed everyone on Amazon trashed this movie. What the fuck ever. This shit rules.
It’s infected insanity as a horde infiltrates the base, Tucci’s character brings a fresh take on the zombie/infected philosophy, there’s a great battle to the death, and there’s a vent scene from hell. I know I say that every time there’s a vent scene, but this time I mean it like never before.
The ending makes it feel like there’s either going to be a sequel or a fun new zombie show to replace Z Nation on SyFy.
