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version seven. http://demongin.org |
Day of the Dead (2008)
Steve Miner
Impression published on Saturday, 2010-09-25 | Film | 2 stars
At least it was short.
Compositionally speaking, this bio-zombie throw-away is an unfortunate mix of forward and backward. The close-up kill-shots are all done in the post, with almost no old-school, appliance-effects (forward), but look like student work (backward). The token black guy takes "token black guy" to new, even-more self-referential heights (forward), but is played by Drumline star Nick Cannon (backward). Mena Suvari plays the straight man for once (forward--for her career, at least), but casting the American Beauty jailbait as a tough-but-fair petty non-com who blasts semi-intelligent, perpetually sprinting bio-zombies with automatic weapons when she isn't firebombing them with molotov cocktails or running them down in her Humvee is a faggot above a load, so far as the suspension of disbelief is concerned.
But, as I mentioned, this straight-to-cable bio-zombie chase flick is cut to the bone, and runs for a little bit over an hour, and that counts for a lot with me. It's also got a decent Ving Rhames cameo and one or two pretty gnarly-looking prostheses.
Bottom line, this is low-budget, minor-league B cinema at its not-quite-finest. Every step forward is followed by two steps back, but I don't remember rolling my eyes and I appreciated the exclusion of back-story.
If it's on when you turn the TV on, I say watch it: odds are good that you'll make it to the end and say, "eh--that wasn't so bad."
Roll Bounce.
