2012 Zombie Apocalypse (2011)

The setup here is that the world has become overrun with zombies and in an effort to help isolate the infected the government used EMP charges to disabled the transportation and technology that would allow people to quickly move around.  With this established the movie starts off with a small group of survivors that has ventured out from their cabin to stock up on supplies and to see what the state of the world is in.  They run into a pack of zombies and are saved (well most of them anyway) by another group of survivors.  They then decide to follow them to a safe zone in Catalina.  The rest of the movie is basically them traveling and fighting zombies.

Well I suppose it was just a matter of time before everybody’s favorite company Asylum jumped on the zombie bandwagon. Hell this is even a SyFy channel “original” to boot.  It was with very limited expectations that I sat down to watch this one.  I mean sure it has the great Ving Rhames in it, but then again he was in the Day of the Dead remake…  But all in all I’d have to say that it wasn’t too bad at all.  The characters are stereotypes and you can easily guess who is going to die before the credits roll.  But I like watching a horror movie with a familiar feel to it sometimes.  The story isn’t going to shock, but it is solid and it moves along at a brisk pace.  I’ve seen a lot of lower budget attempts at zombie movies and the fact that Zombie Apocalypse isn’t boring or slow is a nice change. 

I should make it clear though that I’m not saying this is a great movie.  It isn’t.  The acting is less then stellar and the one really good cast member, Rhames, isn’t given that much dialogue.  It is also pretty obviously that they didn’t have him for the entire shoot.  Just watch how his character isn’t in all the scenes when he is there with them.  In fact I kind of had fun watching this as the movie went along.  The editor does a decent job hiding this fact and there aren’t any awkward moments, but if you are paying attention you can see it.  Everyone else is mediocre and forgettable. 

The other big issue that I have with the movie are the special effects.  The zombie makeup is all practical and is okay for a low budget movie.  I was also pleased at how many of the undead that we get to see.  There is nothing more depressing then a zombie Armageddon with just a couple stiffs walking around.  While that is positive all the kills are handled with CGI.  Now I expected this, but the quality of the CGI is very low.  Many of the shots don't match with what the actor is doing on screen.  Too many times we see a sword or a sledgehammer hitting a zombie with the blood and gore coming off at the wrong angles.  They also get very ambitious with some zombie tigers.  That was interesting and nothing that I’d seen before.  But they just don’t have the resources to make them look good. 

The best thing that I can say for Zombie Apocalypse is that it isn’t nearly as bad as I though it was going to be.  In fact I’d even say that it is a serviceable zombie movie that delivers enough for a viewing.  Though I don’t see that many of us will be watching this more then once. 

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2012 John Shatzer