I Survived a Zombie Holocaust

Certainly above average from all the zombie movies..

Funny enough, zombies within zombies and stuff, tried to be funny all the way through , it was enjoyable. its gets the job done

It's a great core premise: troubled zombie flick's shoot gets overrun with real zombies. It could have been gold, sadly it wasn't.

The cast try. The crew do what they can with what's clearly a very limited budget. It's obvious that a lot of local goodwill went in, too. There are some scenes where it's pretty clear that most of the local town turned up and gave it their best shot - look at the rugby game sidelines for what I mean.

The trouble with the movie is what isn't there. The lead actor is simply not compelling enough to identify with, even after it's clear that he needs to become a badass if he's going to survive. The comedy feels like it's actors working lines from tight scripts and there's no vibe to it at all. In an area with some of the most compelling scenery and natural light on earth, the whole thing is shot in a generic forest under flat light (honestly, it looks like it was filmed under clouded skies at mid day). The cinematography is fixed cameras at a polite distance with plenty of unused space in most of the shots. The worst is the direction. This movie is staid, bloated, and terribly, terribly slow.

It's slow like a glacier is slow. Really.

There'll be the inevitable comparisons to homegrown classics like Bad Taste or Braindead. Nope. This isn't anywhere near those movies, at any level, and if you want to see what can be done on a tight budget then look those movies up. I've given a few stars for the sake of the support leads (especially Jocelyn Christian, who deserves better), but that's it.

See it if and only if you are making a movie and need to research mistakes to avoid.

Plot

A young runner, on a Zombie film set, has the first day from hell when real Zombies overrun the set.

Cast

Not familiar with anyone involved

Verdict

So the premise is that during the filming of a zombie movie real zombies attack, does that sound familiar to you? If it doesn't you can't watch many zombie films because I can think of 4-5 flicks with exactly the same concept! 2017's One Cut of the Dead arguably being the best of the bunch. So originality? Not so much on view here.

Visually it looks the part and the cast are competent enough, the trouble is that though this is a zombie comedy it's light on zombies and erm....laughs. You know what it does have? Cliches, tropes and all the standard scenes you expect from a mediocre zombie film.

I was enjoying it initially, alas this didn't last and it fell back on every cliche imaginable and left me querying whether I'd already seen it because it felt so remarkably recycled.

I see what they were trying to do here, but they relied too much on what had come before rather than carving the movie its own identity. The end result, something you've practically seen before.

Rants

Horror is my default genre and within that zombie films are my favourite sub-genre so as you can imagine I've seen far too many and that is really starting to cost me. I feel like I've seen everything, that every zombie movie I watch I fail to enjoy because I've seen too much before and everything feels like a remake of what's come before. I need and appreciate originality more than ever but this sub-genre is stale and you simply don't see enough of it!

The Good

Some decent ideas Fairly well made

The Bad

Very little originality Falls apart the further in it goes.

On his first day as a lowly runner on a zombie film, aspiring film-maker Wesley (Harley Neville) meets the girl of his dreams, pretty cook Susan (Jocelyn Christian), but also finds himself fighting for survival against real zombies who have invaded the set.

From its broad characters, absurd humour, and outrageous gore, right down to its awkward nerd-turned-hero who falls for a nice 'girl-next-door' in the midst of a zombie epidemic, it seems pretty clear to me that the makers of New Zealand splatter comedy I Survived A Zombie Holocaust set out to emulate Peter Jackson's Brain Dead (Wesley couldn't be more like Lionel if he tried). And for much of the time, they get it right: the gruesome effects are suitably messy, the crazy and sometimes delightfully crass comedy mostly hits the mark, and the cast do well in creating some memorably fun characters.

Unfortunately, where the film does suffer is in its pacing: things take an awful long while to get going, and at 104 minutes, 'I Survived…' is far too long to sustain the central joke. Some judicious editing to trim away all of the fat, and this film could have been great rather than just good. As it stands, it is still the second best low-budget Kiwi zombie film I have seen, but with only the disappointing Black Sheep as the other contender (I've yet to see Last Of The Living), I suppose that could be considered faint praise.

6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

First of all, I must say that I had initially some expectations to this movie, as it seemed appealing from the synopsis, and also because there has been a couple of good additions to the zombie genre from the Kiwis and Aussies. And also when the movie had "A Kiwi Shaun of the Dead" brandished on the DVD cover, ought to count for something.

However, once the movie ended, I was left with a somewhat bland taste in my mouth. Why? Well, because the movie wasn't as good as I had expected, nor was it as funny as "Shaun of the Dead". Sure, there were some great moments throughout the course of "I Survived a Zombie Holocaust", but the overall result was just mediocre. There were a few laughs here and there, but not enough to sustain the entire movie. And with hand on heart, then I actually dozed off two or three times throughout the movie.

As I mentioned, then there were some good moments here and there throughout the movie. And my personal favorite was when the special effects/props guy picked up arms and went ballistic on the approaching zombies. That scene had be in laughs.

The special effects in "I Survived a Zombie Holocaust" were adequate, although the zombies weren't among the best of zombie special effects and make-up to be seen in the zombie genre. There were some good enough effects here and there, but nothing outstanding.

As for the acting, well, people were doing good enough jobs with their given roles and characters. And Harley Neville did carry the movie quite well with his performance.

The characters in the movie were colorful and well-detailed, and they did add a good amount of contents to the movie as a whole.

All in all, then "I Survived a Zombie Holocaust" just failed to stand out in a mostly generic genre, which was a shame, because it did have potential for something bigger. As such, then I am rating the movie a mediocre five out of ten stars.