'Humans vs Zombies' (2011)

It turns out that I can really watch some absolute rubbish when I put my mind to it :o) Well, that's what you get when you pick up a DVD for 10p, the quality gets lost somewhere along the way...

'Humans vs Zombies' is one of those movies that I invariably watch at the end of a really shitty day'; one of those movies where you hit 'play' and just let the movie wash over you, you're not thinking about it but that's ok because there's nothing really to think about. Or is there...? Well no, not really. Sometimes all a movie is good for is background noise while you pick yourself up after a bad day and yesterday was a pretty bad day, all things considered. I know I'm in the same boat as everyone else but there is something soul destroying about all this, isn't there? Oh well, that's what 'Humans vs Zombies' was for. Normal service will resume very shortly, I promise. I can't watch another film like this for a long time, I just can't...

Students on summer break are exposed to a deadly virus, a neuroinvasive organism that is spread rapidly through direct human contact. The Infected are enslaved by the invading "swarm" intelligence and driven by an insatiable appetite to consume human flesh. Returning home, the students spread the infection to their fellow classmates and other unsuspecting townspeople. One by one, more students fall victim to the plague, triggering an epidemic that spawns a horde of ravenous zombies. The zombie horde grows and spreads quickly. Amidst the chaos, a campus security guard, obsessed with conspiracy theories, leads a group of students to safety as they and a small band of uninfected townspeople set out to find other human survivors...

I didn't realise that 'Zombies vs Humans' was based on a game of the same name, played in US Colleges. To be honest, they should have left the game well alone as it just doesn't translate well into a film, not at all. I'm tired so let me see if I can explain myself...

Zombie movies (or books, whatever) are all about the survival horror, of course they are, that's the point of the zombie movie, to see if the survivors make it out the other side. That's not the whole point though, there needs to be a story.running alongside all that survival horror. Why have the characters found themselves in that situation and what are they working towards other than surviving another day? That kind of thing. It's not just about surviving another day, there has to be more to it. That's why 'The Walking Dead' has felt tired for a couple of seasons now, the story is starting to fade and there's not enough left to keep it going.

But anyway, back to 'Zombies vs Humans'.

I think where they've gone wrong is by letting the film run too closely to the game that it's based upon. 'There are zombies and we must run away before they catch and eat us!' Well, that's fair enough but is there anything else going on? This film does go on for almost an hour and a half you know... 'No! There are zombies chasing us, run!'

Sticking to the spirit of the game is admirable but there's just not enough there for an hour and a half of movie. There's barely enough for half an hour. The end result feels like half a movie stretched to fit a whole movie. You can watch it and it's entertaining enough (in a 'why didn't they just set the car on fire instead of superimposing fire graphics on it...' kind of way) but you are going to finish it feeling a little let down by the absence of any kind of plot. This is a real shame as a little bit of effort to include an actual plot could have made a hell of a difference.

But then I still watched it. Well, just re-read the first paragraph, I knew what I was getting into and it was exactly what I needed to watch. I'm just going to save you spending 10p on your own copy, don't do it ;o)