Thursday, January 12, 2012

Review - World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries 2

This is usually where I start by gushing about zombies and my love for them, but not this time. Have you ever pulled a joke on someone just because one was pulled on you previously in the same manner? I think we have all done this in one form or another believing we had good reason. In the case of this movie I ended up double pranked. Not only did this suck as bad as the last one, but the jag off friend that recommended it is probably laughing as he reads this right now. You know who you are and your time will come (wink).So we start off following the last film and the outbreak is only spreading as we watch a shaky cam version of a little girl's birthday party overrun by the undead. We see the return of Leanne, (now played by Alxi Regan) who was in the film crew in the first movie. She is the sole survivor of the first movie, which is ok because almost none of the characters were worth remembering. Jones is now the man entrusted with documenting the terror as he is rolling with this squad as their military photographer. There is an attempt at holding the fort which proves futile and Leanna, Jones and a few other soldiers make it out. So off we go to find a new place to call home. This takes us through different abandoned areas and woods. Then we find the enemy hide out which seems to be human bandits with booby traps a plenty. We see the return of some so called bad guys from the first film, but once again who cares as almost nothing was memorable the first time around. There are plot twists tying Leanna to past events unfortunate and such but I am not going to spoil that for you loyal ZD fans. As with most of these flicks we are racing to salvation, and in this case that comes as a boat before everything is fire bombed to kill the outbreak (yawn).The make-up and effects were better this time around and you could tell the budget was increased. I am not sure why or how the green light and budget happened for this flick. I just chalked it up to making a quick buck on this zombie craze before it is tapped out (which if you are counting was before 2011). The acting was well... the acting. Nothing amazing or genre changing but at the same time on par with what we have come to expect from these "feature a day" movies. Music was the usual ho hum crap along with the sound effects. If anything the sound was poorer due to damn shaky camera/documentary style filming.My biggest complaint was the way this was filmed. The whole shaky camera/found footage/night vision crap is almost always a terror to watch and not in the good way. The green luminous light or night vision made a lot of effects and action hard to see. Personally when I see this stuff its rookie crap. It is all to easy to cover up bad CGI/acting/effects/makeup etc, by killing the light and distorting the picture as if we are there. Listen, I am not looking to be there but more or less see a decent flick which unfortunately this is not. Now will you please excuse me, I have a bag of dog sh*t to light on fire and leave on a friend's doorstep.

Pros
Better makeup then the last movie
Makes a great prank gift for jag off friends
Cons
Shaky cam style
Night vision camera
So so acting

Posted by contributor Christopher Young

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