suite92
Michael's wife and daughter die in a car crash. Then 14 years go by. However, this point in time is returned to more than once, such as when Maggie introduces very young Sarah to Uncle Michael at Echling Manor.In the present, bad-tempered, ungrateful teenager Sarah steals some booze and a necklace, gives her mother a hard time, then goes to see her friend and fellow drinker Emily. They drink and talk about how creepy Echling Manor is. That does not last long. The zombie apocalypse arrives in the blink of an eye. Emily gets killed right off the bat.A young man (I guess) rescues Sarah, and they make their way through small mobs of zombies. These are fast zombies. The young man is even faster with his sword, but he and Sarah have to run to get away from the remaining zombies.In the past, Michael finds a large, creepy book under a broken floor board in Echling Manor. All this back and forth over 14 years is irritating. Perhaps I'll see the utility later.Sarah and the young man hole up on the 'old church' which looks absolutely nothing like the rest of the town. They have an incredibly inane conversation filled with bald assertions that often make no sense. The young man finally identifies himself as Jacob. With lines such as 'Hey, I need you to trust me,' and 'The sanctuary has been breached,' I'm hoping the zombies get him first. As well as the zombies, we have a gorilla-Predator-Spiderman cross-match, and hordes of low-flying bats. Sigh.In the past, Michael reads the journal or whatever. He's tormented by bumps in the night and feelings of doom. He reads the journal (a spell book) and ignores writing his current novel. Eventually, he starts invoking spells. He shows Maggie and Sarah one of the more elementary ones. Unfortunately, it immediately starts warping his ego and ethical sensibilities.Jacob and Sarah go down the secret exit from the church. The church is one small room, maybe 1000 square feet. Underneath the church is huge, as in hundreds of football fields of area, huge supporting structures, and quite a high ceiling. Sarah meets the necromancer Mathias, who wants the necklace from Sarah's neck. He cannot take it from her, for unknown reasons. Soon Mathias shows up as does an enormous crowd of CGI characters. To escape, they climb a cliff hundreds of feet high. Sure.Maggie and Jill hide in a closet at home. Maggie hears a noise, and goes to see whether it is Sarah returning. It's not; it's the zombies. Maggie and Jill run for it.Jacob and Sarah have more run-ins with zombies. They have some quality time together where they discuss the necromancer, the necklace, the book of spells, and the monsters. Jacob lived at Michael's house a bit after Michael. They discuss Sarah's meeting of the necromancer, and the 'Rune of Syirlan,' which Sarah had been wearing as a necklace. Jacob tells her that they've been trailed because she had skin contact with the Run. Sarah tells Jacob that she inherited the necklace from Uncle Michael after he died in Echling Manor. Jacob relates that his parents died soon after they moved into the house a few years later. Also, Echling Manor used to be the necromancer's house. No one else has been welcome since.In the past, Michael kills the drunk driver who ran down his family. He uses that to bring forth one of the more advanced spells. That is, summoning one of the necromancer's familiars. Then he summons another. Later, when Jacob's family moves into Echling Manor, the servants of the necromancer are all present.In the present, Sarah and Jacob confront the necromancer too early; Jacob loses his sword and they lose Jill. The necromancer invokes night, and the zombies rise. Jacob goes to meet the necromancer in Echling Manor.Will anyone get out alive? -----Scores------Cinematography: 6/10 Fine most of the time. Occasionally, as in the tombs under the town, the mob made of CGI looks totally fake, which it is. Unfortunately, it's horribly fake. Demerits for shaky camera and out of focus passages.Sound: 8/10 Well recorded at least, with some reasonably creepy incidental music.Acting: 2/10 Brad Dourif has been in some bad films over his 38+ years of acting. He has also had many much, much better roles than this; The Lord of the Rings comes to mind. Veteran character actress Elaine Hendrix has had 20 years of better roles in television, plus some movies. The rest of the cast I do not recognise and expect that I never will recognise, since they seem to be non-actors. Hallee Hirsh is a terribly bad actress, and Jordan Andrews is just as useless. Also, the 24-year-old Hirsh (as of 2011) looks much older than her age, and has no business playing a teenager.Screenplay: 2/10 Yikes. Worse conversation than one would find in a bad original high school play. Bad dialog, horrible exposition, sad logical failures, hundreds of continuity errors. The beginning to middle to end progression goes somewhat well, but the rotten dialog and horrible acting ruin the film.
KingdomSora
I watched this movie a few months back and was recently reminded of it when a friend found it online and asked if i had seen it and i was like "hmmm... Oh yeah...mm.. Oh no" D= I was forced to watch this when my mother chose it one night on Pay Per View, and at first i didn't mind it, it just seemed like a normal movie, but about 15 minutes in i was like "Good god, this sucks, is this a spoof or something?!" if it was a spoof then i would understand but unfortunately it was meant to be a serious film.The acting was so bad that it was just laughable, The effects were so low budget that it felt like an episode of Doctor Who, The music was Un original and unfitting for most scenes, The story was lacking and the entire movie was Cliché!! To be fair there were some good scenes, but not enough, and this isn't the worst movie i have ever seen but i will admit, it was entertaining (By that i mean it was comedic) =D If you are up for a good horror then stay away from this movie, But if you are up for a laugh then you might want to try this XD (Be warned though, it really is a BAD movie)
Adam Wernell
I was initially unsure about some of the cast. I've only seen Thomas Ian Nicholas do comedies, I've never seen the actress who played Sarah but have looked her up to find mostly TV credits. The lead actor who played Jacob was apparently an unknown theater actor from New York but I wasn't sure if he was just going to be another pretty boy from my first view of the trailer. New York theater is the highest credential an actor can have but you never know. All the big young actors today have zero acting credibility and I'm always looking for the next Johnny Depp or Leonardo DiCaprio. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised as you usually don't see new young actors take on roles where they get bloodied up and ugly.What sold me on the movie was the superhero action. I'd say the last 20 to 25 minutes of the film are the most entertaining in an edge of your seat kind of way. The battle between Jacob and Mathias at the very end was the best part, followed every so closely by the scene of Jacob taking on the onslaught of zombies just beforehand. The rest of the acting was kind of weak but no different than a movie like Cloverfield, Halloween, or Friday the 13th. The movie was much better than the Nightmare On Elm Street remake but the storyline itself was confusing at times. There was a lot of cutting back between the small town parts which I thought were boring and the more epic action scenes. The only cool part of the "town" scenes was watching Sarah hack away at Maggie's face when she turns into a zombie.The pacing was great and Brad Douirf had some sinister moments on screen. I first had the impression that he was playing another Grima Wormtongue role. But Mathias is a more commanding character and it's the lead bad. Grima was just a bit part. Overall, a cool film with some cool new characters. My favorite character was Jacob because of the blood and you don't see enough heroes with swords these days, we're too often overexposed to gun use (maybe the NRA has a deal with the movie industry).
