Michael Ledo
This isn't the worst zombie film made in the US, it just tries to be. The movie starts out on an island where there is a battle between loggers and environmentalists. One of the loggers hits a spike while cutting down a tree. The recoil from the chainsaw cuts his shoulder. Some of the sap from the experimental tree gets in the wound and BINGO! You suddenly have a flesh eating zombie.The scene quickly moves to a board of director scene who haven't heard from the logging camp. There is a long dialogue scene between the owner of the company and his son while they are playing snooker. It is badly written, badly acted, and badly directed, pretty much like the rest of the movie. The owner wants his son to learn the business so he goes out to the camp, which he finds deserted and he is chased by zombies, who at times can run fast, and other times move like they have a broken leg. Go Figure.Meanwhile back in the lab a clumsy bio-chemist cuts himself and gets some of the evil sap in his blood. He goes on to bite the neck out of his partner. Then we have the lab covered in plastic. A man in protective gear is taking pictures of the scene at the same time two guys in suits are standing there. Dad decides his son is in danger and the decision is made to lock down the logging camp, even though no one really knows what is going on.Anyway the plot at this point becomes even more pointless. Zombies do not require head shots to kill...so are they really zombies?
Theo Robertson
I'd never heard of this movie before seeing it on the Zone horror channel until last night and I'm not actually surprised . It's Z grade rubbish and the only thing I'm surprised about is that some people actually enjoyed it CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR 28 DAYS LATER Some people have claimed that it rips off 28 DAYS LATER but that is slightly unfair because Alex Garland used John Wyndham's DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS for his screenplay . A man waking up in hospital , finding the world changed , meeting a female survivor , meeting up with more survivors who are flashing their house lights in the distance , escaping London , being captured by a renegade army unit who want to use the women as sex slaves where after the hero releases the monsters who attack the bad guys thereby allowing the goodies to escape all happened in the 1951 post apocalyptic novel . Garland used the exact same script structure and plot turns and the producers of SEVERED have done the same . It's not legally or technically plagiarism , though you could accuse someone of urinating all over Wyndham's grave with this screenplay . In fact triffids everywhere will be up in branches after seeing SEVERED due to its lack of quality The main problem apart from the painful lack of originality is that the director has not got a clue what he is doing and if he doesn't know what he's doing how are the audience ? Perhaps with the shaky camera work etc he thought he might be emulating Danny Boyle but Boyle will almost certainly be getting an Oscar nomination for SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE while the director here will merely be slumming for the rest of his career . Each and every shot is basically a medium close up on a face even during the action sequences and if the director didn't bother making a half decent movie then I won't bother learning what his name was
Scarecrow-88
A genetic breakthrough which can produce large trees at a quicker rate has an unfortunate side-effect..the sap, once entered into the human bloodstream, turns humans into flesh-eating zombies, whose bite produces the same effect.Tyler(Paul Campbell)doesn't wish to follow in his Chairman father's footsteps, but is coerced into going to a logging site whose production has grown silent. Once there, Tyler finds that the workers, and environmentalist protesters, are raving zombies munching on mutilated bodies. Finding a logger, Luke(Michael Teigen), who saves his life, they make for a makeshift shack of temporary safety containing a small motley group of frightened survivors. Rita(Sarah Lind), the mastermind of the major protest against the logging company's cutting down trees, is one of the few who made it to shack, along with fellow protester Stacey(Leanne Adachi). Mac(Julian Christopher, a fatherly, trustworthy, wise, & heroic presence)is the foreman whose men were plagued by the zombie virus thanks to a horrifying chainsaw mishap, caused by a spiked tree(..planted by the protesters), which mixes the genetically enhanced sap into a worker's wounded shoulder. Carter(JR Bourne), is a wimpy, pathetic scientist, working for the company taking samples of the sap, testing it for possible dangers with the results, good or bad, sent back to the research center. Carter perhaps knows what is causing the zombie plague. Together, on foot, Tyler will lead the motley group to his truck hoping to escape with their lives intact. Rita, however, has plans to save her boyfriend, Greg(John Reardon)which separates them temporarily. Problems arise even when they make it to the truck, and the group find themselves, thanks to the board who forces Tyler's father to sign a decree for confinement, trapped in the camp with only a back road as a possible escape route. Things get even worse when those who somehow survive multiple zombie attacks, find themselves in the camp of another logging company, led by the massive, imposing Anderson(Patrick Gallagher)whose presence over the men offers just as much a threat to them as the bloodthirsty undead.This zombie film is rife with stupid human behavior, particularly by the cowardly scientist Carter, played by JR Bourne as if he were Dr. Smith of LOST IN SPACE. He quivers like a little scared child, always cowering and shaking. He is the type who doesn't help others in need, despite the rescuing he receives(..like when Luke saves him from an attack only to be left by Carter to fend for himself). Tyler makes two really dumb decisions(..one, obviously because without making it there wouldn't be a movie, his leaving the truck as zombies come toward him, opting instead to flee into the forest, and a second, instead of leaving with Rita when escape is possible, decides to try and help Carter who was completely surrounded by zombies with no hope, it seems, of escaping a sinister fate)which will have you screaming at the screen. The film is shot in a frenzy, using grainy stock it seems, never keeping the camera still when the zombies make their appearances. Blood spurts in slow motion, but rarely is the true violence(..like our characters bludgeoning the zombies with weapons)ever shown on screen. The zombie virus works like in the 28 DAYS/WEEKS LATER with those infected convulsing not too long after being bit. They rampage their victims just as feverishly as in Zack Snyder's DAWN OF THE DEAD remake. Actually, this film is shot very similar to Snyder's film, giving those infected little time on screen, instead almost completely focusing on the characters and their plight. This film, despite how the zombie virus starts, isn't really any different than the films that have came before it. I do think many zombie fans will like it..many will be game for zombies in a forest, even if we rarely see true carnage(..there is some flesh-eating, but most of it is more implied than shown in depth). The cast, for the exception of Bourne, who I thought was dreadful, is actually pretty decent. I really thought Christopher, as the foreman who becomes the rock everyone leans on to stay alive, was especially good.
