The Dissection looks at……oh, what fresh hell is this?
The Story
A young fashion blogger in Youngstown, Ohio captures a zombie outbreak on camera while shooting a documentary. As the undead scourge begins to spread, a group of college students must place their faith in a battle-hardened ex-solder if they hope to make it out of this nightmare alive.
The Cast
Patrick Kilpatrick as The Colonel. A military man who has a linked to the people in the film and is in no way evil nor involving in any way to the zombie outbreak that occurs in the film. Nope.
Joseph Aviel as Zombinator. Long coat? Check. Sunglasses, even in night? Check. Gunplay? Check. Dumb Name. That’s a check.
Diana Sillaots as Yanna. A long cool woman in a fur dress, who seems to have over the film at points. Less scene stealing and more petty theft.
Justin Brown as Marcus. It’s the black guy who’s in the middle of a zombie invasion and a government killing machine. He’ll be fine.
The Dissection
The thing about this film is that, for a movie that seems to come off as goofy as your average Asylum mockbuster or Syfy Original movie, a film that is self aware, even to the point of annoyance, and is trying to be an entertaining ride at the least. But it commits the ultimate sin a film like this can make. It tries to be…..artsy. Not that there’s anything wrong with trying to be more than previous thought, as long as it’s executed in a good or interesting way. This, not so much.
This movie had a premise that was better pulled off when it was with DOLPH LUDGREN and his army of survivors and robots facing off against zombies in BATTLE OF THE DAMNED. It’s not even up to the task of building what the movie itself seems to imply, a battle of zombies versus a cold murderous machine assassin. It’s more of a suspense story, which really has no suspense to it, involving zombies and the premise of being a found footage film that has a more plotholes than zombies.
The Colonel (Kilpatrick) with Zombinator (Aviel), in the middle of their “Who has the dumbest character name?” competition.
The film was done while filming of another film was done and in a short amount of time, similar to the old Roger Corman film THE TERROR, and was shot in less than 5 days. And it shows. Not in the effects or make up, but that it feels rushed. There’s no time to set up the characters and the scenes to make them seem competent, let alone entertaining. Audio & visual issues, questionable dialog takes, and a bunch of goofs that seem like it should have been taken care of in post production, or even in getting a new take of the scene. And the cast are a bunch of newbies in front of the camera, apart from Patrick KilPatrick, who at least has some experience to say his lines. There’s honestly not much to even talk about. This film is not infuriating or a putrid mess like THE MUMMY RESURRECTED was. This film just comes off as boring or occasionally broken.
The Verdict
The title seems to be the only thing that really grabs the viewer. Most of the film is lackluster. It’s not a terrible film, but it’s an uninteresting one.