Movie Review: Zombie Apocalypse

Zombie Apocalypse a.k.a The Last Stand

The Asylum, Syfy, UK, USA, 2011.

VM2 virus spreads turning people into zombies. Six months later only a handful of survivors are still alive. Ramona (Taryn Manning) and Billy (Eddie Steeples) meet a group of experienced zombie killers including sledgehammer wielding Henry (Ving Rhames) and swordswoman Cassie (Lesley-Ann Brandt). The group tries to travel to Catalina where they should be safe. They meet a group of archers who try also try to go to Catalina. Then animals start to turn into zombies also.

Henry

Cassie

Ramona

Above average Asylum-film that takes the zombie-subject seriously. Compared to usual Asylum end of the world filcks the characters are better drawn and more interesting. Often in the films of The Asylum there are only a handful of extras presenting citizens. Here a decent number of zombie extras were used and although some of the zombie actors are used in several scenes, at least they look like a real zombie horde here. In some scenes the story feels like a "Walking Dead" clone, and the characters actually mention a character named Kirkman. Also in the beginning a character named Kevin Anderson gets pwned by zombies, I don't know maybe it is a reference to scifi author Kevin J. Anderson or something. There is some fun zombie action, big man Ving Rhames smashes zombies with sledgehammer, shouts some fun one liners and in the end zombie tigers jump in. Some of the bad CGI effects are all too obvious but otherwise the low budget is quite well used and the locations in Los Angeles are used nicely. The zombie-genre begins to be all too formulaic and so is the story here, but for zombie-entertainment needs "Zombie Apocalypse" offers a quick fix.

Myrah (Lilan Bowden)

Regular zombies

Zombie tigers!

Rating: Good 

Starring: Ving Rhames, Taryn Manning, Johnny Pacar, Gary Weeks, Lesley-Ann Brandt, Eddie Steeples, Robert Blanche, Gerald Webb, Lilan Bowden, Anya Monzikova, Lauran Doverspike, Kimberly Ables Jindra, Ami Albea, Darryl Allen, John Alonzo, Larry Andrews, Kat Andrusco, Mary Alexandra Andrusco, Kimberly Arcega, Kristen Louise Baker, Jennifer Barbosa, Terry Kenard Barnes, Amy Becklin, Jadarrel Belser, Neil H. Berkow, Jahaziel Berumen, Cleo Berry, Jonathan D. Black, Medgine Brice, Les Brooks Jr., Nick Cantoni, Alison Carr, Lloyd Carr, Neftali Castrellon, Mikalyn Cavanaugh, Jacob M. Clayton, David Cohen, Mary Jeannette Corona, Dawlin Delgado, Chago Robert Desantiago, Mark Diamond, Jonathan Dieringer, Kevin Di Leo, Robert Draper, Deric Duncan, Emma Duncan, Jennifer Flatebo, Jon Fedele, Alex Flores, Javier Flores, Kelby Floyd, Michael Gaglio, Frank Giarmona, Charles K. Gibson Jr., Olivia Gilbert, Morgan Gish, D.A. Goodman, Bob Gray, Dustin Green, Frances Green, James Green, Libertad Green, Sabrina Guyll, Samantha Hartson, Luke Heller, Henry Hermiz, Rosibel Hidalgo, Kerry Himmel, Stephen Holman, Timothy Ingles, Althea Johnson, Brittany Jones, John Paul Jones, Josh Kahn, Jason Kakebeen, Nicolette Kenny, Nina Ki, Anthony Kien, Jason Michael Lease , Waymond Lee, Adrien Lyon, Parker Lyon, Graham Mackie, Ryan Geoffrey Perez, Mike Perfetuo, Domenic Ricci II, Ralph Smith, Eduardo Terry, William Mortensen Vaughan, Marty Wood, Dustin York, Norman L. Blackman, Kimi Evans, James McAuley
Director: Nick Lyon