Very rarely do I hate a zombie movie. The zombie genre is one of
my favorites and if you have read my blog, you know I am not afraid of terrible
movies. But Rise of the Zombies goes beyond terrible; it is heavy handed and downright
unpleasant.
The movie
centers around a group of survivors who have been living on Alcatraz Island.
However their safety is soon compromised when the zombies begin to infiltrate.
The group decides to return to the city in the hopes of finding a cure. One of
the survivors played by LeVar Burton opts to stay behind and basically spend
the whole film having his talents wasted.
Speaking of
wasting talent, Danny Trejo also stars in this film and dies in the first reel.
This is the same thing that ticked me off about the Day of the Dead remake when
Ving Rhames died early. You do not cast bad ass actors in a zombie film and
kill them off. Trejo was the main reason I gave this movie an ounce of my
attention.
One of the main
plots of Rise is a pregnant woman named Ashley. Ashley is a
pessimist who believes that her pregnancy is more of a curse than a joyous
event. This was a pretty decent plot that was literally squashed in one of the
worst scenes I have ever seen.
Our survivors come
across a pregnant woman who is trapped in an ambulance and in labor.
Unfortunately our mom to be is turned and the survivors are forced to do a C
section to save the baby. The baby initially is fine and the scene is rather heartwarming.
That is until the baby turns into a zombie and promptly has its head
smashed in.
I have seen a
lifetime of blood and gore but that scene turned my stomach. It also ruined any
respect I had for the movie. To make matters worse, Ashley kills
herself later on resulting in yet another infant death in this movie.
The rest of the
movie consists on wasting the talents of Ethan Suplee and Mariel Hemingway,
religious discussions and a tacked on "optimistic ending." With this
movie, SYFY hit a new low in poor taste. When you fail as a SYFY movie, you
kind of fail the movie industry all together.
