Rise of the Zombies...and my lunch

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.