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[#Horror #reTweet] Z Nation (2014)
Z Nation (2014)
By Scott Shoyer
There’s a food truck on a particular road on the route I take going to work. It’s a simple, basic set-up, it’s an ordinary guy running things, not a franchise, And there’s a small rickety table and two chairs set up beside it. And the food? Sausages, bacon, eggs in various greasy combinations, shoved into rolls and with your choice of any kind of sauce, so long as it’s brown. It makes McDonalds look like the Noma or the Cellar De Can Roca, but it does the job, it does it cheaply, it tastes good, and you won’t get food poisoning. Probably.
A similar feeling is generated by the Asylum. Scott and I have reviewed numerous movies by them, usually in partnership with the SyFy Channel (Holy Lugosi, I get that they did it because they couldn’t trademark the term “Sci-Fi”, but changing their name to that over Sci-Fi reeks of more pretension than one of Gwyneth Paltrow’s farts). And while they may be filmed on one percent of the budget of the average Hollywood movie, more often than not they deliver the goods – if you’re looking for cheap CGI monsters and over the top performances from ex-pop stars turned C-list actors.
Their most famous movies are SHARKNADO and MEGASHARK VS GIANT OCTOPUS, and while they do get a lot of flak from the mainstream, the fact is that they’ve made nearly a hundred movies in fifteen years and never lost money on any of them, which is more than you can say for the big studios, who seem obsessed with doubling down on whatever project they’ve got going, thinking enough money will paper over any flaws.
McDonalds has brought back the McBrains Sandwich!
Their latest venture, in partnership with SyFy, is the TV series Z NATION, focusing on a group of survivors in a post-apocalyptic America overrun by ravenous zombies. Sounds familiar? Of course it does! That’s the idea; you couldn’t expect any less from the people who brought you THE DAY THE EARTH STOPPED, TRANSMORPHERS and ALMIGHTY THOR. And most folk will dismiss this as nothing more than a cheap knock-off of THE WALKING DEAD.
And admittedly there is a lot to compare it to the AMC series. But then the makers of Z NATION know it – in one piece of dialogue in their pilot episode, they mention a group of survivors holed up in a local prison! – and I’m more forgiving of people who admit that they’re, uh, ‘homaging’ other works. And happily, the TV series delivers what you expect. It does the job, it does it cheaply, it tastes good, and you won’t get bored. Probably.
“Bath salts? Love some!”
The pilot episode opens three years after the usual zombie virus has devastated the country (and presumably the rest of the world, even if the show isn’t called Z WORLD), and after the expected fast montage of scenes of chaos and burning cities and radio broadcasts, we cut to two soldiers running into a supposedly-secure facility, barely closing a gate onto a hoard of fast-running zombies (yes, unlike THE WALKING DEAD revenants these are the supercharged types). One of the soldiers, Hammond (Harold Perrineau, LOST), leaves his partner to guard the quickly-disintegrating gate while he goes further inside. Shouldn’t have put on that red shirt this morning, buddy…
He just stepped on a Lego…
Meanwhile, elsewhere in a snowbound NSA communications bunker in the Arctic, one soldier, Private Simon Cruller (DJ Qualls, a guy you’ll have seen in numerous movies but whom I remember as the nerd hacker in THE CORE) is giving Hammond orders before his own team evacuates the facility. He stays behind too long, and gets out in time to see the rest of his unit have already taken off in their plane – thanks, guys. But the plane crashes in the storm, thus sparing themselves the agony of airplane food and leaving Cruller alone, albeit in a base filled with meals, weapons, and hopefully lots of porn.
Back with the LOST guy, and we find that the facility is a prison, and the doctor is forcibly testing anti-zombie serums on condemned prisoners, perfunctorily reading them the orders left over by the now-dead president ‘volunteering’ them for testing. It’s a shocking scene, simply because it’s amazingly plausible and yet something I’ve not seen before (though I would expect after three years all the prisoners would have been used up before now).
Ironically, in life his last name was Kennedy…
Three prisoners strapped down on tables get the zombie viruses, two of them quickly turning and getting shot in the head by Hammond, who doesn’t stick around to see the third guy, Murphy (Keith Allan, who was in the Asylum’s RISE OF THE ZOMBIES, which I reviewed here) turn, or even stick around long enough to free Murphy before the zombies burst in and start chomping on him. Not exactly heroic, but all the more realistic for it.
We then cut to later, to a community of survivors in upstate New York, engaged in a ceremony involving one of their elderly members getting a bullet to prevent her from turning after death (another nice, plausible touch). Hammond soon arrives… with a still-living Murphy in tow! It seems that Murphy somehow survived the attack on from the zombies, and thus he may hold some sort of immunity or resistance. Hammond and Murphy eventually find themselves allied with some of the community members, after the community gets overrun by zombies, and then later their numbers dwindle further when they get ready to make the journey across America to get Murphy to the last surviving medical facility.
“Now show us where the zombies bit you- uh, never mind…”
The TV show, like the Asylum movies, are very fast paced; there is literally no more than a minute or two before a zombie is attacking someone. The blood and guts come fast and furious, and the makeup is among the best I’ve seen. I watched THE WALKING DEAD up until almost the end of the second season, when after an interminable period hanging around a farm I gave up, especially when the most (for me) appealing characters were being bumped off.
I’m not breast feeding that lil bastard…
Z NATION is like THE WALKING DEAD on speed, and if there’s any detriment, at least in the pilot, it’s in the characterisation. Of the ones we’re introduced to, the best-sketched are Private Cruller, who rechristens himself Citizen Z and styles himself as the voice of the new America, trying to keep survivors in the know, and Murphy, the ex-prisoner with a sardonic sense of humour who has no interest in saving humanity except that it keeps him alive as well. The others barely manage more than the labels “Soldier”, “Compassionate Soldier”, “Older Survivor”, etc. Presumably, future episodes will give them a chance to shine.
So, although the Asylum and SyFy’s respective reputations might not make many horror fans feel optimistic about Z NATION, perhaps they should give it a shot. The series continues on SyFy, and the trailer is below.
Deggsy’s Summary:
Director: John Hyams
Plot: 4 out of 5 stars
Gore: 10 out of 10 skulls
Zombie Mayhem: 5 out of 5 brains
Reviewed by Deggsy. BBBRRRAAAIIIINNNNSSSS!!!
Filed under: Deggsy’s Corner, New Posting, The Asylum, TV Horror Review
September 19, 2014 at 03:22PM
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