20131212: Horror Review--Zombie Hunter

Zombie Hunter

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 92 minutes, horror, zombies.
2. IMDB: 3.3/10.0 from 748 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No Reviews Yet...' and 8% liked it from 99 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.6/5.0 from 4,198 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: K. King
6. Starring: Danny Trejo as Father Jesus, Martin Copping as Hunter, Clare Niederpruem as Alison, Terry Guthrie as Jerry, Jade Reiger as Debbie, Jarrod Phillips as Bill, Jason K. Wixom as Ricky.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The film starts with a newscast about Natas, or sin, which is the new 'it' drug.  The government is taking steps.  The viewer watches the newscast being looked at by Natas users.


2. A year later, Hunter is out in the desert, killing the occasional zombie.  His Camaro breaks down from the blood and guts blocking his air intake.  Sigh.  He stops for gas, and ends up killing 8 zombies.  He has not seen another non-zombie ('survivor') for six months. Then someone shoots him while he's driving.  He and the car look pretty bad, but they drag him back to camp.


3. The small group gets to know one another.   Hunter and one of his new mates go out to assess the damage on his Camaro; they encounter zombies.  Soon the compound is attacked by zombies, including some sort of full-on mutant that looks like it was never a human.  This was a disaster.  Jesus dies taking out the lead monster.


4. Down the road, they run out of gas.  They all get sick from looking into a non-operational freezer.  Someone steals their truck, which sets up an ambush by a crazy with a chainsaw.  What was the setup for this?


5. Hunter, Alison, Ricky, and Jerry make it to the airfield, which is supposed to help them out, somehow.  Just where can they fly to that will be safe?


6. Do any of them get out alive?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Bad acting plus a bad script; zombies were uninteresting.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 2/10 Endless, stupid, in-your-face filters.  Pink was my least favourite filter, but others were bad as well.  Otherwise, the picture was rather low in quality, say mid-range VHS. 


2. Sound: 6/10  Not too bad, but with wretched incidental music.


3. Acting: 2/10 Much to my disappointment, Danny Trejo's role was rather small, but that's where the +2 comes from.  The main character is played by Martin Copping, who is more than a little boring, irrelevant, out of tune with the other actors.  Clare Niederpruem was not a plus.  Jade Reiger was decorative, but not a great actress.  Jarrod Phillips gave one of the worst performances I've seen.  Terry Guthrie barely seemed present.


4. Screenplay: 1/10 Not much of a story, but it does have a beginning, middle, and an end.  The dialog is horrible, as is the internal logic of the story.  They stop because they are out of gas.  Someone steals the truck (how?).  Hunter recovers the truck; now it has gas.  Right.  Alison and Ricky are being chased by a fast guy with a chainsaw.  Alison: we've got to get going!  Ricky: I'm tired.


5. SFX: 2/10 Second/third rate. Bad zombie makeup, splatter effects, vomiting effects.  Blood shows up as pink, purple, orange, dark, and occasionally red.