Written by Matthew Jarvis
published 6th August 2012
Supplied for review by |  |
Zombie movies are hardly a new genre with well over 500 produced to date, but the un-dead have seen a resurgence due at least in part to various First Person Shoot-em-ups and EMO culture. These films seem to fall into various categories – gore, sexual content, historical - even Film Noire. Some gain cult status and not always because they are any good while quite whom some of the films are aimed at is sometimes a bit of a mystery. Chuck in some semi-naked cute girls and lots of mindless violence and the market is clear; spotty youths seeking some fantasy lust. Strip out the excessive gore and replace with a ripped boy or 2 and the EMO girls will be in their element. So where does this leave Abraham Lincoln and his un-dead co-stars? Tricky, as there is a distinct lack of well-endowed pallid young ladies or 6 pack toting guys with intense stares. What there is however, are a smattering of zombies and a vaguely realistic cast of American Civil War extras. Do not confuse this... [Read the complete movie review]
A decent 1080p 1.78:1 digital transfer at 24FPS, with little noise and no film grain, as it was digitally shot and none has been added in afterwards. The low level shadow detail is fairly good, but a few shots are over exposed. This genre is normally quite dark and set mainly at night, but this example is predominately daylight and even the internal shots are brightly lit. The grading is much too severe, with the saturation taking down far too far. It comes across as looking like ordinary video and this is also disappointing. The disc loads quickly and the menu and resume all work fine. Picture score : 4 On start up, the disc defaults to 2.0 PCM instead of the DTS-HD MA 5.1 that is also available. Quite why is unclear. The sound is dynamic and well balanced, but the dialogue has been poorly equalised with quite a lot of sibilance audible and the fades between actor’s mics far too evident. The orchestral score is not bad bearing in mind the budget of the film, but the surround mix is disappointing, sounding like the rear channel audio was added in as an afterthought. The LFE channel is well controlled though and adds to the general melee of some of the fight scenes. Sound score : 4 A trailer of 30 second length and that’s it. Very poor. Extras score : 1 I was not expecting wonders from this movie and yet still felt cheated. Zombie movies can be great fun, but this one just fails to impress on so many levels. You do not expect strong storylines, casts of thousands and wide expansive sets at this budget level, but excessive gore, cute girls and a ripped chest or two are almost mandatory. I am really struggling to see who this film is aimed at, as it just does not appeal to any established market sector. The flawed audio and over graded picture do nothing to help the scores. Even the packaging gives inaccurate information regarding the audio formats offered, suggesting that not even the distribution company could bring themselves to spend any longer with this film than they had to. Overall score : 4 362 word review written by Matthew Jarvis. To comment on this review, click here and post a reply.
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