Zombie month is back! And believe me, the list of zombie films is endless, kind of like the zombies themselves really isn't it? And let's get the ball rolling with a look at 2009's 'Dead Men Walking'; also known as 'Autumn', based on the book 'Autumn' by David Moody. I have not read the book, I have never heard of the book, so I'm going into this movie blind.
After the deaths of billions of people, so about 99% of the planet, a group of survivors attempt to survive. That's generally it.
I'll have to say, I barely remembered anything from my first viewing of this film, so I had to watch it again. And boy could I see why I couldn't remember anything. For a large majority of this film, barely anything happens. Even the zombies aren't much of a threat, there are even multiple scenes where the human characters walk RIGHT UP to the zombies, who do NOTHING. There's only a few scenes where the zombies are actually, somewhat, a threat, but the scene either doesn't last long, some of which are resolved simply because the zombies just magically disappear, or some questionable editing and camera work makes the scenes unclear as to what is actually happening.
This film doesn't take the action approach as most zombie films do, like
'World War Z', where we learn nothing about any of the characters besides Brad Pitt, and like 'World War Z' we barely learn anything about the characters in this film. Or rather they're portrayed as so uninteresting you can't focus on them and therefore care about them. And there lies the main problem with 'Dead Men Walking'. It tries to be in the same vein as 'The Walking Dead' and aims to make it more about character development, but the characters, Michael (Dexter Fletcher) and Carl (Dickon Tolson), are one trick ponies, everything we really learn about them is revealed in the opening. And even then it's never really brought up again; except for one aspect, but it's pretty much forgotten about until the very last ten minutes. In fact, the main characters are shadowed by a clown pimp (Yes, a clown pimp. It was a clown, dressed more like a pimp than a clown) and a man that Carl meets randomly, Philip (David Caradine), since we learn more about him, how he survived, and his God damn mother! In all honesty, I can't even comment on whether the acting was good or bad, because from the looks of it the characters were written that way rather than acted that way.
The make-up is pretty standard for a film with this budget, I actually have no problem with it. My main problem is more how they had the zombies look rather than what how they did it. But the main reason why this film is bad is because of the editing and camera work. The film is either too dark, tinted blue, tinted yellow, black and white, negative, or worse, while the camera shakes, a lot, while also seeming to cut out bits; one moment a zombie takes a swipe at Michael, but the very next cut is of Michael making his way away from the zombie, with no shot of him avoiding the zombie attack. There's even one scene where the footage is paused and the camera zooms in for no reason. That plus the disastrous character development and the long run time with almost nothing happening, it's a shame that this was the end result because, in the bigger scheme, this could have been so much better.
Zombie month is back! And believe me, the list of zombie films is endless, kind of like the zombies themselves really isn't it? And let's get the ball rolling with a look at 2009's 'Dead Men Walking'; also known as 'Autumn', based on the book 'Autumn' by David Moody. I have not read the book, I have never heard of the book, so I'm going into this movie blind.
After the deaths of billions of people, so about 99% of the planet, a group of survivors attempt to survive. That's generally it.
I'll have to say, I barely remembered anything from my first viewing of this film, so I had to watch it again. And boy could I see why I couldn't remember anything. For a large majority of this film, barely anything happens. Even the zombies aren't much of a threat, there are even multiple scenes where the human characters walk RIGHT UP to the zombies, who do NOTHING. There's only a few scenes where the zombies are actually, somewhat, a threat, but the scene either doesn't last long, some of which are resolved simply because the zombies just magically disappear, or some questionable editing and camera work makes the scenes unclear as to what is actually happening.
This film doesn't take the action approach as most zombie films do, like 'World War Z', where we learn nothing about any of the characters besides Brad Pitt, and like 'World War Z' we barely learn anything about the characters in this film. Or rather they're portrayed as so uninteresting you can't focus on them and therefore care about them. And there lies the main problem with 'Dead Men Walking'. It tries to be in the same vein as 'The Walking Dead' and aims to make it more about character development, but the characters, Michael (Dexter Fletcher) and Carl (Dickon Tolson), are one trick ponies, everything we really learn about them is revealed in the opening. And even then it's never really brought up again; except for one aspect, but it's pretty much forgotten about until the very last ten minutes. In fact, the main characters are shadowed by a clown pimp (Yes, a clown pimp. It was a clown, dressed more like a pimp than a clown) and a man that Carl meets randomly, Philip (David Caradine), since we learn more about him, how he survived, and his God damn mother! In all honesty, I can't even comment on whether the acting was good or bad, because from the looks of it the characters were written that way rather than acted that way.
