Last of the Living

Sometimes home grown can surprise you. Expectations for this low budget kiwi zombie flick set in Christchurch were not high for this reviewer, but the comedy horror feature length spoof turned up trumps recently with its premiere at the NZ Film Festival.

The cost to make the film was rumoured to have not reached the six figure mark. But it doesn't show, as this film has style, following in the tracks of Peter Jackson's early effort "Bad Taste" with its exploding sheep and kiwi humour mayhem.

It opens with a lone figure tramping deserted streets that suggests a post apocalypse setting. Zombies appear suddenly and are dispatched just as quickly in a over the top splatter manner by said lone figure. He links up with two fellow survivor mates who also casually knock off scary looking zoms with a skill saw, baseball bat, a golf club and any other weapon to hand.

The trio are an unlikely combo of geeky ex accountant Ash (Ashleigh Southam) and his two mates Morgan (Morgan Williams) and a raving rock and roller Johnny (Robert Faith). They get by as best they can in spite of the flesh munching undead menace.Then the love interest arrives in the form of gorgeous young scientist (Emily Paddon-Brown) as she seeks to find the vaccine that will save what's left of the normal world. Sexual rivalry is of course then let loose amongst the chaos.

Crazy stuff, but delightfully delivered with some neat acting, very funny dialogue, great soundtrack and judicious editing. It has that sort of zany "Flight of the Conchords" feel about it, and could easily become a cult classic. Impressive first effort, lots of stars, a madcap film well worth a visit if it comes back in the mainstream cinemas.

Laurence Shaw

For a low budget movie I thought this was pretty good. The characters are entertaining and work well together and the acting is pretty good. The story moves at a fair pace and I liked the music too.

On the downside there's no real explanation as to why the three of them have survived but hardly anyone else has. If a guy with a golf club can take on half a dozen zombies it seems unlikely the situation could have spiralled so far out of control that there's hardly anyone left alive. They could have written around this pretty easily, it's a shame they didn't.

I'm guessing most of the film of the city was shot in the early hours when there was nobody around but the clean streets look unconvincing for a zombie apocalypse film. If this was a 60 million dollar movie it would be more of a problem but it didn't spoil it for me, though I thought the riot footage at the start was a bit poor and clearly depicted a riot rather than zombies attacking people.

I'm not a big fan of horror comedy but I do like zombie movies and I enjoyed this one, give it a try - it's worth a watch. The berserker move made me laugh every time.

Wow... So this film was so boring. I rented it because it looked like it would be up the same alley as Shawn of the Dead, but aside from zombies and jokes they are in NO way comparable.

The production values were low enough to be a distraction for one. The acting was lame for two. The story was boring for three.. ugh! I spent five bucks to rent this film and I feel totally cheated. If I had ANYTHING else to do, I never would have finished it. I was happy when the credits rolled.

Okay, I've ranted I feel better. So why a 3 star not a 1? It's not the worst movie I've ever seen. Also, there were on very seldom occasions a few laughs. Mostly the movie was just laughable though.

DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME.

Sure it was a cheap film, but it was a cheap ZOMBIE film, so its fine. :)

The main characters were interesting enough to keep you entertained. It was definitely setup that these guys are the same guys you probably went to high school with, not some former navy seals or special ops, just your average zombiepocolypse survivors making the best of it. It did start kinda slow, but built up, and by the middle of the film I had a moderate interest to see how it all ended up.

The effects were a little cheesy, but I've seen much worse from other zombie flicks with much larger budgets.

All in all, if you're willing to stick it out through a slow beginning, the film is a fun way to kill 88 min.

I bought this movie under the assumption that it might be a zombie comedy that had something to offer. And especially since there has been a couple of very noteworthy zombie movies rearing its decaying head from Australia, New Zealand and that general area.

However, I managed to get only 30 minutes into "Last of the Living" before I had to give up entirely and find something else to watch. This movie failed to captivate me and failed to grasp my interest in the most horrible way. The movie was just so uninspiring and anything but interesting.

The 30 minutes that I watched offered no comedy, very little action in terms of zombies and the stuff usually Associated with the zombie genre. Though the characters did seem to have been thoroughly thought through and given stories. But it just wasn't enough to keep me interested.

And from what I saw of zombies in the 30 minutes, then the zombies were nothing more than low-budget zombies. You know, the type where the faces are powdered a grayish color and blackened around the eyes. I saw no special effects or anything that would usually be much welcomed in the zombie genre in terms of make-up and special effects.

If you are looking for a zombie comedy, then your money, time and effort are better spent on movies such as "Shaun of the Dead" or "Dead Alive", to mention but two of the more established movies in the zombie genre.

I have no plans to make a return trip to "Last of the Living" in order to finish watching it. No, it just didn't appeal to me in any way. So this movie will now quietly fade into oblivion on the shelves of the movie collection.