Collapse

This movie gets off to a good start with typical zombie fare done pretty well. It slows down a lot toward the middle of the movie (I skipped a good 10 minutes and missed nothing), but the ending made it all worthwhile. The ending was a specially well shot, and a fresh idea in this genre. For me it bumped the movie from a three out of 10 to a six out of 10, which is to say I think it is worth a look for those of you who love zombie movies but have watched every one that has ever been made me like I have. I also watched this for the lead actor who I met at a horror convention. He is in a lot of low-budget movies and was just generally nice guy so it's fun to see him take the lead: so there's my bias if you wanted to know!

For a low budget production this turned out to be a pretty decent film. Essentially, "Robert Morgan" (Chris Mulkey) is a farmer who is still distraught from the death of his daughter six months ago. Additionally, his wife "Molly" (Karen Landry) is also experiencing emotional issues which weighs on his mind, the bank is trying to foreclose on his farm, his hired hand "Hank" (Mike Tweeton) just tendered his resignation and his bills are starting to stack up. It's at this point that a zombie epidemic breaks out. Hank is killed, his son "Will" (Travis Slade Reinders) is bitten and his wife narrowly escapes serious injury as well. Since he lives so far from town he has no other choice but to take matters into his own hands. At any rate, rather than spoil the film for anyone who hasn't seen it, I will just say that what I liked about this movie was that it had good suspense, above average character development, and a very good ending. Along with that, I especially liked Chris Mulkey who I thought gave an outstanding performance. Likewise, I also thought the directors (Jason Bolinger and Mike Saunders) did an excellent job with what little they had to work with. In short, if you like zombie films then I think you will probably enjoy this one as well.

At the beginning I thought, if Disney could make a family zombie movie, it might start off like this - no disrespect to Disney. The plot started off slowly. But then I realized that the creators wanted the audience to go back in time. The dialogue had a Davey & Goliath kind of feel - like many older movies - with scenes that reminded me of Leave It to Beaver. But as the plot progressed, I soon realized that the main character is no average or simple individual. He was about to transform both in terms of the essence of his character and also his props. The background music also started changing - becoming more 80s, 90s, 00s, eventually pulsating and reverberating - bringing us to the realm of a contemporary psychological thriller. What seemed like a situational Romero-type zombie movie from the late 60s suddenly morphed into - something kind of unexpected.

Collapse is a film about a family on a farm attacked by zombies… traditional, slow walking zombies. Due to the overwhelming love for zombies, I find it's a lot harder to make a good, interesting and original zombie movie. The Walking Dead has made it almost impossible to compete with, but because I love zombies, I appreciate the effort. Collapse is a zombie movie that is typically like every zombie movie you've seen up to this point… Or so I thought. It's about a loving couple trying to survive the apocalypse and not get bitten while doing so. The first half of the movie is a little on the slow side, it reminded me of a made-for-TV type movie, but then the course of the story completely changes into a totally unexpected direction. The twist at the end is pretty sweet and for that I'm giving it a solid 5. The movie overall is a tad on the slow side, but boy that ending is pretty awesome. Probably the closest we'll ever get to an actual zombie apocalypse.

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"Collapse" wasn't as bad as I had initially expected it to be.

For a zombie movie, "Collapse" was a bit out of the ordinary. Sure, you had the unexplained phenomena of people returning as zombies hungry for human flesh, as in most other zombie movies, but it was also a story of one man's spiraling journey into madness.

The zombies in the movie were not too badly made. The make-up was adequate. Though one thing did puzzle me, why did every single zombie have to be wearing torn pants? Is shredded pants a requirement for being a zombie? The zombie eyes could have been made better, have them wear contact lenses. When you see a zombie with ordinary eyes and even see them blinking, the whole undead menace thing falls shattering to the ground.

And there was one scene where Morgan was shooting zombies in an office, and one zombie was shot in the head. The zombie adjacent to the shot zombie flinched and squinted her eyes as you would do when something is approaching your face. That kind of error is just fatal in a zombie movie, as it was painstakingly obvious that these were not reanimated corpses.

The story did take a twist for the unexpected in the movie. I hadn't seen that coming at all, so it was a nice twist. Now, whether or not you approve of how the story took a turn with that twist is individual, for me it was a turn for a downward hill. I didn't like that direction of the movie. It was a great plot twist, sure, but I personally think it was just not plausible. I am not going to ruin the story for anyone, as I think you should see the plot twist for yourself and make up your own impression of how the story took a twist of events.

Being a zombie aficionado, I can not cross "Collapse" off the list. It didn't leave a lasting impression really, as it was neither good nor bad.