Lazarus: Apocalypse

I liked the vibe and style of this film and always try to give leniency when it comes to low budget films. But due to poor execution some great story was lost. Combining both fictional horror and the horror of every day society grabbed me. As did some of the performances with notable appearances by some of my favorites James Duval and Brooke Bellas Lewis who I thought was awesome in her cameo.

The plot:

George A. Lazarus is an insurance investigator who schedules routine interviews with twelve employees and owner Mammon Beelzebub of the Deadly Sin Cigarette Company upon the receipt of a rather suspicious insurance claim. In the process, he learns that all twelve had recently been fired for being sick at the job,then subsequently and without a trace, they disappeared.

Later, with Lazarus now a missing person, his heart-sick fiancée Bethany Loomis and Chip undertake the task of finding him.

While retracing his steps, they learn that what was initially regarded as a simple fraud investigation case may actually be the beginning of the end of the human race in Lazarus: Day of the Living Dead.

It's unwatchable. Horrible acting. No really story line. Just a bunch of seemingly unrelated stories and for some reason it switches from color to B&W with no reason.

There is one semi nude scene with a fat dominatrix that i really didn't need to see. And it goes on forever.

Just like the movie -- which is 90 minutes long and feels like 90 days.

I read poor reviews here and disagree. For a low budget film I thought it had style beyond many horror films I have watched. The black and white 50's scenes were believable in that Hollywood era.

I was happy to see gorgeous Brooke Lewis Bellas in a role like that as I think she has some real acting chops that we do not get to see enough in these horror films. I saw Thomas J. Churchill directed this but I did not know he acted too and he did a really cool character. With all the crap horror films streaming right now I really liked this one.

Granted, I went to IMDb to check the rating of this 2020 movie as soon as I stumbled upon it. I hadn't even heard about the movie prior to getting the chance to watch it, and with its obscurity and low score, I must admit that I was not overly keen on the viewing. But still, it is a zombie movie, so of course I found the time to watch it. And I must confess the shameless cash in on the George A. Romero classic definitely was a selling point that also caught my attention. A mistake on my behalf, believe you me.

Or at least about 50 minutes of it and then I just gave up. This was, and pardon my French here, rubbish. Just utter rubbish. It is without a doubt among the top five of worst zombie features I have stumbled upon and sat through - more or less to the end.

The storyline in "The Day of the Living Dead" had the appeal as if it was written by a middle-schooler for a school test. It was just such a bad script that the story was halted, staggering and just unappealing. And it didn't help much that the characters in the movie had zero personality.

And while we are on the characters; the actors and actresses portraying the characters put on what could best be described as laughable and mediocre performances. Some of the performances and delivery of dialogue was just so atrociously bad that I was literally laughing.

The whole movie had a very wobbly low production and homemade movie feel to it. And that was definitely not what I was getting myself into. Hence, I just gave up on the movie out of sheer boredom.

The movie was shot in black and white, sure, that is something I can live with and something that could potentially work, given the movie was set to take place in 1957. But, and yeah there is a but here, every time there was some gore and zombie action on the screen, then the movie changed to color. No. Just no. It didn't work. You either go all out and keep the movie in black and white, or keep it in full color. Switching between the two didn't work in favor of the movie. In fact, it just cluttered up everything.

And with "The Day of the Living Dead" being a zombie movie, of course you need zombie make-up and prosthetics. They did have it here, thankfully, and the make-up wasn't actually as bad as the rest of the movie, so that counted for something. But adequate zombie make-up can only do so much to salvage a train wreck. Mind you, this wasn't spectacular zombie make-up, it was adequate.

The synopsis for "The Day of the Living Dead" brandishes this: "For fans who love The Walking Dead, THE DAY OF THE LIVING DEAD is another great zombie origin story." No. No. No. No! This is definitely not for fans of The Walking Dead. And no, it is not another great origin story. There is nothing great about this movie. Well, aside from the fact that something like this actually got funded and get to see the light of day.

If you enjoy the zombie genre, take heed and do yourself a favor, and stay well clear of "The Day of the Living Dead". It is not worth the time, effort or money.

Movie a plot that didn't make any real sense. They couldn't decide if it was a black and white movie or in color I can kinda see how this is all sorta a big reference to older movies in the 50s with dumb characters but with zombies thrown in. That movies has been made and it was FIDO. Which was good.