Dead Genesis

While I commend a very low budget Canadian production for actually getting distributed, and I can over look most production issues due to shooting on a shoe string (been there).

I couldn't watch more than 25 minutes of this movie due to shaky cam syndrome. It was like watching a video shot on full zoom, held with one hand.

I watch movies on my 80" projected 16x9 screen and the excessive shaky cam look made me ill. (SCS seems to occurring more and more in low budget productions lately. Very sad.) Unfortunately the above issue didn't allow me to see enough to critique plot/acting.

after an original, but very gross opening sequence, wont spoil the movie but it made me watch the rest of it, the camera shake starts, if it was all supposed to be shot by the reporter it would be almost acceptable, (but any one who shakes that much would have big problems), the camera shakes even when the reporter is not filming which really does get annoying.

the story itself isn't to bad and the acting is above average with most of the key characters being very good, the zombie effects are good, the gore levels are not excessive, but wont disappoint.

this film would have scored higher, but for the camera shakes this would have made a 7 or 8, if you can put up with the camera shake (warning, it is very close to headache/vomit inducing), this isn't a bad zombie movie & is well worth a watch

Wait, there wasn't an earthquake?

this is the shakiest film ever made, and to be avoided by anyone who doesn't want to be motion sick in the first 20 min (several times)

If the shaking doesn't get you, the terrible acting and effects may actually come close to destroying any love for the entire genre. I've heard that the UN is declaring this movie to be a crime against humanity.

This movie is about the only zombie movie I've seen that looks at what a zombie epidemic might be like for the survivors.

A lot of the criticism here is justified - no one in this movie was in any danger of winning an Oscar. The effects are ehh. The gore is ehh. There are a couple of scenes of children dying, including one being eviscerated by a zombie. And I can't imagine why they did whatever they did to the bartender's voice. This is not a movie that was made to be enjoyed with a bucket of popcorn.

But it's also one of the few movies that takes a look at what it might be like to survive in this world, and what it might do to your humanity. The Deadheads aren't good guys. They aren't heroes killing zombies in a video game. The leader sums it up in my personally favorite scene: "I fight to kill the pain inside. But you know what I'm starting to figure out? It still hurts when I wake up every morning."

I was rather excited to stumble upon the "Dead Genesis" DVD in a secondhand store, as I had planned to purchase it from Amazon. So I picked it up, believing I had made the bargain of the month. Especially the tag-lines on the front cover were enticing: "the must-see indie horror film of the year" and "Romero would be proud".

Romero would be proud? Of this movie? I find that very doubtful. The movie reminded me of something I would have been able to make with my own JVC Everio G GZ-MG130 camcorder. The movie was just one major shaky camera experience. I am sure that some people like these "documentary-like-do-it-yourself-with-a-shaking-hand" kind of styles in movies. But I don't! It gives the movie such a lousy feeling, a feeling of something very amateurish and homemade. And this shaking camera thing, the director thought was the right way to go, was initially what made me turn off the movie about 1 hour into it.

The story in "Dead Genesis" wasn't that bad actually, but it was far from the best and most compelling storyline in a zombie movie though. However, the movie was plagued by some really questionable acting performances. Now I am not saying that everyone was bad, far from it. Most people actually did good jobs, but there were a handful of 'actors' in the movie that were so bad that I sat and wondered how they made it past the screening process. Perhaps they were friends with someone in production? Especially that soldier guy on the pickup truck, who was shooting zombies. Wow, that was without a doubt the lousiest acting performance I have ever had the unfortunate pleasure of beholding.

"Dead Genesis" does have a fair share of blood and gore, which is what makes it almost worth to sit through the movie for. Almost! The zombie make-up was adequate, some painfully fake prosthetics here and there, but overall fair make-up and effects on the living dead. One of the better things in "Dead Genesis" was actually one of the first scenes where as woman was gorging on the entrails of a child. That scene was actually the one thing that stuck with me after turning off the movie after 1 hour.

Normally, I rarely turn off a movie before it is ended, so a movie have to be really, really boring of uninteresting before I do that. And being the zombie aficionado that I am, I have to say that this movie was bad, even for low-budget zombie standards.

It is now standing on the shelf of my DVD collection, bagged and tagged, and I know it will never get picked again and put into the DVD player. Not worth the effort, sadly.