Pandemic

If you are looking for an enjoyable zombie movie I would never recommend you this title: poor locations, poorer costumes, awful effects, unrealistic fighting and repetitive framing take away all the fun from watching.

If your interest in movies goes beyond normal, on the other hand, you could probably get interested in this film: besides the lovely Rachel Nichols, always pretty, and the convincing Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy from 'Games of Thrones'), there is a somehow original post-apocalyptic world and a coherent script.

In other words, even though the film is bad, there is talent in Mr. Suits (Producer and Director) and in Mr. Benson (Writer) and I'll be glad to watch their future works.

This movies is not as bad as people are saying. It isn't a good movie. But it is watchable. It has an interesting, if basic, plot. The acting is actually pretty good for what they were given. Slightly shaky camera work but better than something like Blair Witch which made me so ill to watch that I gave up early on. But in this case, the idea is that the camera is on the helmet and should move with the person. So it makes sense. The frustration with this film is that it is so easy to see that it could be made into a film that is much better. The real problem seems to be the dialogue. Improve that, and the 'zombie' acting, then movie would really step up. Even so, like I said, a bad movie but a very watchable movie.

After I saw the trailer for "Pandemic" by sheer luck on YouTube, I just had to track down this movie and get it watched, especially since I am a huge zombie aficionado. And the trailer for 2016's "Pandemic" looked really intense.

Well, at least the trailer was intense. The actual movie, meh... It was actually semi-boring, which was somewhat of a disappointment and a slap to the face. I must expect that I had expected a lot more from this movie after having seen that trailer.

Certainly there were some good parts to the movie, and those parts had lots of action and a really great and fast pace to it. And that was really what held the movie afloat.

This is not a movie that is driven by acting performances or by character development. Actually the characters in "Pandemic" were very mundane and generic, to the point where you didn't really care if they died or survived, and it didn't matter who died and who survived, because they were essentially the same character, just with a different face.

The acting in the movie was fair enough, taking into consideration the limitations that the acting talents had to work with in terms of script and direction.

The first person view that permeated the movie was a different but not entirely unwelcoming approach to the zombie genre. Sure it has been seen before, but it actually worked out well enough in "Pandemic".

A zombie movie needs proper special effects, and honestly, then "Pandemic" was limping here. The special effects and CGI effects were not impressive to be bluntly honest, and that was sort of holding the movie back in a way.

Putting the cards on the table, then I have to say that "Pandemic" was an adequate movie in terms of being entertaining. But it was far from being an impressive movie addition in the zombie genre.

The two glaring flaws to this film are its overuse of first person shaky cam, which while arguably immerses you deeper into the situation and action of the film, also quite simply makes you feel sick, and its appeal to generic audiences, as can be seen in the ridiculously broad title. However, if you can look past these two aspects, as well as the occasionally questionable special effect, then there is a lot of positive things to say.

This film has a great story, it makes sense and is carried out in an organic way, while still ticking all the usual zombie-survival boxes that have become the staple of this genre. The acting is pretty great in my opinion and conveys the right tone for each situation, my only complaint being here that with only four characters for most of the movie there is something lacking in personal interaction and team dynamic, although what there is is good and solidly written. There is also a rich world created within the framework of the film, although it is shown on a small scale, and this could easily be fleshed out more if there is a sequel at some point.

Overall I found myself really liking the simple and solid aspects of this film in the acting and storytelling, although the constant switching of first person views might be enough to put some people off entirely as it does get a bit nauseating after a while. Still there is a lot of good here, especially for fans of the genre, most of us being used to much lower production values and less cohesive plots. For non-fans it might not come across so well.

What I don't understand is how can you get a decent cast and a decent budget and make this crap of a film. Rachel Nichols is the main actress, and she kind of carried a TV show for four seasons; Alfie Allen is Theon Greyjoy in Game of Thrones; remember Mekhi Phifer from when he was the hot black guy that En Vogue were falling for? Paul Guilfoyle played in everything! And what do they do with this? A shaky-cam version of a zombie movie where even the zombies act subpar.

Frankly, it all feels like a collection of bad cinematic sequences in a really dumb game, only acted by real people. A bored programmer in a basement could have made a better film with 3D models.

The plot is the typical "infected people act like zombies", complete with pseudo-scientific categories from 1 to 5, and ridiculous explanations about what happened and what the plan is. As most zombie films it completely ignores the reasons why zombies aren't attacking each other, and since they are only infected people, why it is so difficult to kill them.

But what really pisses me off is how they use the name Pandemic, letting me hope even for a millisecond that once, just once, someone might make a movie about a real pandemic: no zombies, no government conspiracies, no dangerous trip in a car with family or close friends, just a very possible viral outbreak.

We need reality here, else at the first pandemic Americans take out their guns and start shooting each other in the head. God damn it, make a movie about the Spanish Influenza! Tell the story of tens of millions of people dead while governments at war censor the news to keep moral high. Tell the story of the Black Plague, without making it about witches or religion or some other crap like that. Show people what nature is really about and don't make it about people trying to get to their families and improbable villains that get nothing from spreading the disease.