The Vanguard

In the course of a year I watch app. 600-700 movies - and compared to most movies "The Vanguard" sucks big time. I really struggled to find a reason for why this movie was even made. I really wish all movie directors would spend more time thinking about what they want to say with their movies - instead of just collecting 90 minutes of worthless film and call it a movie.

There's no plot - and the settings/scenery are unconvincing and the actors should really consider a career change, maybe somewhere in the fastfood or cleaning business - as they have no talent for anything, as this foul crap of a movie clearly shows.

What more is there to say..? This film sucks! Everything is bad; the acting, directing, the filming and the effects. The DVD-cover was attracting, but the film was rubbish!

A friend of mine bought the film for 4 dollars, and we thought that this would be THAT good film because of the cover, as I mentioned earlier. It started as a pretty bad film, and transformed into something more worse as the time went. So, after watching it, I will not hesitate to put it on the list of the worst films I have seen in my life. And for those who say that it could have been worse: It could not have been worse!

A well known genre convention is running through the woods however surely any narrative cannot maintain flight through the woods without actually building tension in any way what so ever and still think it is going to be effective in engaging the viewer. This film as stated by others attempts an art-house take on the subject ,however the effectiveness of this is undermined by low production values and visual repetition.A small and interesting looking cast cannot save this film or my Friday night in front of the little screen they simply created a visual and auditory track to co exist with my shallow snoring and the odd little fart as I rolled over and went to sleep, and found my self having to re watch it in the morning just to make sure it did in fact lack anything much to hold my attention.

I've seen The Vanguard at the BIFFF in Brussels. A got drawn by the Poster 'refreshing, will leave you craving for more' Yeah Right. This film is extremely low budget (there's nothing wrong with low budget films if they're well made, but this one obviously is not) and has the look and feel of a student's project. The idea is OK, but the horror in this is totally absent. THere's no gore either. The one scene where blood splatters out of a guy's chest, it's so fake it's not even funny. The plot is full of holes and doesn't work up to a climax. There's only a flat line. The zombies are unconvincing and confused: do they attack you always, or just when they feel like it? The playground is a field and a couple of hundred square meters of wood. The characters only run around in the wood and go nowhere (just like the plot). This film is a total waste of your precious and expensive time. If you want to see zombies, go see Romero's latest: Diary of the Dead, at least that one is well executed.

I'm all for people trying something different with the zombie/infected movie, UNLESS it's at the expense of all that is enjoyable about the genre. The Vanguard attempts a vaguely art-house approach, with a contemplative mood, introspective narrative, a degree of quirkiness, and an attempt at social commentary about racism, but offers none of the stuff that usually makes these kind of films fun: gore, excitement, scares, and more gore.

The Vanguard does have a couple of good basic ideas: they're the same ones used for I Am Legend and 28 Days Later, only here they are completely wasted by film-makers with no idea how to turn them into an entertaining movie. The acting is mediocre, the action is dull, the splatter is restricted to some arterial spray (some of it crap CGI), the characters are irritating, and the 'zombies' are very disappointing, loping along like apes, growling like lions, and sporting naff zebra stripes drawn on with face-paint (I realise they're supposed to be like animals, but this is too silly for words).

Somehow, this film garnered some decent comments from Fangoria and Gorezone (who are proudly quoted on the DVD cover), and was selected for the Dead by Dawn horror festival; I'm not quite sure how that happened, but take it from me (and the majority here on IMDb who have voiced their opinion)—The Vanguard sucks, even rivalling The Zombie Diaries for the title of worst British zombie film.