Live Escape

I have seen countless zombie films, good and bad. Some, despite a huge multi million dollar budget, fall flat with terrible characters and writing that's all over the place. Others, with the budget of pocket change and two corn nuts, that pull off the impossible and make a terrifyingly enjoyable experience. This film is. Falls under the latter.

Live escape has something that a TON of other films don't. Heart. It knows what it wants to be and it does not disappoint. Despite the admittedly slow beginning they pull you in with intrigue, and keep you interested with tense, claustrophobic, cinematography. Every encounter feels so close and inescapable, producing absolute horror without cheap jump scares or blaring music. No the threat isn't fast, but in a crowded jungle of concrete tenements there truly is no room for error.

Again, the beginning is quite slow, and the random glitchy camera is pretty annoying. Aside from that and the rather bland name the movie is very good. It knows what a zombie is and doesn't try anything crazy. So many films in this genre try to leave their mark by throwing in wacky plot points with an over the top badass hero character or by making the zombies have some crazy new ability that ends up ruining what makes zombies so scary. And in a world full of cookie cutter, blockbuster garbage that gets 10/10 reviews because a famous name is plastered on it, simple is definitely better.

This is a true zombie movie in every regard, no doubt. It's living(dead) proof that this genre can be revived. The rotting flesh of this genre CAN come back to life. Movies like this are proof.

LIVE ESCAPE is a high concept found footage horror movie with a simple premise: 2 cops are called into a warehouse and end up finding themselves in a maze, chased by zombies.

I believe a lot of entertainment can be squeezed out of this simple premise, provided careful attention is paid to all the factors that make this fun. Here are some:

1. Interesting dialogue

2. Atmospheric settings

3. Well-choreographed action sequences

4. Interesting characters

5. Good acting

6. A dash of mystery

7. Some mini stories within a ln overall narrative that ties up major aspects at the end.

Unfortunately, this movie does a poor job on almost all of these:

1. The "would you rather..." idea was good but not nearly enough to make for good dialogue. I noticed also that the actors kept repeating themselves a lot, which suggests to me that much of the dialogue was improvised.

2. The setting seems to have been a warehouse in which they put fake walls and partitions or something. They kept walking past marked exit signs, which should have been digitally removed to maintain the illusion that there is no exit. The ceiling was a giveaway that this was a set. Also, it would have been better to have themed levels instead of everything looking the same. The production design here was extremely low.

3. Most action sequences made it more or less obvious that the people were acting. This is perhaps the single greatest mood killer in a zombie film. It was further reinforced by the barebones make-up for most extras. The only Zombie that was halfways convincing was "Zach".

4. There were a few other characters, but really they were just story devices. We did not know anything about who they were as persons, what they were about and why we should care for them. Even worse, it was blatantly obvious that their only function was to advance to the next step in the plot. This could have been improved with a better script.

5. The acting of the two main characters was okay, everybody else not so much.

6. There was one overarching mystery, but it's solution was the kind of story which has been used in countless zombie stories.

7. There was no tie-in. It was not even clear what happened to the uninjured cop character at the end.

The borderline amateur production marred what could have been an entertaining ride.

Right, well the synopsis for this 2022 horror movie sounded interesting, I will say that much. And seeing that this was a new zombie movie that I hadn't already seen, nor even heard about, then of course I opted to sit down and watch it as the opportunity presented itself.

Writer and director Joe Lujan definitely was on to something with the concept idea of the movie, I will say that. But talk about a swing and a miss of a zombie movie. While the plot idea was interesting enough, then this movie felt amateurish and was like amateur hour at an Escape Room event. Yeah, not really all that interesting or entertaining.

The movie was filmed with something off a wobbly camera attached to the two police officers. Yeah, I can't claim that I am overly interested in watching something filmed with a GoPro camera, or whatever was used here. And the way that it was filmed just oozed of low budget and home-made movie.

And with "Live Escape" being a zombie movie, one would assume or at least hope for good special effects and gore. Right? Well, don't count on that here. The make-up effects on the zombies were bad, so horribly, horribly bad. And it was so painfully obvious that it was just badly painted make-up, as if they didn't even put in an effort. It looked fake and laughable.

The best thing about "Live Escape" was the cover/poster, sadly so.

If you enjoy zombie movies, do yourself a favor and stay well clear of "Live Escape". It just simply isn't worth the time, money or effort. Some of us suffered through this ordeal so you don't have to.

My rating of "Live Escape" lands on a one out of ten stars.

Investigating a seemingly ordinary call, police officers called out to a remote abandoned building that had been used as a homeless shelter are unnerved by the situation they currently find themselves in, and when they find themselves trapped with flesh-eating zombies must try to get out alive.

This was a fairly enjoyable found-footage zombie effort. Among the more likable aspects here is the solid setup that provides the film with a lot of the necessary features to be quite fun. The opening here dealing with the exploits of the pair out on patrol and dealing with a typical quiet night on the job dealing with food orders, time-killing banter to endear each other as partners, or handling underwhelming calls to duty sets the group up in their usual routine quite quickly. With the whole thing taken from their body-cameras or mounted head-cameras to then explain the found-footage shooting style, there's a generally solid setup present here that meets the requirements of the genre rather nicely. That all works to nicely set up the solid atmosphere present here when the officers arrive at the call-site and are sent investigating the strange call. The seemingly innocuous nature of the incident that brings them out and the investigations of the building where it takes place brings about some solid suspense as the darkness of their environment and the confusing nature of the situation enhance a genuinely chilling atmosphere. As they spend time there and start to encounter the individuals inside that are so unnatural it starts to hint that something isn't right, it all comes together into making an intriguing atmosphere to go along with the setup of their location for a creepy enough time. When it all breaks loose and they realize that it's a building full of zombies, there's still plenty to enjoy here as their aggressiveness in such a location where this plays out is quite creepy. Resisting the massive swarm tactic and relying on attacking individually rapidly out of the shadows to attack them or the other survivors they come across at first, there's some chilling encounters within here as the dwindling group tries to work around the overwhelming numbers that grow over time with the zombies gradually given more numbers to hunt them down. The fine finale, where the real source of everything gets revealed and the race to get out contains solid encounters with some decent indie gore gags, provide enough to really like about it. The film does have a few minor drawbacks to hold it down. One of the main drawbacks here is the inability of the officers to recognize what's going on and to react accordingly to what's happening. While it's a stretch to believe immediately they're zombies, the fact that their encounters are eerily similar regardless of who they come across but don't learn from it to then have it all be repeated is a bit of a disappointment since they do show themselves to add things up elsewhere. That continues on in the rescue attempts where the inability to spot obvious danger continually brings them into contact with the zombies that's somewhat frustrating, and with some budgetary limitations in place prove to be the main drawbacks.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

If you're into the zombie genre then add this to your collection. Well acted, good special effects, good plot and nice environment. It also has its tense moments. You also care enough about the characters andn root for their survival. The movie is a found footage type film so if you're not into those then it might be an issue.

This film is a 2 parter. "Live Survival" is the 2nd one. It reminds me a bit of "300" & "300: Rise Of An Empire".

It's a real shame that I have not seen any promotion or anyone talking about it ok YT. As of my review here there's only one that has reviewed it so far and barely any views on it.