Osombie

I went to the bother of signing up just to review this 'cos i think it deserved more than the 4.5* it has.

Firstly this is definitely a B-movie so u have to go in expecting that. I usually don't like B-movies like you get on SyFy but i do like zombies movies so i thought i'd give this a chance, and i'm glad i did.

The premise is pretty simple... a group of soldiers looking for a militia base in zombie infested Afghanistan. Sure its silly but it works fine.

At first i thought the acting sucked but it wasn't long before i changed my mind, i'm not saying it's going to win an Oscar but it was a lot better than the crap SyFy puts out, i got the impression the actors had fun and weren't just phoning it in, and i found myself giving a crap about the characters. t's a pity that being a zombie movie so many people had to die because i would definitely have watched a sequel with the same cast.

There are some bad point sure, there are some major plot holes but i was kind of expecting that. I think the thing that bugged me most was the cgi, not the blood and gore cgi that was pretty good, but the helicopters that don't disturb the grass when they land and the cg muzzle flares rather than guns firing blanks. As most reviewers have pointed out the zombie makeup was pretty decent.

I don't know why people complain about the chick with the sword, the soldiers knew they were going to be going up against zombies and given that i think a sword is a perfectly reasonable weapon.

If you like B-movies or zombie movies definitely check it out, it kept my attention for the whole movie.

Having stumbled upon "Osombie" by sheer luck, I decided to give it a go. We got Abraham Lincoln battling zombies and vampires this year, so why not also have a zombie Osama Bin Laden as well? I thought this movie was going to be a comedy spoof, but it actually turned out to be a serious movie. So what is next this year? Saddam Zomsain? Anyway, the movie "Osombie" starts out with action and adrenaline right from the very beginning and doesn't let go before the end. This is a zombie movie that steps out from other regular zombie movie, in terms of the storyline and the fact that Osama Bin Laden is a zombie.

I enjoyed the movie, lots of action in it, and the action scenes were well executed and looks good. But what really worked was the zombie make-up. Lots of really nice detail here, and lots of great work on the make-up. The zombies looked really cool, and weren't just people with their faces painted gray. And the blood and gore effects were cool as well, lots of heads exploding all over.

The people cast for the roles were actually doing great jobs with their given roles and characters. The acting was good and believable, coming off nicely on the screen. People seemed to be enjoying what they were hired to do, and that showed off in their performances.

Now, there were some bad things about the movie as well, some flaws. For example, when did the American army allow their troopers to bring Katana swords with them into the incursion fields? And also, why did Chip have to take off his jacket and shirt all the time? That was just so stupid, and not really how a soldier would act in a situation like this. And to top it off, then suddenly there is a Katana training montage video with Tomboy in the middle of it all, it came out of nowhere and it made absolutely no sense. It was so lame.

But aside from these really stupid annoyances, then "Osombie" was actually a rather entertaining movie. And if you are a zombie aficionado, like me, then you definitely owe it to yourself to check it out. It is well worth a watch. However, the storyline about Osama Bin Laden as a zombie was a bit on the cheesy side though, but the action and the zombies more than made it up for that silly approach.

Being a non-American I did find the movie to be somewhat thick on pro-Americanism, waging war on terrorists even when they have come back from the grave. But hey, it is a movie, meant for entertaining, not being a political broadcasting channel.

I was a financial backer of this movie from its Kickstarter project, however I didn't have any input into the movie or its development. So what I write here is my own opinion.

I just wanted to say that without any preconceived ideas or thoughts about this movie I didn't think this was too bad at all. For a small budget movie it certainly didn't show the usual tell tale signs.

Camera work was excellent, the CGI and special effects were above average for what you would expect of a B grade flick.

Knowing that Eve Mauro (Dusty) was in this flick I was expecting to be spending a lot of time admiring her. However I was more impressed with Danielle Chuchran's (Tomboy) performance... she has such a cute smile.

Give it a look, whilst you will probably think its not the best film you have ever seen, I'm pretty sure you wont think its the worst either.

I'm not entirely sure why I felt the need to watch this. I had low expectations generally, and most specifically, I could only assume the picture would suffer from tawdry, boorish jingoism if not also racism. Even seen from afar, the concept sounds like one that will struggle to provide entertainment. Sit to watch, and to at least some extent I admit I'm a little surprised - I assumed 'Osombie' would be outright awful, but it comes off instead as a very mixed bag. That's hardly a trio of words that should inspire confidence, but when we're talking about movies in this level, "very mixed bag" can be taken as a compliment.

Filmmaker John Lyde has a long list of credits in TV and indie productions, and his direction is broadly solid if unremarkable - balanced out with some especially nice shots and scenes. Also wearing hats here as co-producer, cinematographer, and co-editor, I think he demonstrates fine capability all around. The filming locations are gorgeous (Utah, standing in for Afghanistan); costume design, props and weapons, and set design are swell. Action scenes, and the makeup, blood and gore, and practical effects realizing the zombies, all look good; while computer-aided visuals are sometimes too over the top (think headshots in action-horror videogames), given the slant of the film - sure, why not. Though unremarkable in the grand scheme of things, in and of itself I quite like James Schafer's original music, tinged with rock vibes.

On the other hand, Kurt Hale's screenplay is the chief source of those three key words, "very mixed bag." Dialogue is all over the place: in quieter moments it's hackneyed and unnecessary, while when geared towards plot development it's Just So. In attempts at any humor, at least half such lines are juvenile, tired tripe, leaving only a handful of quips, one-liners, and otherwise jokes to inspire some happy little neurons to fire off. Characters are written with a modicum of personality, but are mostly uninteresting; with only two women given any prominence, "Dusty" and "Tomboy" end up being the best characters just because they stand out. (Eve Mauro and Danielle C. Ryan lucked out.) Meanwhile, the expository attempt at an explanation for the zombie problem comes off as forced, strained, grasping at straws, an exercise in videogame logic. The overall narrative is almost extraneous and uninteresting, and seems to have gotten the least attention of anything. And the scene writing struggles or succeeds roughly following the pattern of the content I've described - though with unpredictable results from one moment to the next, and some inclusions are 100% superfluous.

Whatever particular weaknesses or strengths one may cite, though, the biggest flaw of all is deep inconsistency in tone. It could have been a schlocky but fun action-horror feature, and there are some ideas in the screenplay that are ripe for a more earnest genre romp. At other points 'Osombie' is so wildly preposterous or over the top that it feels like a horror-comedy, a parody of zombie flicks and military stories. At still other times scenes are so bland and uninspiring that they become all but soporific. Weirdly enough, all this rather seems to be embodied in the character Tomboy. She's a hard-boiled soldier like the dime-a-dozen bros - but also carries a sword for melee combat (and scenes in which she uses it are some of the most satisfying in the whole film!). She refuses to proceed lockstep with the more tasteless humor of her fellows, but also fleetingly illustrates romantic interest in one of the others and is commonly seen with... a lollipop. I like Ryan as an actor, and I think she's fine in this role - but the role is written very unevenly, in an unmistakable echo of the picture at large.

What it all comes down to is that it really seems like 'Osombie' didn't know what it truly wanted to be. It's well made generally, and I maintain that Lyde is a competent director. Yet the screenplay oscillates with scant rhyme or reason between silly, fun, bland, overcooked, and unnecessary - and with that, the acting, direction, and the rest of the production at large seem like they're scrambling to pick up the pieces and make something out of the hodgepodge of notions herein. Good ideas, adequate craft, some reliable people involved, all running around to make sense of what is sometimes almost senseless, directionless writing. When all is said and done I can very honestly say that this is better than I anticipated, but how much that really means is up for debate. I suppose if you're a major fan of someone involved, or extra curious, then there's a special reason to watch this, but for anyone else - well, so long as you keep your expectations low, it's passably enjoyable for a lazy, slow day. Even for as many problems as it has 'Osombie' is marginally enjoyable; would that it were more focused in one way or another.

This movie was something I accidentally stumbled upon and had high hopes but was truly disappointed. While I enjoy Zombie and gore movies as much as the other guy, I also appreciate some cinematic finesse thrown in. Unfortunately Osombie tries to survive on a single interesting idea with flat characters and an even flatter story.

The movie itself is quickly summarized, Osama Bin Laden supposedly "alive" as a Zombie, guy goes to kill him, his sister goes after him and meets some soldiers along the way in a zombie- infested Afghanistan. While this might be a lot of fun (think Dead Snow) it is not since the action is poorly dramatized, you never really feel that there is any real threat coming from the zombs. Also none of the characters offer any particularly likable traits why you would root for them.

Overall this movie was uninspired and while it had some nice CGIs and obviously some budget it really failed to create a story arc that would allow me to call this flick entertaining.