Tuesday, October 27, 2015

NAVY SEALS VS ZOMBIES: GREAT TITLE, BAD MOVIE



I’m not sure I can find a way to convey just how bad this movie was but I’ll make an attempt. I’m not certain but my best guess is that this was another of those SyFy movies made for the channel that doesn’t care about how good it is as long as it can fill a 2 hour time slot on their schedule. That’s one of my biggest disappointments with the channel, filler that no one wants to see but that they continue producing.

While in Louisiana the vice president (Rick Fox) does a Q&A where he says nothing and ignores any potentially serious questioners. When he finishes this meeting he begins to leave the statehouse when the Secret Service detail assigned to protect him notices that there is a rush of blood thirsty people attacking pedestrians and eating them. They rush him back into the building and call for help.

Washington goes on high alert and organizes an elite team of SEALs to go in and rescue the VP, his staff and the Secret Service agents. Leading the operation from their headquarters is Michael Dudikoff as Sheer, the commanding officer. Oddly enough there are more personnel involved in their headquarters than they send in to rescue the VP.

The team consists of the usual Hollywood military men, rough and tumble grunts who are there to do a job. They rag on one another, give each other a hard time but in the end will always watch one another’s backs and get the job done. Of course one of them is the new guy who’s married and expecting a child so we know he’s either dead man walking or a possible last survivor, I won’t say which or if he ends up either.

The team lands and finds the VP still in the statehouse with only a few members left of his group. Still unaware of what has gone on we have our first stupid moment. No one bothers to inform them so they understand that people are coming back from the dead and eating the living. They talk a tad about it but hey, for me I would be blasting that information from the moment they walked in the door. One of the staff members has been tied up in a back room to prevent him from fighting with the others while awaiting medical attention. Gee, I wonder if he’s changed or is about to? Would someone please check this dude out before he bites someone? Of course he’s infected! Then when the team asks if anyone else has been bitten they all say no but come on, people always say no especially when someone has.

As the team prepares their exit strategy the zombies in question begin to attack. The first SEAL they take out is the one they should. Why? Not because he’s a bad buy but because this guy has no business being a SEAL. Not the man himself but this actor. The SEALs are supposed to be the toughest, baddest, best equipped physically and mentally that this country has to offer. No offense but this guy’s belly is hanging over his belt and jiggles when he runs. A SEAL? Really?

The rest of the movie is all about trying to get the rescue finished and a side trip as well. The CIA has a secret lab in one of the buildings downtown (where else would it be?) and a possible cure for the zombie outbreak is there. The SEAL team must make their way there once they hand off the VP (any guesses if he makes it or not?) and save the research team and their cure, then hightail it back to headquarters to save the world.

I’m sorry but while the story used here has some potential the movie itself misfires on almost every aspect. Let me start with the lighting. Yes, the lighting. If it’s bad enough to notice then you know it’s bad. The camera work is terrible. I don’t think the tops of heads have been cut off this bad since the French Revolution. The framing is terrible. The acting isn’t as bad as some movies I’ve seen but there isn’t a single person worth singling out for praise let alone to condemn. The effects are the now standard CGI blood splatters for the most part, the zombie eating scenes are shot so as to have no clue what they’re eating and the make up for the zombies makes the original make up used in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD shot in 1968 look high quality.

With a pure B-movie name like this I was hoping that this movie would be a fun romp, maybe bad on purpose or perhaps intentionally better than you could hope for with this name. In the end it is far worse than I could imagine and not a movie I would recommend to anyone, even Dudikoff fans who should be happy he’s in a movie again. No, not even those fans would enjoy this movie. It’s terrible. Keep in mind I’m someone who realizes how much hard work goes into making a movie. But this one? Sorry, anyone with talent working on this movie had it buried.

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