This Time They’re Ready
Starring: Philip Brodie, Alix Wilton Regan
Director: Michael Bartlett, Kevin Gates
2011 | 92 Minutes | Rated R
“If she were an animal I’d put her down. There’s no specialists left to give her what she needs.” – Dr. Turner
In the past I have written about my love for zombie movies. One thing I haven’t written about here is the fact that found footage movies are a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. So, Zombie Diaries 2: World of the Dead should be a perfect storm of guilty pleasures for me… Should Be…
A band of humans who have managed to survive a virus that has turned the entire world into zombies.
Storyline sound familiar? Yeah, it did to me too. And there really isn’t anything original about the movie other than the found footage concept, if you call that original.
I admit to having seen the first quite a few years ago and have no clue how the sequel, Zombie Diaries 2: World of the Dead, relates. I don’t remember being particularly fond of the first one so my expectations weren’t too high for this one.
I usually find some humor in the great lengths that found footage movies go to in order to justify somebody carrying a camera around at all times and this was no difference. The opening scene makes complete sense as a father and mother film their daughter’s birthday. But the majority of the movie is filmed by a soldier who apparently just likes to film things. His fellow soldiers don’t seem to mind that he is filming everything while they are all fighting.
I was literally screaming at my screen from the very first scene. Not out of fear. Out of pure frustration at the idiotic things that people do in movies like this. The opening scene is a happy birthday party for a little girl that is interrupted by a noise outside the family’s home. Now, I can sort of understand the man of the house going to check out a mysterious sound in his yard but the family already knows something is up at this point. The town has already been without power for quite some time and have been told to stay indoors. Anyway, the husband wanders outside, quickly followed by the wife. Failing to find her husband the wife flees back to the “safety” of their home and joins their daughter in her room where she is cowering with her teddy bear. Then mommy dearest points the camera toward the door that she has left OPEN which is, of course, the death of mother and daughter. Had she just closed the door they might have stood a chance.
There’s another bang my head against a wall moment a bit later when Jonesy (our trusty camera man) is told that there are zombies fumbling around outside the house they are hiding in and to “keep quiet.” But what does Jonesy do when he hears a little noise? “What’s that!” he yells. Come on! Drives me crazy!
The zombies in World of the Dead are the slowest and dumbest of the slow moving variety. The zombies repeatedly look directly at the soldiers and turn the other way. They are probably the least scary of all zombies I have seen in any zombie movie ever. I watch most zombie movies and wonder if I could survive. I watch this and KNOW for a fact that I could survive this zombie apocalypse. But not this group of trained military men and women. They never once pick up any sort of blunt object to use as a weapon. They waste their limited ammo through every scene of the movie which draws even more zombies to their location for them to waste even more ammo on.
Another thing I feel like I can’t help but touch on is the zombie rape. Yep, you read that correctly… ZOMBIE RAPE. I know there are some crazies out there that would eventually probably resort to raping zombies for their pleasure but it’s only been three months at this point and, really, do we even need that in the movie?
And on that note I am completely and forever done with Zombie Diaries 2: World of the Dead and I would suggest any action, zombie or found footage fans… or anyone else for that matter… not waste their time, money, brain cells or soul on this incredibly stupid yet sometimes disturbing movie.
Action Movie Fanatix 