3Raz0r – Diary of a Dying Man – 16:00
This would have worked much better without the Dawn of the Dead movie footage. The movie soundtrack in particular was very distracting and took me out of the short every time. (3 stars)
Horrorgrind – The Virus – 11:09
Great campiness but this short felt like the first and last 5 minutes of a movie slapped together. (1 star)
Mollo – Das Zombi – 16:49
This was well paced and very atmospheric. Very ingenious. One of my favorites from this consecution. (4 stars)
CBB – Voodoo Island – 15:29
Drags its feet a little but well executed. (3 stars)
Blueyoda – Dead Awake – 16:18
Can’t review or rate my own entry.
Aztek463 – School’s in Session – 15:45
This one didn’t hold my attention at all. Technically well put together I guess but the source movie is just too awful for me to give this a higher rating. (2 stars)
ThrowgnCpr – Dawn of the Millennium – 15:21
The different sources don’t mesh perfectly but the daring concept makes this one of the highlights of this consecution for me. (4 stars)
Tranzor – In 20 Seconds 4:10
This one didn’t work at all for me. The monologue cards severely lacked personality and just felt lazily put together. Animating them as if it was real-time writing might have made me give this short a higher rating. (1 star)
Stomachworm – 2 Against the World – 15:17
This felt choppy and forced. (2 stars)
Uncanny Antman – Surviving an Undead Uprising – 5:31
Great concept, great song, several great moments make this my favorite. (5 stars)
Overall, I’m a bit disappointed by the lack of originality of some of the shorts but there’s enough variety on this DVD to please just about everyone so I’ll give it 4 stars.
It took me two viewings to come to a final conclusion on this one…and that would be that I’m pretty happy with Consecution 2: Zombie Boogaloo.
My favourite short was, surprise surprise…Dead Awake. Like others have noted, there are a few bits and pieces that don’t quite work, but they’re buried under the weight of all the parts that worked beautifully. Just great fun, and cleverly done. I loved the ending too. Nice touch. Very ’80s horror-esque.
I also liked “Diary”, “Das Zombi”, and “Voodoo Island” …and the first half of “Virus”.
The Marvel Zombies trailer was a very cool extra. The biggest problem was that it leaves you wanting more.
It took a long time until all the shorts were finished and I could not wait for the DVD finally showing up.
DVD presentation: great menus with audio. Really a nice watch. The “play all” button unfortunately did not work so well, but that is probably my fault, because I used the next button to skip once, which must have unmarked the playlist and led to repeating movies and jumping back. Using the next button though always brought me to the next one. The order of the movies is quite well chosen for a huge variety and indeed there are a lot of very different short movies on this DVD, different atmosphere, very different plot. The DVD presentation is an awesome job, throwgncpr.
What I particularly like about it is the intro menu, because it already shows the trashy element and that can never be ignored, when watching zombie movies. They are not to be taken too seriously. Charlie Brooker (creator of Dead Set) stated in an interview that they never wanted to put too much focus on the zombies, but more on scares and action, so the audience would not start thinking about sense and logic.
Since this is about so many short movies, I am going to comment on each of them. Sorry if some of my comments are not so nice, I am just naming them as I see them. Overall the DVD was actually a disappointment for me. The collection was quality-wise not as good as Batman Consecution and a lot of the shorts simply lacked entertainment IMO or a story that makes sense. There were a few exceptions and some nice average short movies that did entertain me.
starting with:
Diary of a dying man by 3Raz0r: I liked it. It was not so much about the gore or shocking images, but it told a nice story of a survivor. The guy is not too sympathetic, but quite entertaining and I think it was a good idea to include the news reports and the movie footage, because otherwise it would have been dragging. Editing was nicely done, plot worked. (4 stars)
Horrorgrind – The Virus: Complete trash to me (not the editing work of horrorgrind, but the source movie). I can only assume that this kind of movie is supposed to be funny, because it is so bad, but I am the wrong audience for that. We have a ridiculous outbreak at a facility and then we jump to a couple and the girl wants a light from a guy on a bench, who is a zombie and attacks her, other zombies appear, they rip her apart, her boyfriend is just watching and surprised by zombies attacking him from the back (well, actually one of the zombies is attacking the zombie that attacked the boyfriend – doesn’t look like he was supposed to though). Sorry, but that felt like a waste of time for me and the girlfiriend/boyfriend part seemed to just make it longer but did not have too much of a connection. (1 star)
Mollo – Das Zombie: I could not make heads or tails from that one. And as that I was not entertained, but bored and confused. This is a trial for a mesh-up but I don’t think the sources mix well, leaving me with all question marks all the time about what was happening and why. (1 star)
CBB – Vodoo Island: I can’t really rate my own participation, but I think it tells an ok story from Fulci’s “Island Of The Living Dead”.
Blueyoda – Dead Awake: Now that is a cool mesh-up. Mixing Aliens with zombie movies was a great idea and works surprisingly well most of the time. Not all scenes are perfect, some are not fitting too well or not perfectly executed, but overall: awesome work. (4 stars)
Aztek463 – School’s in Session: A part from Resident Evil 2. I liked it. Editing was well done. (4 stars)
ThrowgnCpr – Dawn of the Millennium: An interesting combination of zombie footage and Millennium. I was mildly entertained, but the zombie footage actually confused me and I am not sure it really added to the atmostphere. Very good editing. (3 stars)
Tranzor – In 20 Seconds: A lot to read, but short and entertaining. Interesting editing with the transition effects and overlays and filters used. (3 stars)
Stomachworm – 2 Against the World: The only one I did not finish. Volume in the beginning is too low and it has hard cuts all the time. The missing reel thing took me finally totally out of it, so I quit. (1 star)
Uncanny Antman – Surviving an Undead Uprising: Great great work, Uncanny. All kudos to you. This was innovative, perfect editing and very entertaining. Exactly what I needed to be pleased in the end. (5 stars)
ghostcut’s feature did not make much sense to me…
the marvel zombie trailer was cool
and the bonus feature was nice. Thanks for that, Mollo.
Overall I can not rate the Zombie Consecution DVD higher than 3 stars. Too many bad shorts on it that make it a one-time only experience for me.
