This... was an April Fool's joke, wasn't it?

Rating: 1/10 (30 April 2005)

No. No. No no no no no no no no no.
Seriously - I sat there with my jaw slack, wondering if this was actually supposed to be scarier than a bunny in a field of flowers or better than a fetid pile of compost. Apparently, neither.
It's true - there are some great special effects in this movie, what with the obvious green screens, as well as the explosions that just so happen to be exactly the same all throughout the movie. Ooh, pretty.
And the gore factor is certainly there - because, of course, blood makes a good movie, the directors decided that it would be fun if they just randomly killed some people off by decapitation, dismemberment, and generally blowing brains out. No, literally. More than once you see blood splatter behind a zombie. But naturally, that's what I'm looking for in a good scary movie. Oh. Oh wait. No I'm not.
The storyline? Wait. Whoa. A STORYLINE? You'll have to forgive me, because I didn't notice. Well, that's not true. I did notice the endless clichÃ©s, and the fact that the storyline was only exactly the same as in Resident Evil, except now Hell has run out of room. (An unfair comparison, considering the original came well before RE, but this is the one time that even under the law, this does not necessarily deserve a fair trial.) In all seriousness, the storyline (as well as the rather odd side plots) was actually more offensive than intriguing. Killing newborns (even zombified ones) and randomly picking off zombified celebrities, while supposed to be shocking or humorous, are poorly executed, and I can't find a single example of a person who finds killing newborns humorous that isn't psychologically impaired. Give me a break.
"But skibbleyboo66, the point of that plot is that the family went insane! It's supposed to make you sympathetic to their plight!" Right. And I'm supposed to believe that having some stereotypical old lady duel a stereotypical African-American with a stereotypical family involved in a completely stereotypical zombie movie will make me sympathetic. I was sympathetic in the Exorcist, a similar movie in some regards (possessed children, scares not necessarily in the jump out kind, but the psychological kind), but with much, much, much less flawed execution.
To the movie's credit, the soundtrack is really not too shabby. I enjoyed the jazz version of Disturbed (much more than the original), and, though completely unoriginal (like the rest of the movie), the music actually did strike me as better than the rest of the movie. Unfortunately, that's not saying much.
The problem with this movie is really not the behind-the-scenes concept. It's really not. The execution that takes precedent over the concept is beyond flawed. Upon reflection, the movie really does remind me of the Exorcist, except I enjoyed the Exorcist. It boggles my mind, that America actually buys tickets and DVDs for this movie. I wouldn't recommend this movie to my worst enemy, and after this review, I expect I'll have a few of them.