Rating: C
Dir: J. Horton
Star: Rachel Amanda Bryant, Felissa Rose, Lynn Lowry, Kevin Caliber
The first five minutes here look like a cheap, rather crap zombie movie. I mean, Bai Ling is in it, who is basically the female version of Eric Roberts at this point. But, wait! It’s actually a drive-in movie called AbductDead, being watched by some of the main characters. They’re part of a group of criminals under Zenia (Lowry), and also including Fish (Bryant), Hurt and Candy. A recent heist went a bit bloodier than expected. So they’re going to hide out in the country for a bit, at a place Zenia knows, while the heat dies down. Except they find themselves under siege by tree-like creatures (top), until they’re rescued by the family of Henrietta (Rose).
Or are they? Because it turns out their saviours are not exactly the typical rednecks they seem. Fish and friends find themselves in the middle of a war between the Guardians – the tree things, who own the day – and the Caretakers, the rednecks who rule the night. Amping things up, an imminent solar eclipse, during which all bets will be off. There’s a lot going on, and it might have been better if the script had developed things more, rather than cramming so much in. The same goes, to an even greater degree, for a severe excess of characters. Outside of Henrietta and Zenia, there aren’t many who make much impression. They are, admittedly, mostly there to die in messy ways. Best not get too attached.
I liked the overall concept here. I seem to have seen a few “criminals hide out and get more than they bargained for” movies of late, but this one has a whole background mythology. It’s almost as if the script turned From Dusk Till Dawn up to eleven. The Guardians look pretty nifty too, like a pissed-off version of Groot. Simply having them as the antagonists in a simple rural siege film would have been enough, and the resulting movie might have felt less bloated. The effects are mostly practical, which makes the occasional use of CGI stand out – and not in a good way. In particular, if you write a script which requires a large-scale explosion at the end, you’d better be able to deliver more than something which fell off the back of a Playstation 2.
Generally, though, the effects are decent, and there’s no shortage of them. Other positives include the way AbductDead crops up again later, and the large-scale finale, which felt surprisingly epic. On the other hand, the dialogue often felt clunky and painfully scripted: the gap between the experienced, professional actors and… not (let’s just leave it at that) was painfully obvious. It’s yet another area where less could have been more. This teeters on the edge of the cult status it craves, but ultimately came up just short for me.
The film is available to rent or own tomorrow on Digital VOD, including Apple TV and Prime Video.