Five years after a zombie outbreak that decimated much of the population, the U.S. is making a comeback. You an tell the country is getting back to normal because reality television is back on the air. And the programme we are watching is RE-KILL.
The television programme RE-KILL, follows the R-division, a SWAT like organization whose purpose is to destroy Re-Ans (the name for zombies so they don't have to say zombies). The job is so dangerous that in order to fill the ranks, recruits are promised citizenship or the commutation of a prison sentence. It's never explained how the camera people, who wear no armour nor carry a weapon, are coerced into doing a job that has a good chance of getting them killed. The team is made up of the battle tested Sarge (Roger R. Cross THE STRAIN), kick arse for the lord Winston (Bruce Payne HOWLING VI: THE FREAKS) and the usual assorted cardboard characters played by Daniella Alonso (THE COLLECTOR), Scott Adkins (EL GRINGO), Layke Anderson (OCTANE) and others who are little more than Re-Ans food.
After stopping a truck smuggling Re-Ans, the team interrogates the driver and learns the location of the mythical Project Judas. no one knows what Project Judas is so the team is sent into The Zone, a walled off section of N.Y. city, to find out. Any viewer with a passing knowledge of zombie films (or has seen MIMIC) will have a good idea what a name like Project Judas represents and what is about to happen to the squad once they enter the zone.
Adding to the feel of watching reality television are the breaks. The fake adverts, such as the one promoting sex sponsored by the Coalition to Repopulate America, or a cigarette brand or a vaccine against zombism, do add background to the post zombie apocalypse society and inject a bit of humour into the film. However, like real television cutting away to promote a product I have little or no interest in, it does take away from any mounting tension the filmmakers are striving for. Unless I'm watching a horror / comedy I'd rather the filmmakers do their utmost to keep me on the edge of my seat.
Fast moving zombies.
The days of the George Romero slow and shambling zombie may be drawing to a close. I understand that audiences of today don't find the slow zombie scary so I get why fast zombies have become the norm. And i certainly understand why RE-KILL went with fast zombies. It's years after the zombie masses started chomping down on humanity so a highly trained military squad would look like the Keystone Cops if they went up against slow moving zombies and weren't able to handle the threat without loss.
As a fan of zombie films I found enough to like about RE-KILL to recommend it to fellow fans despite its shortcomings. Payne puts in a nice performance but after all the build up with the character he plays it doesn't go anywhere. There's a fair amount of action, plenty of running around dark corridors, and plenty of quick edits and shaky camera work.
** 1/2 out of ****
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