Stuart:

Yawn.

Another boring film at this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival. One of the new breed of zombie movies coming out recently, Dead Creatures tries to take a slightly different angle on the genre. It doesn’t work. The problem here, I believe, is a case of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. Zombie movies work quite well as mindless and bloody entertainment, and also when they are tied into larger social commentaries (such as in Romero’s original Dawn Of The Dead and 28 Days Later).

The cinematography has to be the most uninventive I have ever seen. This is truly a case of ‘point and shoot’. In fact they don’t even seem to worry about framing, and the bland shots make the film even more boring than the script. The production design is about as exciting as poorly toasted bread, and we’re constantly subjected to images of people simply sitting against bland white walls.

Dead Creatures just trudges along slowly, never really going anyway. Once the initial shock wears off, this slightly skewed depiction of zombie life isn’t really very interesting. Like a zombie, this film is in dire need of some brains. The film doesn’t seem to work towards any particular climax, and again like a zombie, this movie’s pulse is very very weak. You’d think the movie doctors would have called it ages ago. Screw the defibrillators, there’s no point resurrecting this movie.

Dead Creatures gets half a star for at least attempting to do something different, even if it fails completely. It sure ain’t gettin’ any hooplas though.