Doomed

OCTOBER 25, 2007

GENRE: CRAP, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: CABLE (TMC)

Where were you when you saw the absolute worst zombie movie of all time? I know where I was: on my couch, earlier today. The movie is called Doomed, and even the info capsule from the network described it as “drivel”. You know a movie is bad when the cable company is basically telling you not to watch it. But when have I ever been smart with my movie-watching decisions? Christ, I fucking PAID to see Captivity.

It’s almost admirable how fucking awful this movie is. You think Boll's House of the Dead was horrendous? That’s a lost Romero film compared to this. The zombie scenes are horrible, and every single one of them is the same. Like the WWE film The Condemned, our cast is made up of a bunch of criminals who are competing in a “Winner take all” survival reality show, with the winner being given a pardon. The entire movie breaks down like this: someone reluctantly teams up with another person, they find a gun or water or something, one of them backstabs the other, suddenly a bunch of horrible looking zombies run out of nowhere and kill one, then usually the other a few minutes later. Not one scene has any sort of buildup or suspense; everything just sort of happens. Narrative cohesion is completely tossed aside; even with constant screen graphics showing the characters’ location on the island, it is never even remotely apparent where anyone is in relation to the others, nor do the zombies seem to come from anywhere in particular.

Gore? None. Every single death is also the same – four zombies (it seems to always be four) surround and close in on a character. The character screams as the screen goes fuzzy, then a graphic reading “TERMINATED” appears. Occasionally the humans fight one another as well (the first 5 minutes is pretty much just two guys we haven’t met yet whaling on each other on a beach), though these scenes are just as bad/boring as the zombie ones, if not worse. And forget about character – the film doesn’t even bother making one character innocent of his crimes, as is standard for any film about a bunch of prisoners. They simply provide screen graphics with their names, crimes, and sentences (which are all pretty extreme – one guy got life for piracy and hacking!), and that is the extent of their backstory. If the zombie action was nonstop, it would be forgiveable, but there’s maybe 15 minutes’ worth of the undead, and again, they are entirely without gore (I don’t think we even see a single person actually bit on screen).

We can only assume that everything in the film that we are seeing is from the point of view of the camera(s) for the reality show, as after they are introduced, we never see a single camera again. This is fine, because the one time we see them, they are horrible CG creations. There are also CG televisions and occasional “blood” splatters courtesy of whoever had After Effects running. But the worst use comes near the end, when they have an honest to god CGI VENTILATION GRATE. I am totally serious. A guy says “we go through there!” and he points to a grate that isn’t even remotely believable. So let’s get this straight – you take what has to be the least interesting object in the world, and make it on a computer, instead of just filming a real one (of which there are dozens in probably any building in existence), and you can’t even be bothered to make the thing look real. Amazing.

There’s also a running theme of the film trying to appear high-tech, but using only sound. Throughout the island are little “Survival packages” that contain weapons and supplies. These are standard trunks made of wood/wicker, yet whenever someone opens them, we hear beeps and boops, as if they were opening some sort of computerized briefcase. Also, a guy pretends to hit buttons on a keypad to open a door, when it’s plainly visible that there IS no keypad there.

Oh and for no reason I can discern, whenever there’s a fight scene, we get quick freeze frames that say things like “Body Blow – 250 points!” Best I can tell, there is no point system implemented into the alleged game they are playing, so what the hell the point of these distractions are is beyond me. Even dumber, they go by so quick you can’t even read them unless you pause. So why bother putting them in at all? Probably just to slow the film down a bit – even with these nonsensical freezes, not to mention a lengthy end credits sequence, the film is only 77 minutes long.

I implore you not to watch this piece of shit. Ordinarily I would assume that the filmmakers were just soulless assholes, or folks with severe mental deficiencies, but the fact that they actually work in a Romero homage suggests otherwise. They ARE aware of good zombie movies, they just don’t care to make one themselves.

What say you?