Russkiy Zombi! Forget “The Darkest Hour” cause we bring you the first ever Russian zombie flick…”Winter Of The Dead” (‘Metelesta’ is ‘Blizzard’ in Russian) clashes into today’s trembling Moscow with a fast-paced zombie outbreak in the middle of the Russian winter! Now that’s a real darkest hour….
Plot: In the middle of an extremely hot summer in Moscow, snow starts falling and zombies attack a pre-election protest march (which actually now occurs all around Russia!).
Konstantin – a Moscow journalist, hides from the onslaught with the daughter of a local tycoon in a hardware store. Captain Igor Knyazev kranks up the only working tank, whilst his lover, Dasha is running away from her angry husband, who has learned of the pair’s betrayal, and wants revenge, regardless of the weather…Faced with horrifyingly gripping news material, a dedicated cameraman, Vlad, captures the strange events on video as priest Father Michael gets out his trusty axe …
A group of peaceful Vampires are infected and turned into crazed zombie like creatures whose only motivation is to feed on flesh, whether Human or Vampire. A group of Vampire commandos tries to keep their identity secret, while trying to stop the spread of the infection. Soldiers from across the ages, it’s up to these vampires to end the zombie infection. Caught in the middle is a group of human kids on a camping trip, who team up with the Vampires in an attempt to survive
I picked up this dvd because the tag line on the front said “Zombies vs Vampires” Ok, I thought that could be very cool – I haven’t seen that before – I imagined some sort of Underworld (you know the film with Vampires vs Werewolves) type scenario and imagined in my head how the story would unfold – hmm sounds pretty good if you ask me and I threw down my hard earned money and bought the film.
So the film starts and its a bunch of soldiers in the woods at night shooting up Zombies or some sort of running infected people..Err..did I get the wrong film? The film then switches up to a bunch of teens going to a remote motel – trying to check in with no manager there and going swimming in a murky lake – err did I get the wrong film again? About 30 minutes in the teens start to check into the motel regardless of no manager being there and , start to shower and get cleaned off and that’s when you see a small boy vampire(who actually looks like the kid who played the 12 yo vampire in Near Dark – Joshua John Miller) I wonder if that was intentional or not?
So one of the chicks gets infected ( I guess from the kid drooling on her as she doesn’t get bitten or so they say) and finally the mercs we saw at the start of the film turn up and we think the movie that we bought (Zombies vs Vampires is going to start)
Spoiler Alert: Please don’t keep reading if you don’t want key plot points of the film exposed to you – but either way I would hope you don’t waste your money on this film and just catch it on basic cable.
So it turns out the mercs are vampires, good vampires and that the so called war between the vampires and the zombies are vampires that have drunk the blood from mad cows. Kind of mis-leading because really they are all vampires but some all fucked up with infected cow blood.
Now the thing is there was a decent budget for this film , the effects aren’t bad and you can tell that this film is not an “el-cheapo” – ok, so it’s not 28 days later or Zombieland but its not the Wisconsin Project or Running Zombies with guns either – so some where in that middle ground. Anyone who has been reading this blog for awhile will know that I am definitely not opposed to low budget Zombie films as long as its a great story (I-Zombie anyone?) My biggest problem with this film is the story – they have the basis of a good story but its slow moving and jumps around so much you wonder if you are watching the right film at times – like the flash back sequence to the vikings…some of the other flashback sequences make sense but that one left you wondering ‘what the hell is going on?”
The main merc Luke Goss (yes from the English 90s Boy band “bros” ) actually does a pretty good job with the material given to him – I have seen him in a few other films – without checking I believe he was in a Jason Statham film (one of the 2 Deathrace 2000 remakes I guess) and possibly in one of the Hellboy films? and Vernon Wells (Wez the mohawked biker from Mad Max 2) makes an appearance at the end of the film – what was up with that? How much money did they pay him for that? and why? makes no sense to me but hey always great to see Vernon in any film.
All in all – I was pretty bored throughout this film – the multiple Zombie kills made you feel nothing just wave after wave of running Zombies doing martial arts flips when they die. Save your money and if you absolutely must watch this film wait till it hits cable Tv
Here is the trailer:
Disappointed…oh and for any of you script writers out there – I am still waiting for the definitive Vampires vs Zombie film!
“In war-torn Eastern Europe, a world-weary group of mercenaries discover a long-hidden secret in an abandoned WWII bunker”
Outpost is a great Zombie film you can tell that its made in Europe as it doesn’t have the usual Hollywood Zombie cliches – a quick shock (hook) at the start to hold your interest followed by hills and valleys of action and no action gore and no gore – instead this Zombie movie set in war torn modern day Eastern Europe and shot in Scotland has a slow build of tension , which for a jaded old Zombie fan like myself is very very refreshing.
Pick up a copy of this from Amazon if you are looking to add a new Zombie film or a new Nazi Zombie film (is anyone keeping track how many Nazi Zombie films that is now?? Although this and Dead Snow are head and shoulders above some of the straight to dvd Nazi Zombie films I have seen in the past)
From what I hear there is a sequel set in 1945 (wait or is that a prequel?/) called “Outpost: Black Sun” which comes out later this year, if its anything like this one I will definitely be picking up a copy as well
I want to update everyone on the latest news for the forthcoming Resident Evil film Resident Evil: Retribution.
So what we know so far in the way of confirmed facts is that both Ali Larter and Wentworth Miller (Claire and Chris Redfield respectively) WILL NOT be returning for this film? Why? Not really sure especially since Ali has done a great job in the last two films and Wentworth made a decent impact in RE: Afterlife. besides the fact the last movie left off with them and Milla surrounded by Umbrella Copters closing in on them. Maybe scheduling conflicts or budget concerns are the reasons that they are not back for this one? I am sure we will find out in time.
So the big news is that Michelle Rodriguez (“Rain” in the first film), Oded Fehr (Carlos in RE 2 and 3) and Colin Salmon (the team leader who got sliced and diced in the Queens chamber) are returning – but, but, but how can that be? Since they both died spectacularly in the previous movies. At first we thought they might be used in flash back scenes (would have been kind of weak but hey there film they get to write the rules) but we can now confirm that they will be bought back as clones (by the evil Umbrella, naturally!) and to make things even better there will be both good and bad clones – nice!
Also returning but not having been killed previous will be Boris Kodjoe (Luther West the pro basketball player from Afterlife) and Sienna Guillory (Jill Valentine from the 2nd film), going to be good to see how they write Sienna back in as she was just left out of films 3 and 4.
From what we have also gathered Shawn Roberts (Albert Wesker in Afterlife) makes a return – at this point we don’t know if that is a cloned Wesker or not as even though we see his escape craft blow its not clear if he was in it at the time – we know how those pesky Hollywood writers like to trick us.
Can say for sure but Chris, Claire Redfield and Kmart MUST make at least a cameo in the film as from what I understand Umbrella kidnaps them at the start of the film and the rest of the film will be Alice’s struggle to get them back.
The more I hear about this film the more excited I get – especially now that World War Z is being pushed back to summer 2013 this looks like being the biggest budget Zombie film of the year.
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