After all the hype about this movie, it seems that it has fallen into oblivion. Of course, after destroying box offices, but be sure that before the release on any given media, we will be fucked in the ass without lubricant by commercial industry. This is one of the rare movies that suffered the hype disease. The nature of this horrible disease is as follows: after the studios create so much hype about the movie, you go see it and find out it’s mediocre at best, all under impression from the hype campaign. Of course after the initial pupal stage (yeah, I watched Gremlins recently) of the disease, the movie will suffer severely diminished DVD and Blu-ray sales in the following years, thus destroying the chance of the sequel. I believe that this movie would be much better if we did not hear or see anything related to it right up to the premiere (the content can stay the same). Now something about the movie, after the first half hour I felt like I was watching my favourite movies from the eighties, with a touch of King (Stephen not the other one). Bunch of kids, first romances, friendships and all that other shit, actually playing outside of their house without computers, iPads, dildos and other modern stuff is a different experience from the average modern PG-13 movie vibe. Of course the special effects are phenomenal, especially the train wreck that really blew my mind. It reminded me of Lost plane crash, I guess J.J. has a fetish with wrecks and I wonder what means of transportation he will wreck next. The story is a mixture of the eighties kids movies, and it brings nothing new, but it exploits a different point of view (not necessarily better). There is a sense of loss of fright-effect towards the end, where I think they could have made the movie scarier….
It is the year 1979, in a small sleepy town where almost nothing happens. The economy is doing great, and there is not a care in the world for the youth, and not even elders. A group of teenagers with an interest in movie-making decide to make their own movie, involving zombies (how cool). After casting their lead actress, a fellow student, one of them falls in love with her (well almost all of them) and there you have your romantic innocent element of the movie. While shooting a scene at the train station, they witness a horrible train-wreck that nearly kills them. Interested in what caused it they find out that their teacher Dr. Woodward drove a truck in front of the train trying to stop it. After the accident strange things start to happen in town and soon the military shows up to try to cover up any consequences of the crash and the mysterious content of the train. When people start disappearing, with large and menacing tracks of a giant creature in the immediate vicinity the group of friends that witnessed the beginning of the mess will have to fight for their lives.
Director: J.J. Abrams
Cast: Joel Courtney, Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee, Gabriel Basso, Zach Mills, Elle Fanning
Fun Facts: Since the kids were making a zombie movie, there are several references to director George A. Romero. For example, Romero Chemicals as the evil company, plus the poster for one of his movies in Joe’s bedroom.
Rating:
IMDb Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1650062/
