A young woman wakes up in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by horrifying zombies. She must fight the murderous creatures at every turn, right up until the shocking, horrifying end. (NBC.com)
Manatee: I never thought it was possible to f-up a zombie movie till last night.
Marmot: That was terrible. Terrible. The zombie equation is simple: zombies + people trying to survive = entertainment. That's all you have to do. But when you complicate it so that it looks like this: (Z+P)/F X T = garbage.
Manatee: There was nothing good about this episode. In fact it was so bad, I think a brainless zombie wrote it.
Marmot: That equation was (Zombie+People trying to survive) divided by Flashbacks times Twist, by the way. And a zombie probably did write it. Maybe that 12 year old zombie that popped up at the end.
Manatee: I feel like they could have come up with a better twist than they did. But that aside, did the writers know anything about zombies, or have their assistants research zombies?
Marmot: I don't think so. With monsters and such, there are certain liberties you can take - vampires don't always have to be afraid of the cross, werewolves don't always have to be killed by a silver bullet - but zombies can't have emotions. That's the whole point to being a zombie.
Manatee: Exactly. Do zombies target people they hated as humans and enact revenge? And what was up with the "happy Zombie couple" at the end? Do zombies have relationships in zombie world?
Marmot: No! Zombies just want to eat brains. That's all they do. In some movies, like Land of the Dead, they've gotten a little smarter, but they definitely don't understand concepts like affection and revenge.
Manatee: From the limited research I did on Wikipedia, I learned that they rarely have speech or free will, and have limited to no memory of their previous life. I'm all about reinventing the wheel or taking a little creative license but Zombies are a cult classic and it's just wrong to mess it up this much.
Marmot: I couldn't figure out when exactly she became a zombie.
Manatee: My guess, after Kevin (the kid) bit Eddie, he went into her room and bit her and the spider. Because if you notice the night before her pet spider was dead at 4:30 AM, he was alive. Zombie Spider! But if she OD-ed and was dead (Eddie was performing CPR), then Kevin bit her, would she become a Zombie? I'm not sure on that rule. Like with Vampires, you bite a human who is alive and turn them. If she was already dead, and a zombie ate her, would she turn? Or maybe she was barely alive. That's my thought. Why it took her 2 hours to wake up from her zombie slumber, I don't know. Denial maybe?
Marmot: I don't think zombies feed on dead people. Maybe if it thought she wasn’t dead, it would, but usually zombies like the hunt. They're like tigers in that sense.
Manatee: Well someone bit her while she was down.
Marmot: Coming back to the twist in this episode - the reason twists in Shyamalan movies work is that you plant clues for it throughout the movie/episode. GIANT SPOILER ALERT - You believe that Bruce Willis is dead, because when you look back, it was plainly obvious. He was shot, no one could see him but Haley Joel Osment, etc. But in this, there was no evidence for her being a zombie anywhere until we were just told that she was one. That would be like watching all of Men in Black and then at the end Will Smith pulls off a mask and he's an alien.
Manatee: Enough with the Fear Itself twists! You don't need a twist to be good. But what's also of interest to me is that in these shows (specifically this one but also other horror projects) the characters have NEVER seen a horror movie before. Hello, pick up a weapon, or two! Looking back, she was already a Zombie but still, it's like the horror and thriller genre do not exist in their world. I know we're prepared for Z-Day.
Marmot: Wait a second. If she was a zombie, how was she able to carry around a flashlight?
Manatee: Or use a cell phone, or drive a car, or barricade a door?
Marmot: And you're right. We've been preparing for Z-Day for years, and most of that knowledge is applicable to other apocalyptic events.
Manatee: Very useful information indeed. Why do we punish ourselves with such horrendous writing? That dialogue was atrocious. Especially the bar scenes with Helen and James.
Marmot: What the hell were they even talking about? In fact, what the hell was anyone talking about? People kept telling her she was different than anyone else - was she already a zombie? Has she been a zombie her whole life?
Manatee: Maybe that's the case. That's why everyone around her is always dying. And why the old man blamed her for the whole mess.
Marmot: What a stupid episode. I don't think we should watch this show anymore, it's making us stupider.
Manatee: There is nothing talented about this show. I hate to say the DP and Editor are talentless hacks, because I assume that those crappy creative look choices are made by the bad producers on the show and are not a reflection of the crews’ talent. But then again, the look stinks so bad maybe the production value is just so low (and Canadian) you have little choice over the look.
If you like this series, comment below! We always welcome opposite opinions.
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