Grimerlana
Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike
Onlinewsma
Absolutely Brilliant!
CrawlerChunky
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
MBunge
Think before you speak is good advice. Think before you film is even better. This "zombedy" has quite a few cute and smart moments but can never seem to get out of its own way. Just like any other story, comedies need narrative structure and internal logic, both practical and emotional. All three are lacking here. Aaah! Zombies!! is a great, 28 minute film festival entry that's been stretched on the rack to feature-length and had too many characters and plot tangents inserted to try hold the distended script together. It's fairly clever and erratically amusing but wears out its welcome at least half an hour before it's done.After a military experiment to produce super-soldiers goes wrong, the barrels of dangerous chemicals are shipped out for disposal. Things go wrong and one barrel rolls and rolls and rolls and rolls away until it contaminates the food in a bowling alley and 4 friends wind up as the living dead. Except…they don't know it. As far as slacker Mike (Matthew Davis), virginal Timmy (Michael Grant Terry), sensitive chick Cindy (Betsy Beutler) and hot chick Vanessa (Julianna Robinson) are concerned, they still look and sound okay to each other. It's the rest of the world who appears to them to be moving and talking at double speed and it's the only rest of the world that sees them as shambling, moaning corpses. Except drunk people. They also see the foursome as normal.After hooking up with a comically serious soldier (Colby French) who convinces them that the weird things happening to them, like their skin sloughing off and surviving shotgun blasts to the chest, proves they're super-soldiers and it's the rest of the city that's been "infected", the four friends have a string of misadventures that don't turn out to be nearly as funny as they're meant to be. The film then takes a sharp turn into a satirical spin on zombie tolerance and the right of the undead to unlive in peace and harmony. By the end, the buffoonish soldier has become the emotional heart of the story and it's not clear whether these filmmakers think that's supposed to be ridiculous or endearing.In the simplest terms, the four main characters in this movie needed to be cut down to two, telling either a "boy meets girl, boy and girl turn into zombies" joke fest with Timmy and Cindy or embracing a full blown genre satire with slacker Mike and ambitious Vanessa taking apart zombie clichés from both sides. Colby French's pretentious wannabe soldier could have been an effective plot device in one of those stories. Or maybe he could have starred in a more sentimental tale about somebody who had to die to finally realize how he wasted his life. By dabbling in all three scenarios, Aaah! Zombies!! never develops a consistent tone or rhythm to sustain enough sentiment, satire or honest humor to keep the viewer engaged.What keeps the weak storytelling from completely overwhelming the neat concept is the solid filmmaking on display here. This not only looks and sounds like a professionally-made motion picture, director Matthew Kohnen shows a good sense of what to do in a scene and, most usefully, how to begin and end them. His work is never boring or insultingly bad. It just becomes clear early on that nothing in the production is ever going to rise above its "hook".Aaah! Zombies!! apparently had a budget of $1 million, which is not bad for this kind of thing. I wonder if being more financially limited would have forced these people to be more creatively sharp and focused? While not much of a fan of this effort, I'd be interested in seeing something else from this cast and crew, which is a testament to the unfulfilled potential of the movie. Given the colossal amount of sheer garbage in the genre, this is certainly a watchable alternative for zombie-fans. But if Shaun of the Dead is a 10, be warned that this isn't much better than a 4.
Paul Magne Haakonsen
"Wasting Away" actually surprised the life out of me, being the zombie fan that I am, I can say that, yeah! The idea behind this movie is simply put amazing, and it was really nice to see a new approach to the zombie genre.The story in itself, is fairly mediocre, having a group of teenagers turning into the living dead by ingesting some chemical compound. I will not go into further details here, as to not spoil the movie. And then you see the world from their point of view, being zombies now. The world is different and people react to the teens oddly now (at least in their eyes).Yeah, zombies are slow moving creatures, if you are fan of Romero's zombies, and these zombies are slow as well, but they perceive the world around them as if the living are running around in double speed. Great idea, new idea, but it didn't work out too well in practical use. The result was a bit too childishly comical, which I didn't really enjoy.The movie takes you on an exciting ride at a good pace, and there are few dull moments in the movie. It is nice to see parts of the movie from both the living and the zombie's point of view.As for the acting, well I think the people they had in the movie actually did good jobs, despite it being people that I was mostly unfamiliar with. And I think only a handful of the known celebrity faces would have been able to carry this movie without it having to turn into a major money-turning machine. So hats off to the actors/actresses work here in "Wasting Away".If you are a fan of zombie movies, then you should definitely add "Wasting Away" to your DVD collection, because it brings a sharp edge and a new approach to the genre of the living dead.
Paul Andrews
Wasting Away starts as several barrels of of a green chemical developed by the US Military to create a 'Supersoldier' during a failed experiment are transported through Los Angeles on the back of a truck headed for disposal, however the truck is attacked & one barrel falls out of the back & rolls down a hill & stops outside a bowling alley & starts to leak. Four teenage friends, Mike (Matthew Davis), Vanessa (Julianna Robinson), Tim (Michael Grant Terry) & Cindy (Betsy Beutler) take in the nights delivery of Ice Cream which has been infected with the serum. They decide to eat some of the infected Ice Cream & are all turned into mindless zombies, however they don't realise that they are zombies & think everyone else is crazy as they run away & attack them. Slowly the friends realise that they are in fact zombies & that regular people don't like them, but zombies have feelings too & they try to escape the city to somewhere they can live in peace...Co-written & directed by Matthew Kohnen this apparently originally had the title Aaah! Zombies!! & is a horror comedy with the film unfolding through the perspective of the zombies, while it has a couple of cute moments & the idea is alright (but not as original as many would have you believe) Wasting Away just isn't funny or gory or particularly fun to watch. The gags & jokes are abysmal, from a bowling bag with eye holes cut out for a severed head to see to zombies acting like retards to heads used a bowling balls to a blow up sex doll to some really lame one-liners the humour in Wasting Away misses the mark by the proverbial mile, maybe the makers were trying too hard but I didn't laugh once or even smile for that matter. I think a dark horror comedy like The Return of the Living Dead (1985) works so much better as it delivers both good solid black humour which fits the gruesome horror aspect so much better rather than this silly slapstick nonsense that totally eclipses any horror aspect although Wasting Away is also severely lacking in that regard as well. So basically we have yet another horror comedy that isn't funny in the slightest & doesn't have any horror in it either, who is Wasting Away meant to appeal too anyway? The character's are OK & maybe even slightly better than I expected, it moves along at a decent pace & the idea of a film from the zombies perspectives as they feel discriminated against & just want to be themselves & live in peace has potential but I just thought too many aspects of Wasting Away were just plain poor or awful.To differentiate between the zombie & human perspective the makers decided to film the humanity side of things in black and white while whenever we are seeing things from the zombies point of view it's colour. There's not much gore here, there's a severed hand & head, an exploding Cat, a bit of blood splatter & someone's scalp falls off a few times in another not funny recurring gag. Reasonably well made Wasting Away looks alright I suppose but I can hardly remember anything about it & I only saw it a few hours ago.With a supposed budget of about $1,000,000 this was filmed in California with decent enough production values. The acting is alright, the main cast do OK & a special mention to Julianna Robinson who is hot in this (who, according to her IMDb Biography page can list all 50 US states alphabetically in less than 30 seconds, a hot girl with talent eh? I like it).Wasting Away is a horror comedy that tries to be clever & funny but is neither, the lack of any credible or effective horror aspects ultimately prove terminal in terms of entertainment value & fun. I didn't like it, I didn't think it was funny or clever & couldn't recommend it.
ElijahCSkuggs
In any sub-genre of films, the zombie genre gets as much flack, or more, than any other sub-genre. At times it feels like these film-makers really are running out of ideas. But every once in a while you're given a breath of fresh air in a seemingly moldy genre. As with Colin (2008), what we have here is a flick that easily exceeded any expectations I had of it. The only expectations I had were that I hoped it wouldn't suck. And it most definitely did not.Wasting Away is a zomedy...do people say that? Zomedy? Is that frowned on? Or should I say Zom/Com? I'm gonna go with zomedy for now...then again, maybe I'll go with combie. Or maybe...I'll just switch it up and use all three. Yeah, that's what's gonna do down. So Wasting Away is a low-budget combie that in my opinion delivered a pretty damn satisfying flick. Our story revolves around a group of pals, two girls/two guys and one failed secret super soldier serum. To get a bit more specific the military, after failing with a super-soldier experiment attempted to dispose of this glowing green formula. Of course, along the way the truck on route to dispose of the stuff crashes and some of this toxic waste stuff gets into a carton of milk that one of our lead characters dumps into his soft-serve beer flavored ice-cream machine. And poof, after a little taste taste they're now, oblivious to them, zombies.Wasting Away is a zomedy that had a great idea at it's core. Throughout most of the running time our characters have no idea they are zombies, and this leads to some genuine comedic moments. You're given perspectives from their point of view (shot in color), and perspectives from the non-infected point of view (in black and white), and this is where the movie thrives. As they walk around thinking they're acting totally normal, the style will switch to black and white, and a normal dude taking a whiz behind a dumpster will look up and see a bunch of zombies shuffling towards him. Then it'll switch back to their perspective again as they're walking normally to the guy taking a whiz, and they're trying to ask him a question. Again, switch back to the guy taking a whiz, and it just appears to be zombies making zombie gestures. May not sound that funny or fresh, but it totally is.This zom/com without a doubt suckered me into it's fun style, but this combie ain't perfect by any means. Out of the five main characters, there are only two with any above average acting chops, but with a decent script, it wasn't that big of an issue for me. Unfortunately the flick is also full of bullet sized plot-holes. They're the type of plot-holes you could fill with a silly and dumb idea, but they're there nonetheless, and they do make you roll your eyes, but overall they weren't that annoying. Without a doubt my biggest issue, surprisingly enough, relates to their unique back and forth perspective. I really enjoyed this aspect to the film, but it was no way used enough, and at times not used correctly. The point of using this was to create silly scenes of these zombies doing human activities. But they only truly capitalized on this a couple of times, when they had numerous occasions to do so. Why wasn't there a switch during the bowling scene? Why wasn't there a switch when the kid was trying to talk to the parents? Why didn't they show them talking to any drunk people? I can go on and on with missed opportunities. But I suppose they did a good enough job there, as we did see zombies celebrating, making out, and even attempting to serve food in a inconspicuous manner. And I can only gather that it was either budget reasons, or just poor editing room decisions to why there wasn't more zombie silliness.Jeez, I'm doing some rambling here. So let's wrap this bad boy up shall we? Wasting Away is without a doubt a moan of fresh zombie breath in a sub-genre that feels like it's becoming zombified. This is one combie that delivered much more than I thought it would, and also, now this is the make or break moment for my comment...it's a much better film than Zombieland. If you like zombies, and like comedies, and/or a mixture of the two, and of course don't mind low-budget flicks, then you should definitely give this one a chance.
