Chad B. (abrnt1) from CABERY, IL
Reviewed on 2/13/2012...
A boring film with a complete lack of original ideas. I know that quite a few people are fans of the series of novels this film is based upon, but they're nothing special. A tired cliched filled re-working of every basic zomie/infected/contagion story one can think of. The film is a confusing mess filled with bad editing,boring characters,a basic story any fan of the genre has seen numerous times before & a hideous lack of any original thought whatsoever. This is by the numbers low budget filmmaking at it's very worse. Might help you fall asleep if you suffer from insomnia.
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Mark J. (mjohntx) from NOLANVILLE, TX
Reviewed on 4/2/2011...
It should be noted, first, that while David Moody's Autumn quartet has become a self-publishing success story (including netting Moody a publishing contract with St. Martin's, who are slowly re-releasing all his stuff) and singlehandedly sparked an explosion in small-press zombie literature, the books themselves aren't all that great. Autumn is the story of a small group of survivors who are left behind by some sort of fast-acting plague that wipes out billions of people in the space of a few heartbeats. While the novel focuses on one band that gets together in a school building and then splits off into different groups, the movie, after paying token lip service to the school bit (five minutes or thereabouts, it's a much larger portion of the book), focuses on one splinter group from the original mass: Michael (Kick-Ass' Dexter Fletcher), Emma (Lana Kamenov in her first screen appearance), and Carl (British TV character actor Dickon Tolson; American audiences may remember him from a recurring role on the sitcom Growing Pains). There's tension in the group, as there was in the larger group, and it gets worse when the billions of corpses struck down by the disease get up and start walking around...
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Michael G. (mgmirkin) from PORTLAND, OR
Reviewed on 12/27/2010...
I haven't read the books. Didn't know there were any. So, I'm not going to compare the movie to the book(s) it was based on.
On its own, this movie stands up pretty well. But don't expect post-28 Days Later hyper-zombies. These are closer to Romero's plodding, brainless zombies (though, by the end of the movie it's a bit of a middle ground between the two).
The basic premise is that a plague strikes the world and nearly everyone dies. A few people weren't affected (either they never contracted the disease or were immune; it's not really stated and doesn't matter too much) and band together to try to keep humanity alive and/or ward off looters / vigilantes.
Then the dead start moving again, it starts out slowly. Eyes open, bodies movie. Eventually they get up and wander about aimlessly. They slowly regain some of their senses and motor skills over the course of the movie, but are still zombies and "have no pulse."
I think the movie was executed pretty well. It wasn't a big actioner, so don't go in expecting a super-fast thrill-ride with lots of explosions. There was some amount of chasing that went on toward the end of the movie. But, ultimately it was more of a slow-burn, ever-so-slightly atmospheric movie. In all, I thought it was pretty competently made and accomplished what it set out to do. Even if it wasn't a Planet Terror or Zombieland or Last of the Living...
The David Carradine cameo was a little forced. But it was nice to see him in one of his last roles... Even if the character was a little "off" and didn't believe that his mother was dead. "She's only sick... The dead don't move!"
In the final analysis, despite it being a bit slow to get started and not being an actioner, I found it a likable zombie flick. Certainly better than Dead Meat, at any rate.
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