Ground Zero

Released by: Shock-O-Rama Cinema
Released on: 8/14/2012
Director: Channing Lowe
Cast: Mike Langer, Sahna Foley, D.L. Walker, Chris Harvey
Year: 2010
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The Movie:
A political activist breaks into a top-secret lab, via badge access (“let's hope this works”), and injects himself with an experimental virus in order to go to the media and expose the corporation behind the germ weapon. He's quickly hunted down by Mr. Johnson, someone with close ties to the corporation, and swiftly murdered along with some fellow activists in a warehouse. Mr. Johnson contacts a clean-up crew, Jarius and Greer, to take care of the mess and bodies. Once they arrive on the site, the two are met by a couple of fat guys that Mr. Johnson sent to help them out, which of course doesn't gel with the brooding brow of Jarius.

The two tag-alongs love goofing off and quoting movies (like Star Wars, Rambo) and don't seem to be taking their jobs as seriously as Jarius would like, but he's got other problems to deal with, namely is nagging and horrible girlfriend. The two have combative phone calls on a regular basis and she's pissed because he took this one last job instead of getting on a plane and conforming to her plans. Trouble erupts when the infected activist springs back to life and bites one of the nerds in the neck, and you know what happens when someone gets bitten by a walking corpse.

A not-very original zombie story combined with a total of four zombies isn't the best formula to impress an audience. The movie takes a long time to get moving and when it finally does it doesn't move very quickly, and nothing ever really happens. Way too much time is spent on trying to develop the Jarius character, which isn't an interesting side story at all, and he's not even a likeable character to begin with. So failure to establish him as someone the audience can empathize with has the opposite effect and it's difficult to care what happens to him. In the end it's his story, but unfortunately it's one that isn't very captivating.

The performances are decent, although some of the dialogue sounds forced and unnatural, and the director does a nice job with what minimal resources he obviously had. But unlike some directors in the same situation, his movie looks low rent. Adding that to the equation doesn't help his movie out any and as a result this is a film that doesn't warrant any real attention. There some gore, mostly practical makeup FX executed decently, and there's good amount of blood vomiting, so it does have THAT going for it.

Video/Audio/Extras:
As mentioned the movie looks as no-budget as it certainly is, and the image looks muddy at times, as though recorded on an inexpensive camera. It suffers from periods with quite a bit of digital noise and at times looks like a really nice VHS tape. Aspect ratio is 1.78:1, if that matters to you. The audio is a mono track that seems pumped up a bit in the amplitude area, but the balance seems good. Everyone is clearly audible and the music isn't overpowering.

For extra material, there's a “Making of Ground Zero” featurette that runs a little over 19 minutes, and is pretty good. More enjoyable than the film itself, anyway. The director basically does a commentary for the duration and talks about he production, which is much more interesting than a commentary running over the film's duration. We get some good info, and it isn't mundane. Other indie moviemakers take note. Also included is a 10-minute reel of outtakes and trailers for a few other films from the label.

The Final Word:
Not a very good entry into the already clotted up and not very good zombie genre, it misses way more than it hits. It does show some nice mountain range shots, being filmed in Salt Lake City, but that's about the only thing eye-catching. Watch at your own risk.