"State of Emergency" is one of the newest "3rd Wave" zombie films that has been released and as such, it has to carry a lot of water for the new movement. Unfortunately, for it's successes, it stumbles just enough to leave us wanting.
The old style of zombies, generally known as "Romero Zombies" for their initial creator, were the stumbling, slow moving horde that most zombie fans consider more realistic than their faster, modern counterparts. The idea is that if zombies were real, they would move slow because dead people can't run due to . . .being dead I guess. But the zombie purist demands their zombies to be slow. Authors tend to use the slow moving zombie trope while movies have moved on the fast zombies. No better example can be used than that of World War Z. The book features the shambling mass; the movie portrays them as so fast they trip over each other until they can scale walls.
The second wave of zombie films started with the "28 Days Later" in 2002. The zombies were no longer the risen dead, but were infected with some disease that turned them into savages. They kept a few of the ideas of the earlier zombies (move in packs, immune to pain, contagious bites, etc.) but gave them increased speed and the ability to scream or spew blood or whatever creepy thing the director wanted them to do. The "Dawn of the Dead" remake had zombies running so fast they could catch up to cars. In "Zombieland" they could climb.
So from the shambling undead tidal wave of the 60's to the sprinting predators of the turn of the millennium, where do we go from here? The zombie must evolve, right?
Right?
So now, in the "3rd Wave," we have the Smart Zombie.
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| "Braaaiiiiinnnnns . . .are not used at their full capacity. If you only use 10%, can I eat the other 90?" |
"State Of Emergency" has zombies that can talk, climb ladders, open doors, and set up ambushes. They can also remember their lives as humans. All of these things are game changers as far as zombies go and that's good and bad for the genre.
The movie starts off with the standard story telling cheat of showing people in jeopardy and then a title card flashes "X amount of time earlier." I hate this trick because usually it means "If you liked that exciting part, watch all this boring stuff to find out what happens!" and we get an hour of nothing and then we're back to the part we already know is going to happen.
After the jump though little time is wasted in letting us get to know the protagonist, Jim, and the type of zombie he is up against. They watch him and look for weaknesses in his base (An abandoned horse stable.)
As the movie progresses Jim meets other survivors who seem so non-plussed by the whole zombie apocalypse that for awhile I thought they were some sort of doomsday religious cult. Another survivor has diabetes, which brings up an interesting side note: I've been playing the game "Dead Island" lately, and out of the 20+ missions you have to do, 2 of them involve fetching insulin for a character who has diabetes. Is there some link between zombification and too much sugar?
"Ok, the Insulin Warehouse is right between the graveyard and the Umbrella Mansion, right? I'll be right back."
Eventually we get to the exposition of the origin of these creatures: chemical plant explosion. It becomes airborne and you either turn or you don't. Most people did, it's limited to a county, etc. "State of Emergency" doesn't go global. This is about individuals fighting for their lives. And on that level, this movie works. It is suspenseful, the acting is good, the dialogue is tight. These are things we hope for in a zombie movie and we don't always get. I thought the beginning when Jim was alone was the strongest part but I understand why they had to introduce the group and the movie continues to, if not necessarily get better as it goes on, at least doesn't get worse.
The two things that I did have a problem with were the two things I always have a problem with in these "3rd Wave" zombie films:
Digital gunfire/digital blood. I get it. Blanks are expensive. There are a ton of requirements needed to fire blanks for safety and legal reasons. But this?
That. Looks. Bad. It's terrible. CGI blood splatter is always terrible. It's so bad why even show it? This trend has been going on in low budget movies for awhile now but it's getting worse. Zombie films are particularly bad. STOP USING CGI BLOOD SPLATTER!
My other complaint with this movie is it is so suspenseful, so intense in parts . . .but when the zombies are inconsistent it just loses some of that "oomph." We have zombies so smart one of them walks up to the door where the survivors are, asks for one of them by name, asks to be let in, and it's not until they shine a light on it's face that we see it's a zombie.
On the other hand, sometimes they just stand in a field, or walk right by a guy without even knowing he's there. That actually happens twice. So are they smart or not? If you're going to do something ballsy like make them smart, go all out. Have them picking locks or building ladders. Why not?
That's the problem with the "3rd Wave." Directors are trying to have it both ways. They want the terror of the "zombie" but they don't want to make a "zombie" movie. They call them infected, or give them some other non-zombie trait, but to the viewer they are a zombie. They are marketed as zombie movies. We'll see more of this type of "smart zombie" popping up for the next few years, I believe, as directors and writers try to put their own fingerprint on the zombie genre and create something new. There's nothing wrong with that.
Except for the fact that it was already done in 1982.
"State Of Emergency" is worth watching. What it does well really works. It just tries too hard to re-invent something. Smart talking zombies aren't the way to go unless you're willing to commit to it all the way, even at the sake of losing the seriousness of a end of the world scenario.
It's like trying to have your brains and eat them too.
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