Sunday 5 July 2009

INFESTATION

CONTAINS SPOILERS, FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

It is 2034. Mankind is all but extinct after a global virus, and the few survivors have retreated underground and somehow built a massive city called Subtropolis. A team have been sent up to the surface to try and make it habitable but they've disappeared; another team is duly sent in on a search and rescue mission. This second batch is made up of the usual sweary military hardnuts and a Ralf Little lookalike. Once up on the surface they find themselves in what looks like an abandoned college campus. Oh, and it's full of zombies.

There's a slimy giant bug movie coming up later this year called Infestation, and it looks like fun. But this Infestation is actually a British zombie flick with the same name, made on a budget of £5000 if you believe the IMDb (and £2.50 if you believe the evidence of your own eyes) and going by the appalling picture quality it looks like it was shot on someone's mobile phone: it's that cheap-looking. That's down to having such a low budget but surely if you can't afford to make a decent zombie movie, that's no reason to go out a make a rubbish one. Infestation is incredibly dull and noisy; the music (credited to something called Emissary, which I guess is some kind of group) isn't any good either, and much of the dialogue is of that wannabe tough talk variety that just sounds silly even if delivered by a Seagal or a Willis (or if wet, a Lundgren). When uttered by someone who looks as if he should be offering you fries with that (or a Big Issue), it's just insulting. Much of the movie is suffused in a dull green light, whether it's an underground corridor or an abandoned college campus full of zombies (though giving everything a green hue does obviously make the zombies look a bit green). And when the CG effects sequences look as if they came off a very early Atari machine, surely it's time for the makers to wonder whether it's actually good enough to put out and charge real money for?

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I wouldn't advise it, but if you must:

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