EATERS

CONTAINS SPOILERS, YUCK, AND YET ANOTHER PLEA FOR PEOPLE TO PUT THE CORRECT DAMN TITLE ON THE DVD BOX

Your initial hopes aren't massively high given that it's yet another apocalyptic zombie movie starring no-one you've ever heard of, albeit one in Italian (with subs), even though the publicity blurb excitedly proclaims it as "...one of the goriest horror films of recent years". However, if there's one thing guaranteed to knock your expectations down a further notch or seven, it's the sight of an opening caption reading "Uwe Boll Presents...". Now Boll is certainly not the worst filmmaker on the planet, but he is never going to be anything more than just about technically competent at his very best. Even in the zombie genre there are a lot worse films out there than House Of The Dead. In the event it's not clear exactly what Boll did (it's credited to his EventFilm outfit) but he doesn't appear to have had any creative input.

A particularly virulent disease has turned almost all of the human race into zombies (of the old-fashioned Romero shuffling variety rather than new-fangled Zack Snyder sprinting types). Civilisation has collapsed and there are just a few isolated scientists struggle to find a cure. Alen and Igor periodically venture out to find fresh zombs for their boss, searching for an antidote than might have something to do with a fertility vaccine and Alen's girlfriend, locked up in the basement. They also have to contend with a bunch of idiotic Nazis led by a dwarf Fuhrer as well as the flesh-eating living dead themselves. And who is the Plague Spreader, whose radio broadcasts still proclaim to a near-empty world the justifications of hundreds of millions dead?

Eaters actually starts off quite well with the TV news reports (much the same as Diary Of The Dead) but soon stagnates with the frankly unlikeable humans bickering and swearing at each other: yet again it's difficult to care who lives and who "dies". Much like the slew of senseless Japanese gore movies like Tokyo Gore Police, in the absence of any kind of emotional empathy, you're just left waiting for the next bit of splatter, of which there is certainly plenty. But gore effects, even when done with a measure of spirit and glee, aren't any kind of substitute for characters you want to spend any time with and you start wondering about the logic of this dead new world instead. For instance, it's frankly highly improbable that within the tiny group of remaining survivors of a global zombie outbreak, there are two male doctors and one female doctor - all of whom worked together - AND the female doctor's boyfriend. And why has the midget Hitler survived? What's with the Nazis anyway?

The DVD artwork makes the movie look far more expansive and expensive than it actually is - there are no helicopter gunships to be seen, unfortunately. And yet again, the title on the box isn't the same as the title on screen. I know Eaters: Rise Of The Dead sounds cool, and sounds like the title of a zombie movie, whereas just plain Eaters sounds like a fairly drab movie about bulimia or BBWs or something. But Eaters is the title that actually appears on the screen. It's not a great movie: in fact it's mainly quite dull, it has no depth, and there's only the occasional burst of gore to liven the piece up.

**

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