Plan Z

A bit bored this afternoon and this drew my attention on Prime. It is low budget and there are probably more continuity errors than I care to remember. However the characters are all believable with no-one thinking they are Rambo. They also handle the various situations in a believable way.

If you can have a believable zombie movie, this is probably close to it. Gritty, lots of blood and different to just about every Hollywood zombie movie.

I'd checked out quite a few reviews of this from fellow Letterboxd-ers and, while managing to avoid any serious spoilers, it was already very clear what the consensus of opinion was on this film.

Now I'm not the sort of awkward pedant who'd pretend to hate it because it was popular and easy, to make me look all dangerous and interesting ... but I would argue my reasons for liking unpopular films (such as R.I.P.D, Daredevil (with Ben Affleck!) even Batman and Robin which my brother loathes and I always stick up for, just to piss him off - if explained clearly enough and with reasonable examples for the basis of your opinion, then who am I to tell you, you're wrong?!

In spite of all the above, I actually found this hilarious.

Found myself take an immediate dislike to the way He carries himself in front of the camera, speaks in a Michael Madson-esque lazy drawl and just instantly rubbed me up the wrong way.

That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, I appreciate a good villain. However in this, he's the 'hero'? Nah... really?

What would he do if the zombocalypse occurred when he was off on one of his international photography jaunts? Hadn't planned for that had you smartypants?

He comes across like some kind of Badly Drawn Boy/Chuck Norris hybrid, even when he's just heard the grisly sounds of people being torn to bits and eaten right outside his front door. I contemplated how it would have affected the film if the main man was Ewan Bremner, playing it like Spud. Instead of barely raising a designer-scruffy eyebrow when coming to terms with Zombocalypse, he'd be running around, crying, swearing and shooting up smack.

This would have made it a brilliant film.

Ps - If nothing else, I am grateful to this film for introducing to me to John Fairhurst whose bruising groove 'No Shelter' (wow! It's like they gave it some thought) blew me away. I'm off to Emusic now to see if they've got his stuff included in my subscription.

As other reviewers have noted this film was done on a low budget but they made the most of it. It's a decent character study. It certainly deserves more than a 4.8.

Anything even remotely zombie and it has my attention. However, I can't say that I had any particular hopes to "Plan Z" prior to watching it. I just sat down to watching it and would let it either impress or fail to impress as it would.

So what was the verdict? Well, mildly impressed. "Plan Z" certainly did have potential, especially because this takes places during the first stages of a zombie outbreak. And it was done nicely enough in a way that put the audience in the shoes right alongside with Craig (played by Stuart Brennan).

However, it was the shoddy and questionable camera work that failed to impress me. And it actually turned into a thing of frustration. I really loathe it when a camera is swinging to and forth all over the place, which often was the case in "Plan Z".

But also the sense of a rather shallow storyline helped to steer the movie away from being impressive. The story pretty much just easily strafe over the events of an outbreak and takes you from point A to point B way too fast, letting everything in between just slip through the cracks.

And it was as if the characters all lacked background, and they could essentially all have been one and the same character, just equipped with a different face. Very little effort was put into the characters to flesh them out and give them character. Sure it was nice to see how Craig prepared for what was inevitable in the beginning of the movie, but after that, he just became another faceless character like the rest of the characters in the movie.

Director Stuart Brennan had some vision, but just seemed to eager to make a movie that showed progression. A lot of details and time to set up a believable story and setting just fell to the floor.

I was, however, fairly entertained by the movie as a whole, because it does have some good aspects to it as well. However, as an addition to the zombie genre "Plan Z" just didn't bring anything new or memorable. It just didn't have what it took to play the big league.

If you enjoy the zombie genre, as I do, then by all means do take the time to sit down and watch "Plan Z". Just don't expect to be blown away. "Plan Z" lands a five out of ten stars rating from me.

While I Don't Think This Was A Very Good Zombie Movie (I Thought It Was More Of A Character Story Than Say A Zombie Movie), I Think It Had A Great Plot And A Good Allegory For Making It Through Life ... Not Just A Bad Time But Through Life In General ... Be Prepared, Have A Plan, Stick To Your Plan, Don't Be Afraid To Change/Amend The Plan, Always Do The Right Thing, Do Unto Others ... And So Forth ... The Acting Isn't The Worse I Have Seen In A Zombie Movie ... I Was Interested Enough To See How It Ended ... I Imagine For The General American Viewer A Zombie Movie That Is Slow Paced (Typical Of English Movies) Could Seem Boring But This Movie Is Anything But Boring ... I Found This Movie To Be More In Line With "Maggie" (An Excellent Character Study Around A Zombie Apocalypse Featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger) As Say A Typical Zombie Movie ... My IMDb Rating 6 Out Of 10