- Directed by: George A. Romero
- Written by: George A. Romero
- Stars: Michelle Morgan, Joshua Close, Shawn Roberts
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 35 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEvN2erclUU
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This contains a lot of found footage style, as we follow some film folks that started out making a horror movie until the real horror hits. Then they start making a documentary. It’s not bad, but it’s not Romero’s best work in the series. There wasn’t enough new, and we both rate it as just okay.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on police and ambulances at a crime scene. Bree is a reporter, talking about the murder-suicide. In the background, one of the corpses is still moving– and attacking the paramedics. All the corpses suddenly get up , and the cops open fire. Bree is killed, and the cameraman uploads the footage to the Internet. We get further news reports of the zombie apocalypse, now in progress. Jason Creed made a film, “The Death of Death” compiled of found footage from the incident. This is that film…
We open on a film crew making a very lame-looking mummy movie. It’s Jason’s senior project for film school. They all hear about something weird on the news. Tony is skeptical of the news, since it’s all made-up anyway. They all decide to pack up and leave for safety.
Jason goes to the dorms and finds them not only wrecked, but there’s a looter clearing out stuff. He loads the friends he can find into an RV and tries to find a safe place. Mary, Debra, Tony, Eliot, Gordo, Tracy, and Professor Maxwell are all trying to make their way home.
The group comes upon a car crash on the road, and there’s a dead man wandering around. They run over a few of the “people” as they pass, which makes everyone stop joking about it. Mary, who was driving, gets out of the car and shoots herself in guilt. The group rushes her to the hospital, but the place is oddly deserted. An undead doctor shows up, and Gordo has to shoot him.
Jason stays behind to recharge his camera as the others spread out to find help. Debra comes back and tells Jason about her encounter with a zombie in the next room. As the group reconvenes, Mary dies and starts to change. On the way out, Gordo gets bitten in the arm; by morning, he’s dead. When Gordo gets up again, Tracy shoots him.
The RV breaks down at a farm in the county. There’s an old Amish man there who can’t hear or speak. He knows all about the dead, and he’s got dynamite. They get trapped in the barn, and the old man gets it before the RV starts again.
The group encounters another group and follows them to a big warehouse. They see a news broadcast that has been edited to make things look… not so bad. It’s all Fake news. They upload their own footage to MySpace, which was a thing in 2007. Jason and Debra argue over the appropriateness of filming the end of the world.
The group hears about one of the men who died from a bad heart and then went missing… inside the compound. They find the man and Tony throws a bottle of acid on him. The man keeps staggering around as his head melts. Before they leave, the group gets food, supplies, and weapons.
The group makes it to Debra’s family home, where she’s supposed to meet family. Her family is missing, but there seems to have been trouble there already. They soon find the family, or what’s left of them. The group decides to get back on the road and leave.
The group is stopped by the National Guard. Turns out, they just want everything the RV group has. They take nearly everything but the weapons. We start seeing videos online of soldiers and “the good guys” turning against civilians.
They go to the home of another student they know, Ridley. The front door is standing open, which is a bad sign. They find Ridley, still dressed like a mummy. He’s rich, weird, and sketchy. He says Francine is out back with his family and the staff. They are indeed out there, but all is not well. He separates from the others, and we see that he’s been bitten.
Ridley chases Tracy through the woods, just like a horror movie. She whacks Ridley with a rock and steals the RV, leaving everyone else behind. Meanwhile, Ridley, totally not dead, kills Eliot. Jason, Debra, Tony, and Maxwell discuss hiding in the safe room until this all blows over, but Jason wants to stay outside and keep filming. “All that’s left is to record what’s happening for whoever remains when it’s over.” Still, on the way to the safe room, Jason is killed.
Debra decides to finish Jason’s movie. She wonders if humanity is worth saving…
Brian’s Commentary
It’s mostly found footage, more or less, edited into a finished project. It somewhat hits on social media, cameras being in everyone’s hands, fake news, and everyone having an opinion online; Romero’s gotta put in the social commentary, and there’s a lot of it here.
Found footage was all the rage in 2007, so it makes sense that Romero would try it, but it’s not innovative anymore, and it actively detracts from the story.
It’s very… meh.
Kevin’s Commentary
I thought the filming stuff, a movie within a movie of sorts, was pretty cool actually. It’s just that the rest of the movie didn’t have enough that was new or interesting. It’s solidly made with good special effects, but overall I thought it was just middling.