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After the joy of rewatching Overlord last night, I am back on the dog shit trail. Or am I? Daylights End, 2016, After a plague turns a huge section of humanity into bloodthirsty creatures, a drifter finds few survivors and reluctantly decides to help them. And this is one of those movies pushed by Amazon. It is there in the list when looking at Romero or Zombieland. Daylights End. It feels like a vampire title. Apparently its not.

It stars Johnny Strong. Now I have attempted to watch this a half dozen times, maybe more. But it is Strongs firm jawed model looks that turn me off it. Now it does have Lance Henrikson, but he’ll do anything for a sack of change. And Strong, after looking him up, was one of the sniper spec ops guys who sacrificed themselves in Black Hawk Down. So for that alone I need to give it a fair shake of the stick.

There are many movies like this one. A bad episode of the walking dead It is formulaic. A macho hero, probably emotionally detached, rolls into town and is the saviour before eventually leaving and going his own way. Actually that is the plot of the 1970s Incredible Hulk TV show and the Littlest Hobo. A tonne of westerns. When it comes to zombie movies and movies we have seen this one felt a bit of a mishmash, a mashup of zombie hunter, Navy Seals vs Zombies, The Last Hope, Rise of the Zombies, Amityville Uprising, Zombie Warz with a z. We have an overly macho hero Thomas Rourke killing zombies because they turned his wife and he ended up killing her. This was actually done by an alpha that is following Thomas, but somehow Thomas is following it? I didn’t get that, it was there days before he arrived. That one is different. It watches. Ok. A well armed group of former police officers led by Lance Henkrison and a lot of civilians they have sworn to protect. Hard nosed Henrikson and Thomas don’t agree. Cops that are trained and armed by taken to task my a bunch of marauders until Thomas wipes the lot of them out in one go?

Thomas was too macho. And they gave him the gun from Black Hawk Down. In fact Strong uses the Black Hawk Down photo as his headshot. He was invincible and refused to be wrong, even when his foolhardy mission, the only way we can get everyone to the plane, ends up killing everyone he went with and let the infected into the police station, killing even more.

For people who had surviving for so long they didn’t last very long as soon as Thomas arrived. I guess the lesson is don’t listen to the know it all handsome macho guy who has been doing everything solo since the virus started.

Henrikson was underused. Louis Mandylor was the best thing about this movie. Not a lot happened. He saves Sam and goes back to the station. They put him in a cell. They are attacked. He escapes and is then allowed to stay out. He goes on a foolhardy mission. He beats bad guy in the softest of ways. He leaves.

The sunlight thing was more of a vamp thing.

It was watchable but poor. A bit better than the aforementioned crop of bad macho hero movies and cop movies… so I would give it… 4.5/10 worth a meh. But don’t feel bad if you turn it off. Def not worth paying cash money for.

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JJ Abrams' Bad Robot brings us this underrated WW2 super soldier zombie movie from 2018. And I had been putting off watching it for the pod as I had until I appeared on BPs Let's Talk Horror Channel the other night. BP is watching and reviewing movies this year that he believes aren't getting the credit they deserve. He and I talked Cooties, but he also talked Overlord and it prompted me to watch it today.

You can watch BPs episode on Overlord here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQEzZswm3_k&t=9s

Ok. So for me this was a decent WW2 movie, akin to Band of Brothers, and Saving Private Ryan. It was made well, with an excellent cast, superb look, feel and effects. The zombie super soldier element really doesn't appear until an hour in. Until then this is a group of US paratroopers in occupied France planning to take out a German radio tower to enable D-Day to go ahead.

From when Iain de Caestecker is killed by the Nazi commander and then injected by Jovan Adepo's Boyce, the movie changes. It still have the sabotage element, but now we have something new, something out of Project Wolf Hunter.

Whilst the super soldier thing isn't new, having seen it in Valley of the Dead, Frankenstein's Army, Output 1 to 3, recently Operation Undead, The Revenant, Army of the Dead and the aforementioned Project Wolf Hunter, this was a decent war movie with the super soldier thing added. I guess that is why I didn't watch it for the pod... until now, and the intervention, or inspiration from Let's Talk Horror Channel.

It is a solid 6.5 for me, 6.6 on IMDB, and 82% on RT. So, if you haven't seen it, and don't mind the WW2 plot and story for a third of it, then give it a go.

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And onto resident evil extinction, part 3 of the franchise that we are working our way through. We will watch the movies, then Welcome to Racoon City the reboot and the Netflix show. But before that, this is the 3rd movie on the bounce and it admittedly my favourite, and think that is because it is no longer hamstrung by being tied to the games, and therefore has to play to the audience of gamers. It can just be a movie

It opens as the first movie does with Alice in the shower waking up after the EMP wiped her and James Purefoys memory. However this is not Alice it is one of many clones created by the evil Dr Issacs. Which is a good thing as she ends up getting killed, but only after the res dress boots, photo, and laser corridor of the first movie, along with a lot of her clone sisters. What a waste of a good Alice. Nasty ditch full of alices.

This is an umbrella lab under a tiny shack in the middle of the Mojave desert, surrounded by zombies in the thousands.

So the t-virus got out, and took out the world. It is no longer limited to Racoon City. Within weeks the USA is gone, within months the world. And lakes rivers and seas dried out… which is cool for this movie, but in the later ones, the ones with the planes and aircraft carrier etc it is a fertile looking green Canada.

I like this one, it is brain candy along the lines of Paul Bettany's Priest and Carl Urban's Dredd. It is a fun movie, but it doesn't need to be a Resident Evil movie as we end up with super telekenetic Alice. It is now removed from the games, and this is, as Michael says, part of an Alice v Wesker and Umbrella, as it the rest of the Milla Jovovic series.

6.5/10 as it is a fun apocalyptic jaunt in the desert.

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2004 and a bit of a mess Resident Evil Apocalypse seems to be the last of the Paul W Anderson Res Evil movies that pays back what it is to the computer games. With movie character Alice joined by Jill Valentine, Oded Fehr's Carlos and The Nemesis we get some cheesy one liners, and the plot of Escape from NY embedded in the events happening right after the first movie left off.

Did we like it? Well you will need to pull up a chair and find out

5/10

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SEOUL STATION – 2016 written and directed by Yeon Sang-ho. who wrote and directed all three Busan movies. It is the second released installment in the Train to Busan film series, and a prequel of its eponymous film, the aeni (South Korean animation) explores how the zombie epidemic began in South Korea before the latter's events,and revolves around the three main characters; Hye-sun, a young woman and prostitute who is attempting to survive in the world who sees her as disposable, Suk-gyu, her father who searches for his runaway daughter with help from her boyfriend, Ki-woong.

I started this once, a long time ago but this time around, for you dear people, I shall stick with it.

RT said it was thrilling and relentless from start to finish, Yeon Sang-ho's Seoul Station is a layered and vicious entry into the zombie genre

The Hollywood Reporter called the film "a simple, thrilling ride through a fiend-infested world."

Some asshole in China echoing the thoughts of the government there went on about it being more about south Korea's homelessness and prostitution problem, and gave it 3/5 but that’s the Chinese for you. They hate their neighbours.

The guardian (a wanky arty newspaper) described it as "desperate souls trapped in life's margin"

And it made over 2 million for a ½ million budget pretty good

What did I think?

A lot of shouting, screaming and loud wailing that annoyed, both hye and asshole BF did not grow at all, they couldn’t stand up for themselves and fight back, or even close doors

I recommended it to Steph and Michael

6/10

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A man takes extreme steps to protect Maggie, his daughter, who is slowly turning into a cannibal after a zombie attack. He spends time with her, reminiscing about her childhood, dreading the future.

It stars Arnold scharzenegger, joely Richardson and Abigail Breslin in the title role as Maggie. Although I have time for all three – esp Breslin in the Zombielands, final girl and little miss sunshine

I have been putting off watching this because it looked over sentimental. Arnie in a non action role.

But, after Harold’s going stiff last time out I thought I would give it a go

60% on Rotten Tomatoes

5.6/10 IMDB

Arnie's limited range is shown for what it is here. His emotional scenes are the equivalent of him being given a particularly tricky quadratic equation to solve. But the filming is crisp and beautiful. Stunning in place, but thoroughly depressing. It is a shadowy shot of Maggie, with the net curtains blowing in the breeze in the blistered window of a grey farmhouse under a miserable grey sky.

Essentially it is the story of a kid with an incurable disease, dying, and her father having to deal with it. It is all very depressing. Well filmed. Well acted for the most part.

6/10

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Harold's Going Stiff 2011 British

Lonely pensioner, Harold Gimble, has become the first man to suffer from a new neurological disease that is slowly turning him into a zombie-like state. Harold s hermit-like existence is shaken up when a vivacious nurse, Penny Rudge, is sent along to alleviate his stiffness. Her special massage techniques work a treat on Harold and they become close friends.

Harold agrees to trial a possible cure for the disease at a private institute, and the initial results are excellent. But the following day he's in an even worse state than before, and after Penny accidentally overhears the doctor s dire prognosis for Harold she decides to sneak him away the next morning.

Word soon gets out, and before long a small group of bloodthirsty thugs are pursuing Harold and Penny across dramatic moorlands in the hope of a kill.

100% from fans onRT

5.8/10 on IMDB which is pretty good I think

It was alright

5/10 from me

A sad metaphor for dementia and other degenerative diseases, Alzheimer’s Parkinson’s etc

The hunters were annoying and unnecessarily comedic which is out of place with the rest of the movie

Flipped as you could tell between a documentary style and not… it was inconsistent

Good to see something from that angle, I think Maggie is similar with arnie? I don’t. Know

In the end it was a sad story about a lonely man at the end of his days in a lot of pain, who is given some hope, before the inevitable happens. Yeah, 5/10 is fair.

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Rememeber Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter? Ben Walker, Anthony Mackie, May Elizabeth Winstead, Dominic Cooper, Rufus Sewell, Jimmi SImpsom…. 2012 5.9 on IMDB 34% on RT? Well, this isn't that.

Abraham Lincoln Vs Zombie also 2012 but that is the only thing in common, starring…. Well nobody. Horror movie stalwart Bill Oberst from circus of the dead, werewolf risin, painkiller, scary or die, a haunting in same, dismal, valley of the saquatch, ditch day massacre, Krampus and nude nuns with big guns (seriously) as Abraham Lincoln 3.2 on IMDB 22% on RT

Produced by Asylum and release direct to video. Apparently it is a Mockbuster of the proper Vampire movie by 20th Century Fox. So jumping on the Vampire hunter marketing coattails.

Looking at the reviews. Jason Adams said it was extremely repetitive, with a script full of terrible lines. Other than Oberst the actors pretty much suck post colonial wastewater.

Dread Central said Oberst was good but overly written scenes, wildly uneven pacing and confusingly staged scenes prevented it from living up to its potential.

Connect Savannah said it was terrible.

Starburst said it was sluggishly directed from a weak script.

Everyone praised Oberst.

Even with the adding of Stonewall Jackson, Pat Garrett and Teddy Roosevelt, in the end, unlike Exit Humanity that has Brian Cox, Bill Moseley ,Stephen McHattie and Dee Wallace it doesn’t work.

The reviewers were right. Oberst was the only thing that worked. He gave a decent performance as Abe. Everyone else was average at best. The effects were poor. The constant speeches, the repetitive standing around, speech, then running about to orchestral music, then standing around got to much. It was haphazard in its timing.

3.5/10