By Geno McGahee
In 1968, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD was unleashed on the public and created a new horror sub-genre that is still very popular. The idea of the deceased coming back to life to kill the living is a scary thought and now I keep hearing the term “Zombie Apocalypse.” I’ve heard, and I believe it’s probably all bullshit, that people are actually preparing for such an event. My grandmother couldn’t beat me up when she was alive, and she won’t be able to do it as a walking corpse. I have nothing to worry about.
Making a zombie film now is sort of like making a found footage now. What else is there to say? These two branches of the horror tree are overused and played out, but Benjamin Roberds, the writer and director of A PLAGUE SO PLEASANT, brings something a little different to the plate but we have seen it before. Released by Wild Eye Releasing, A PLAGUE SO PLEASANT concerns a zombie apocalypse that didn’t last long. When it was realized that the zombie attacks were retaliatory, all aggression from the living ceased and the two lived in peace. Now it was against the law to kill zombies…so we have a zombie rights movie. As I said, we’ve been down this road before.
Todd (Maxwell Moody) is a boring guy that lives with his friend, Clay (David Chandler). He asks Clay if it’s OK if he asks Mia (Eva Boehnke), Clay’s sister, out on a date. This is a good idea because Mia has been holding a torch for her ex, that just so happens to be a zombie. She goes to visit him, kisses him and gives him a warm hug. Clay notes that a gravestone is easier to separate from, but a body still roaming around isn’t so simple. He wants his sister away from the zombie and wants her to hook up with a near-zombie in the boring Todd.
Things get desperate and Clay takes it on himself to kill the zombie ex-boyfriend to break the connection with his sister. The zombies are now on the attack again and all hell breaks loose. They are eating people and killing people and it is all for revenge…I guess. Clay gets bit and really beat up by this angry mob of the undead, but eventually reaches his goal.
A PLAGUE SO PLEASANT is plagued with issues. The film has to be forgiven in a lot of ways because it is the first film from this writer/director and it did have a micro-budget, but there just wasn’t much to it. It comes off as pretentious and shooting it in black and white doesn’t make much sense. I understand the connection to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD or sometimes filmmakers just think that shooting it in black and white is an artistic thing, but it gave the impression that it was just trying to be artsy rather than serve a purpose. A lot of zombie films of the indie brand go black and white. It used to be due to budget restraints, but now it’s become a style.
One of the biggest issues of this film is that the zombies present no real threat until the end. A zombie film usually plays out the best when there is a struggle of human character as the zombies attack. The viewer puts themselves in the place of the characters and wonder how they would respond. When the zombies are just easy to walk by and pose no threat, the horror aspect is gone.
The theme of the movie is dull. Every character speaks in this monotone voice and delivers the lines in a robotic fashion with the exception of Boehnke. Perhaps she was the only one that was supposed to be upbeat, but she played the role well and came off as real. Chandler did rather well in the lead but he was also, mostly, in that drone mode.
The film trudges on and leads to a rather predictable ending. A PLAGUE SO PLEASANT brings nothing new to the sub-genre and is rather dull. It was shot rather well and the acting was pretty good (outside of the zombies). It wasn’t all bad, but the film is not something that stands out among the eighteen million other zombie films released this year and will probably leave most horror fans scratching their heads.
Rating: 4/10
