The October Zombie-Thon - Day 23: Forest of the Dead
Posted by Trevor Snyder on 10.23.2008
I'm starting feel like zombie movies just don't want us to go camping.
FOREST OF THE DEAD (2007)
Directed by: Brian Singleton
Written by: Brian Singleton & Mark Singleton
Country: Canada
For those of you experiencing a slight sense of déjà vu, let me assure you I have not slipped up and started to review the same film twice. This is notSevered: Forest of the Dead, the Canadian zombie film I reviewed in the very first year of the Zombie-Thon. No, this is justForest of the Dead, a totally different Canadian zombie movie. And believe me, although they share the same basic title, subject matter, and country of origin, that's about where the similarities end. For while Severed was nothing special, in retrospect it seems like Zombie Citizen Kane in comparison to today's Forest of the Dead.
Truthfully, the film that Forest of the Dead probably has the most in common with is the woeful Zombie Campout - and if you've been a regular reader of this year's Zombie-Thon you know just how much I love that abomination. Today's movie might as well be its Canadian spiritual brother, given its near-identical premise (campers vs. zombies), super amateur shot-on-video delivery, and even the same zombie origin of a falling meteorite. At least, I'm pretty sure I saw a meteorite at one point…for all I know, though, it could have just been a smudge on the camera lens.
The movie kicks off with a group of friends set for a night of camping at Alferd Packer Lake (hardy-har-har), before continuing on to their main destination of Crystal Lake (and again). Right away, it feels like the movie is actually trying to annoy you, considering the painful acting of everyone on screen, not at all helped by the asinine characters they're portraying. Is your idea of a fun time watching a clichéd bad-boy character named Johnny Rebel, who speaks in the third person? It's not Trevor Snyder's.
Anyway, the group is apparently supposed to be meeting up with some friends of theirs, but with the second batch of friends nowhere to be seen they instead decide to just get right down to all the wacky antics! Alright, actually they just sorta walk around, have a bonfire, and engage in a number of boring conversations. The only mild point of interest is the secret gay liaison between two of the guys, both portrayed with the most ridiculously over-exaggerated French Canadian accents you will ever hear.
According the film's official synopsis, the depiction of the homosexual French Canadians apparently sparked some controversy, although it's hard for me to understand why. True, I am neither gay nor French Canadian, but even if I was I can't imagine myself getting too worked up about this. If I had the opportunity to talk to anyone from either group who was upset about their representation in this movie, I would certainly tell them to chill out – life is far too short to spend any of it worrying about a dead-on-arrival piece of garbage like this.
Anyway, the movie continues to plod along with pretty much nothing happening, to the point where you start to wonder if maybe you've been had, and there aren't even going to be any zombies in the damn thing. Just about when you're ready to reach a breaking point, the undead fun finally get's going…only to be abruptly cut off! At this point, the movie frustratingly pulls a Death Proof (only with none of the style), cutting to the next morning and the arrival of the aforementioned second group of friends. We are stuck in the exact same situation as before – the first group is missing, and rather than show any concern over this, the new group proceeds to just go about their camping business, leaving us once again stranded watching the seemingly endless goofing-off of an incredibly unlikable cast of characters. Somehow, these yahoos manage to be even more insufferable than the first group, particularly the mind-bogglingly bizarre character of Jeffy Guiseppe, a white kid in a huge afro-wig who even has his own catchphrase ("proper!").
Once again, the movie starts to feel less-and-less like a horror film, until it finally comes to and remembers just what the hell we're all watching it for in the first place. It's eventually revealed that the entire first group of characters has been turned into ultra-aggressive, flesh-hungry ghouls, and its now up to the second group to try to survive the night by escaping the wrath of their undead friends. Thankfully, the entire remainder of the movie is devoted to nothing but gory zombie mayhem. Even more thankfully, the movie is also almost over, as this is yet another misguided affair that spends far too little of its actual running-time devoted to the zombies that are supposed to be its main selling point.
In case you couldn't tell, this is bad. I mean, really bad. The only thing that keeps it from being a complete waste-of-time, however, are some mild giggles elicited from the film's numerous continuity gaffes. Some of these are pretty major, although explainable – director Brian Singleton originally shot the bulk of the movie in 2001, but then in 2005 went back and filmed a bunch of new footage to insert in for the movie's DVD release. Therefore characters are frequently seen sporting different clothes and hair lengths (that include Jeffy's wig, which drastically changes at one point), not just from scene-to-scene, but sometimes in the middle of a scene!
At least those blunders are understandable, given the time gap between filming. Some of the movie's mistakes, though, have to be chalked up to just good-old-fashioned incompetence, such as when a character stabs a particular zombie in the neck with a pitchfork, and then runs outside to find the exact same zombie waiting for her! What, did he teleport? Even better, one character's head is ripped right off his body, and yet he re-appears later – intact head and all – as a zombie. There must be some kind of zombie triage somewhere in the woods, patching these guys up between feasts.
Goofs like these might be unintentional, but they do add a slight humorous edge to the proceedings, which prevents the movie from ever being the same sort of depressing bore as Zombie Campout. It should probably also be said that Singleton pulls off some shots that are actually almost cinematic. Even if they're few and far between, you at least get a sense that the man has some general idea of the basics of filmmaking (even if the majority of the movie – including some truly atrocious editing – seems to stand in direct contrast to that idea).
I'll grant that Forest of the Dead is clearly not taking itself very seriously, and therefore probably doesn't expect its audience to, either. But even still, I've seen enough "dumb but fun" movies to know it can be pulled off a hell of a lot better than this. You simply can't just litter the screen with the largest batch of unlikable main characters I've ever encountered in a low-budget zombie movie, and then expect a viewer to find their monotonous camping exploits fascinating for nearly an hour before finally springing the zombie action that everyone is really here to see. Sure, the gore effects have a nice "hilariously bad" charm to them when they do arrive, but it's really too late by that point. When the movie itself can't seem to decide which characters we're supposed to care about the most and why, you really can't fault the audience for not giving a damn by the time it's all said and done.
If, for whatever reason, Singleton goes back in…say…ten years from now and films even more footage, thus adding in scenes where the actors are obviously a decade older, then I might be tempted to give this one another look-see. Barring that, though, I think I'm satisfied with my single trip to the Forest of the Dead.
