“The Zombie King” on IMDB

Comedy/Horror – 2013 – 85 Minutes

This British offering walks a drunken, wobbling line between decent zom-com and failure. Embarrassingly, it’s the American “marquee” actors that drag it down the worst. Former child stars Edward Furlong [IMDB] and Corey Feldman [IMDB], both now schlock movie regulars, put in sad, heartless performances.  The first, as a distraught husband seeking to raise his wife from the dead, and the other as the voodoo god he bargains with to do it. Luckily both roles, although pivotal to the story, are marginalized and get very little screen time.

The rest of the movie is rather traditional. We follow a group of survivors as they struggle to stay alive and out of the jaws of a newly arisen zombie horde. There’s a foul-mouthed milk-man who quickly becomes expert at taking out zombies with his milk bottles. There’s a meter-maid-man who styles himself “the law” but more often than not ends up climbing a tree and cowering. They are all led by a hard-nosed mailman whose route across a hoodlum-infested estate has taught him a thing or two about survival.

They eventually meet up with other small groups to discover that the army has quarantined the area and is shooting anything that moves, dead or alive. They join forces to reach the relative safety of a nearby church. There a drunken priest, who is also an expert on Voodoo, explains the situation and provides them with a plan to stop the outbreak.

There are numerous gags and genre references, but unfortunately only about half of them land and only a select few land well. The jokes may be a little trite, but aren’t necessarily bad; the actors just have trouble pulling them off. Special effects are pretty much non-existent with much of the “action” taking place off-camera. Most damning, the “zombies” spend most of their time just looking annoyed.

In contrast, any scene with Furlong or Feldman is played completely straight. Definitely not better, just straight, making these these scenes feel out of place. It’s as if two completely different movies were accidentally edited together. Furlong barely acts at all, delivering all his lines as if he’s halfway through reading a driving manual. Feldman, on the other hand takes his role to ridiculous extremes.

All that sadly said, there is… something, here. A kind of quirky charm, perhaps, or maybe just sentimentality for something that could have been.

“Maggie” on IMDB

Drama/Horror – 2015 – 95 Minutes

I think we can all agree that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s post-political film career has been somewhat… mundane. His several traditional, big-budget action movies have all been good; not great. More pointedly, none of them presented any real challenge or growth opportunities for the actor, although it’s difficult to fault a man in his late sixties for keeping inside his comfort zone; especially when he’s done so well in it. So, why would he choose to do a low-budget, independent drama – albeit one with a zombie twist?

Zombies remain popular, but still only rarely breakout to impact the mass market. Big name talent tends to avoid the genre and there have been only a few exceptions. (In fact, Abigail Breslin, playing the title character, is an alumnus of one them: 2009’s Zombieland.) Add to the mix that this is the first feature for director Henry Hobson and the first writing credit for writer John Scott 3 and  it becomes even less clear what attracted the king of action movies to the project.

What may be most confusing is that this may be Schwarzenegger’s best work to date.

The story, like many other post-peak zombie properties, mixes zombies into another genre – this time family drama. The backstory is told through inference and minimal flashbacks. The world is suffering from a zombie plague, but is still clinging to societal norms. There is no cure for the bitten and families are instructed to deliver them to quarantine centers before the change, which can take as long as several months, where they will be euthanized.

The never-seen centers are rumored to be over-populated, poorly managed and terrifying. The method of execution is revealed to be excruciatingly painful. When Wade’s (Schwarzenegger) daughter is bitten while on a trip he pulls some strings with his local doctor and is allowed to take her home to say goodbye. Maggie’s mother passed away years earlier and there is understandable tension with Wade’s new wife, but it never approaches the trite and lazy “wicked stepmother” vibe.

With very little change, the story could easily be that of a child dying of cancer or any degenerative disease. The zombie angle is leveraged well, but lightly and there is little to no “action” in the piece. It’s a somber exploration of a father’s devotion to his dying daughter and her ultimate acceptance of an inescapable fate. Tension is drawn out expertly from many sources, but always from human interaction and expectation.

As Maggie’s condition degrades Wade is put under pressure from multiple sources to take her to the centers or to handle the issue himself. Schwarzenegger’s performance is nuanced and surprisingly subtle as we agonize with him on the best course of action. There are still wooden moments, but the performance remains his best in decades; perhaps ever. Breslin matches him well, wavering between bravely facing her fate for her family and being naturally terrified of it. Her performance is enhanced greatly by the effective, but subtle, practical make-up effects that mark her transformation.

Unfortunately its unlikely that the movie will attract a larger audience. It’s likely be considered too slow and plodding for most genre fans and too steeped in the genre for fans of mainstream drama. The quiet, introspective story asks a lot, perhaps too much, of its audience. Those willing to put in the effort will enjoy the amazing performances and a deeply human experience.