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Review: Autumn

Written by Zombie Boy

Saturday, 12 September 2009 00:21

I have no heart to bash an independent production, as I am a champion of getting some resources together and getting out there and making your art outside of the “machine”. Unfortunately, I also have no heart to lie about one either. Autumn is a great effort but one that did not work for me on several levels. I will say that I was made fully aware that the film is still in flux: a final edit and polishing of image and sound are pending, so small issues with lightning or sound design, I will ignore for this version. Alas, the problems I had were with the presentation of the story and the way they chose to soften the impact of having a world full of the walking dead. I understand what they were going for, I just felt it failed. Read on and I’ll try to explain myself better.

Autumn begins with an unnamed plague sweeping through the land (the accents vary, so what land it is is uncertain) so quickly that Professor Michael’s class is literally wiped out during a lecture he is giving. We get other flashes of similar scenarios and ultimately end up with a bunch of people holed up in some large room, which looked to be a rec center or something of the like. This is where the film took an immediate downturn for me. I just find it hard to believe that such a large group, not looking particularly worse for the wear, would be sitting idly together in this room, not out foraging or something of that nature. At this point the dead have not risen yet, and there is no compelling reason why they should be afraid to go outside.

There is also no compelling reason why one person who doesn’t know another would want to stop them from doing just that. When a band gets together and decides to go exploring, they are met with heavy, almost violent, resistance. This seemed counterintuitive to me. If a small faction of the larger group wanted to leave, seems like it would be fine as paint with the collective. It’s not like they had established a community and valued members with specific skill-sets were trying to leave. And then when they do venture outside and encounter their first walking corpse, no one seems all that ruffled by it. Sure, the reanimated dead seem harmless as fuzzy bunnies, but still. They were at each other’s throats before the walking dead, you’d think this would have had more of an impact.

There is one of the cool zombie make-ups I mentioned...plus a dude who looks a lot like Lani Tupu!

Flash-forward a few days and the leaving faction splits further apart. One raucous dude wants to loot and live it up and takes his girlfriend with him, which leaves Michael to take Carl and Emma with him to hide out in a house in the country and have a nice cup of tea and wait for this whole thing to blow over. They do find their house in the country and set about learning to co-exist in their new environment. What follows is an interlude that bored me even more than the original Dawn of the Dead. I understand what they were going for. The ennui of this new existence, the isolation and disconnect from humanity, the lurking fear of a possible zombie attack. It just fell flat.

A big part of the problem is the seemingly innocuous nature of the zombies. At first they are simply cattle, to be avoided but not feared. Then they grow slightly more discontent, but as long as you avoid making loud noises, you’re safe. Then, finally, a zombie attacks Carl…and is fended off like he is simply an overzealously playful dog. And Emma’s last name must be Maguffin with the way she constantly deus ex machina’s her way through the film, giving omniscient commentary on what “must” be happening with the dead - stuff that only a philosophy student would spout and any rational adult would bat aside as nonsense.

David Carradine is in it. So, that's pretty good.

And then there is the issue of the zombie violence. I will say that the zombie make-ups were damned effective. Very well done. But, alas, no matter how cool they look, the scare level is dampened by the stylized way the interactions are shot. Either with slow-motion or weird video effects, the result is the total defusing of tension. I wanted the same stark realism they were going for with the human characters but instead got a lack of commitment to the terror that can be inspired by an attack of the living dead. That can be potent stuff and would have been a nice counterpoint to the long stretches of nothing in the house. Would have made them worthwhile, in fact. But in the end, I sat through the butt-numbing scenes without getting my zombie cookie.

I was trying to keep things positive, but I think that ended up sounding rougher than I meant it to. To sum up: great effort by all involved, especially the FX people, but just not a movie I could get behind. There is a balance between psychological horror and gut-chewing, and for my money, there was way too much of one (which didn’t work for me anyway), and almost none of the other. I will be very interested to see the final version, though, as I always try to keep an open mind. But be aware, if you see this film, that it is not for lovers of the zombie-bites-skull-open movies.

The movie isn't available yet, but you can keep up with the haps on it right here: http://www.autumnthemovie.com/

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