Horrorfest 2012: Exit Humanity

Today we go back to zombies for EXIT HUMANITY, an ambitious but flawed recent Canadian indie flick about a zombie outbreak during Civil War times.

It's tough to judge a movie like this. On one hand, after one look, you know you're in for some amateurish filmmaking.  On the other, the filmmakers have such lofty goals and almost hit the mark so many times, you want to give them a pass. Is it good enough that a grain of salt puts it over the top? Or, is it "nice try, better luck next time."

The movie follows a Civil War vet (Mark Gibson) who has already lost his wife to the zombie plague and is now searching for his son. Along the way, he falls in with another survivor (Adam Seybold) who is searching for his sister (Jordan Hayes). She has been captured by an evil Confederate General (Bill Mosely) who is attempting to find a cure for the zombie outbreak with the help of an unethical surgeon (Stephen McHattie). Dee Wallace, of E.T. fame, is also on hand as a local recluse rumored to be a witch.

Although it has that "fake" look at times, much of the film looks very good. First time director John Geddes obviously has an eye for striking visuals. Still, it's hard to get over that undefinable "home video" look that comes with so many digitally shot indies these days. The makeup effects are great, and all of the acting is good, most especially Mark Gibson in the lead, who has some long stretches in the beginning of the film to carry single handedly.

About these long stretches -- maybe not the best way to start a movie. That's the main flaw here, beyond the look of the thing -- the pacing. This film is under 2 hours long and seems like it's 3. It gets tough to give a film a pass on good will alone when it feels this long and unwieldy.

There's also a somewhat clumsy framing device involving the main character's journal that is found some time after the events of the story. This journal provides the voice over narration (by Brian Cox!) that tells much of the story. Although it is often times quite well written, the ponderous, self-important voice over seems a little superfluous. I found myself wondering, during some of the slower passages, what the film would be like if it was just images. Would my mind be more engaged if I was putting things together myself, rather than listening to Brian Cox explain stuff to me? I wonder what the purpose of the narration was, at all. To remind us of that Ken Burns documentary, maybe?

So, anyway, ten million points for trying, but it was hard to keep my eyes open.