Really Awful Movies: Ep 381 – Virus 32

On this week’s podcast, Virus: 32.

It’s a zombie/outbreak movie that’s lensed in Montevideo, Uruguay. So that’s a first, though this reviewer has seen Argentinian horror movies, and this is a co-production.

It tells the story of a mom, Iris, who is irresponsible, young and a boozer who has a young daughter and shares custody with the dad, Javier. When the outbreak happens, and the streets of Montevideo are overrun with the walking dead, she has to man up, as it were, and take care of her offspring and fend for herself.

Does this film reinvent the wheel? Hardly, but there is some meat here and the positive reviews are largely justified.

On this podcast, outbreak movies like Contagion and Train to Busan. The similarities between this film and 28 Days Later, the appeal of zombie films, the template on which they’re based, Italian gut munchers, scene settings, the importance of character development in a zombie flick, and much more!

Really Awful Movies: Ep 349 – Black Summer and Adoration

Back in business! This week, after a bit of a summer hiatus, The Really Awful Movies Podcast is back.

On this episode: Black Summer, a Walking Dead-like US TV series currently streaming on Netflix, and also Adoration, a small, quirky, Belgian-lensed and French language thriller.

Black Summer, filmed in the Calgary, Alberta area, has all the hallmarks of a zombie series: the macho alpha leader, the meek/hesitant sidekick, the concerned mother, the practical nerd, the gutsy do-it-yourself. And of course, the breakdown of social cohesion, not to mention the rampaging undead, make this must-see material if you’re into that kinda thing. There are tonnes of characters, lots of running, hissing zombies, militia men, evildoing civilians, the works.

By stark, stark contrast, Adoration is as small and character-driven as you can get. It’s slow, meandering, and psychologically-driven and muted in parts. A teen helps another escape a remote sanitorium.

The theme for both vehicles: running away from things! I guess there is a connective thread.

Really Awful Movies: Ep 345 – Alive

#Alive (Korean: #살아있다; RR: #Saraitda) is a 2020 South Korean contagion / zombie film directed by Cho Il-hyung and Starring Yoo Ah-in and Park Shin-hye.

The flick is based on the 2019 script Alone by Matt Naylor (which co-stars Donald Sutherland, Canadian legend from Invasion of the Body Snatchers). Naylor co-adapted his script with Cho for a Korean production, and #Alive revolves around a lazy video game live streamer’s struggle for survival as he is forced to stay alone at his apartment in Seoul during a zombie apocalypse and all his neighbours turning into cannibals.