Review: 'Rise of the Zombies'

Title: RISE OF THE ZOMBIES Year: 2012 Director: Nick Lyon Writer: Keith Allan & Delondra Williams Starring: Ethan Suplee, Mariel Hemingway, LeVar Burton, Danny Trejo, Heather Hemmens, Chad Lindberg, and French Stewart

Last week after watching my beloved Phoenix Suns destroy the Los Angeles Lakers for a third time this season, I flipped through the channels on the old idiot box until I stumbled upon SyFy. I was in luck because a new movie was just about to start. What movie? Oh just a SyFy original known as RISE OF THE ZOMBIES. You can bet the channel did not change after that.

RISE OF THE ZOMBIES has your basic zombie movie setup - there's a zombie outbreak with a group of survivors taking refuge somewhere, Alcatraz in this case. As we all know this refuge doesn't last for long as the zombies eventually begin to overtake Alcatraz, but not all is lost! They hear a scientist may have a cure so they leave the island to seek him out.

So we have our zombie movie setup all in order. Next thing is to tackle the basics of a SyFy movie. These basics are as follows - bad acting, bad dialogue, bad effects, and a cast filled out with a nice mix of b-actors/names you've forgot about and actors you've probably seen before but can't name. The bad acting, bad dialogue, and bad effects are here in spades. What about cast?

For b-actors/names you've forgot about we've got French Stewart, LeVar Burton and Ethan Suplee. Chad Lindberg is the face you've probably seen but don't know the name. He's the kid with ADD in THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS. As an added bonus RISE OF THE ZOMBIES gives us Danny Trejo, who I put into the working class category of actor. This is work for hire actors like a Christopher Walken or Samuel L. Jackson.

Like most SyFy originals I found this to be highly entertaining albeit astonishingly bad. Nothing here is original and the actors are given zero to work with for the most part. The performances across the board are pretty bad but I put that more on director Nick Lyon who I imagine wasn't getting multiple takes or offering much direction.

Flaws aside, this movie zooms to the finish and manages to be fun. The gore, what I take to be the most important thing in a film of this nature, was a step above what I was expecting. There's a mix of practical and digital. The digital is mostly explosions, which all look terrible, and blood sprays from gun shots which surprisingly look ok. The practical stuff is all awful but in a fun way.

There's two highlights in this movie for me. The first is an infected lady having her pregnant stomach cut open to save her baby from becoming a zombie. We see the belly being cut open but it really just looks like ketchup smeared over a gross looking belly. When the baby comes out, it's too late, it's a zombie already. The baby zombie is then thrown to the ground and stomped on until it becomes a bloody goop of a mess. This is pretty great and kind of shocking to see on basic cable.

The second highlight is Ethan Suplee having his hand chopped off by French Stewart. This scene is hysterical, trust me. If this isn't enough to sell you, I don't know what is.

The rest of the movie isn't much to talk about. It all just sort of blends into one big zombie mess.

A movie like this is all about expectations. If you know what to expect it can be fun. By no means should you search this movie out. But if you're flipping through channels and you come across it, give it a watch. You'll be entertained.

Quality Level: 2/5 Absurdness Level: 3/5 Fun Factor: 3/5 Overall Rating: 2.5/5