I just added this DVD to my collection and watching it tonight made me sort of sad. Why? Because it had so much potential to be one of the best zombie flicks, but somehow managed to trip all over itself and never amount to much.
The story begins with a group of environmentalists staging a protest near a logging camp. One of the loggers ends up turning into a flesh-eating zombie when sap from a tree injected with experimental growth hormones gets into his bloodstream. (I'm not sure what the connection is between growth hormones and zombies, but let's not dwell on that). Before long, a bunch of other loggers become infected, the logging company seals off the roads leading into the forest (the nearest town is 200 miles away . . . too far to walk), and the uninfected loggers and environmentalists find themselves fighting to survive.
Unfortunately, this movie suffers from a few things:
* It tries VERY hard not to be campy and stupid. As a result, it ends up being very serious, dry, and often boring.
* It uses too much "28 DAYS LATER extreme close-up, shaky-cam, choppy-editing," which makes the zombie attack scenes irritating to watch.
* Most of the best scenes are in the first half of the film (including a scene where the protestors chain themselves to trees . . . and then get attacked by zombies). The second half of the film fizzles out.
* It has one of the most aggravating non-endings I have ever seen. I was expecting a big finale, but the credits just started rolling before the movie reached a real conclusion. I had to watch the final 2 minutes twice to make sure I didn't miss anything.
Not a terrible movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it just wasn't able to capitalize on what appeared to be a strong foundation. A better director could have got so much more out of this. But the DVD DOES have great cover art . . .