Day of the Dead: Bloodline

Yeah, I noticed I cannot get away from the title or subtitle Bloodline as well. So back again and I have gotten a fair amount of requests for my peepers to peruse this putrid pick.  Oh it can't be that bad.  Only the second remake of the same name for the 1985 Day of the Dead.  The previous occurred in 2008, had a vegan vampire, wasted Ving Rhames and lots of tedious moments of derp. Will the 2018 remake in story line prove better?   Let's look.   This is Day of the Dead: Bloodline

AHHH! NO HICKIES!!!

Med Student Zoe (Sophie Skelton of Doctors, Foyle's War, Casualty, Blackbird, Outlander and 211) has been invited to a kegger at her school in Whittendale University (No hell mouth, I checked.) with her friends. Yes, party and screw in a horror movie. That's never a bad idea. While grabbing more beer from the morgue; One of Zoe's higher ups tells her the favorite donor has arrived. Oh lovely, raper's blood has the highest concentration of antibodies so young soon to be doctor must deal with him. Yup no need to spare any security to watch this guy. Guess you need to swear out a written complaint against a guy before taken seriously.

Creeper blood donor, Rapey McGuffin Max (Jonathan Schaech of That Thing You Do!, If You Only Knew, The Foresaken, Road House 2, Prom Night, Quarantine, Laid to Rest, Blue Bloods and Legends of Tomorrow) tries to get fleshy with Zoe but corpus coitus interruptus or plot device zombie bites his throat.  Zoe beats cheeks to go warn everyone at the party, only to find the party's over and zombies have invaded.   She flees out through the window.  Actually opening it and not crashing through it to open radial and femoral arteries.  Kudos!

The horde of the undead get a nifty term as they are Rotters.   That's nice.   Not only have these people lost any semblance of who they were now you are just calling them names.  Was walkers too on the nose?

Five year later, we have the whole underground bunker storyline, finding a cure this time for zombification and more jump scares than needed. You can comfortably pass a bowling ball out your anus the amount of jump scares needed for most of these flicks. Sorry, sorry. Old habits. Must remain objective.

Some enchanted eeeeevening!!

Hiding out at a bunker up the ridge of High Rock Emergency Bunker and honestly this is just giving an intro before the bizarre living arrangements.  Ran by Lieutenant Salazar (Jeff Gum of The Smell of Success, Breakout Kings, Bleak, Turn Around Jake and Vincent N Roxxy) who isn't Captain Rhodes by a long shot.  Seriously, you can reason with this dude.  Rhodes would just execute people on the spot so you had to tread on eggshells with that cat.

Zoe and Elyse (Shari Watson of The Wash, Ali, A Day in the Life, Dirty South, 211 and Security) barely have enough medical training for all the ouchies they must attend to, plus viral outbreaks are still a thing in zombie world and require plot device, Uh I mean vaccine for one of the kids of the bunker.  Pneumonia can kill people and Salazar is just of the mindset of, "Isolate the girl."  The bunker is a closed containment.   Unless meds are found, they would have to abandon base and leave those sick to DIE.  Sending a small, armed team in LOUD ASS hummers.   El Caminos equipped with clown horns, blaring Slayer and firing off shotguns might be a tad more subtle.

Just from a bio-hazard standing, they really need to clear some of those dead they have already capped.  Rotten bodies less than 50 yards from your crops?? That can't be good.

With a field trip back to Whittendale University, the team must find the meds and find something along the way.   Creeper Max as a zed, yet not.  Hmm, he still retains some memory as a person...a creeper person but a person nonetheless.

Convinced in creating a cure from Max's blood, Zoe puts the whole compound in danger with the mere hope of a better tomorrow.

A few points about this movie and yes I feel my mom's quote is rather valid. " Yes, zombie movies need more rapes so says the producer assholes. "  I find myself agreeing every time.   Aside from the crux of it necessary for a rape revenge story, it is tedious to see in every apocalypse film, dark sci-fi and planet ender.  Just raises the lack of conscious in film.   Look, you already have a swarming entity making a joint effort to turn you into people buffet, must we have a typical scumbag response to "the rules no longer apply," as well?

The practical gore gags injunction with the CGI blood and practical bladders is well balanced. Excellent handheld steady cams, good fixed camera angles and decent suspense music pouring in, setting the tone.  

 With a budget of 8 million and shot in Bulgaria, this is the essence of Day of the Dead without Salazar really slipping into Rhodes' territory.  You don't see a fraction of the military vs civvies from the original.   Guess they couldn't find a dude as cold as Joe Pilato's portrayal or they wanted to humanize the military.   God forbid, right?

That being said, this is filled with the current zombie tropes of fast paced zombies, humans constantly arguing GIVING AWAY their positions so no noise discipline and not enough muzzle discipline or for that matter, melee weapons instead of gunplay.

It can also be argued that Zoe's looking to save humanity means leaping out of her comfort zone, dealing with what is left of Max is actually decent story telling. It just wasn't executed to the levels it could have been. Better than the 2008 version but yes, it has its flaws.

Segregation is still rude, folks.