Day of the Dead: Bloodline (2018)

zero stars
I can only speculate what motived the people behind Day of the Dead: Bloodline into making this ridiculous movie, but I suspect it has a lot to do with the success of the television series The Walking Dead. The T.V. show takes the zombie apocalypse concept and stretches it out over a long period of time with recurring characters, offering viewers a unique and often tense narrative about the end of civilization. George Romero popularized this concept in 1968. His imitators are legion. Whether they are from Italy or Bulgaria, the pretenders never run out of steam. In the case of Day of the Dead (1985), there have been two remakes, neither of which captured the Romero magic while lumbering over the material in a braindead manner. This movie has no business existing. There’s nothing about it to justify its commitment to film (or digital, whatever the case may be). It’s badly acted and plotted.

A group of soldiers, scientists and civilians finds shelter in an isolated bunker following a zombie outbreak that causes the collapse of society. Medical student Zoe Parker (Sophie Skelton) works with her team to find a vaccine while contending with impatient military leader 1LT Miguel Salazar (Jeff Gum). When Zoe needs medical supplies to help a sick little girl, Salazar reluctantly sends her and a team to the city to find what she needs. While there, she encounters zombie Max (Johnathon Schaech), who knew her before the outbreak—in fact, he tried to rape her. A zombie with an unusual ability to use reason, Max follows the team back to its hideout, where he sets in motion the inevitable zombie invasion and firefight.

Forget about the plot’s details. This is a terrible movie, so we’ll just focus on what went wrong. We can start with Zoe, who gets a lot of people killed with her obsession to find a vaccine. She is this movie’s equivalent to Sarah, the heroine from the original Day of the Dead. Both were scientists trying to make sense of the outbreak, but whereas Sarah was competent and strong, Zoe is weak and reckless. Sarah dealt with a deteriorating situation that pitted the scientists against their military protectors. Zoe, on the other hand, kickstarts a series of events that eventually will result in the deaths of many of her friends, and the way she does it—by wandering off on her own—dooms the entire film. We know the movie will present her as the sympathetic heroine going up against the hard-nosed and annoying 1LT Salazar, but he’s actually committed to protecting his post and comes across as sensible at some points in the story. Ultimately, he’s the villain, but the movie makes it difficult to disagree with him early in the proceedings even though he’s bad tempered right from the start.

Bloodline gives us the quick running zombies that we’ve seen many times before (28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead remake), so there’s nothing new about them, other than the fact that the characters call them rotters, because walkers was already taken by the T.V. series. Blood sprays and guts go flying, but as movie antagonists they are wearing out their welcome. No longer scary or even funny, zombies are becoming boring, which is unfortunate considering that at one time these creatures were formidable and terrifying adversaries. When I caught a zombie actor attacking a victim in a car and then reach for the windshield to smear the blood on it, I knew the technical details would not impress me. Indeed, Max—who is this movie’s version of the original’s Bub—doesn’t even inspire a double take or any interest whatsoever when he displays traits that suggest he’s unlike the others, like talking.

Everything about this movie fails to impress. The acting is lousy. Zoe and her boyfriend Baca (Marcus Vanco) have zero chemistry. The military uniforms aren’t even up-to-date. Everyone wears the old woodland camouflage from decades ago instead of today’s digitized variety. It’s time to give it a rest. Remaking Romero’s movies does nothing to honor his work, especially if the remakes don’t get any kind of release outside of direct-to-video and Netflix. The 2004 Dawn remake pretty much set the standard for this kind of thing, and so far nobody has come close.

© 2018 Silver Screen Reviews