Rating: 
Summary: Terrible movie.
Review: The other day i saw this movie sitting on the shelf. It looked kind of cool, so i bought it. After watching the movie i decided that i would rather be punched in the face for 82 minutes than watch this movie again. For 3 reasons......1. The video quality is at its lowest, it looks like it was filmed with a VHS-C camera. 2. The zombies in the movie are pointless, they basically play the parts of hobos. 3. The story is rediculouse, and so is the acting.
Bottom Line: DONT BUY THIS MOVIE!
Rating:
Summary: PLEASE, please, please save your money
Review: This was honestly one of the single worst movies I have ever seen... and I have seen "Ax 'em," so you know that this movie is bad if I say it ranks with that stinker.
If you are looking for absolutely horrible acting, terrible plot, sub-par lighting, awful editing, bad effects and any number of other undesireable elements, your search has ended. This movie has all the bad stuff and none of the good. I cannot think of even one redeeming element to mention... well, it was better than "Ax 'em," so it has that going for it.
This movie was not even as good as "Hatred of a Minute," which was absolutely horrible.
Do not buy or rent this "movie."
Rating: 
Summary: 5 Stars for dynamic effort! ! !
Review: Upon initial viewing of this film I was disappointed and turned the film off not once but twice (after only five minutes, shame on me). Upon my third, thoroughly prepared and open-minded try, I was very delighted to find a very inventive and fun film. This is the type of film not unlike Evil Dead, which deserves more money for production leading to a larger release ala Evil Dead 2. This film will always stand on its own as a very fine effort by Scooter and I am now certainly a fan who will be watching this director in the future. Kudos to all involved and Zombie lovers unite!
Rating: 
Summary: It Was An Honest Attempt
Review: Well, there isn't much more I can say about this that hasn't been covered by the other reviewers. I feel I'd better put in my two cents since I just watched this a few hours ago, and it's still fresh. I live for low budget horror films, and I usually support them all the way. I really do hate to say this, but sometimes the budget can have a direct impact on the film. This film had a decent idea going for it, but maybe Scooter should have saved Shatter Dead for his third film, where he could have done more with his idea, coz the price of this dvd is most likely higher than the budget to make the film. Ya see, in the land of horror films, there is low budget and LOW BUDGET-I mean a budget so low that the film automatically falls into the category of comedy. You're on guard immediately after the film starts because it has that camcorder-ish/soap opera/public access television look to it. To me, that eliminates any potential scares the film might have. Naturally, the "actors" are terrible(probably just buddies and lovers of the crew). You get many nude shots of the very unattractive leading lady, perhaps done to add to the horror of the film. The gore is nothing short of laughable, and I mean LAUGHABLE(see the birth scene to see what I mean by this). The plot? An interesting twist on the whole "living dead" formula, where the "zombies" aren't mindless, stumbling flesh eating machines, but more like a second class citizen. They're looked upon as a nuisance that must be eliminated even though they really don't seem to do much other than steal cars and gasoline. Religious zealots work both sides, some defending the undead and some encouraging their destruction. These ideas are merely touched down on and not given any real depth. The film focuses on one woman on her journey to her lover's house and getting caught up in little undead delays along the way. It all ends tragically shortly after she reaches her destination. Again, I hate to dump on the kind of film I normally love, but not every D-movie can be a good one. I haven't lost faith in Scooter McRae however, coz I think he had a good idea, and you can tell this was a labor of love for him. But, it was a true case of imagination being limited only by budget. Better luck next time.
Rating: 
Summary: More ambition than budget
Review: Well...unlike most everyone else here, I enjoyed this film. Does it have the lowest production values of basically any movie I've ever seen? Yes. I'm sorry, but it really does. I was actually so shocked by how bad it looked that it took my eyes a few minutes to adjust. (Although, quite honestly, Clerks looks a whole lot worse. At least the director of Shatter Dead seems to understand which end of the camera should be pointed at the set, which is more than can be said for Kevin Smith. The difference being that Clerks was shot in black-and-white, which makes its flaws much less evident. Shatter Dead opts for garish video color -- and I don't mean digital video -- making the whole thing look like the cheapest sitcom ever made.) Anyway: You have been warned. Whatever visual ugliness you're imagining right now, I promise you the movie is uglier.But! As I grew accustomed to the cheaposity of Shatter Dead, a strange thing began to happen. I began to stop silently chastising myself for buying a movie because "it sounds cool," and appreciate first what the director was obviously trying to do, in spite of his lack of resources, and then actually appreciate what he'd done. If the film is dreary and banal, so is the world that Susan, the protagonist, lives in. The world of Shatter Dead isn't, and maybe shouldn't be, a big-budget Hollywood world; it's mundane and ugly and depressing. The look of the film matches its tone. And, as a few of even the nastier critics have noted, there are some cool ideas here. The mirror tests (the person who didn't understand why Susan carries a mirror around all the time wasn't paying much attention), the baby, the whole reworking of pretty much every zombie movie made since Night of the Living Dead (and in a way I think Romero would appreciate). Things like Susan's dream and the...uh...gun sequence may not sit right with more conservative horror fans -- the former may seem pretentious, and...did I see someone call the gun thing gross? Personally, I couldn't believe my eyes. I never, never, NEVER expected to see anything like that in any film that even kind of targeted a mainstream audience. Aren't horror films supposed to go to extremes? This film is not perfect, and not for everyone. Would I like to see a sequel/remake with a real budget (and the same production team)? OH, yeah. But it's clear that everyone involved gave it their best, and the result is a unique little movie I like a lot.
Rating:
Summary: Not even worth one star!!
Review: What was I thinking?! Whatever you do, do not get this film. I really shouldn't call this a film. It's like a home shot video, from someone who has never seen a movie before! I watched the first 4 minutes and fast forwarded thru the rest looking for something, anything to make my purchase worthwhile, alas, I was sorely disappointed. In case you missed my earlier rant...Do Not Get This Film!!!
Rating:
Summary: Oh the humanity!
Review: Yippy! A new zombie film! I'm always up for another terror filled two hours of flesh ripping, blood soaked mayhem and madness. Isn't everyone? Well, you won't be after watching "Shatter Dead." I think I've made the following point several times before, but I'm going to repeat it again for those unfortunate souls unaware of how important it is. "Shatter Dead" carries the dreaded Sub Rosa imprint, and if you don't know what that means you could be in a heap of trouble. Sub Rosa only distributes the absolute worst films on DVD; atrocious, lower than low budget shot on video dreck that barely classifies as film. With the exception of one or two DVDs, everything I have had the misfortune to watch from Sub Rosa reeks in the worst way possible. And one of the worst is Scooter McCrae's "Shatter Dead." Actually, I should have known before renting this one that I was in for a disaster. One of my college professors, a self-admitted horror aficionado, declared this movie one of the worst he's ever seen. Since this scholar is one of the smarter professors I encountered during my school career, I knew he wasn't exaggerating. Nonetheless, as a lover of bad movies I plunged ahead anyway. I've no one to blame but myself. Don't make the same mistake.
"Shatter Dead" tries to come up with a new, winning formula for the crowded zombie genre by introducing us to a world where a plague's ravages lead to a most unusual event. Anyone who dies doesn't die, but ends up wondering around the blasted streets of a decaying world just like the living do. In fact, it's hard to tell who is dead and who isn't unless they the deceased have visible marks on their bodies. Enter into this horrific world Susan (Stark Raven), a woman who prefers to stay alive. She spends most of her time ambling around city streets or driving through the countryside in an effort to get back to her boyfriend. Along the way she encounters a lot of annoying dead people who want money from her. Since she possesses firearms, she ends up shooting a lot of these "zombies" even though doing so won't have long lasting consequences. Susan ends up in some halfway house where she meets a living dead girl (Sorry, Jean Rollin) who takes a shine to her. That's before a group of zany nuts, one of whom looks like Howard Stern in tights, launches a home invasion and blows away a bunch of people. But hey! Before all that happened Susan took a shower with this zombie! Sounds great, doesn't it? That's because you haven't seen Stark Raven.
Anyway, the movie also introduces us to some weird guy known as the Preacher Man (Robert Wells), a bloke that essentially stumbles around spouting a bunch of apocalyptic mumbo jumbo in a stilted, staccato style that will numb your brain if you listen to it for more than a minute. I'm still mystified as to what his role meant in the larger context of the film. Was he on the zombies' side? I think so, but I refuse to mull over his importance any longer since it's an exercise in futility anyway. Eventually, after much gnashing of teeth and beating of chest on my part, Susan finds her boyfriend. Then she discovers that the yutz killed himself and is now one of the living dead. What follows confuses the viewer even more: endless rounds of inane chatter between the boyfriend and Susan, a nasty scene involving a handgun (yuck), and a completely banal ending that left me insensate on my couch for hours afterwards. "Shatter Dead" does succeed in one important way: doctors discovered that this movie induces a deep, and often irreversible coma, in anyone unfortunate enough to watch it. The Environmental Protection Agency is considering a law labeling McCrae's film a public health hazard equivalent to eating lead tainted paint chips.
Oh, where to start with the travesty that is "Shatter Dead"! Arguably the biggest problem is Stark Raven in the lead role of Susan. I hate to denigrate her looks, but the woman left me feeling cold and disconnected. She's unpleasant looking in the extreme, hardly the sort of lead a filmmaker would willingly choose to serve as the centerpiece of his production. Her acting skills, if I dare put those two words together, leave a lot to be desired. A bag of hammers can express themselves better than this woman does. Of course, the dull script doesn't help her out much. Nor do the special effects, which are on par with what you might see in a kindergarten after school production. I think it's safe to say that we all expect a gory experience when we watch a zombie film, even when the production suffers under budgetary restraints. Brian Clement's "Meat Market," another Sub Rosa pick of the week, succeeded in working up some effective gore. Why "Shatter Dead" failed to do so is a question for the ages, and I for one am trying to quit asking because I don't want to think about this atrocity any longer.
The DVD comes packed with extras and a really annoying thing I've rarely seen on other discs. Every time you skate around the menu screens, a lengthy bit of the film runs before letting you access the features. This little trick soon becomes massively annoying as you can't skip through it and thus must wait for the clip to run to its end before moving ahead. I ended up just skipping the extras and watching the film. Frankly, I could care less about the extras after watching this sludge. Don't pay a whit of attention to anyone who hypes this movie; I can direct you to dozens of other zombie films far better than this one.
Rating:
Summary: "Pretentious" is understating this flat failure
Review: You really want to enjoy Shatter Dead. But you can't. Somebody mentioned in a review that director McCrae is somewhat of a Jess Franco [copy.] He wishes. Franco is not for everyone's taste but at least his failures are inspired failures. He doesn't lack for trying; even when he's trying viewer's nerves. McCrae's film seems as though it lacks even the simplest effort and there's nothing inspiring to be seen anywhere in between Frame One and the words "The End." It's like a bunch of people came together with some cameras and some makeup and decided to run around acting like something is happening when nothing really is. Lead actress Stark Raven is an embarrassment and that's too bad. You can sense that she might have a distant heir apparent to Soledad Miranda or Lina Romay if someone had just handed her a script or stood her in front of a competent director. The makeup effects are engaging for their ingenuity because it's obvious that the budget was minimal. But it doesn't look like a minute was spent trying to put together a storyline (coherent or otherwise) and you wake up 45 minutes or so after the movie is over and you wonder if you fell asleep after it ended or during it. You have no memory of anything worthwhile ever happening. While you really want to help support no-budget films and no-name directors, you really don't want to throw any money towards Shatter Dead. Spend a few bucks on any one of the Evil Dead series and you'll be much happier. Gore for gore's sake is boring. Will somebody please write a script first before they turn on the cameras?
|
