Why So Blu?

The Amazing Adventures Of The Living Corpse (Blu-ray Review)

This title piqued my interest when it came through.  A zombie tale based off of a graphic novel I’d never heard of.  It deals with zombies and one is a superhero of sorts.  It was a fully imagined CG movie as well.  The key demo for it appeared to be the older, mature crowd.  A zombie who is all about being ready and able to “kick ass” is how the box tries to sell it.  Well, I’ve never seen that approach to the zombie genre (one I’m a sucker for), so bring it.  I had not seen a trailer or anything from it, but I felt optimistic going in blind.  Unfortunately this turned out to be a complete failure for me at every turn.  Maybe I was too old for this.  Maybe I’m not of the ilk that would enjoy something like this.  I wasn’t familiar with the source material, but I’m pretty positive I wasn’t really missing out on anything.  As a film itself, it’s quite a challenging piece to get through and it’s also a short one to boot.

Film

John Romero rises from his grave one of the undead.  He immediately heads across the street from the cemetery, which he was buried in, to his old residence.  Once there, he bites and infects his wife and then eats up his daughter.  The cries of his son Taylor suddenly awaken his consciousness and he saves Taylor from other zombies.  Authorities arrive and Taylor is taken to a school for orphans where he is bullied.  John is met by Asteroth, a demon who takes him to his new home in the underworld.  John desires to meet up once again with his son to protect him.  Leaving the underworld brings many dangerous demons after him to try and bring him back or destroy him.

I’m surprised I can give you this much of a plot summary.  This film lacks any sort of coherent story.  It just jumps right in and you really have to challenge yourself to fill in the blanks (if you even want to).  It’s also told in a very “hopped up on Red Bull” type fashion.  The film is told as if it’s a cut scene from a video game you’re never going to get to play.  The angles, the rapid movements all follow such video game logic.  I felt at times that I needed to get ready to pick up a controller.  Following the video game mold is the performances and awkward pauses between line readings of the actors.  The acting is of the very poor Playstation 1 type.  The animation on the film isn’t that much better than a Playstation 1 game either.  It’s really sub par and lacking a palette of colors.

There’s really bad, boring and uninformative dialogue throughout.  I really had no clue as to any detail regarding what was going on in front of me.  And the thing kept adding new characters and monsters right and left.  I couldn’t keep it all straight.  They just want to keep showing this bad guy and this cool monster and this fight and that fight.  There’s really no weight to anything happening onscreen.  They even at one point out of nowhere and completely unwarranted jump the timeline 15 years.  I didn’t see any benefit to it or why it was necessary, but it happened without warning.

It was a long march waiting for this one to end.  The Living Corpse is just a very poor video game-like production.  There’s no understanding of any of its worlds or characters at all.  The setup leaves a big door wide open for a great opportunity of creating some very cool mythology, but the writers just refuse to give anything in this film any sort of depth or devotion.  The action isn’t worth a lick either.  I just felt like I was watching my screen and checking the clock constantly.

Video

The Living Corpse comes at you with a 1080p MPEG-4 AVC encode providing a really good image quality for an extremely sub par film.  Things looked very clear.  Blacks were a little bit too black and not revealing.  There’s not a whole lot of depth and texture to any of the animation but this 1:78:1 frame likely shows the best detail it possibly can. The colors palette is very monotonous, so there’s not a whole lot the picture can do.  The image has a decent level of sharpness as well.  Anchor Bay delivers, yet again, another good image on a modern property

Audio

The Dolby TrueHD 5.1, unlike the film, is a pretty active track.  The sound quality is full and tries its best to bring the feature to the light.  It’s a little bit front heavy but that’s not a problem.  There was some definite usage of the rear speakers and the film’s audio was active through out.  It’s nothing that goes above and beyond but its definitely a little bit above serviceable.

Extras

The Amazing Adventures Of The Living Corpse comes with no extras.  Trailers for Mimesis, Shadow People and Ultramarines play before the main menu.

Summary

While giving a solid presentation, this film is one to avoid.  If I were a fan of the comic, I wouldn’t think I’d be happy with this product either.  It’s an incoherent boredom-fest that will truly make 87 minutes feel like a lifetime.  There’s no sort of extras to build an appreciation or understanding for this trudge either.  The film doesn’t even provide any cool or dazzling animation.  It’s a zombie related film aimed at older kids and adults and it didn’t even provide the blood and guts that zombies usually relish in.  There’s absolutely nothing to take home from this one.  But now, my low bar for Why So Blu? is set!