I'll admit it; the fun looking DVD cover fooled me into thinking I would love this. Well that and the fact that I normally worship anything with zombies and count George Romero as my God. Add on top of that the fact that "Last of the Living" was made in New Zealand, the country that brought us cult-classics "Braindead" and "Black Sheep" and I was soon hoping this could be one of those rare low budget zombie flicks with originality, real heart and soul.
Sadly I was mistaken.
Don't get me wrong. As far as low budget zombie romps go this is an OK time filler, but with a few major complaints: the characters are just plain uninteresting. With the exception of nerdy Ash the characters come off as paper-thin and downright boring. The film opens with scenes of 'Morgan' and for a while seem to focus on him as a type of "main" hero, which I couldn't get, since he seemed like a first-rate selfish prick, not to mention a bully to his friend Ash. Then there is the annoying soundtrack, a mix between public domain Apple software sound bytes and tripe rock music probably made by some friends of the director who he is doing his darnedest to promote here. The plot is so weak that not even a pimped up old Ford Cortina helps, although I'm sure the idea of such a car seemed awesome on paper.
However, for some reason the shoddy directing, cinematography and overall production quality seem to greatly improve in the last 20 minutes. The film suddenly goes from slow-moving to fast-paced, even including some charming scene transitions! What happened there? Was it the sudden increase of an extra 40,000 dollars in the budget that the IMDb trivia talks about???
One piece of warning to the people behind "Last of the Living": It's impossible not to notice a tag line on the DVD comparing it to "Shaun of the Dead". Woha, big mistake! By doing so you are automatically setting yourself up for one hell of a beating, and some helpful advice to the filmmakers: you won't gain any fans when you start off by insulting the greatest zombie comedy ever made! Where "Shaun" was laced with originality, first-rate acting, inspired directing and classic comedy moments, "Last of the Living" is dominated by an unoriginal plot (if you can call it a plot), so-so acting, average-at-best directing and only a couple laugh-out-loud moments (which both include fart jokes).
But again, meh... being a sucker for zombie movies in general I'll give it 4 out of 10 stars thanks to the last 20 minutes and at least one credible performance from Ashleigh Southam as 'Ash' (but Bruce Campbell he ain't).
Sadly I was mistaken.
Don't get me wrong. As far as low budget zombie romps go this is an OK time filler, but with a few major complaints: the characters are just plain uninteresting. With the exception of nerdy Ash the characters come off as paper-thin and downright boring. The film opens with scenes of 'Morgan' and for a while seem to focus on him as a type of "main" hero, which I couldn't get, since he seemed like a first-rate selfish prick, not to mention a bully to his friend Ash. Then there is the annoying soundtrack, a mix between public domain Apple software sound bytes and tripe rock music probably made by some friends of the director who he is doing his darnedest to promote here. The plot is so weak that not even a pimped up old Ford Cortina helps, although I'm sure the idea of such a car seemed awesome on paper.
However, for some reason the shoddy directing, cinematography and overall production quality seem to greatly improve in the last 20 minutes. The film suddenly goes from slow-moving to fast-paced, even including some charming scene transitions! What happened there? Was it the sudden increase of an extra 40,000 dollars in the budget that the IMDb trivia talks about???
One piece of warning to the people behind "Last of the Living": It's impossible not to notice a tag line on the DVD comparing it to "Shaun of the Dead". Woha, big mistake! By doing so you are automatically setting yourself up for one hell of a beating, and some helpful advice to the filmmakers: you won't gain any fans when you start off by insulting the greatest zombie comedy ever made! Where "Shaun" was laced with originality, first-rate acting, inspired directing and classic comedy moments, "Last of the Living" is dominated by an unoriginal plot (if you can call it a plot), so-so acting, average-at-best directing and only a couple laugh-out-loud moments (which both include fart jokes).
But again, meh... being a sucker for zombie movies in general I'll give it 4 out of 10 stars thanks to the last 20 minutes and at least one credible performance from Ashleigh Southam as 'Ash' (but Bruce Campbell he ain't).