I like the concept of Savageland. A border town gets attacked by zombies, and they blame it on a Mexican drifter. It plays on both the savage violence and racism sometimes found at the border.
The execution was terrible.
First, the pictures of zombies are ineffective because they are too blurry. I get that the guy was on the run, in fear for his life, etc. But they were just too blurry to be scary. The few that were not blurry were also not scary.
Second, the evidence was too obvious. We have a history of racism in law enforcement, but there was just no way Salazar COULD have committed the crimes. Forget whether he would or not, it just wasn't physically possible. Ok, so I'll buy that some small time kangaroo court would crucify a Mexican, but not the appeals court. There's just no way this shoddy evidence gets past the appeals court. "He took a picture of a sandwich and road kill" is not evidence.
My third problem with this FF documentary is that it's WAY too long. They repeatedly go over the same basic ideas over, and over, and over. It quickly became boring. So much of Savageland should have been left on the cutting room floor.
I think Savageland COULD have been a decent FF documentary if it was around thirty minutes. Tighten the whole thing up. Zombies roll through a border town, the drifter is obviously framed, and improve the quality of the photos to make them scary. I would almost call this a lesson in how NOT to make a FF documentary.
The execution was terrible.
First, the pictures of zombies are ineffective because they are too blurry. I get that the guy was on the run, in fear for his life, etc. But they were just too blurry to be scary. The few that were not blurry were also not scary.
Second, the evidence was too obvious. We have a history of racism in law enforcement, but there was just no way Salazar COULD have committed the crimes. Forget whether he would or not, it just wasn't physically possible. Ok, so I'll buy that some small time kangaroo court would crucify a Mexican, but not the appeals court. There's just no way this shoddy evidence gets past the appeals court. "He took a picture of a sandwich and road kill" is not evidence.
My third problem with this FF documentary is that it's WAY too long. They repeatedly go over the same basic ideas over, and over, and over. It quickly became boring. So much of Savageland should have been left on the cutting room floor.
I think Savageland COULD have been a decent FF documentary if it was around thirty minutes. Tighten the whole thing up. Zombies roll through a border town, the drifter is obviously framed, and improve the quality of the photos to make them scary. I would almost call this a lesson in how NOT to make a FF documentary.