XoWizIama
Excellent adaptation.
StyleSk8r
At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
Toronto85
Children of the Living Dead is one of the cheapest looking horror movies I've ever seen. Sure, it's low budget, but I have seen better movies filmed on a lower budget then this one. This doesn't even try to be good. The lighting is pretty awful, the acting is terrible, and the story fails to make much sense.In 1987, a zombie attack hit a small town in Pennsylvania. The movie doesn't explain how it happened or if it affected the entire world as well. Abbott Hayes is one of the zombies, he was a rapist in the town sometime before. He is the lead zombie of the movie. Somehow the zombies (including Hayes) were all killed, and fourteen years later all is right with the world. The zombie character Hayes is actually one good thing about the movie, he is very creepy looking. There is a group of teenagers that die in a car wreck. After their funeral Abbott bites them, therefore turning them into zombies. So the story goes that all these years later, a construction crew digs up an old cemetery to build some sort of property over it. They decide to relocate all the bodies to a mass grave rather than another cemetery to save money. When they open the coffins however, the bodies are all missing. Of course zombies start to roam the town again and it's up to a young couple to save everyone.Bad acting usually comes along with horror movies, and most of the time adds charm to them. But in this case, it was just over the top cheese from almost everyone involved. I don't know who actor Philip Bower (Joseph Michaels) is, but he should never act in any move ever again. I laughed throughout all of his scenes. Same goes for most of the cast. Sam Nicotero, who plays the owner of the motel, is an exception when it comes to the acting. He was the only likable character for me. The gore in this is decent. The zombies outside of Abbott Hayes aren't anything special. Nothing we haven't seen before. The major failure outside of acting, is the story. It is never explained how the zombies came to be. One minute there are no zombies, and then all of a sudden night falls and multiple zombies are roaming the town. It just doesn't make sense.I would skip this one unless you are a zombie fanatic. Even hardcore zombie fans will be disappointed. Abbott Hayes is a good villain and the filming location is good for a zombie movie, great atmosphere. Other than that, it isn't very good at all.2/10
masondixonkid
This film is terrible. As a matter of fact it's so terrible that you absolutely must watch it! This will have you laughing for the duration of the movie, though it is not supposed to be funny. But I guess that's part of what makes you laugh so hard. The "acting" is almost non-existent and the dialogue delivered without any real conviction. Some of the lines are just the corniest things you will ever hear. The main antagonist, zombie "king" Abbott Hayes, walks like a 70's pimp daddy and mutters guttural sounds and half-hearted shrieks as he comically wiggles his tongue. One may come to the conclusion that the actor portraying him is "special", which may be the case, since this whole "film" could be considered "special". But if that's the case, I guess it would be rude to laugh and point...screw it!! That's all you can do with this movie. It is horrible, but WELL worth watching. Be sure to watch, just don't expect it to be good, expect it to be "good".
Scarecrow-88
Lame-brained zombie film, with film-making duties by various participants of "Night of the Living Dead". This particular flick concerns teenagers who died in a vehicle crash over a cliff thanks to a zombie, Abbott Hayes(A Barrett Worland), who wasn't killed in a small town extermination. Hayes resurrects their corpses by biting them, and as a group they pursue live human victims as a major car dealership development is underway. The film centers of the blossoming relationship between Matthew Michaels(Damien Luvara), whose father is the head honcho behind the dealership, and Laurie Danesi(Jamie McCoy),the small town waitress. Sheriff Randolph(Marty Schiff)is in cahoots with the developers in pulling up the caskets and headstones from a cemetery burying the loved ones in a mass grave to save money. Abbott Hayes will lead his zombie troops on a raid on the diner as Michael, Laurie & Randolph hole up awaiting help from the development workers.I think many might wish to check this one out for the opening fifteen or so minutes where make-up effects legend Tom Savini goes bad ass as a survivalist town deputy who takes out zombies singlehanded. The opening of the film resembles the close of "Night of the Living Dead" as townspeople work as an organized hunting party eradicating the walking dead with guns and rifles. Once Abbott Hayes is introduced(..first looking like a corpse, and when the film moves fourteen years later, resembles a monstrous ghoul)the film sours immediately. The screenplay is uninvolving never remaining focused with the film becoming an uneven and tedious exercise where boredom sets in like gangrene rotting away the viewer's patience..well, that's what this film felt like to me, gangrene rotting away my patience. I kept hoping that something would come from this film, but when you have dialogue this putrid with a cast equally as painful, there's no hope at all. I am not sure this will even work for the most enthusiastic zombie fan. The final showdown at the end has workers, with plenty of weapons and ammunition toiling with the zombies in hand-to-hand combat! While the fighting occurs, Abbott Hayes is shown delighting as the carnage ensues. Hayes seems to be merely in the film to wickedly grin as his minions attack pea-brained human clowns. What a travesty. Actor Bill Hinzman tries to put some energy into the photography, but that shot in the arm can do little to inject life into a film where quality whithers minute to minute. This film would've done better to follow Savini throughout the film wasting zombies rather than focus on a car dealership development and the dull relations of a would-be couple.Savini and some minor moments of zombie gore lift this to 2 stars instead of 1.
only_myschly
The worst? Zombie Planet. I could watch about 20 minutes before I fast forwarded and just saw bits and pieces, ending up in a total 25 minutes. This movie I watched for about 30 minutes, fast forwarded, hoping there'd be a light at the end of the tunnel. But there wasn't. There was nothing good about this movie. I mean they couldn't even manage having good zombie-shooting, which is one of the easiest things to do!My patience really, REALLY ran thin when they had some guy shooting a zombie and then another one would come, from what I saw, thin air and bite his neck.It was just so worthless, that all who were involved in the movie (who didn't do it ONLY because they desperately needed the money) should go to prison. No joke.
