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Priest Christopher (Gary Kohn), who will soon turn out to be a former
state-funded assassin, breaks into the house of Jeremiah (Michael Robert
Nyman) - to find not him but his estranged daughter Mary (Lindsey Morris),
who blames her father for everything including her descent into
prostitution. Christopher and Mary. The two of them soon get into argument
after argument, but somehow they also feel drawn to each other (and will
eventually have sex). Then though, it turns out that the whole village is
under a sudden zombie siege, and there are many out there who need help -
or at least need to be let into the house to evade zombies. Mary doesn't
want any of this, figuring her chances better if she fends for herself and
for herself alone, but Christopher is a priest and has to show mercy,
professionally, so he lets in asshole after asshole, and somehow they all
blow it, only a Jehova's witness, Stanley (Nate Witty), a complete klutz
and coward, proves to have unexpected staying power. Eventually,
Christopher, Mary and Stanley find out a church not far away is a safe
haven Jeremiah has provided for them, and they try to make it there - with
Stanley being allowed to die a hero's death before the day's over. Mary
and Christopher meet Jeremiah, also a gouvernment assassin, in the church,
to find out that the zombie siege was actually an army experiment in low
budget/high efficiency warfare, and Mary and Christopher were the control
group. That said though, Jeremiah's employers seem to have turned against
him, and now they release the zombies on him before bombing the
zombie-infested city to Kingdom Come. Christopher and Mary make it out
alive, but unbeknowest to them, they are still under the watchful eye of
gouvernment agents. Awaken the Dead starts out as yet
another Night of the Living
Dead-rehash, but after a while manages to break away from the
formula, that had by 2007 grown all to rigid, to explore new directions -
to at best mixed results: Basically, the film takes itself too seriously
for its plot that can't deny its pulp roots, and there are a few too many
gaping plotholes to rate the story as really well-told. Likewise, too much
care is put into making the characters look "strong" while at
the same time it's ignored that they are still just clichées. And their
conversation about profound topics that are supposed to give the film
depth come off as ... well, a bit corny. On the other hand, the film
scores high when it comes to atmosphere, due to its very reduced colour
scale (almost black and white actually), its nice use of sets and
locations, and its pacing that understands to use the more quiet scenes fo
full effect. In all, not the best zombie movie by a longshot, but a
valiant effort at least ... that could have done with a better script.
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