I tried to like this film. I really did. In fact, I tried to like it through two viewings. And although I like the idea of the film (roughly), and I like some of the things it does or tries to do, overall it just irritates me through most of its running time.

When I bought it, it was being billed by some guy on eBay as "The way they should have done Resident Evil," and while I wasn't exactly gulled by that sort of description, I figured maybe it would be worth a look. And by "maybe," well, since it has zombies in it, I mean "I would sooner saw off a limb than never have watched this movie." (Thankfully, that choice has never really been necessary, except for Zombie Ninja Gangbangers, the watching of which almost did inspire gratuitous self-mutilation.)

And in some ways, that description was sort of right. This is a movie about some old laboratory out in rural Pennsylvania--and hell, just about anything could get hidden in some parts of Pennsylvania--where some scientists were researching zombies for the military. Or more accurately, it's about the head scientist's son, who is part of the military and is sent in with a team of troops to neutralize the compound and destroy the evidence.

Fair enough. I mean, I guess you can't just bomb a stronghold like that because of 1) the need for the certainty of thoroughness that comes from firsthand observation, and 2) the need for secrecy. There does arise the question of why one would go about researching zombies in the first place, as Keith has pointed out a few times in the past. They're not exactly useful bioweapons, since they're basically like a sharp, rusty sword with no handle. To this I can offer only two ideas. Well, or I have two off the top of my head, which is all I will offer right now.

1. Because the possibility exists, they need to be researched. I guess one could argue that desperate terrorists or fanatical warlords (and possibly Pat Robertson) might be tempted to use whatever substance it is that creates zombies, or at least threaten its use. However unlikely it might be, the possibility that it could break out, based on the reality of whatever thing it is that somehow makes zombies (whatever they actually are, chemically and physiologically), is probably enough reason to at least research it and understand what could be done about it.

2. In the video game Resident Evil, especially in the Gamecube remake, the creation of the zombies was only a stepping-stone to creating more dangerous monsters. So they could be kind of a by-product or first stage of research which is intended to develop something more useful.

Neither of those options really seem to be explored in Maplewoods, which contents itself with just having a bunch of zombies in an underground bunker, and a bunch more in an open but fenced-in area; but then, I've contented myself with far less before. Bruno Mattei has given us zombies falling from the sky and hiding under bales of hay, and hey--who among us has any regrets about Zombi 3?

Where Maplewoods fails is... well again, I've got two basic points:

1) Clichés abound, and boring ones at that. Ones that aren't even related to zombies.
2) It tries to accomplish too many things far beyond its means.

See... even if we conclude that having some sort of semi-rural top-secret laboratory for zombie development isn't plausible, there are still plenty of us (like me) who'd still want to see it. But it's a pretty big stretch to make this a top-secret research project which actually uses an outdoor generator to power a crappy elevator down to a lab that seems to consist of one long hallway and then a room with a zombie strapped to a table and a time bomb under the table.

Granted, the Resident Evil video games have some similarly dubious locations and devices, but we buy into them because they're stylistically chosen. Resident Evil is a brilliant synthesis of the conventions of mad scientists, government/corporate conspiracies, old haunted mansions, and so on. If there's a rickety, old-fashioned elevator that takes the character up to an opulently-furnished, and poorly-lit, room, you might be scared. Not so with a crappy grain elevator. I mean, it looks like this "top secret" project had a budget that was probably just slightly more than the budget for the movie.

But of course, there's another problem. Resident Evil doesn't get incredibly carried away with the characters' military status. They're part of a special ops team. They're not necessarily that well-equipped, but then, that's part of the fun of the game. Maplewoods features an amateur cast--and there's nothing wrong with amateur actors per se--trying to pass themselves off as "the most elite military unit ever assembled."

*Sigh*

Why? First of all, why would you need the absolute 'best of the best' ever just to go into a compound and kill some zombies? Look, I'm one of those nerds who insists that people underestimate zombies when they say they're not scary, but that doesn't mean that if you've got over ten people and the military arming you, you still need to have the best-trained warriors in the world. Anyone with decent aim will do.

Second, how the hell do you get amateur actors to seem like superelite soldiers? Especially when they're wearing uniforms that look neon white in the noonday sun. And when they're scripted to break down crying, to very quickly turn on each other before they've even seen a zombie for themselves, and to abandon all protocol pretty much as soon as they actually have to do something. And I don't mean they're renegades abandoning it because they're superior to procedure. I mean they seem like lost, bumbling idiots. I concede that I'm not well-versed in military protocol or training, but... I kind of get the impression that you're trained to 1) be loyal to your unit, and 2) act as rationally and intelligently in any given situation as you can. Y'know, so if someone gets shot, your reaction might be to do something to help, rather than just start crying and saying, "Oh, Captain, you're bleeding!" Even the characters in Night of the Living Dead did a better job of working together and thinking their way through situations.

Third... since there's a time bomb ready to go off anyway, there was no reason to send these elite soldiers in. At least, no plausible one. The whole weird conspiracy thread in the film regarding a renegade CIA agent and that time bomb is pretty stupid, all told, and it's made worse by the fact that the traitorous character is about as deep as a tabletop, and that he has like four lines in the whole movie. Resident Evil has some ridiculous conspiracy stuff, but it's made enjoyable by the brooding Gothic ambience and the neo-Frankensteinian technology. Maplewoods lacks the depth to give us any reason to believe in, or even want to believe in, top-secret intrigues and far-reaching conspiracies.

Finally, why did these elite soldiers have to turn out to be such substandard cinematic military stereotypes? The one guy who cracks from the stress and goes nuts... The heroic black guy who ends up getting killed... The untrustworthy government guy who always wears sunglasses and then betrays everyone... The guy who stands up (and prematurely, at that) and basically shouts, "Game over, man! Game over!"... the only character who's remotely inspired is the narrator of this movie and the leader of the troops, and he's only inspired when he's narrating, and not when we actually see him doing stuff.

In a sense, Maplewoods is somewhat unambitious. It takes a pretty standard zombie story template and attempts to do a good rendition of it. I applaud it for that. There's nothing wrong with taking an old tale and just trying to do it right--hell, Homer and Shakespeare made careers out of that sort of thing.

The problem is, you have to do it right. Really put thought into it. Figure out what's within your means and then try to execute it well. Instead, we've got a promising embryo that developed into an abortive monstrosity of a movie. It's not really fun, it's not at all frightening, it's not suspenseful... I mean, not much thought seems to have been given to pacing, to camera angles, to character development, to the possibilities of the landscape and buildings they filmed at, to... really, anything. Anything except the framing scenes where we hear the bits of narrative. And that's a damned shame. Because although this movie is conceptually closer to the Resident Evil video games, I actually enjoyed those awful Resident Evil movies more than I enjoyed Maplewoods.

Labels: Horror: Microbudget, Horror: Zombies