You know you're in for it when the movie opens with a military commander telling his men to "stay frosty." Fortunately for us the movie proves to be a tongue-in-cheek tribute to horror and sci-fi films and pop culture in general. Yes, it's goofy. It's supposed to be, much in the same vein as "Return of the Living Dead"
and even "My Name is Bruce."The plot revolves around a young special ops officer whose unit is sent to investigate the loss of contact with a medical facility. The men are attacked by bug-infected zombies and the next thing our hero knows he's waking up right before his autopsy. He finds that while he is not quite alive, he is still (mostly) in charge of his faculties and has gained super-strength and accelerated healing. Unfortunately, another soldier has also risen from the dead but is only concerned with eating people.All the tropes are here--the sassy black sidekick, the beautiful doctor who we are supposed to take seriously once she puts on her glasses, the uncaring military who refuse to see what's really going on, the mad scientist who wants to use the infection to live forever. The gore is at a maximum and the movie makes no apologies for what it is: a B-movie FX bonanza.I would like to watch this again playing a pop-culture drinking game. Every line from another movie (whether "stay frosty" or "primary malfunction"), every actor from another popular film ("Pulp Fiction") or TV show ("Star Trek," "X-Files," "Lois and Clark"), and every scene referencing another film gets a drink.
February 27, 2011
