Humans vs. Zombies Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Humans vs. Zombies Blu-ray Movie Review

Not Quite as Advertised

Reviewed by Michael Reuben June 30, 2012

Having tried his hand at the creature feature with Boggy Creek: The Legend Is True, low-budget horror-meister Brian T. Jaynes has moved on to the zombie flick with Humans VS Zombies, which I'll refer to as HvZ from here on, so that I don't have to stumble over the alternate forms with which the title's middle word has been printed in different places ("VS"? "vs."? "Versus"?). The title may seem obvious, but that's the name adopted by the two Goucher College students who in 2005 created the role-playing game portrayed in the film. The game has its own website, and it's sufficiently popular on campuses across the nation that some school authorities moved to ban or limit it in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, because the game involves mock "hunting" of zombies with Nerf Blasters (which resemble firearms).

The notion of a mock zombie attack that abruptly becomes the real thing sounds like something with ingenious "meta" potential that could re-energize the undead genre as Scream did for slasher films. Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead had already taken a stab (sorry!) in that direction with its parade of gags based on the similarities between city dwellers pursuing dead-end routines and mindless flesh-eaters cannibalizing their friends and neighbors. But now that HvZ has finally arrived, it appears that Jaynes and screenwriter Devan Sagliani never got further than the notion of setting their film on a college campus where an HvZ game is in progress and some of the participants discover that—whaddya know?—the rules in the "Zombie Apocalypse" handbook actually work when a secret government virus escapes into the open. Otherwise, the story is constructed of familiar elements derived from George Romero's Dead films, the Resident Evil series, the recent remake of The Crazies and no doubt others that those better versed in the zombie genre can readily identify.

(Full disclosure: I gave up on zombie films a long time ago, because, for my, um, taste, most of the wit went out of them after Romero's original trilogy, with an occasional exception like Shaun and Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later.)

The official website for HvZ features a misleading synopsis of the film that, in the absence of anything else, has been widely copied, including here at Blu-ray.com:

Students on summer break are exposed to a deadly virus, a neuroinvasive organism that is spread rapidly through direct human contact. The Infected are enslaved by the invading swarm intelligence and driven by an insatiable appetite to consume human flesh. Returning home, the infection spreads quickly to their fellow classmates and other unsuspecting townspeople. One by one, more and more fall victim to the plague, triggering an epidemic that spawns a horde of ravenous zombies.

The zombie horde grows and spreads throughout the community. Amidst the chaos, a campus security guard, obsessed with conspiracy theories, leads a group of students to safety as they and a small band of uninfected townspeople set out to find other human survivors in an attempt to discover the source of the "zombie" virus and save the world.

Notice how there's no reference to the role-playing game? It's almost as if someone were pitching alternate ideas for what ultimately became HvZ, after budgetary realities forced Jaynes and his collaborators to rethink what could be accomplished.

Even so, the finished film is closer to the original concept than the synopsis. For example, there's no summer break/returning home dynamic to explain the path of infection. The film opens with a lab accident that plays like a miniature version of the Umbrella Corporation disaster in Resident Evil. Cut to the Gulf Coast where oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster is washing up on the shore of a college town. (Later dialogue will suggest that organisms released to "consume" the oil are just a cover for the Illuminati to spread the virus—but who really knows about these things?) An infected man in protective gear appears on the oil-coated shore and encounters a romantic pair of students on the beach. Zombie mayhem ensues.

The "small band of uninfected townspeople" and the search for the "source of the 'zombie' virus" promised by the official synopsis are nowhere to be found in the film. What Jaynes does instead is follow the classic Romero template: He assembles a group of desperate survivors who have almost as much trouble cooperating among themselves as they do fending off their zombie attackers. They are, in no particular order: Tommi (Madison Burge), a tomboy gaming expert who is widely (and incorrectly) suspected of being a lesbian; Amanda (Melissa Carnell), a smart and sensitive blonde girl; Donny (Jonah Priour), the nerd who, with Tommi, is moderating the campus game of "HvZ", has an intense crush on Amanda and is also a virgin; James (Jesse Ferraro), a star football player and Donny's roommate, who has an intense crush on Tommi (because, according to Donny, she's the one girl he can't have); and Brad (Chip Joslin), a pudgy game enthusiast for whom the chance to knock down real zombies is the macho opportunity of a lifetime.

The most interesting character in HvZ is Frank, the conspiracy nut campus security guard who is the one element that the official synopsis gets right (well, not counting the zombies). He's played by Frederic Doss (who was the squeamish deputy in Boggy Creek) in a performance that I would describe as "realistically wooden". Frank is a veteran of Desert Storm and has spent every hour since then preparing for a day like this. Unfortunately for everyone else, he turns out to have been mostly right. If Frank seems like a character in a bad "B" movie, it's because that's how he's imagined himself all these years. This allows him to keep a cool head when the crisis arrives, but other than his shotgun Frank doesn't have much of a contingency plan. He comes to the rescue of the besieged students and helps them find a way off campus, but options are quickly shrinking as the zombie horde rapidly expands. Just as in Romero's films, all the odds are stacked against the living. And whoever is peering down from the satellite views that occasionally zoom out to observe the proceedings shows no inclination to help, just as in Breck Eisner's remake of The Crazies.

Hard-core gore fans may feel short-changed, since Jaynes didn't have the budget for the kind of elaborate dismemberment and flaunting of entrails that Tom Savini first perfected in Dawn of the Dead. But Jaynes makes the most of his limited budget, and he edits cleverly to suggest more than he shows. Judged by the standard of a do-it-yourself independent film, HvZ represents measurable progress in a career worth watching. With more originality in the script, it could have been a classic.

Humans vs. Zombies Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

After the serious issues that plagued Boggy Creek: The Legend Is True, I'm pleased to report that the 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray of HvZ arrives in much better shape, though not without problems. It's clear from the film's credits and its appearance that it was shot on hi-def video, although the type of equipment isn't specified. (IMDb says it was the Red One system, but that seems to be their default entry for any digitally acquired film.) Except as noted below, the results are sharp, clean, colorful and devoid of video noise. Black levels are very good, as are contrast and shadow detail. Issues such as artificial sharpening and high frequency filtering do not apply.

There were no signs of the combing errors that occurred repeatedly in Boggy Creek, but several shots showed a kind of digital "streaking" as if someone had loaded them into a digital paint program and drawn brush strokes across a portion of the frame. A representative sample appears in screenshot number 6 accompanying this review. Whether this phenomenon is an issue resulting from the original image capture (and couldn't be fixed in post-production) or an error introduced as a result of color correction or effects work is impossible to say, but it suggests that Jaynes has yet to gain full control over the logistics of his craft.

Humans vs. Zombies Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The PCM 2.0 soundtrack is a vast improvement over the amateurish and unfinished 5.1 soundtrack for Boggy Creek. Voices are clear, effects and ambient sound are consistent and well-integrated, and when played back through a good matrix decoding system such as DPL IIx, the mix spreads effectively around the listening space with small sound effects being routed to the rear speakers. A well-done 2.0 track is infinitely preferable to a poorly made 5.1 track, and HvZ's 2.0 track is a satisfying accompaniment to the film. The score by Maigin Blank, who is currently working on Jaynes's next film, is well-represented.

Humans vs. Zombies Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Animated Comic (HD, 1080p; 1.78:1; 7:13): Humans VS Zombies: The Beginning, a graphic novel expansion of the film's opening sequence, which explores in greater detail the sequence of events resulting in release of the zombie virus.


• Trailers (HD, 1080p; various; 11:32):
• ChillerTV.com
• Turtle: The Incredible Journey
• All's Faire in Love
• Boggy Creek: The Legend Is True
• Cook County
• HvZ
• Patient Zero
• Hostage


• Slideshow (HD, 1080p; 2.35:1; 4:40): A series of stills from the film.

Humans vs. Zombies Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Now that I've appropriately deflated expectations, I recommend checking out HvZ. George Romero, Danny Boyle and Edgar Wright have nothing to worry about, but Jaynes is an interesting talent, whose determination to do things on his own holds intriguing promise for the future. Recommended with appropriate disclaimers.