The Amazing Adventures of the Living Corpse Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

The Amazing Adventures of the Living Corpse Blu-ray Movie Review

Not So Amazing

Reviewed by Michael Reuben June 14, 2013

A comic transformed into an animated film, The Amazing Adventures of the Living Corpse is a genre mash-up presented in the style of a video game. Hardcore sensation junkies may respond, but anyone seeking a coherent story should look elsewhere.

The Living Corpse of the title (known in life, appropriately enough, as "John Romero" and hereafter, for short, "TLC") is your typical brain-eating zombie, with a key difference--he has consciousness and a soul. But the unfortunate sack of bones becomes self-aware only after he and his fellow undead have risen from their graves to attack the living (why now? no special reason) and TLC has killed his former wife and daughter. The cries of his son, Taylor, awaken TLC's memories, and he realizes who he is. (He does, however, still require periodic feedings on brains to survive.)

Taylor is taken to a school for orphans, and TLC is taken to the underworld by the demon Asteroth. While Taylor is bullied by students (and some of the teachers) and studied from afar by a mad scientist, Dr. Brainchild, who screens the school's arrivals for those with supernatural family histories, TLC tries to find his way back to Taylor. Unfortunately, some nasty underworld demons pursue TLC from the underworld and attack the school, along with a resident ghost, who is the mother of Mika, another student and who seems to be a refugee from an entirely different story. Fortunately for Taylor, TLC proves to be a powerful defender. Like Neo in The Matrix, he knows kung fu.

Fifteen years later, Taylor has joined Dr. Brainchild's research team and helped him make breakthroughs. He has also restored the doctor's neural functions with technology after an accident with a lab animal destroyed them. Only now, though, does Taylor learn the doctor's true plan, which is to use DNA code from Taylor and TLC to create an invincible army of soldiers who cannot be killed. It takes Taylor and TLC, working together, to stop him.

The Amazing Adventures of the Living Corpse Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Anchor Bay's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is clean, clear, has acceptable blacks and features a generally muted palette that, I suspect, reflects the look of the original comic (which I have never seen). Aliasing, banding and other artifacts were either minor or not an issue.

The Amazing Adventures of the Living Corpse Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track has wide dynamic range and deep bass extension. Priority is given to the heavy metal-inflected score by Daniel Iannantuono. The dialogue is clear enough, except for the heavily processed voices such as those of TLC and Asteroth, which sometimes lose a few words in the deep bass and heavy reverb. Still, it's not as if the dialogue actually matters.

The Amazing Adventures of the Living Corpse Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No extras are included. The disc has startup trailers for Mimesis, Shadow People and Ultramarines.

The Amazing Adventures of the Living Corpse Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I cannot judge whether fans of The Living Corpse comic will enjoy The Amazing Adventures. Among newcomers, I can't see the film's appeal. Its visual style has obviously been heavily influenced by video games, but gamers will be bored, because there's no way to participate. Anyone looking for a plot will be frustrated. The film has the feeling of a sequel for which someone forgot to write the origin story. Not recommended.