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In the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, a medical student living with other survivors in a military bunker tries to develop a vaccine against the zombie virus.
It's a hell of a journey to get from the original Day of the Dead to this, the extremely loose remake that is Day of the Dead: Bloodline. Its setup involves a lot of the same specifics - it centres around a military bunker, there are tensions between the bunker's soldiers (especially their incredibly strict leader) and the scientists/protagonists who live there, and there's also a zombie who displays more intelligence and humanity than the rest of the mindless creatures that populate the film. Where it differs...oh, boy, do we have such sights to show you right here. Where the original had Bub, a zombie whose slow attempts to regain his humanity made him far more endearing that most of the film's human characters, Bloodline has Max. The first way in which Bloodline diverges from its original is by showing life before the zombie apocalypse (not before showing us a very brief and very unnecessary cold open of zombie carnage, though) and introducing us to Max as the kind of creepy stalker who will carve his obsession's name into his own skin and proudly show it to them without a second thought. The object of his affection is our protagonist, a medical student named Zoe whose only contact with him is having to take samples of his scientifically interesting blood for her professor's research. Fast forward to five years after the apocalypse and Zoe is now the doctor in aforementioned bunker. When not curing the other inhabitants, she wants to fight the zombie virus itself by curing it or at least vaccinating against it. A series of events unfolds that brings her into contact with a now-zombified Max, but it turns out his special blood (which has allowed him to retain both his humanity and his fixation on Zoe) may just be the key to unlocking the secret of combating the zombie virus.
When it comes to incorporating a sensitive subject like abusive behaviour and the lingering trauma that it leaves behind, Bloodline makes at least some effort to treat the subject with tact and use it as a sincere emotional core that is played for tenderness (it affects Zoe's capacity for intimacy with her boyfriend) and discomfort (every single time she has to interact with Max). That really does seem to be the only thing that Bloodline gets even halfway-right in the midst of what is otherwise about as rote as a low-budget zombie movie can get. Characters are largely flat and not particularly well-acted (especially not this film's equivalent of the original's Captain Rhodes), plus the world of the bunker is not fleshed out all too well and its most throwaway details just raise further questions (such as children not only being present but also playing soccer out in the open near fences that are frequently lined with zombies). The plot itself is extremely thin and features nothing of particular worth or ingenuity in its conflicts or themes - even the aforementioned abuse subtext is itself barely present and hardly has any significant impact. Even when the film actually does try to indulge in the kind of horror and violence that the genre is known for, it's technically clumsy and lacks the imagination necessary to make things stand out. For these reasons, I might have been able to just shrug off Bloodline as yet another zero-budget zombie movie that could easily disappear into the ether, but the ways in which it not only provides a lifeless (sorry) remake of a Romero classic but even tries to turn its greatest element into a half-baked metaphor more than make it worthy of additional ridicule.
#16 - Day of the Dead: Bloodline
Hèctor Hernández Vicens, 2018
Hèctor Hernández Vicens, 2018
In the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, a medical student living with other survivors in a military bunker tries to develop a vaccine against the zombie virus.
It's a hell of a journey to get from the original Day of the Dead to this, the extremely loose remake that is Day of the Dead: Bloodline. Its setup involves a lot of the same specifics - it centres around a military bunker, there are tensions between the bunker's soldiers (especially their incredibly strict leader) and the scientists/protagonists who live there, and there's also a zombie who displays more intelligence and humanity than the rest of the mindless creatures that populate the film. Where it differs...oh, boy, do we have such sights to show you right here. Where the original had Bub, a zombie whose slow attempts to regain his humanity made him far more endearing that most of the film's human characters, Bloodline has Max. The first way in which Bloodline diverges from its original is by showing life before the zombie apocalypse (not before showing us a very brief and very unnecessary cold open of zombie carnage, though) and introducing us to Max as the kind of creepy stalker who will carve his obsession's name into his own skin and proudly show it to them without a second thought. The object of his affection is our protagonist, a medical student named Zoe whose only contact with him is having to take samples of his scientifically interesting blood for her professor's research. Fast forward to five years after the apocalypse and Zoe is now the doctor in aforementioned bunker. When not curing the other inhabitants, she wants to fight the zombie virus itself by curing it or at least vaccinating against it. A series of events unfolds that brings her into contact with a now-zombified Max, but it turns out his special blood (which has allowed him to retain both his humanity and his fixation on Zoe) may just be the key to unlocking the secret of combating the zombie virus.
When it comes to incorporating a sensitive subject like abusive behaviour and the lingering trauma that it leaves behind, Bloodline makes at least some effort to treat the subject with tact and use it as a sincere emotional core that is played for tenderness (it affects Zoe's capacity for intimacy with her boyfriend) and discomfort (every single time she has to interact with Max). That really does seem to be the only thing that Bloodline gets even halfway-right in the midst of what is otherwise about as rote as a low-budget zombie movie can get. Characters are largely flat and not particularly well-acted (especially not this film's equivalent of the original's Captain Rhodes), plus the world of the bunker is not fleshed out all too well and its most throwaway details just raise further questions (such as children not only being present but also playing soccer out in the open near fences that are frequently lined with zombies). The plot itself is extremely thin and features nothing of particular worth or ingenuity in its conflicts or themes - even the aforementioned abuse subtext is itself barely present and hardly has any significant impact. Even when the film actually does try to indulge in the kind of horror and violence that the genre is known for, it's technically clumsy and lacks the imagination necessary to make things stand out. For these reasons, I might have been able to just shrug off Bloodline as yet another zero-budget zombie movie that could easily disappear into the ether, but the ways in which it not only provides a lifeless (sorry) remake of a Romero classic but even tries to turn its greatest element into a half-baked metaphor more than make it worthy of additional ridicule.