Anything that even remotely reeks of zombie, pardon the pun, catches my interest. However, unfortunately, the zombie genre is flooded with countless less than mediocre or low budget attempts. "Age of the Dead" (aka "Anger of the Dead") was no exception.This movie is unfathomably slow paced and has very little of any interest to offer a genre drowning in sub par additions. Truth be told, it was a struggle to stick with "Age of the Dead" to the end.The storyline is not particularly appealing and doesn't really throw anything to lure in the audience."Age of the Dead" committed the two atrocities in the genre; fast, agile and running zombies, and the Classic error of doing zombie make-up on the face but forgetting about the rest of the body. And when I first saw a female zombie with fairly impressive zombie make-up on the face, but with smooth, non-decayed skin on the arms and shoulders I was just ready to give up on the movie.The characters in the movie were as about as detailed as a blank sheet of paper. There was no background story, no character development or anything else of any noteworthy thing to make the characters feel real."Age of the Dead" failed to impress or leave a lasting impression in any way that hasn't already been failed in other similar low budget movies, and it is not really a movie that you just got to own in your zombie movie collection. There are so many better zombie movies available.

Odd movie with two subplots that merge for a very short time but then separate again. Neither of them resolved for the audience. Horror is more serious as children and defenseless women are attacked but most violence is just off screen. Acting isn't bad but I did find it wooden. I found I didn't come to care for many of the characters. Lots of silly things that we've seen in other movies like running down a highway to get away when the bad guy has a car or sitting around with your car window down waiting for something to jump up and bite you. The worst was sleeping in a camp tent WITH a fire outside. Talk about feeling vulnerable. Having said all of that I still liked the movie. I found it different from other low budget zombie films.

But was it good? Well, the beginning was good. SPOILERS: The movie starts out with Alice and her daughter at home in their apartment when.......a zombie comes a knockin on the door. This we saw in the trailer.Well, Alice survives and meets another survivor named Stephen. They hook up and have a few friends with them, so it's your basic zombie survival movie. Not everyone makes it. And there's a lot of drama in between. The movie jumps four months ahead to where Alice is pregnant. I actually found that to be the scariest part of the movie because it would be terrifying to be pregnant in a zombie apocalypse with fast moving zombies all over. And I was scared to watch the last twenty minutes because I didn't know what would happen to her. Turns out, how it ended is not what I was expecting at all.There is a dual story here with a woman being experimented on and abused by some soldier guys. I wasn't really happy with that part of the movie, too much violence against women. But her story eventually converges with Alice's story.This kind of movie you will either like it or hate it. I found it suspenseful enough to keep me watching till the end because I didn't know what would happen to Alice and Stephen.It's low budget and there aren't enough main characters. It really needed a few more. And there were times I felt the movie just came to a screeching halt with too much talking and no action, but it has its moments.I have seen a lot worse, I've also seen a lot better. For a low budget, it's average.

The latest entry in the saturated zombie sub-genre may not have much new to say but offers more maturity and technical competence than the average DSLR bloodbath. Director Francesco Picone manages to create dread and tension with carefully paced suspense and neatly-drawn characters even within the standard genre tropes of utopian hope and bleach-bypassed visuals. The result is a slick experience, if a familiar one, but with occasionally-welcomed twists and character reveals.The attempts to hide Italian aspects of its production, like many 80s direct- to-video foreign action programmers, becomes apparent at times, but here the acting towers over its budget and shines enough to realistically portray an American landscape. The standout in the capable cast, Aaron Stielstra, is given an emotional subplot that is both heartbreaking and morally repugnant amidst the already copious amounts of gore and convincing practical effects. The film even allows for a quiet, introspective moment with this character to reveal the childhood memories of his dog. Luckily, the filmmakers and performers are able to balance this sentimentality with all the on screen mayhem in a way that helps raise the stakes rather than shamelessly manipulate them with hackneyed Hollywood ploys, even if much of the music seems recycled from inferior products.Overall, a worthwhile production with some fine acting and thought put into it beyond just creative effects and kills.