Virus Undead

There are some very good things about VIRUS UNDEAD (Chiller is running it under the title THE BEAST WITHIN). The premise- virus spread by birds threatens to overrun the world- is sound enough in and of itself. The special effects and fight choreography are professionally done. And the film is very well photographed. In fact, if you put on a good CD and run this with the closed captioning on you might really enjoy it.

But no film can be better than the performances by the actors, and these actors couldn't do worse. I don't know that they're really inept or untalented actors. But they were born in Germany and as best I can tell are trying to perform in English, so you get some really off the wall line readings.

We've seen this story before. Young man goes to his grandfather's home after the old man passes away. On the way into town he and his friends meet a couple of cute girls and run afoul of some local louts. The sun sets, the zombies come out to play, mayhem ensues.

But because of the inept acting it's almost impossible to feel any connection to these characters and the screenplay doesn't really develop them as individuals.

The more I write, the more I think my concluding sentence in the first paragraph is right. In fact, there are so many clichés on parade here- wow, German cops live on donuts, too!- that you might not even want to run the closed captioning.

Footnote: Definite kudos to the director for being named Wolf Wolff. Please, Lord, let that be his real name. I don't see any major directing career for the man, but that is a totally righteous name.