Fallen Soldiers (2015)
Directed by Ian Thomas
Starring Matthew Neal and Eve Pearson
There is a special kind of love for low budget films. Instead of the spotlight being taken up by high-profile actors and million-dollar effects, the story and the director’s passion can take center stage. Even if the story is something completely cliché, it can still be fun and the budget forgiven. However, as much as Fallen Soldiers showcases Director Bill Thomas’s love for the project, the movie just isn’t exciting. For a bloody zombie movie, there was a hell of a lot of talking and not enough killing.
Fallen Soldiers was shot in twelve days with only a $25,000 budget. That’s not a lot of wiggle room, sure, but a lower budget doesn’t necessarily equal a bad film. After all, the premise looks great on paper; a film about zombies during the Napoleonic Wars sounds not only original, but also pretty fun. But the film is just boring. For the first fifteen minutes, it consists of two very long and drawn out conversations which didn’t do anything to further the plot. It took thirty minutes for any blood to be spilled, and even then it felt like a tacked on spectacle.
The film opens with Celine (Eve Pearson), a noblewoman, and her husband travelling in their carriage. Their carriage is soon hijacked by John Cross (Matthew Neal), a British soldier who has gone awol. After he kills her husband, he decides to use Celine’s carriage to travel through the battlefield without being noticed. Through flashbacks, he tells her of a mysterious plague that took over everyone around him.
John Cross is the typical jaded hero who has “seen some shit”. With such a typical character comes equally typical, uninspired dialogue—a fact only made worse by Neal’s complete lack of personality on screen. There is no desire to feel sorry for or even relate to him. He does nothing in the film that could be considered heroic. Celine’s character didn’t have much going with her either. Unnecessary flashbacks of her past were thrown in even though they added nothing substantial to the film. Everyone else simply felt like a side character randomly tossed in to advance the plot. They could have used that screen time for more zombie killing!
Shot wise, the film looked like a huge mess. The shaky cams used during the battle scenes were ineffective and annoying, making it hard to tell what was going on. The flashbacks in general were messy, with the transitions in between so flashy that they took away from the scenes taking place. However, for a small budget, their costumes and sets were pretty impressive. Seeing as how the co-writer, Bill Thomas, worked in props for the Harry Potter films, this wasn’t surprising at all. The cinematography was nicely done, especially in the French prison scenes, where it actually felt scary and suspenseful.
Unfortunately, the low budget was especially prevalent when it came to actually witnessing any zombies. The few zombies that came on screen were decently done and looked scary, but they were so rare that it was hard to get excited about. Nearing the end of the film, the audience sees that the French are building this huge super-zombie, but even that is only used in one scene. It felt like all of the excitement and anticipation leading up to this huge bloody brawl was shut down.
By the end of the film, it felt like Fallen Soldiers might have done better as a short rather than a feature. There were a few decent scenes, but it felt like the director was filling up the time slot by dragging it out too much. By doing so, they made possibly the least zombie-populated zombie film ever.
Categorized:Reviews
