13 Eerie (2013)

Too much of everything

Simply Perfect

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

A group of university students go on a field exam unbeknownst that the island was previously used for biological experiments on life-term prisoners.Lowell Dean director of the recent excellent 1980s throwback WolfCop, made his feature film debut with this little spin on the zombie genre. 13 Eerie is packed with nicely executed gross out effects, chewed off figures, exploding heads, torn neck flesh bites and like. While the cast are effective enough it's really Nick Moran's stone head Larry character and Katharine Isabelle as Megan that run the show and leave an impression. The set up mirrors Head Hunters as a group of FBI students go to a secluded island, only here it's a group of six forensic undergrads who examine set up crime scenes with real bodies from the morgue.The film benefits from an on location shoot, much of it at dusk, as the cadavers come back to life which gives it that required eerie (no pun intended) atmosphere. The score works best when it has the base and beats of the likes of Carpenter and Frizzi. The makeup and special effects are great, Dean offers some moments reminiscent of the music video Thriller as the infected burst through the floorboards and Fulici's Zombi with an extreme eye splinter scene, there's plenty of zombie-like homages as it comes to an action setup closing.It's a fine debut for the young director Dean with a novel staging for a virus zombie-like flick helping it avoid the usual cliché pitfalls.

Aided by legendary filmmaker Roger Christian (one of nearly a dozen producers or exec-producers assigned to this film), newbie director Lowell Dean has made a fairly good Canadian rage virus thriller out of this film. The title comes from a rural state penitentiary that used to house life-term inmates who were then experimented upon. Cut a few decades ahead to the present and it's the site of a field examination for six forensic undergraduate students, assembled to study prepares cadavers on the property to graduate the class and gain a coveted FBI position. With a dozen cadavers placed around the site for the three teams of two students each to investigate seems fine enough, until a few additional cadavers, dressed all in inmate orange, turn up – and then get up and attack with extreme prejudice – when all hell breaks loose. The cast, including such Canadian horror regulars as American MARY's Katherine Isabel and her fellow GINGER SNAPS 2 & 3 co-star Brendan Fletcher, does an excellent job, lending credibility to the characters and fluency to the story action. Makeup effects are pretty good and there's a workable score by Igor Vabrac and Ken Worth (the latter noted for Canadian TV series like GHOST TRACKERS and John Woo's ONCE A THIEF). Director Dean, mentored to one extent or another by Christian (see DVD Extras for some details on that) has a good sense of camera placement and movement and along with his cast gives the otherwise routine rage zombie story a satisfying value-added visual dimension.

Now it is not the worst pile of cheap filmmaking in the world nor is the the best by a long shot. Why do film makers of zombie movies insist on making the people in it do stupid things no normal person would do. This is what annoys me most about movies like this. They insist on not taking any cars out and they came on a boat but never think of getting out on it. They constantly run into dark old flimsy buildings. Shoot them in the head one of the girls explained. Next scene guy shoots zombie in shoulder. Doh! I am writing a zombie movie as a book at the moment and am eliminating the idiot plots most movies have. Anyone who directs and wants to work on a decent storyline. Give me a bell. B

Six forensic undergrad students agree to a competition that could land one of them in a training position with the FBI. They arrive on a remote island and are suppose to find planted bodies and collect evidence. Unfortunately for them this site was used as a biological testing ground on life-term prisoners. These burnt looking cadavers are among them and very much alive with revenge in mind. The relentless ex-inmates attack and devour a few students in gruesome fashion and they soon come back to life as the undead. What you have in this Canadian production is a semi-clever twist on the Zombie attack film. The isolation is there and the victims are made to fight for their lives. The good news is, Director Lowell Dean builds suspense well and delivers with some inspired and at times gory deaths. Katharine Isabelle is solid in the lead role and some great looking zombies deliver the goods. Fast paced and never boring, 13 Eerie will manage a few good scares and solid Zombie action and mayhem.