Rammbock: Berlin Undead (2010)
When lovelorn Michael arrives in Berlin to return a set of keys to his ex-girlfriend, Gabi, as an excuse to see her again, he finds her apartment empty save for a couple of plumbers making repairs to the central heating. Just as Michael learns from the plumber’s apprentice, Harper, that Gabi has popped out for a while but will return soon, the apprentice is attacked by his boss who has unexpectedly and inexplicably transformed into a raging madman. Together, Michael and Harper manage to bundle the crazed plumber out of the apartment and barricade themselves safely inside. Within minutes, they find themselves trapped in apartment block under siege from a horde of similarly insane people, apparently hungry for human flesh.
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Why so much hype?
The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Rammbock otherwise known as Berlin Dead and Siege Of The Dead is a German zombie movie which tells the very generic story of the beginning of a zombie outbreak but does it competently enough to be passable.It follows two strangers who are forced to barricade themselves inside a block of flats and try to survive. Basically your usual tropes so don't expect anything original here.It plays the realistic angle and reminded me of the 28 Days Later (2002) movies despite these actually being zombies.It looks okay, the characters are passable but it's so unoriginal it made my balls rattle. It really is paint by numbers stuff so if you like generic zombie films this may very well be what you're looking for. Sadly after countless zombie epics including the more recent Train To Busan (2016) and Wyrmwood (2014) I do find myself expecting more.The Good:Realistic approachGenerally passable stuffThe Bad:No originality at allLead bounces from annoying to patheticThings I Learnt From This Movie:Bent fork heads don't make the best projectilesFork desecration is a womans primary concern during a zombie apocalypse
My God! Sorry... German flick... Mein Gott! Let me preface this by stating I love zombie movies, and have been watching them since the 70's, so I've seen my share of them. Except for - of course - Warm Bodies, this is the first time I ever rooted for the zombies. By 20 minutes in, I was begging the Z's to put this film out of it's misery and pleeeeeease kill off the wholly unlikeable main character. It was purely morbid curiosity that kept me around for the end of this stinker. I did not check the spoiler alert box, so I will not give specifics, but I will say the ending left me shaking my head and asking, "Seriously? Are you kidding me?" Watch this movie only if you have two hours of your life you wouldn't rather spend, I don't know... painting the hall closet? getting a root canal?
This is another basic zombie movie that follows the usual pattern of a viral epidemic which breaks out in a major city. In this case, Berlin. It's rather short (approximately 59 minutes) which I think is a negative factor because, even though it was a low-budget film, it was pretty enjoyable and I would have liked to have seen a bit more of it. The acting was decent and the storyline was about as realistic as any movie of this type could be. I also liked the fact that it introduced two new ideas which I thought have merit and are worth mentioning. First, the use of bright flashes of light which cause the zombies to temporarily retreat was quite interesting. Likewise, the use of sedatives to slow down the virus in an infected person was also very original. In summation, for such a low-budget film this was surprisingly good. Again though, I believe it would have been better if it were 20 to 30 minutes longer. Hopefully a sequel is in the works.
I always thought that a low budget zombie movie should be a lot better than the big block busters. Maybe set in my home country of Romania, where guns are rarely allowed and even cops don't carry them much, the story would gain a lot of power and the ingenuity of the people would be brought into view.Rammbock is exactly the kind of film I was thinking about: set in Berlin, the Eastern side I guess, with extraordinarily ordinary people getting caught by the zombie epidemic in a banal building block. Complex story, a few people, authentic reactions.I am sure the makers of the movie realized that the true force of the movie is in the obvious of the lowbudgetness, and so they didn't even conform to the length standards of regular movies: it all lasts just an hour, more akin to an episode of something.Bottom line: it is hard to identify with any of the people in the film, simply because they are so ordinary and like normal persons that we refuse to. I watched the movie with English dubbing, which I hated, but I couldn't find the German version. The zombie story was not developed in any way: we don't know how it happened, why or how to stop it. In the end, the true lead character is the story. I liked the film and I would recommend it to viewers of zombie movies.