Wasting Away (2007)

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

When a group of friends are accidentally exposed to a strange virus from their beer-laced ice cream at a bowling alley, they quickly realize their superhuman strength and invulnerability makes it perfect for them to battle the hordes of infected people running around town, but a secret soon turns their world upside down.An ingenious new zombie comedy, which manages to invert the usual theme of the zombies being hunted down by the humans who are the main focus of the film to instead have it be about the zombies, who think they've acquired super-powers and treat the normal humans as the infected ones all along, and by switching it between black-and-white for the zombie view-point and a colorized look for the regular world viewpoint. Feels really unique and rather clever, intertwining the two stories together rather than separate films. Not really all that impressive in the gore department or zombie make-up areas, but there's a huge boatload of humor to go along with some gags so that it's not a total waste.Rated R: Violence, Language and mild drug use

I saw this film as part of the Another Hole in the Head Film Festival in San Francisco. It was not only the best film I saw at the festival that year, it was the best I've ever seen at that festival! This was definitely a Zom-com, like Shaun of The Dead and Fido, only much lower budget. It manages to take a unique perspective in an extremely well explored genre. The visual effects really enhance the storytelling, which is not something I could say about most zombie flicks. While it's true that many of the visual gags, and just about all of the characters were zombie movie clichés, I was left with the impression that this was intentional. The film maker seemed to be riffing on stereotypical zombie movie attributes, and using them to create a movie that is both original and, pays homage to the great zombie films that went before it. I don't always go into indie film festival expecting original ideas and solid storytelling, but this flick set the bar pretty high! I think this is what George Romero's Diary of the Dead wishes it was!

In any sub-genre of films, the zombie genre gets as much flack, or more, than any other sub-genre. At times it feels like these film-makers really are running out of ideas. But every once in a while you're given a breath of fresh air in a seemingly moldy genre. As with Colin (2008), what we have here is a flick that easily exceeded any expectations I had of it. The only expectations I had were that I hoped it wouldn't suck. And it most definitely did not.Wasting Away is a zomedy...do people say that? Zomedy? Is that frowned on? Or should I say Zom/Com? I'm gonna go with zomedy for now...then again, maybe I'll go with combie. Or maybe...I'll just switch it up and use all three. Yeah, that's what's gonna do down. So Wasting Away is a low-budget combie that in my opinion delivered a pretty damn satisfying flick. Our story revolves around a group of pals, two girls/two guys and one failed secret super soldier serum. To get a bit more specific the military, after failing with a super-soldier experiment attempted to dispose of this glowing green formula. Of course, along the way the truck on route to dispose of the stuff crashes and some of this toxic waste stuff gets into a carton of milk that one of our lead characters dumps into his soft-serve beer flavored ice-cream machine. And poof, after a little taste taste they're now, oblivious to them, zombies.Wasting Away is a zomedy that had a great idea at it's core. Throughout most of the running time our characters have no idea they are zombies, and this leads to some genuine comedic moments. You're given perspectives from their point of view (shot in color), and perspectives from the non-infected point of view (in black and white), and this is where the movie thrives. As they walk around thinking they're acting totally normal, the style will switch to black and white, and a normal dude taking a whiz behind a dumpster will look up and see a bunch of zombies shuffling towards him. Then it'll switch back to their perspective again as they're walking normally to the guy taking a whiz, and they're trying to ask him a question. Again, switch back to the guy taking a whiz, and it just appears to be zombies making zombie gestures. May not sound that funny or fresh, but it totally is.This zom/com without a doubt suckered me into it's fun style, but this combie ain't perfect by any means. Out of the five main characters, there are only two with any above average acting chops, but with a decent script, it wasn't that big of an issue for me. Unfortunately the flick is also full of bullet sized plot-holes. They're the type of plot-holes you could fill with a silly and dumb idea, but they're there nonetheless, and they do make you roll your eyes, but overall they weren't that annoying. Without a doubt my biggest issue, surprisingly enough, relates to their unique back and forth perspective. I really enjoyed this aspect to the film, but it was no way used enough, and at times not used correctly. The point of using this was to create silly scenes of these zombies doing human activities. But they only truly capitalized on this a couple of times, when they had numerous occasions to do so. Why wasn't there a switch during the bowling scene? Why wasn't there a switch when the kid was trying to talk to the parents? Why didn't they show them talking to any drunk people? I can go on and on with missed opportunities. But I suppose they did a good enough job there, as we did see zombies celebrating, making out, and even attempting to serve food in a inconspicuous manner. And I can only gather that it was either budget reasons, or just poor editing room decisions to why there wasn't more zombie silliness.Jeez, I'm doing some rambling here. So let's wrap this bad boy up shall we? Wasting Away is without a doubt a moan of fresh zombie breath in a sub-genre that feels like it's becoming zombified. This is one combie that delivered much more than I thought it would, and also, now this is the make or break moment for my comment...it's a much better film than Zombieland. If you like zombies, and like comedies, and/or a mixture of the two, and of course don't mind low-budget flicks, then you should definitely give this one a chance.

I found Wasting Away on the shelves of Fopp recently after its Region 2 release here in the UK. I didn't buy it the first time I saw it because I find myself in a permanent state of skintness and therefore have difficulty justifying buying DVDs. However, packaging can be a powerful thing and the DVD cover for 'Wasting Away' looked great, had an intriguing synopsis and some positive reviews, so finally after watching the trailer (and, admittedly, after checking to see if the film was available online, which it wasn't) I bought it on DVD for a very reasonable £10, which is still the most I've spent on a DVD for about 2 years.To cut to the chase it was worth every penny, and probably more. This is an independent film from California, with a fairly low budget of $1m, but it's nearly impossibly to tell this from the finished product, which is bright, ballsy and polished. Presumably the filmmakers must have had to cut corners to keep within their meagre budget but it's hard to see where they did so and this look of the film easily competes with higher-budget studio fare.'Wasting Away' fits neatly into the "romzomcom" genre pioneered by 'Shaun of the Dead', but I hasten to add that 'Wasting Away' is not 'Shaun of the Dead', and is not trying to be. Four twenty-somethings spending time in the bowling alley where Tim (Michael Terry) works are unfortunate enough to eat soft-serve ice-cream composed of beer and the toxic waste from a military experiment gone wrong, subsequently die, and wake up as zombies. Except they don't know it. Their confusion is quickly compounded by an encounter with Nick Steele (Colby French), who has also been zombified but insists that they have all been transformed into 'supersoldiers' whilst everyone else in the city has been infected by an inferior brand of the same chemical (in fact, no one else has been affected).Director Matthew Kohnen bravely tackles the zombie perspective and all the problems that come along with it (sample problem: if living human beings see zombies, as slow, lurching and groaning, how do zombies see us?) and clearly has a lot of fun doing so. The plot races along fast enough that the audience is never bored, but well-paced enough that we have time to get to know the characters and meditate on the ridiculous situation they are in. The dialogue is rife with humour and the actors sell it perfectly. Honourable mentions should go to Colby French, whose hard-nosed, sincere performance as "black ops" soldier Nick Steele is played straight rather than camped up and wouldn't be out of place in any Romero zombie film, and Matthew Davis, who delivers every line handled too him perfectly and never fails to bring the humour out of it.Before I get too carried away I should point out that this film isn't perfect. At times it is laugh-out loud funny but at others the humour falls flat, or is just a little bit lame. Also, while the acting is mainly strong, particularly in French and Davis' performances, in other places it is weak or wooden. Some of the plot points feel a little contrived and the humour is occasionally too juvenile to be genuinely funny. But at the end of the day, these flaws are not only eclipsed by the positives, they even add to the film somewhat, making it more likable because of its imperfections.This is a strong directorial debut from Matthew Kohnen, a filmmaker whose other credits seem to mainly consist of clerical or technical jobs, and I will certainly be looking out for more of his work. 'Wasting Away' stands out amidst the boggy mire that is modern horror cinema, a diamond in the mud of tired remakes and boring sequels that is all Hollywood seems capable of producing. It's refreshing, original, gleefully gross and most of all, it's fun. It's fun to watch and it looks like it was fun to make. The only thing that particularly disappoints me is the marketing failure. As far as I'm aware, 'Wasting Away' did not get a theatrical release over here and were it not for Fopp and their avid promotion of smaller independent films I would probably ever have heard of it. So watch it, enjoy it, and pass it on to ensure it gets the recognition it deserves.I leave you with a quote from the film's theme song, which pretty much says it all: "You know your day will suck when the dead start walking the streets, And their only source of nourishment is Human meat."