Arena Of The Unwell: hard days shite.

Day of The Dead (2008).
Dir: Steve Miner.
Cast: Nick Cannon, Mena Suvari, Christa Campbell, Michael Welch, AnnaLynne McCord, Stark Sands, Matt Rippy, Ian McNeice, Robert Rais, Linda Marlowe and Ving Rhames.

Somewhere in sunny Colorado, a group of hot 'n' horny (but none nude) 'teens' are making out in an abandoned warehouse but when one of them develops a nosebleed and snotters a big red bogie on his dates chest they all decide to go home.

Annoyed at having her cleavage messed up, the slutty/punky one decides to walk home thru' the woods alone.

Yes, it's that clichéd.

Meanwhile bald badass mofo Captain Nick Rhodes (Rhames, undisputed king of the Romero remake) and his tiny second in command Sarah (Mena "My illustrious career" Suvari) are trying to stop folk leaving town, Rhodes by shouting "Halt mutha fuckah" at everyone and Sarah by smiling wetly and pointing them in the direction of the hospital.

You see, it appears that a scary nosebleed virus has hit and the army are trying to contain it by putting up roadblocks, dishing out tissues and telling everyone to sit with their heads tilted back.

Peow! Peow!

Wise crackin' Private Salazar (Cannon) is drafted in to help his army buds - and from his performance, put back the quality of well written black characters by about 30 years - as is Private Bud Crane (Sands) a veggie geek with a crush on Sarah.

Turns out tho' that Sarah is more concerned about her ailing mum than helping folk get medical assistance so she decides to commandeer a jeep (with Bud along for the ride and a for a wee bit of character building chat) to head home and get her to the hospital.

On arrival she finds her big chinned brother Trevor (Welch) making out on the sofa with the interestingly haired (yet pointed faced) Nina (90210 star McCord). Yup that's right, they were two of those 'teens' at the films beginning (will the location of the deserted warehouse become important later?) and to top it all it seems that brother and sis have 'issues', which involves the pair huffing and tutting for five minutes whilst their mum coughs a lot in the upstairs bedroom.
Bud suggests that they should maybe deal with their anger issues later (right now it's the issues with this utterly shite script that need dealing with) and bundles everyone into the Jeep for the trip to the outpatients where they find an even grumpier Rhodes (and scarily an even more jive-talking Salazar) stomping about and cussing at the mob of ill people slumped in their seats holding hankies up to their noses.

AnnaLynne McCord's reaction to reading the script.

Without warning (and in an embarrassing frenzy of shite CGI and squelching noises) the nosebleed victims suddenly stop breathing, very quickly obtain joke show quality Halloween masks and transmute into zombies!

But not just any old zombies oh no, these beasts can 'run' really fast (thanks to cranking up the camera speed-a trick not seen since The Keystone Cops), drive cars, shoot guns and hang off the ceiling (in what looks like a tribute to the old Spectrum game Manic Miner if the FX are anything to go by) plus if that's not enough they even dissolve into crappy CG dust when killed!

We are so lucky to have this film aren't we?

Obviously it's all gets a wee bit fraught in the hospital what with all the zombies, Rhodes shouting "Mutha fuckah" at everyone (and everything), Sarah looking confused (as if Mena is thinking how the hell did I go from American Beauty to this) whilst Salazar does that hip-hop hand thing a lot and Bud just looks on in a daze (at least he doesn't have a career to ruin) so it's quite lucky when the mysterious Dr. Johnny Logan (Rippy - the other Captain Jack in Torchwood and a man I recognized as having once chatted to me about Pee Wee Herman when he was a member of The Reduced Shakespeare Company) promptly appears from nowhere and tells everyone to barricade themselves into a cupboard.

Unfortunately whilst frantically making space by throwing out all the boxes of Tip-Ex and the like Rhodes is overcome by a horde of the undead and bitten.

To death.

RRRRRRRRANGERS!

In a plot twist that I didn't see coming (a bit like your mum) the cupboard has a hole in the back that somehow leads to the cellar.

A cellar that bizarrely enough has windows.

Bravo set designer.

Catching her breath (but not a quick look at the reviews) Sarah remembers that Rhodes still has the car keys, so volunteers to lead everyone back into the cupboard in order to retrieve them.

Unfortunately Rhodes re-animates and bites Bud whilst in the confusion Logan steals a car and leaves them to it.

Don't worry too much tho' as luckily our hapless band - after a rather lackluster fight against the cast of Michael Jackson's Thriller video - manage escape in Rhodes Jeep.

Meanwhile Trev and Nina (remember them? - no me neither) have also escaped from the hospital and are currently dodging zombies, cars, good taste and the like whilst looking for a place to hide.

Tho' whether it's from the zombies or from their families after making this shite we're never told.

As luck would have it portly town DJ Paul Morley (Doctor Who star McNeice) is still broadcasting and being a nice man, lets them into the studio - on the condition that they're not zombies of course - where they also find the shot to fuck Mr and Mrs. Leitner (Rais and the lovely Campbell, star of 2001 Maniacs and Kraken amongst others) who seem to spend most of their time gazing longingly at each other whilst Mrs. L sits coughing on the sofa whilst shouting "It's not the virus it's my allergies!"

Hmmmm....

Laugh and indeed now.

As chaos and bad editing rage all around them, Sarah, Salazar and Bud drive to the nearest gun shop to get 'tooled up' (as I think the youngsters say) before thinking of a way to escape from town.

And hopefully their contracts.

Actually this film was enough to convince me.

Heading back to the car Sarah is hit by a double-whammy of a surprise.

Firstly she hears her brother broadcasting (well begging and whining like a small girl) for help from the radio station and then turns round to see that Bud has become a zombie.

It's a bit of good luck then that he was vegetarian when he was alive (see? it was important) because he's refusing to eat his pals and is content to sitting in the back of the Jeep making doe eyes at Sarah.

Aaaaahhh.....sweet.

Come to think of it tho' there's hardly enough meat on Mena Suvari to make it worth his while.

Must be the vegan diet.

Anyway, they rescue Trev and Nina (but not before Mrs. Leitner has gone loco and eaten her hubbie and Paul) and head towards the town border because it's a scientific fact that man made viruses can't cross city council lines.

The plan gets thrown to the wind tho' when a zombie headbutts the windscreen causing them to hit a tree.

There only hope of refuge now? the old abandoned building from the movies beginning.

See?

They don't just throw this crap together.

As it happens it turns out to be an old missile silo cum secret research lab - every town should have one - headed up by the enigmatic Logan who, it appears has been experimenting with a way of shutting down enemy combatants nervous systems (he should show them this shite, that'd work) but alas has accidentally made zombies instead.

The bad man.

"You chase me now!"

Will our brave band escape or will the zombies take over the world?

Honestly I really didn't care.

I mean c'mon, if everyone involved can't be arsed giving two fucks why should I?

The only intriguing thing about this whole mess (well I say intriguing but to be honest it's bloody disturbing) is why Steve Miner and his cronies would think that taking the title and character names from Romero's original and then bolting them onto a poverty row remake of Nightmare City would be a good idea seeing as, unfortunately it's nowhere near as entertaining as that Umberto Lenzi classic.

But then again how could it be?

Let's be real here for a moment, that movie was so shockingly inept it crossed that blurry line into genius whereas Day of the Dead is quite frankly the movie equivalent of weeping anal warts.