Lessons in the Undead Afterlife – Automaton Transfusion Vs To Kako (Evil)

In about 1982, Stephen King was quoted on a very cool, Grindhouse-like cover for the rental video of The Evil Dead. He said (paraphrased) "...the most ferociously original horror movie of the year..."

His gushing quote was not entirely true; clearly The Evil Dead was not original but it executed the old chestnut of “kids in trouble in a cabin in the woods” in an innovative way. So, when I spent my $3.80 on a rental I certainly didn't feel short-changed. It was a roller coaster of blood and guts that set new standards for the genre.

Let’s return to the present and look at Dimension Extreme's cover for Automaton Transfusion. An awesome cover! A quote by a famous horror movie website (absent on our illustration) that backs up the idea that this is going to be a different movie to the seemingly endless horde of "hey, let's make a zombie film today!" style of movies. The trouble with the genre is that every budding filmmaker thinks that they can get somewhere by getting together a bunch of extras, apply some dodgy make-up and shake the camera a bit. Automaton Transfusion is not as bad as all that but it's the Dad of student films. It at least looks like one, although the make up effects are good. But, you could get Tom Savini himself on board and his creations could still look like dog-s**t if they're not lit well. Money doesn’t always solve creative issues if the creativity isn’t there to begin with.

Automaton Transfusion looks like a student movie made by and starring students. Whenever there is a group of zombies chasing the protagonists, the group consists of no one over 26. The first part of the movie is set at...you guessed it, a high school. Making it worse, the soundtrack is "nu-metal". I'm no old fuddy duddy, I like metal but I'm bored of hearing it in low/no budget zombie movies. The perception of being a student film is confirmed yet again.

There's a back story about how the army were running tests on reanimation, in the 70s, and now a blunder has let loose the "virus". And yes, the zombies run. Yawwwwn. That 28 Days Later has a lot to answer for. And that's it, what the film doesn't rip off other efforts like Undead, it does very badly. An example is; a ludicrous scene in which some guys in a car are driving towards the city. There's no one on the road. One of the characters makes sure that we know it's supposed to be rush hour. (like that matters or even makes much difference to highway traffic on approach to a city). They carry on. They park outside the bar that is their destination, and then hang around nervous around the car. There are brief snatches of youths running. Then, suddenly, the zombies are almost on top of them. Where from? Like the T-Rex in the first Jurassic Park’s finale, maybe they managed to approach in stealth mode. So, the group get into the premises, with a whole high school of zombies on their tale. One of the protagonists looks for something, smashes a bar stool and puts a wooden chair leg through the metal handles whilst 50 zombies batter the door. I was waiting for the joke, that I thought had been set up. I expected the miniscule defence to break and the zombies to storm the bar. Nope, it held. Now, I can suspend my disbelief, sure, but not this far. The funny thing is that despite the fact that 50 or so zombies can't break down a door; one earlier ripped the jaw from a girl. Consistency does not rate highly in the filmmakers eyes. It does in the actors, they're all p***-poor.

I hate to be so negative about a movie, especially an indie movie, but this one's creators have such lofty ideals. In interview, the director likens the experience of shooting the movie to that of Messrs Raimi, Campbell and Tapert in The Evil Dead. AT doesn't deserve to be compared to The Evil Dead in any way. Whilst the director shows some promise using what resources he has with the miniscule budget, it can't take away the responsibility for a badly conceived, badly put together movie. The exposition crammed into the last ten minutes and a very dodgy "cliffhanger" just made me want to switch the TV off at last. It was shot in 9 days and it shows. If the director knows the Evil Dead production so well, he should note that the movie took years to make while they gathered funding through investors. My advice is wait and get the best shoot possible, don’t rush the movie. I really hoped that there wouldn’t be a sequel. Unfortunately, 'Automaton Transfusion: Contingency' has been announced. You'd think they'd drop the bl**dy silly title at least. Maybe they'll get to shoot the sequel in 18 days. Or 28....

Both movies have a short synopsis. There's not a great deal of story in Evil. It doesn't matter because it does what it sets out to do. An unseen evil force troubles a group of workers underground. After, they go back to their respective everyday lives but we begin to see a change happen to them. Like patient zeros they manifest a rage like viral symptoms and start feeding on people that spreads the virus. It just so happens that it reanimates the dead. So, we follow a group of survivors who have the dead on their backs every step of their journey.

It's gory, tense, and funny. Ok, the actual makeup on the living dead is almost non-existent but that's not to say there isn't some good death effects.

The direction and cinematography wasn't great but it was very inventive. At times, a split screen process was used that I instantly made me think of 24. There is a certain quality to the movie which makes it seem like a parody.

The initial outbreak is handled very well, especially a scene with one of the victims at a football match. We get a great shot of the guy munching on his fellow football fans, and then see the fallout from this in the crowd. The chaos spreads throughout the people there. It reminded me of the outbreak stories told in the film 28 Days Later, but we are not witness to.

It’s not difficult to figure out which film I preferred. I’d like to seem more films like Evil and less like Automaton Transfusion. It’s also easy to see that the creativity is coming from foreign filmmakers and not US or UK based filmmakers.

(Wayfarer)

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