.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

Low budget horror misses the mark far more times that it hits the target. It's not their fault really. They have almost everything going against them. They don't have budgets for the 'big payoff kills'. They don't have money to hire (usually) an ensemble that can act worth a lick. And the production values remind us too much of those dumb-ass video's the student council put together in your senior year of high-school. In short, eight times out of ten, they simply suck.

Hey, I write movie reviews as a passion. I wish the above weren't true. I wish I could tell you that I can always watch a film done with a budget matching my credit card limit and come away seeing all the promise, ability and greatness to come for all those involved with the production. But truth be told, I am left with more disappointment maybe that most as my expectations are always to find that diamond in the rough and I'm always coming up with various types of coal.

Automation Transfusion was one of those films that came close to being that film. The plot is your basic zombie romp. A bunch of teens find themselves in a town where a government military experiment has gone awry and turned people into flesh eating zombies (thank God there is no other kind!). If the plot synopsis sounds familiar, you can refer to just about any and every other zombie film and you will find the same outline.

A group oh high school seniors will try and fight off the flesh craved undead while running through forests, barricaded saloons, house parties turned bloodfests and zombie invested city streets.

Ok, I'm with you so far. Doesn't sound like anything new. And when you sum up all the individual plot stops and predictable behaviour, you're not wrong. But what sets Automation Transfusion is how it doesn't try and be anything but a zombie film. It's a zombie film. It knows it's a zombie film and it seems content not to reinvent the wheel.

What it does instead is provides us with characters that were authentic. From their age (the characters all looked like they could be teenagers unlike most of the big budget horror films that try and squeeze 25+ year olds into 16 year old clothing), the way they spoke to each other, how they dressed, etc. It all had the look and feel of a movie about teenagers made by teenagers and I appreciated the simplicity in the objective.

Then there's the gore factor and this is where Automation Transfusion turned on the jets. Before even the five minute mark we see someone getting folded in half and eaten and that just starts the blood rampage. Zombies can only do so much in their infantile state, but here, they do it good. It's been a long time since I have seen an unborn child ripped out of an expected mother's stomach and then eaten and I was as nostalgic as I was repulsed.

By the time the group of students gets whittled down to just a few survivors you will have seen more blood than Los Angeles ER after a night of looting. And that's a good thing. Shot in only nine days, writer director Stephen Miller does the best with what he has and gets the most out of what he got. The make-up effects were above average and the actors were not asked to do more than just run around and react to their surroundings.

The only drawback was with the grainy images of the shoot. It was like a Canadian after school special circa 1977. And the hurky jerky camera movements at times made Cloverfield look like it was shot by the directors of Two and a Half Men.

Automation Transformation might not be the diamond I was looking for, but it was a fun, gory and memorable trip down an all too familiar plot.