ericrnolan When it's "April Apocalypse" (2013). Don't let that dissuade you from watching it, though, because despite being a derivative zombie movie, it's still quite good. (THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS.)To be honest, it actually borrows more heavily from "Zombieland" (2009), with its tone and narrative style. But … I actually think I like this more than "Zombieland," because the humor of that popular movie often fell flat with me, and I walked away feeling that it was a little overrated."April Apocalypse" actually has a smart, funny script, with a likable kid as a protagonist (capably played by Reece Thompson, who reminds me a little of Ryan Reynolds). There are a lot of genuine laughs, depending on off-beat, quirky characters and dry line delivery. The family scenes are extremely funny — who would have thought that the prison rapist from "The Shawshank Redemption" (Mark Rolston) could be a hilarious dysfunctional Dad? I'd give this movie an 8 out of 10, and I cheerfully recommend it to fans of the genre.I … don't always respond so well to horror-comedies, so some of the truly black humor was a turn-off for me. We see a church full of desperate people perish in a manner that is supposed to be funny; one character dryly shrugs them off as expendable "Jesus Freaks." If you ask me, that's disturbing, not funny. Ask yourself this, secular friends — what if the script was different, and those sacrificed (in grisly fashion) were attendants at an American Atheist Convention? Most of my close friends who enjoy "The Walking Dead" as much as I do are also Christian. Which makes this joke, at the very least … icky, in my opinion.We also see a running gag that I've seen pop up from time to time in zombie films and fiction. Otherwise good-natured characters gleefully enjoy killing the zombie versions of people who they disliked when they were alive. That's some pretty dark humor, and maybe it's transparently pathological. I like survival stories of people coming together to fight an insurmountable threat — not murder-by-proxy jokes.Finally, I would have gone with a different ending. I won't say more because I don't want to make this post too spoiler-heavy.Anyway, sorry to over-analyze and be a grumpy old man. Do give this film a chance and watch it. It was surprisingly good and made me laugh a lot.

metalrage666 I knew nothing about April Apocalypse before picking this up cheaply, and zombie movies can generally be a lot of fun, but this just had me regretting the moment I came across this and the time I wasted sitting through it.Movie starts off with a guy and a girl, (Artie and April), running in slow motion through a field being chased by a horde of zombies. There's a voice over by Artie which then propels us back in time a few years and a montage of the history between this couple.We then flash forward to the 2 of them turning up at a high school graduation after party and April has plans to break up with her boyfriend. Said break up does not go well. The douche bag boyfriend takes back his letterman jacket, punches Artie in the face who then finds out that April is moving away.Flash forward 3 years and Artie lives at home in the basement and runs a late night radio call-in show which no one listens to and the only calls he gets are crank calls from his younger brother or his mother to ask if he wants salad with his dinner. This is supposed to be funny I guess.His father sees him as a lost cause and even though he's only 21, his father thinks he's 31 and that April has been out of his life for 10 years instead of 3 and he should be over it by now. His mother is equally non-supportive and rather than just talk to him and encourage him like parents should, Artie instead gets the typical American universal fix-all to everything - therapy with lots and lots of medication. This is supposed to be funny too I guess.Unsurprisingly it turns out that Artie has no real problems except that he misses the girl he's in love with and just needs some direction, but his doctor/psychiatrist played by George Lopez of all people says his fine, but here take these experimental purple pills twice a day anyway and they'll fix up whatever is not wrong with you, sheesh!From there these pep pills give Artie new found vigour and he sets off to find April based on a postcard he got from her a couple of years ago. He takes his grandfathers car and heads off, but a zombie that came out of nowhere makes him run off the road and into a tree. Artie wakes up dazed, and he starts to make his way back home. The car radio talks about a virus sweeping the world, so zombies are the result.Artie quickly learns about the zombie outbreak once he gets home. His family has disappeared and after killing a few zombies that were in his house and getting bitten on the hand he sets off again in another car to find April. Somehow the pills he was given are staving off his zombification and he meets people here and there on his quest for his girlfriend, all of whom end up getting killed.Artie finally gets to Aprils house, rescues her and they make their way to one of the refuge shelters on the edge of town where he runs into his family. The refuge is just a large barn full of ill-prepared people and therefore nothing more than a zombie smörgåsbord. It gets overrun and everyone is killed. Artie gets bitten again and as he had run out of pills, turns into a zombie only to be killed by April. For a zombie movie, even one with a limited budget as this, it's a very poor effort. This is supposed to be a horror-comedy of sorts but I found nothing to laugh at as it's too stupid. It might be OK for a look if it's on late at night and you can't sleep but there's no reason to go out of your way for this one.

Psy-Ko It's a zombie movie, it's a love story, its a coming of age comedy. What it really was though is just a fun movie. Seems like people these days watch movies just to pick them apart. I just want to be entertained and this one entertained me. Yes the characters were cliché but that was part of it's charm. It reminded me of an 80's movie where there was always the main kind of geeky guy who finds himself and gets the girl, the hot girl who finally realizes the geeky guy is her soul-mate, the jock who gets his in the end and of course the stoner for comedic relief.Speaking of comedic relief, there was a perfect balance of it which is something that's hard to do. Production values were decent but it is a lower budget movie so don't expect spectacular kills or special effects that will blow you away. Luckily that's not the focus of the movie, the story is, imagine that. I wasn't a big fan of the ending on this, seemed that the rest of the movie was so clichéd that it should have had the clichéd happy ending. I'd actually like to see them re-shoot a different ending and re-release it. Even ending with the two of them fighting off zombies would have been cool (and left it open for a sequel) But overall I liked it, I'd give it 7 out of 10 stars, it kept me entertained and made me feel for the characters, gave me a few laughs, what more could I ask for? May not be one you want to add to your movie collection but definitely worth a one time watch.

Jerom Thrower I was so close to loving this movie regardless of its many flaws. The one thing I needed was a cheesy ending to fit its cheesy plot line. I mean that's why we watch movies like this right?So there's Artie who's pretty much wasted his life even though there were so many things going for him: he seemed like a smart guy, girls at school like him - including Sarah Hyland, his mum and grandfather seem to care for him. But regardless of all of this he seemed to have confidence issues which he resolves through the duration of this movie. But to what end? Go and see..It pretty much revolves around this guy who's only problem, from what I can tell, is that he's one huge bitch. I get that, it happens to guys. But why him? The shittyness of his life just didn't sell to me. If he had a drunken, abusive father or his girlfriend cheated on him, then sure it would be more believable. But none of that happened.OK so there's the zombie apocalypse. Yes that is a downer. But he had his issues before that and in fact it was probably the best thing that happened to him. Honestly, he really didn't have it that bad.But anyway, I was ready to excuse all these flaws. I was in the mood for cheese, I took it out of the fridge, put it in my mouth and was enjoying it. If it just had a nice after taste I'd have taken another bite. You may still like it though. I mean, quoting the grandfathers advice to Artie, "its the journey not the destination". So if your in the mood for a cheesy movie without the happy after taste, give this one a try..