Last of the Living (2008) - Horror Zombie

Last of the Living (2008) - Writer Director, Producer, Best Boy, hell just about everything in this low budget New Zealand zombie flick was done by Logan McMillan. Its existence is because this guy had a vision and worked really hard to make it happen. It is a story about three guys, Morgan (Morgan Williams), Ash (Ashleigh Southam) and Johnny (Robert Faith) after the world has ended in a zombie apocalypse, as we all know it eventually will. They are just surviving, gathering food, killing zombies for fun and generally not getting on in a world without purpose. It would have probably stayed that way but for the chance that they ran across a guy (Mark Hadlow) and his daughter Steph (Emily Paddon-Brown). These two have a cure for the zombie virus, but in the meeting the three morons break the last vile and Dad is bitten by zombies. So the three must go with Steph to a hospital to make a new sample. I was about ready to give up on this film before this. It was very Small scale low budget with stationary footage that took place for no particular reason. Little in the way of character development had been done and to this point the plot was nonexistent. So now we had a plot but the execution was just awful. The one foreshadowed event was Johnny's berserker fighting move and it was pretty lame too.

They get to the hospital but before the sample is finished being spun the power goes out in the building. This sets up two things, Morgan and Ash heading down to the cellar to get a generator going and Johnny and Steph upstairs, while all the security locked doors come open and the zombies get in. They finish and fight their way out while Morgan and Ash resolve some pent up feelings in some of the most poorly constructed dialog I have seen in a movie. Still they all make it outside and only Johnny is bitten so onward to the berserker so the other three can escape. They head to the airport with Steph now bitten. They have to get to Stewart Island before she changes into a zombie. Suddenly also there are new zombies with red eyes who are fast and chasing them. Whatever, this movie was bad... an example they get to the plane and get in the air and the two guys go in back and take a nap. Yes with the pilot bitten and sure to turn into a red eyed zombie and they nap. Still they manage to get her out of the plane and then Ash manages to land it. Then the worst is that the whole story is for not as in the end they all fail even though they make it to the Island. WTF!!!

The movie is just pointless and hard to watch. All the camera work is reduced fields of sight like there was just one camera and a tripod or handheld. The plot goes nowhere fast and then when it gets a purpose the character interaction does not fit the situations. They introduce a new zombie type for plot convenience with no explanation. None of the characters is more than a outline and then the ending is a downer. So besides the credit a independent film maker gets for getting a project done, Last of the living gets a poor score here.

Rating (2.6) 5.0 and higher are recommended, in the Zombiegrrlz rating system I would say Skip It!