As ice and snow grips the deep south tonight, I offer up a little diversion
from the weather, a break from my normal fare… A Chloe Review!
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| "State of Emergency" (2011) |
So, as you snuggle down for a little horror movie goodness, know I have
added another 250 words to my “Lion & Steed” novel due March 15 and have
continued to edit Chapter One down to the finest storytelling I can muster. My
short story for Carina Press actually has words attached to the basic storyline
I outlined for you this morning. Not many words, I grant you, but a writer’s
got to start somewhere.
Now, without further ado, the Chloe Review for “State of Emergency”…
The Particulars… “State of
Emergency” was filmed in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. The horror movie was released
in 2011. The budget was $1.3 million (and where all this money went I’d really
like to know).
The Chloe Blurb… When a
chemical plant explodes in a rural county, the majority of the citizens are
turned into zombie-like creatures. This is the story of a lucky few who survive
the toxic cloud unchanged but are trapped in the quarantined county. Alive but
hunted, they wait for help that might never come.
The Players… The actors, in
general, were fine. While the characters never seemed to make that close
connection the movie’s plot really needed, this was due more to a tiresome,
clichéd dialogue than to the actors’ abilities. I particularly liked Tori White
(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1979997/?ref_=tt_cl_t3
as the teenager. While her character spent most of the movie unlikeable, White
still managed to sparkle through all of the teenager’s contrived angst. Side
Note: Did anyone else think Jay Hayden (“Jim”) looked a lot like a very young
Richard Gere?
On the Plot… While the
storyline is pulled right off of the shelf of stockpiled zombie plots every
studio must have, I went into this movie hoping for some quite a twist. Living
dead movies are basically all the same, but I like watching them to see what
the writers come up with to make their story memorable, unique. The writers
drew blanks on this one though. Nothing new. Nothing memorable. And the
dialogue… have I mentioned how trite, how mundane, how thoroughly expected
every single word was in the movie? Oh well, at least it went well with the
tired plot.
Plot Holes, Miscues and the
Like… Spoilers lurk here. Read this list of WTF questions at your own risk.
You have been warned.
-When they heard the
helicopters fly over the warehouse, why didn’t they go to the roof to try to
flag them down? They had already been up there, and it sure as heck would be a
lot safer than running out the front door and waving their arms.
-How freaking big was
this county? With all those helicopters and the supposed troops in them, that
rural county had to have been cleared in a few days, not over the week it took.
Remember, the closest drug store was across the county, not a thriving
metropolis nearby then.
-If Jim was cleared of
being infected and about to be let go, why was he shackled to the chair like a
dangerous criminal at the end?
-Why was the older
woman looking for her daughter able to talk and interact normally, while all
the other infected could do no more than grunt?
-What was the point of
the wife character? She did nothing except offer water to her guests and open a
few cans of food. She had no chemistry with her husband, Scott. They acted more
like general acquaintances than lovers.
-So how did Jim and his wife end up in that
car accident that we are to assume killed her at the beginning of the movie?
-The sirens went off
when the plant exploded and then what? It would take quite a while for airborne
chemicals to spread to everyone in a county so large. What did the people do in
the meantime? Knit?
-Why would the
military shut down all phones going out of the county? Wouldn’t it make more
sense if the people who survived were able to call for help to more than their
neighbor in the barn? And if they didn’t want the county’s residents talking to
the media, couldn’t they just monitor the calls? There were only a handful of
survivors, it couldn’t be that hard.
-Why would the toxic chemicals
only spread to the county line but not drift over? I know I’d hate to have been
living just over that county line.
With these haunting questions I leave you.
Until tomorrow…
Chloe
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