Doomed

The Details:
Director:Michael Su
Runtime:76 mins
Screen Format: 4 X 3
MPAA Rating: N/A
Parental Warning: Strong Language, Graphic Violence/Gore
Country: USA

The Review:
Nearly every time I sit down to write a new breview I get rather self–conscious and honestly a little nervous. I worry about my grammar, spelling, intro, body and conclusion. I worry about what I should focus on, what I should leave out, and what I want the end reader to "take home" with them after investing the time to read my literary effort...

But not this time. This time I'm not worried about a single thing. I am confident in knowing that I can casually spew out ANYTHING and it will have a superior thought process than Doomed.

Here's the script: Drop 10 criminals on an island. Divide them into 5 teams. Whatever team makes it to the other side of the island first gets a full pardon and a load of cash. And like, since they are crooks and murderers and stuffs they aren't going to be happy with each other at all! So it's going to be really dramatic and intense! And CRIPES, there are zommies on the island too!

Apparently, that's all this production crew thought they needed, and boy does it show. The dialog consists of characters swearing at each other. The action sequences consist of a few quick edits of some shaky handheld camera work. The zombies consist of some groaning and uninspired makeup. The gore consists of...um...a shot of a knife sticking out of someone's back. On top of it all, the editor attempts to hide the complete lack of EVERYTHING with flashy Mortal Kombat style point displays and cheesy ready-made video filters.


On that note, there are a couple of "visual effects" in Doomed that are so pathetically wonderful they MUST be mentioned...

Effect 1: At several points in the movie, the camera "commences infrared" to show what is happening in the dark. Only it is not infrared, it is actually night vision. There is a difference. Any 9 year old boy that plays with GI-Joes can tell you that. BUT...It isn't even actual night vision! It is only a green tint added to the regular daytime video footage! As retched as this is, it does provide for a hilarious scene where the actors are REALLY trying to look as if they are cautiously wandering through the "darkness."

Effect 2: Throughout the movie there are few little TV show style cut-scenes that detail the "progress" of the teams. During these clips, the host of the show comes in on a terribly rendered TV screen. For the most part this effect is forgivable because it looks like the rushed graphics you would see on your local nightly news. HOWEVER, at the end of the movie, this exact same TV screen drops from the ceiling as if it is actually REAL!!! Words can't explain this atrocity, so here's a little screen-grab to get the point across.

These particular moments are definitely of the "so bad they are good" type. Unfortunately, nearly everything else in Doomed is just flat-out bad in the worst way. The way that makes me wonder how people out there are getting paid to make garbage such as this, and I'm worried about how I'm going to pay my rent next month...*tear*

Don't get me wrong, I can understand that a low-budget movie such as this isn't going to have spectacular special effects. That's one of things that makes this genre so special! What I CANNOT understand is how people can throw a bunch of CG special effects into a movie that doesn't even need them. Doomed would have been infinitely better if the filmmakers would have put their effort into character development, cool zombies and practical special effects rather than hackneyed post-production fluff.

To sum things up, I'm severely disappointed. The trailer makes Doomed out to be an over the top zombie-action fest. Also, the back of the DVD case touts that it is a "Combination of 'Lost' meets 'Survivor' with a touch of 'The Amazing Race.'" From this little blurb I figured that Doomed would be a parody of modern reality TV, perhaps with some sweet social commentary such as the legendary Death Race 2000. Oh how I was I mistaken. Doomed is not intelligent enough to comment on anything. In fact, it seems that the entire movie was made to cash in on the success of the shows that it mentions on the cover. To make matters worse I'm sure this tactic is going to prove successful. I can only hope that some people out there will read this breview before they waste their time and money.

I'm going to give this a few extra points for some of the head-shaking laughs it gave me. But do yourself a favor and avoid Doomed like you would avoid the zombies from any other zombie movie except for Doomed.



A FEW LAUGHS?: Just because it's so awful.
...?: ...
...?: Nope, still can't think of any.