Meltdown (indie horror) review

One of the surprising benefits of this blog has been that I’ve got to review some films I wouldn’t have ever watched. In amongst them is the odd chance to review an independent film, even if I give these films a low-ish rating I still admire the hell out of the people that get these films made. I was asked if I’d like to watch and review zombie film Meltdown, it’s taken me a while but here’s my thoughts…..

The films starts out with Hunter the main protagonist waking up to screams but these screams aren’t zombies it’s just his ring tone. He answer the call and it’s what we can assume is his best friend Les, he declares that he is going to propose to his girlfriend but Les is a bit of a “lad” and doesn’t want to hear too much about it.

Then we meet Kimmy, Hunter’s girlfriend who as it turns out is a complete and utter bitch, she basically blows off Hunter’s birthday to go partying with some other bloke. Les brings  a load of people around for a party and this is where we meet Kelly who fancies Hunter and it’s clear she’s a much better person than Kimmy.

After a failed proposal Hunter goes down to the bar to drown his sorrows it’s here he finds out more about what a bitch his girlfriend really is. Thing eventually start to kick off big time and through flashes to a hospital and news reports it’s clear there’s been a zombie outbreak.

A good example of some of the very decent make up in the film

The story then centers on Hunter, Zeke the barman, Les and Kelly trying to escape the carnage. Along the way we get some extremely well done violence and gore, I was shocked how good it was for an indie film although I found the zombies tended to stand there in the perfect position to be decapitated or shot in the head. Still there’s some guts eaten, severed limbs, weird zombie births and it all looks fantastic for such a low budget film.

Things chance once we jump forward in time

Once our group has escaped the carnage of the outbreak the film jumps a couple of years. Now all of a sudden Hunter is a badass leader of a camp trying to survive, it’s a far jump from what Hunter was like at the start. Although understandable I’m not sure giving him a leather jacket, shades and a hat was the best way to go about making him look and seem like a tough guy.

The zombies have mutated and look completely different now as well as there being bandits out there trying to kill everyone, our group has to escape people attacking as well as mutants. We get a few new characters and a bit of a twist that I didn’t really see coming, the film’s ending is very open and I expect there may well be a sequel planned.

Quite amusing seeing some characters get exactly what they deserve

The Good

As I mentioned there’s some great gore, from guts being ripped out and eaten to faces being bitten off, limbs flying around, gunshots to various body parts and decapitations. These things can go wrong when used in low budget films but not in this one it all looks really good.

The story was more than solid, now I’m not a fan of time jumps I always end up wondering what has happened in the years we missed. I do however applaud the effort made to try something different, they could have stuck to just a simple outbreak story but jumping forward in time added to the story.

The Bad

Mostly things associated with indie films, some poor acting here and there. Although the effects were good in relation to the budget of the film some things were slightly off, but that’s to be expected.

As I mentioned making Hunter into a badass could have been done better, it’s as if all he needed was to use his girlfriend as bait and wear some different clothes and all of a sudden he’s a tough guy, I just couldn’t buy into it.

Overall this is worth a watch if only to see how well the blood and guts is done for an indie film, although I won’t score it that high as I thought it had some poor acting and although I like the fact they took a risk in jumping forward the second half of the film wasn’t as good as the first.

Overall Score