Germ (2013) Reviews

• Worth seeing

  sebpopcorn2013-06-18

  A satellite crashes bringing with it a virus that turns people into people chomping cannibals. All of this takes place around a sleepy small American town protected by a very young deputy sheriff. I thought it was a pretty good movie, or at least a nice fast moving one most of the time. There's plenty of action and the effects were pretty good and so was the acting. The camera work is annoying in places though. For some reason it wobbles around wildly when two people are talking but is steady in the action scenes. In some scenes actors nearly vanish off the screen for lack of a tripod. There's also all that military hardware just sat around as scenery. I would have thought a dozen or so soldiers would give a horde of zombies a run for its money, it's a shame we weren't shown that or more of the hazmat guys freaking out about the situation. Well nobody likes a long review so I'll just say I liked it and if you like zombie movies and that kind of thing this is a pretty entertaining movie and definitely improves from its shaky opening.

• Cannibalistic virus action not scary enough

  SnoopyStyle2013-12-15

  A satellite crashes near a small town in the middle of the woods. Something from space came with the satellite, and starts to turn the townfolks into cannibalistic freaks. This is an indie with freaks running around attacking people. It could be a scary watch if it's done right. This one isn't right. It tries to have that kinetic feel, but the camera work doesn't accentuate the action. This is not '28 Days Later'. The camera is not aggressive enough. There is a lot of blood, a lot of killing, a lot of running, and not enough excitement. In addition, the movie starts excruciatingly slow. It's 25 minutes before anything interesting happens. It's even longer before we get the first kill. That's way too long for a modern horror movie. I'm not put off by the low budget. In fact, I think they got good value for their money. The acting is pretty good for a low budget horror. Even the little kids put in good performances. But the directions don't show any sparks or originality. There is nothing special here, and there are too many glaring problems.

• Definite Guilty Pleasure

  hudsonda42014-04-26

  Why am I rating this so high? I wish I knew. If you've read my other reviews then you know I'm a fairly harsh critic of new movies in the horror genre. That's not my fault, I just grew up with awesome horror movies that could scare the crap out of you and had a decent storyline with good acting. The acting was definitely sub par. The zombie source is very unoriginal. The action scenes weren't all that good. There were definitely cliché moments along with a bunch of scenes we've seen in other zombie movies. The gore scenes weren't even done very well. I could go on and on. But seven stars............? The movie had a nice flow to it, something rarely ever seen in a B zombie flick. I'm not sure if there was supposed to be a bunch of comedy in this movie since it isn't billed as a comedy/horror, but it had me laughing out loud at some points and even talking at the screen. Maybe that's why I liked it so much? If you can stand B horror with some good moments that may be unintentionally funny but still make you laugh and shake your head this is definitely the movie for you. But don't go into it expecting a lot of scares, there were none in this movie.

• One bad low budget film

  trentpatterson5182013-09-08

  Tried to watch this one, but talk about boring. It takes 40 minutes before anything happens. There are not really any likable characters in this film, because there is really no character development. As for the special effects, if you can catch any, are bad. It cuts away anytime someone would get shot or bitten so you never really see anything. Acting seems forced and not natural, not that it should be expected as Oscar material. All in all I wouldn't recommend this, the film cover is deceiving. I would generally stay away from any low budget zombie flick, some are good but the majority are awful. **/10. Stick with George Romero's films. Which contain plenty of gore and great special effects.

• An uninspired zombie film set in central New York

  krachtm2014-04-17

  The plot: After a satellite falls in central New York, the hapless townspeople are transformed into ravenous zombies. As far as zombie film plots go, this is hardly an original one. I doubt most people watch direct-to-video zombie films for original ideas, so we can probably overlook this issue. Less forgivable is the acting and directing. After the first ten minutes, I was ready to turn this off, but I decided to give it a chance. After all, this was made not too far away from where I live, and I was curious what a Syracuse-area zombie film would look like. I'm happy to report that the film does get better after the first excruciatingly bad minutes, but it's still an uphill battle. We're introduced to quite a few characters, none of whom are especially interesting or memorable. The acting is about what you'd expect for a direct-to-video zombie film, but it should be more-or-less tolerable for genre veterans used to lowering their standards. Once the zombies appear, the pace quickens a bit, but the action scenes are really no more interesting or memorable than the characters. Zombies siege a house, zombies siege a car, zombies siege a police station -- these are not quite inspired scenarios. If you're just looking for a bit of zombie action and low budget gore, this will hold you over until the next direct-to-video zombie film arrives, but there's little recommend about this particular entry in that crowded arena. For a film that I originally thought was unsalvageable and boring, it eventually did turn into a slightly more interesting film. The problem is that it never really peaked any higher than mediocre. I doubt anyone outside of the central New York area will be as amused by the novelty of its setting, and this is really the only reason why I finished it. If you really want to see New Yorkers terrorized by monsters in low budget horror films, Larry Fessenden, Jim Mickle, and Larry Cohen are better choices.