State of Emergency (2012)

An accident at a nearby chemical plant has turned an entire community into a virus infected undead. As the story begins Jim (Hayden) is trying to tend to his fatally wounded fiancée Emilie (McKenna Jones) who was attacked by one of the infected. Jim finds shelter inside a horse stable and quickly closes things up tight. He must face the disturbing fact that Emilie is going to die. He listens to the radio and watches TV gaining information. He is awoken to sounds inside the stable which lead to a thrilling and scary showdown between himself and a zombie which has found his way in. Out of the blue he gets a phone call at the stable from Scott (Lilly) a survivor who is holed up in a warehouse across from the stable and invites Jim to join him. Jim makes his way over and joins Scott, his wife Julie (Norman) and a girl named Ix (White) who initially clashes with Jim. Jim quickly becomes the leader of the small band of survivors as they fight for survival as the infected become aware of their presence. A romantic relationship is brewing between Ix and Jim when she takes ill. The group await rescue but need medicine dropped by the military in the area for Ix to survive. Jim ventures out in a thrilling scene to obtain it. State of Emergency is an excellent low budget horror film that plays with the zombie genre. Writer/Producer/Director Turner Clay crafts a small and simple zombie film that reflects how you and I might react of something like this happened. Jim is an ordinary guy and so are the other characters. In other words, these guys aren't hitting the bull's-eye every time they point a gun at a zombie and shoot. They miss and try again like we would if we were in that type of stressful situation. Clay makes all these characters believable and keeps his movie the same way giving it real credibility over many bigger budgeted zombie films flooding the market. We care about these people and want them to survive and are truly on their side, like in George Romero's first two Dead films. Clay plays with the genre in interesting ways like the zombies themselves. Many times they are just standing in the middle of a field waiting to react to sounds they hear or something they see. They are ferocious when they need to be and the film has some decent gore. The small cast, low number of infected and minimal locations would sink a lesser film but this one actually benefits from it because of its strong characters. The film definitely delivers many tense situations and scenes that deliver the horror goods along with solid scares. The cast is good with lead Jay Hayden turning in a great performance as Jim. Turner Clay in a truly breath of fresh air, memorably ends his film in such a deeply emotional way that takes his film to another level.

Following the release of a deadly chemical in their small town, a man joins up with a fellow group of survivors to hold out the increased swarm of zombies affected by the chemical as they await the imminent evacuation by the military.This is an incredibly lame and really unworthwhile zombie effort that doesn't have a lot of positive issues for it. The film's biggest facet here is the low-budget work never really allows this much of a chance to do anything all that creative or enjoyable for the duration of its' running time, forcing this into a seemingly endless series of scenes showing the hero mingling with the other survivors in the hideout waiting for something to happen, but it never goes anywhere. The dearth of attacks here makes for a seemingly endless series of scenes that really don't show anything beyond their getting to know each other while attempting to survive, and because the attacks are really only placed in three spots in the entire movie it never develops any suspense, action or thrills during these moments to really put the group in peril that would've resulted from such actions. Forcing them into a series of confrontations in such a hold-out as they have here is highly entertaining but never results in anything significant happening during the running time because it just doesn't provide the film with anything all that exciting as we watch the film continually has them sit around talking or flashing back about their lives before the virus started. This brings about several other factors as well, in that the zombie make-up here looks utterly abysmal with what amounts to dirt smeared on their face and red contact lenses since we're never given a chance to see them in anything amounting to a good, solid shot of them in action because the low-budget doesn't amount to any kind of prolonged shot that utilizes them to their fullest. There's little blood and gore in here due to the few number of survivors found and the relatively inane finale that basically forces the survivors into a specific number in order to hold out on the attacks so the only resulting carnage given is to the zombies and it's all basically head-wounds with blood-splatter on the wall behind them and not much else. Overall, there's very little to like in this one.Rated R: Violence and Language.

Although low-budget zombie movies are ten a penny these days and, it's fair to say, the majority of them are absolute rubbish, STATE OF EMERGENCY offers something a little different. For a start, it looks like a professional, well-made movie despite the low budget; it has great production values and it avoids being cheesy for the most part.Of course, there's a flip side to this coin, and the main detraction with the film is that it's incredibly slow. There are lots and lots of long, drawn-out sequences where the protagonist just barricades himself inside a building and waits...and waits...and waits. Some viewers might find this off-putting, although I found that the tension levels were high, which kept me watching.The acting isn't bad, and pretty good for a B-movie, and as mentioned the technical values are decent. The zombies themselves are fast-moving and ultra-aggressive, much like the ones in 28 DAYS LATER, and the scare sequences are well handled. STATE OF EMERGENCY is far from perfect, and one of the disappointments is that the ending just fizzles out instead of bangs, but in a sea of trash watching it is a nice surprise.

Chaos consumes a small town when a chemical facility explodes releasing a deadly toxin. Moments after the leak, the town's residents show signs of mutation, causing the military to quarantine the area leaving any survivors helpless and trapped inside. The story follows Jim, a young man isolated within the red zone, as he eludes flesh eating zombies in an attempt to win back his freedom.I found this movie very hard to follow. And, yes, it IS just a zombie film, so what's to follow? But they set it up so that the exposition is very slow and doesn't keep your attention. I had a hard time trying to figure out why I should keep watching. There was very little zombie action until well into the movie. I'm still not sure where the main character lives. Sometimes it looks like a prison or hospital and other times it looks like a home. .There's no explanation how he gets up on a barn roof -- why would you go there with a ladder when the zombies could just follow you? How did the padlock open? By itself? Why doesn't he want to turn on the light when he hears noises? Why does he think the zombies understand English? Why does he run AWAY from his rifle when he needs it? Why when he finally gets the rifle, does he not load it? There are lots of little things like this that make no sense and causes one to lose interest because it's poor writing. Another example, he fires three shots, kills a zombie and suddenly the phone rings. He answers it and a stranger says "are you the guy in the barn? We heard shots and I tried every number in the book to get you." What? You called 3 seconds after the shots were fired! You had no time to look up anything. Nobody finds this weird? And the guy doesn't even know his name but somehow got his phone number!This could have been a really good film if it was better written and better directed -- especially the writing. It's very very poorly written. The acting inst bad, but the writing is horrendous.Also, the print I saw was filled with very tiny red specs throughout. Not sure if that was intentional, but it was annoying.