Changing Life - Der Fluch Der Zombies (2001) - Germany
Directed by: Ted Kaufmann, Jan Deichen, Dominic Schulschenk
ABOUT THE FILM:
Changing Life starts with a drug deal in the forest between two young men. After negotiating prices, the dealer leaves to take a piss and accidentally leaves a bag of weed in the chair, which his buyer steals. The dealer comes back to discover his weed is missing, and chases the buyer down to savagely beat and kill him with a stick, leaving his corpse in the open.
As the dealer meets up with some more of his buddies to continue doing business, they are interrupted by someone sneaking in their hideout who issues them a warning. Many years prior, a teacher and his students had supposedly gone missing within the woods, and it's alleged that the teacher killed all the students and himself, thus putting a curse on the forest. The dealers aren't quite buying it, cap the guy and flee. As they make their escape through the forest, the dead suddenly begin to rise and pursue them. The dealers get very lucky as they stumble across a car with an axe and a chainsaw inside. Will they survive?
REVIEW:
Sure, it's a story that's been done before with the old wive's tale about people disappearing into the forest, but the movie takes this cliche concept and manages to twist it into something fun and entertaining with a group of druggies with guns.
At only 45 minutes in length, the movie never wears out its welcome and displays some decent splatter scenes. Body parts are sawn and hacked off, zombies are shot several times until they're dead, the undead feast on the living and many organs and gallons of blood are spilled...
Despite being an amateur production, Changing Life is pretty well-made given the circumstances. The handheld camera work, while shaky in some spots, is decent enough and easy to watch. The movie is well-edited with good cuts, transitions and fitting music. The special effects, while cheap yet again, are just a lot of fun! Ridiculous amounts of blood spray and spurt out of every wound and cut, painting the dealers red practically. Some of the highlights include an axe to the arm and a zombie with a big afro.
The only thing the film could've done differently is maybe change up the ending a bit, as the ending is a little underwhelming. But I digress because I had a lot of fun watching this. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the filmmakers went on to do anything else. That sucks, because Changing Life certainly shows their potential!
RELEASES:
-Changing Life was first released on VHS by Sen Productions on October 19, 2001.
-The film was later re-released by Sen Productions, this time on Super Video-CD on September 24, 2003. The disc comes with animated menus and a handful of trailers.
-And finally, on October 31, 2004, Changing Life was released on a limited edition DVD with a slew of extras including an audio commentary, interviews, trailers, a photo gallery and English and German subtitles.
Check out their website to watch or order the movie:
No comments:
Post a Comment