April Apocalypse (2015)

the audience applauded

Such a frustrating disappointment

Best movie of this year hands down!

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

For some reason this movie ended up with the title "Zombies: An Undead Road Movie", which was the title of the DVD that I purchased. But of course, anything even remotely zombie does catch my attention.Without any knowledge of the movie, its story or cast, then I sat down to watch "April Apocalypse". But I have to say that I wasn't overly impressed with the movie as a whole. Now, don't get me wrong, as I am not saying that it is a bad movie. It is just a very generic movie which offers absolutely nothing new to the zombie genre.The two main acting talents Reece Thompson (playing Artie) and Rebekah Brandes (playing April) were doing good enough jobs carrying the movie, although they had very little material to work with at the hands of director Jarret Tarnol.It was, however, William Morgan Sheppard (playing Pops) who made it worthwhile to sit down and watch the movie, despite of him not having a particularly big role.The effects in the movie were good enough, just don't expect an abundance of blood and gore, even though this is a zombie movie. This is more of a teenage movie infused with a zombie element, so I was somewhat out of the target audience.Storywise, then it was basic and simplistic. A teenager setting out to reach his high school love amidst a zombie infested America. Right, fairly straight forward and simple storyline. But for a zombie outbreak, then Artie encounters surprisingly few zombies along the way."April Apocalypse" is nothing extraordinary, and as an avid zombie aficionado, then I must say that this movie came and went without leaving a dent or impression.

I'm not a person that has ever written a movie review before but this movie caused some really intense inner rage that I felt I had to do one for this movie. Although production wise everything looked good, acting was fine and was generally a well made movie... where it went so horrifically bad was the cliché main characters that were impossible to like at all, with a storyline with way to many flaws to count and the lack of information for any situation that comes about or direction it goes. The main character that out of nowhere becomes a boss zombie slayer and is meant to be the triumphant nice guy trying to save the girl he loves that the viewer is supposed to be barracking for was so unlikeable that i found myself hoping he fails with everything, suffers from some severe emotional pain before dying a slow horrible death. Any likable characters in the film were killed off not long after they pop up just makes everything more annoying!Although this film actually had the potential to be a half decent movie if it had of somehow produced a more conclusive or even twist ending filling in any flaws in the plot and unanswered questions instead of the unsatisfying, unaccomplished expected one that is... SO I RECOMMEND NOT TO WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS FILMPs. Reading that people actually found it charming and enjoyable just added to my already boiling rage inside after watching it xD and the fact it was rated as high as it is just infuriated me and made this one of my most hated movies ever watched! lol but each to there own, people can enjoy or hate whatever they like

I knew nothing about April Apocalypse before picking this up cheaply, and zombie movies can generally be a lot of fun, but this just had me regretting the moment I came across this and the time I wasted sitting through it.Movie starts off with a guy and a girl, (Artie and April), running in slow motion through a field being chased by a horde of zombies. There's a voice over by Artie which then propels us back in time a few years and a montage of the history between this couple.We then flash forward to the 2 of them turning up at a high school graduation after party and April has plans to break up with her boyfriend. Said break up does not go well. The douche bag boyfriend takes back his letterman jacket, punches Artie in the face who then finds out that April is moving away.Flash forward 3 years and Artie lives at home in the basement and runs a late night radio call-in show which no one listens to and the only calls he gets are crank calls from his younger brother or his mother to ask if he wants salad with his dinner. This is supposed to be funny I guess.His father sees him as a lost cause and even though he's only 21, his father thinks he's 31 and that April has been out of his life for 10 years instead of 3 and he should be over it by now. His mother is equally non-supportive and rather than just talk to him and encourage him like parents should, Artie instead gets the typical American universal fix-all to everything - therapy with lots and lots of medication. This is supposed to be funny too I guess.Unsurprisingly it turns out that Artie has no real problems except that he misses the girl he's in love with and just needs some direction, but his doctor/psychiatrist played by George Lopez of all people says his fine, but here take these experimental purple pills twice a day anyway and they'll fix up whatever is not wrong with you, sheesh!From there these pep pills give Artie new found vigour and he sets off to find April based on a postcard he got from her a couple of years ago. He takes his grandfathers car and heads off, but a zombie that came out of nowhere makes him run off the road and into a tree. Artie wakes up dazed, and he starts to make his way back home. The car radio talks about a virus sweeping the world, so zombies are the result.Artie quickly learns about the zombie outbreak once he gets home. His family has disappeared and after killing a few zombies that were in his house and getting bitten on the hand he sets off again in another car to find April. Somehow the pills he was given are staving off his zombification and he meets people here and there on his quest for his girlfriend, all of whom end up getting killed.Artie finally gets to Aprils house, rescues her and they make their way to one of the refuge shelters on the edge of town where he runs into his family. The refuge is just a large barn full of ill-prepared people and therefore nothing more than a zombie smörgåsbord. It gets overrun and everyone is killed. Artie gets bitten again and as he had run out of pills, turns into a zombie only to be killed by April. For a zombie movie, even one with a limited budget as this, it's a very poor effort. This is supposed to be a horror-comedy of sorts but I found nothing to laugh at as it's too stupid. It might be OK for a look if it's on late at night and you can't sleep but there's no reason to go out of your way for this one.

It's a zombie movie, it's a love story, its a coming of age comedy. What it really was though is just a fun movie. Seems like people these days watch movies just to pick them apart. I just want to be entertained and this one entertained me. Yes the characters were cliché but that was part of it's charm. It reminded me of an 80's movie where there was always the main kind of geeky guy who finds himself and gets the girl, the hot girl who finally realizes the geeky guy is her soul-mate, the jock who gets his in the end and of course the stoner for comedic relief.Speaking of comedic relief, there was a perfect balance of it which is something that's hard to do. Production values were decent but it is a lower budget movie so don't expect spectacular kills or special effects that will blow you away. Luckily that's not the focus of the movie, the story is, imagine that. I wasn't a big fan of the ending on this, seemed that the rest of the movie was so clichéd that it should have had the clichéd happy ending. I'd actually like to see them re-shoot a different ending and re-release it. Even ending with the two of them fighting off zombies would have been cool (and left it open for a sequel) But overall I liked it, I'd give it 7 out of 10 stars, it kept me entertained and made me feel for the characters, gave me a few laughs, what more could I ask for? May not be one you want to add to your movie collection but definitely worth a one time watch.