Autumn (2009)

Memorable, crazy movie

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

We watched Autumn years ago and still use it as the yardstick by which we measure other bad movies. For us, "Autumn" has basically become shorthand for"a very, very bad film". I can't muster the psychic energy to care enough to review this stinker, but I'll give one quick example of the bad writing and low budget that plague the movie. At one point the characters build a fence to keep out the zombies. The characters even say any fence built for that purpose would have to be really strong. When we then see the fence with hordes of zombies pushing against it, the fence is just a cheap, waist-high thing, what appears to be a sand fence, those little fences used to keep sand on beaches in place, and definitely not strong enough to stop a single person, much less a horde of shambling zombies.

The only thing that saves this film is David Carradine (such a loss). Although I do like Dexter Fletcher (cos I'm that old I remember him from Press Gang - Sorry Dexter). I was so disappointed. Loved all the books but this film seems to have been produced without any thought. There was so much that could have been done with this series of books but it seems to have been rushed too much. It feels like they only had so much money and wanted to squeeze too much of the plot into too little space. The story moves too quickly and doesn't care about the characters, unlike the book. I don't feel that the screenplay gives this story the credit it deserves. I have seen many low budget films that are much better. Shame on you Steven Rumbelow. However, one of the saves is the cheap camera-work that makes it feel somewhat like a documentary. Biggest bugbear though is not being able to get 'Knocking at your door' on download or CD.

I am familiar with the Audio version of Autumn, and I see some of the story in this film, but it is like someone put the original script in a blender, and then took half the pieces mixed some rejected Ken Russell dream sequences, and had a 10 year old fill in the missing pieces. The story just isn't there. Lucky they got David Carradine, which is probably why this film got financed, but the extended scene with David Carradine which just go on way to long (though this scene might just stand up on it's own as a short), and doesn't do anything for the plot. Add to this the amateur production of the film, it is a shame this films does such a disservice to the source material.

I am not sure WHO thought up this movie to make it so bad. It started out pretty good but turned in to a soap opera with no action. I always love a good zombie movie but this one just did not cut it. The camera was shaking at times even when it was just focusing on a few people talking. It was dark through a few good action parts. Made no sense as to why some zombies attacked and other did not. Im usually very easy to scare. Even "The Cavern" scared me. This movie, I did not jump once. There was no "oh there might be a zombie behind me" moments, nothing. I even got so bored I got up and got on the computer in another room. Came back and it was still the same thing going on...talking...Please do not waste your time on this movie. Or $5 like I did.