A PLAGUE SO PLEASANT (2013)

A PLAGUE SO PLEASANT (2013) 

Label: Wild Eye Releasing
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 80 Minutes 
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo 
Video: Anamorphc Widescreen 
Director: Benjamin Roberts
Cast: David Chandler, Max Moody, Eve Boehenke, Kaylee Bridge, George McDonald, Mandy Riley 

It is damn rare that I open up a bubble-wrap package and come face to face with  a zombie movie that I am honestly excited to tear into. I am not saying that they're all awful, just that the really good ones which do something different are few and far between. Wild Eye Releasing's release of A Plague So Pleasant sort of caught my attention on just the name alone, but even that stopped me from sitting on it for a week or so before I peeled off the shrink wrap and gave it a watch. With very low expectations I popped it into the player and was drawn in right from the start. It begins as a slightly art school black and white movie centered around a young man named Clay, his strangely persuasive roommate, and Clay's sister Mia. The roommate has a thing for Mia and somehow convinces Clay to put in a good word for him with her, but poor Mia is hung-up on her ex boyfriend... who just so happens to be a zombie. 

In this version of the world zombies are a certain reality, it s established that there was a short-lived zombie apocalypse which lasted all of twelve hours. In the aftermath zombies have become a protected species of sorts, allowed to roam free through the streets and cities or protected in large fenced-in reservations. It is now illegal to kill a zombie, they're more a nuisance than a threat to the living, causing traffic issues not unlike a herd of cows who have escaped the pasture and are blocking the road, only we have shambling Romero-styled zombies instead of heffers. 

We have some strange narration by way of Clay and his roommate, the movie has a sort of Richard Linklatter Slacker (1991) vibe about it at first, offbeat, lo-fi and spunky. Through some poor decision making the zombies are provoked and in an instant the black and white turns to vibrant color and the shambling zombies turn into the Dawn of the Dead remake styled runners out for blood and guts, and our protagonist Clay is the reason why. 

It might not be a classic in the making or even have any sort of cult-classic prospects but at least this slice of zombie cinema offers something a little different and marches to it's own drummer, which I sort of loved, even if I don't see myself re watching it anytime soon, I admired the originality and spunk of the filmmakers. 

A Plague So Pleasant (2013) might have some pacing issues, and some low-budget movie making constraints but it never did lose my attention from the beginning right up to the end, which for a contemporary zombie movie is actually pretty damn special. 2.5/5