User Reviews

A tame, low-budget re-tread of The Crazies. There are no zombies, only people who are driven mad after being exposed to a cloud of nerve gas unleashed when a nearby chemical plant explodes.

There are 4 main characters: our hero, who repeatedly acts in stupid ways like dropping his rifle after he sees a crazy, or dropping his lantern when he runs outside at night to try to get the attention of a passing military helicopter; a young husband and wife who also behave like idiots - she sits around knitting and worrying about whether she was impolite by not offering our hero a drink, and he runs outside screaming when he knows there are crazies roaming around; and a disaffected young diabetic girl, who also is, apparently, stupid. She sees the hero eating her candy bar and gets angry, but fails to mention she needs it as she is diabetic and allows him to finish it! Scenes like this make it hard for us to give a damn about these people.

The script is sloppy and contains loose ends. The hero's fiancée is shown with a bullet in her side in the beginning but there is no explanation given as to how and where she got it. Why is angry girl reluctant to tell them she has diabetes? There are apparently only a handful of crazies roaming around the area, so why not make a run for it while everyone is healthy and fully armed, before diabetic girl goes into a coma? All this doesn't make for compelling viewing. At least Jay Hayden, the hero, seems to be able to act, though he is given very little to do. The other 3, especially the husband, give poor line readings. It never feels like any of them are in that much danger, except for the diabetic who needs insulin.

Skip this and watch the remake of The Crazies, it's better.

I bought this as a treat, zombie movie for the evening, I was stupidly dragged in my the jacket claims from reviewers.

Typically a zombie movie has a lot of at least one of the 3 following elements: action; suspense; character conflict.

This movie has almost none of these elements.

Boring script, has less action than the first 10 minutes of day of the dead.

Character conflict consists of one conversation. This is a spoiler for just about the only action part of the movie.

Character 2 goes out and tries to flag down a helicopter one zombie appears.

Character 1: "You shouldn't have gone out there" Character 2: "I saw helicopters and wanted to flag them down" Character 1: "You could have been killed" Character 2: "You are right I shouldn't have gone out there"

Movie over.

ANother zombie movie! I had just about completely stopped worrying about an actual zombie apocalypse after watching other movies and series knowing that they are all too slow and too dumb to worry about them catching me....this is one of a few that the zombies haul arse! Although as stated in other reviews there is not much actual zombie action, this movie contains some really intense scenes where you just want to cover your eyes knowing that something is going to jump out at you. The actors and actresses are all unknown, but they still did a pretty good job. I enjoyed the movie but wish the ending had a little more closure. It's worth a watch if you're looking for something to fill time. It's definitely NOT one of those flicks that you say "Now there's 2 hours of my life I'll never get back!"

This movie lacks even a modicum of tension which drags it out. The consensus in my house is that this is what hell must be like if you never wanted for anything your whole life. The "survivors" (if you can call a week before rescue surviving) have power, news, food and locked doors. But one of them is diabetic!! OMG! I hope the govt ships them insulin. Oh it does? Well at least they are down to their last bottle of "we are all gonna die now" liquor which is Woodford Reserve. They are swigging high end liquor in a well lit warehouse with plenty of food and the necessary mirrors and razors to keep their rakish douche-beards coifed. Tense? No. Well acted? Meh.

Where did all the budget for this film go? Poor acting (especially off the main character) Poor zombie make-up - All of the zombies featured in the film just have dirt on their faces and red eyes.

Bad sound affects - all sound effects that a zombie makes in the distance (happens every time a zombie is about to show up)sounds like it has been dubbed over the film. and boy do those zombies love breaking and knocking into things - even when there is nothing around to be broken.

The sets used are also very basic.

The film is basically one hour 30 of characters looking out of windows, or through a snipe rifle, at a single zombie standing like a scarecrow, the characters mumble about the amount of zombies growing every day but you never see more than one together, ever.

Some reason the creator of this film was too scared to show more than one zombie on screen even during zombie encounters which really lessons the fear and fails to make it feel like there is any sense of danger outside of the characters sanctuary.

and I swear they fight the same zombie twice (Five zombie encounters in total, one of which is an old lady zombie who bangs on the door begging to be let in...yep it spoke) Film started off with a creepy atmosphere but it soon became very boring and really not much happened. What a complete waste of money this film was to make, it doesn't try to do anything different.

The climax of the film is a lone zombie somehow going through the sewers and finding it's way into the characters hide out through a sewer grate, they all run away from this lone zombie, then shoot it in the head after a while of the characters over-exaggerating their panting, and the army arrives and they all live happily.

Avoid.

A well written movie with well acted characters It is not as fast paced as the walking dead. But still worth Watching with heart racing moment anti climatic turn and jump scares That are just perfectly timed so it doesn't give u a heart attack but does take you by surprise, whether your a frequent Zombie movie watcher or new it's an even thriller without too much blood a perfect starter. But the down side are a slow start but speeds up and very few zombies and no big hordes and a few loose ends. It's all in all a good movie. I suggest it for anyone who can enjoy a thriller But I would not suggest for anyone under 10. Remember I'm officially stating this movie does have jump scares

This is absolutely TERRIBLE!! It has a lot of potential but that is about all that is going for it. There are no real surprises in the film. Except for the lead, the characters don't seem to stay true to themselves. The writing is poor. Dramatic Pauses abound at unnecessary points. The zombies are not zombies. They can talk and reason, which really makes them sick people. It reminded me of a poor-man's version of 'The Crazies'. Except the storyline was terrible, the acting was terrible, the special effects were terrible.

There went an hour and 29 minutes that I will never get back. Don't waste your time!

Considering everything that's going on at the moment, i was thinking that reviewing this might be inappropriate, but hell, no one reads these anyway. Also, in the first five minutes alone, State of Emergency displayed so much authority on it's tone and approach, that i simply could not stop once the getting was going.

State of Emergency is a stately (i'm here forever folks), and slow paced zombie film that is well acted, has plenty of atmosphere and has well written characters. Films such as State of Emergency don't come round as often as you would like them to. Whilst not cheap, it's certainly not a studio film and it's a very competent affair that is economic in it's storytelling and has all the core elements down such as good cinematography, editing, acting and writing.

If ever you're in luck to be in possession of enough money to make a half decent film, then products such as state of emergency are where you go for inspiration. Through using it's sparse amount of production value where it's needed most, State of Emergency manages to tell an impactful and deeply atmospheric zombie film that is filled with suspense and dread. It's fantastic work and I highly recommend it to any fans of the genre and slow burn film making in general.

slow and boring it was one of those C grade movies that I kept hoping would improve... lacked plot. worst movie I have watched in a while.

Actors are in need of some education. Special effects lacked creditability and did storyline ... the beginning with the injured girlfriend was lost as soon as it happened and was barley mentioned again.

I will never reclaim the 1Hour 29Minutes 42Seconds that evaporated into this messy, incoherent and ultimately unforgettable fake zombie movie /money spender.

If the director have any hope of exposure and a future career it was is that possibly it may be seen as a cheap must have for TV stations to fill late night time-slots

The producers and investors are praying that the current zombie gravy train helps it break even

GoTrollYourSelf

<----FOR PEOPLE WHO /HAVE NOT/ SEEN THE MOVIE---->

This movie is a lot better than I had expected, despite many of the other ratings here...

If you're looking for another buckets of blood gore-a-thon that are a dime a dozen don't look to this movie. This movie bases its thrills off many moments of buildup and tension rather than just pounding your face with cheap gory action. It puts a lot of focus on the characters, the story behind the outbreak, and risks instead of most zombie movies which focus on large amounts of zombies chasing people.

<----FOR PEOPLE WHO /HAVE/ SEEN THE MOVIE---->

There are so many things I could praise in the movie, first of which should be the zombies. The clearly crimson red eyes made them very startling, with blood and other effects not wildly overdone. The scene with the old lady acting like a human catches you off guard, especially when the flashlight shines on the red eyes I stated before. Zombies are also actually taken seriously, with just one being a serious risk rather than a dozen being nothing. Their ferociousness with running and climbing and even being able to open doors made them very scary, much more than dumb walking zombies.

The characters have good back stories and actually show emotion in dealing with their situation. The conflicts between the characters are very believable, with situations you could actually imagine yourself in rather than really cheesy, cliché, or just stupid conflicts you find in other movies. The twist with one of them having diabetes was great, not many if any zombies movies go into characters with diseases like this and coping with it in the apocalypse.

The ending was decent though I must say I doubt the military would let any survivors off free, even if they didn't find any trace of the virus in them the risk would be way too high. This was really the only unrealistic thing I saw in the movie.

This movie starts off like so many other zombie movies. Which made me fall into a unhappy funk. Then the movie shows some real heart by showing the survivors as real people not just stereotypes. This is the part I found so appealing. The Main characters are flushed out. You see them as people you may know in real life. Know actors that I can say I recognized. The movie unfortunately has a major issue about feeling small. The movie towards the end definitely has a small budget feel . The climax was very anti climatic in feel. This was the one thing I didn't particularly care for. Not a lot of twist really but a solid story and good acting. Worth a watch.

I came upon this movie through my friend, who said he started the movie but quit perhaps fifteen minutes in because nothing was happening. I wanted to give the movie a shot to see what he meant. He's an A.D.D. kid who's into action movies so I figured his idea of nothing happening might lean toward a mere lack of brutal zombie action, and not necessarily a lack of development.

Nope. It's literally that nothing happens - at least by the standards of your average zombie movie. That in itself isn't a bad thing (I don't mind just getting into the characters), but when the movie seems to be nothing more than a compilation of the slowest parts of all zombie movies culminating in a lot of anticlimactic nonsense, it kills it for me.

Here we get into the spoilers. I'll try to keep them minor but when it comes to State of Emergency, I think knowledge is power. The power not to waste your time. The story starts with a brief scene from the present, then goes four days back to before the protagonist has sighted zombies. The first scene builds itself up to be quite a tense situation, as if all the characters could die in the next instant, before cutting off and going back into the past. However, when we went through the hour of the characters slowly realizing a fraction of what's going on, enjoying some petty drama over who's alpha dog or who's backstory is more tragic, and of course acting in ways that only beg for them to be eaten, we found that Jim and the gang are (back in the present) facing off against...a single zombie. Two guns, four humans, one zombie. These were among the best odds they'd had through the whole story during any attack, and yet they'd made it seem like a desperate battle. This is just one example of the movie building you up only for a letdown.

Aside from most every plot point or relationship being dull and hollow ("You don't have friends? Me too!" *romance created!*), you get the horror movie staple of people acting like complete morons. "Hay gaiz, let's go outside unarmed and start screaming our heads off!" "While that zombie struggles to get up from its clearly non-lethal wound, imma slowly walk over to it and take a good look from two feet away." There was a moment where you saw some possible humanity in a zombie, but the emotion was drowned out by all the stupid occurring around it.

Seriously though, it's hard to find any horror movie where the protagonists don't make the please-kill-me choice at least half the time, so I wouldn't count that alone against the movie. It's that combined with the very tiny amount of action or violence, the lack of any real surprises (in the plot or otherwise), the forced new relationship right after the death of Jim's previous girlfriend, the meh sound and visuals, and characters who were mostly just flat (especially the females, who were basically just there to be females and either be in or prepare to begin a relationship with the males), which all ate away at my hopes that this movie would somehow redeem itself before the end. And in the end...well, we felt we got more nothing. Basically just a recap of everything that had already been explained, given by an uninteresting man that we came upon through uninteresting circumstances.

The film opens up with a rather lame scene, then gives you a 4 days earlier.

Jim (Jay Hayden) is the center of this film as he manages to survive a zombie outbreak caused by an explosion at the Montgomery County chemical storage facility. He meets up with three other people held up in a warehouse. It takes 19 minutes before the first zombie attack. The zombies are fast moving people with bad makeup and red contacts. Jim attempts to get the attention of the CG helicopters overhead, but cannot. And that is pretty much it.

What this film had going for it was the realism of the situation and how it was handled. On the downside, it was boring due to the realism of the situation and how it was handled. The dialogue was also boring. No quirky characters in pirate outfits, wearing an eye patch, or pretending to be Bill Murray. And they had a chance to do this with Ix (Tori White) and instead they made her moody and quiet. The whole film was on the dull side.

Parental Guide: No sex or nudity. No f-bombs that I recall.