13 Eerie (2013) a movie I stumbled upon whilst blindly and aimlessly trawling the depths of Amazon. The movie appealed to me because I like zombie movies and it had a reasonable IMDB score, not that you can rely on that I might add! So, was this a George Romero Dawn of the Dead awesome movie or a Uwe Boll House of the Dead crap fest? (I hope he doesnt read this!) Predictably it was neither.
The plot of 13 Eerie starts with six students making their way to a seemingly abandoned island that at one time was used as a prison. They are accompanied by their Professor and another man, who drives the bus and cooks their food as part of his community service. The students are split into pairs and sent to examine pre placed real corpses as part of their training in forensics. It appears, however, that not all the corpses on the island are dead, some of them are "alive" and hungry for flesh. The rest of the movie predictably goes into the usual zombie movie territory involving the fight for survival.
I believe modern day zombie movies fall into two categories, or perhaps ideal types is a better description. There are the more "traditional " zombie movies with slow moving zombies that overwhelm the humans and then there are the 28 Day Later "zombies", that are created by an event such as a virus outbreak and feature zombies or mutants that move fast and exhibit extreme aggression. In 13 Eerie the zombies we are lead to believe came about because of medical experiments performed on prisoners. The zombies in 13 Eerie whilst not as fast as 28 Days later are faster than the traditional zombie. They look impressive and are extremely aggressive. As such they are something of a compromise between the two types of zombie movies. You will either love this or hate it, a bit like marmite on toast.
Whilst 13 Eerie adds nothing new to the zombie genre it is not without its charms. The zombies are quite impressive, as is the gore and there is plenty of it for gore hounds. The acting is of a reasonable standard and the dialogue is competent. The setting of an island adds to the sense of desperation as the humans attempt to survive and escape.
6 out of 10
Summary: competent if not particularly memorable zombie movie, worth watching if you like a good zombie movie.