We All Fall Down (2016) Reviews

• Falls flat on its face.

  gso1963-174-3921452017-02-17

  Full disclosure: I was actually one of the Kickstarter backers on this film, which is why I'm using an alternative name here. I'm not writing this review out of malice towards the creators; they delivered on what I paid for. The thing is what I got ended up being different than what was promised in the campaign and the final product suffered from such an alteration leaving much to be desired. So much so that I couldn't let such a letdown slip by and felt the need to speak out. However, I refrained until it was released to the public as I felt doing so before hand would make it look like I was trying to defame the film and I wanted to see how audiences thought of it coming in blind. Now that it's been out for a week as of writing and now that the users have spoken, I cannot hold my silence any longer. We All Fall Down was the worst movie I had the misfortune of supporting on Kickstarter. Let me explain. Our story, or what semblance of one there is, takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where adults have transformed into zombies and kids below the age of 18 have to fend for themselves. Our hero Todd, who just hit the "transformation" phase, and his younger brother Benny scour the desolate area trying to survive on their own. While on their journey, the two get kidnapped by a cultist tribe lead by the crazed teenage queen Matra looking for recruits. Todd must now come to terms with his surroundings and save his brother before the mute kid becomes a wild savage. And that's pretty much it. If you thought that synopsis was a bit underwhelming, that's because the entire movie was incredibly underwhelming. I won't lie by saying the general premise itself is intriguing and I'm a sucker for stories centered around kids. It's just that the actual plot around it was badly executed. For starters, the film presents its setting in a rather vague fashion. We aren't given an explanation why the adults have suddenly become zombies (though it might explain why civilization has collapsed) and we don't know how that same transformation process works, so Todd's internal conflict doesn't carry much weight as a result. As the matter of fact, his fear of the change isn't really resolved at the end rendering his dream conversations with a random little girl rather pointless in the long run. Most of the characters are flat with hardly any depth to them. For example, Matra doesn't have a motivation for raising a group of savages aside from power and without knowing what happened to her that made her go rogue, she comes across as a one dimensional villain. Eve, a female survivor also doesn't have much of a character aside from being the assistance Todd learns to trust as the story goes on. It's hard to get invested with these characters with so many supposedly important details glossed over or left out altogether. I'm not asking for exposition dumps, but at least include some pivotal background stuff that gives me a reason to care about why our heroes need to survive this hellish environment. I'd argue to say that the overall story should be labeled incomplete. The worst sin this movie makes is that there's barely any zombie action, let alone actual zombies! Our heroes fend off a few of them at the beginning and that's it. This will no doubt disappoint fans of the zombie sub-genre if that's what they came here for. Come to think of it, the lack of suspense or gore will also let down fans of horror too. While the film visually looks okay and there isn't any gimmicky CGI, the acting's not really that great and the score isn't effective in the slightest. You can say there wasn't any entertainment value here due to all of these shortcomings being present. But why does the movie feel half-baked? The answer should be a no brainier for those who got hooked by the premise during the campaign like me. We All Fall Down was actually suppose to have been a web series from the get-go, only for it to morph into a film at the eleventh hour (given the plot it's kinda ironic). While the reasoning behind this might have been an economic/business one, just because a story works in one medium doesn't mean it will work in another. In this case, the film was not shot as a film but rather an episodic series which means it was written in a way that is suitable for that field. With shows you can have an ever expanding story over the course of many episodes or even through seasons, but with movies you have to tell a complete story in the time given. There is no full story if you try and edit a bunch of episode together into a movie and that's why the final product fails. In fact, the movie felt more like an unsold TV pilot. I'm not sure if the intended web series would've fared much better, but why they couldn't just test it out with backers before going through a revamp is beyond me. To add insult to injury, the movie ends on a sequel hook that's likely not going to happen anytime soon (though if they do make one, I hope they pull a Purge and make a superior product). When all was said and done, We All Fall Down is an unbelievably flawed film with a plot full of loose ends, poor characterization, a severe lack of thrills and a load of wasted potential. Had I known what I was getting into, I probably wouldn't have bothered with the campaign. I hope that the filmmakers will learn from this misstep and settle on what format they want to tell their stories in the future.

• Not sure how this got rated 6 and 7?

  noonankevin2017-02-07

  First of all it wasn't a bad movie but it didn't deserve no 7.8 which was the rating on here at first. It was OK,a different kind of horror movie to whats out there at the moment. The acting wasn't especially good either,id say average to that as well. It seemed to me that it was one of them-you knew what was coming next or at the end. This is my personal opinion,so some would disagree no doubt. Anyway the movies worth a watch and would like to see what the rating eventually goes down to with more reviews,etc. This is my first review on here so I'm sorry if its not as good as some on here. Thank you for reading and hope you enjoy it as much as i did,ha!

• "The Road" meet "Lord of the Flies" plus zombies

  nogodnomasters2017-07-29

  Todd (Cardiff Gerhardt) and his mute brother Benny (Connor James Moore) travel down "The Road" as the planet has been infected by the Star Trek virus "Miri" that only effects adults. They try to remain alone, but run into Matra (Kalli Therinae) a pretty teen girl who wants to feed Todd and his brother and "fulfill all of his needs." wink wink nudge nudge. Todd being a young male from Utah, grunts and says "no." In fact most of the dialogue had a lot of poorly done grunts and snarls. Having gotten past that zombie adults who want to eat kids are few and far between and kids managed to survive with all the adults wanting to kill them, I viewed on. The film managed to capture a poorly acted and scripted combination of "The Road" meets "Lord of the Flies" plus 4? zombies. The child acting was extremely bad, especially the leads. Kalli Therinae reminded me of Miley Cyrus at her worst. Guide: No swearing, sex, or nudity

• Savages and running zombies! Seriously?...

  paul_haakonsen2017-06-14

  When I found "We All Fall Down", I read the synopsis and just had to take the time and effort to sit down and watch it because it is a zombie movie after all. And I have to be honest and say that I had not heard about this movie prior to stumbling across it by sheer random luck. But it is always nice to find a new addition to the zombie movie collection, although many of the movies turn out to be poor attempts at making a zombie movie. "We All Fall Down" has a relatively small cast ensemble, so the actors and actresses in the movie had to carry a bigger weight in order to make the movie work. And I will say that most of the performances in the movie were actually quite good. The characters in the movie were nicely detailed and fleshed out. However, it just didn't always make much sense. For example, why would people resort to dressing as savages and incorporate teddy bears in their outfits. It hardly makes much sense for such foolishness in a dying world overrun with zombies. So I didn't really understand why writer and director Kurt Knight opted for this in his movie. But seriously, savages? What could possibly justify that people turn into and act like savages while others retain their humanity and ways of their former lives? No, it just didn't add up. And for some reason these savages just lost their ability to speak and communicate in English? No, no, no! While we are on the topic of things that didn't make much sense, then why did Todd have to go around and growl like a rabid beast? The zombies were suffering from that low budget approach in terms of make-up and special effects. The people who were portraying zombies in the movie were essentially just colored grey on their face and necks, and often they had forgotten to color the arms, hands, legs and feet. Which is a classic and very stupid mistake to make, especially since you opted for the cheap approach of just using grey make-up and not have gore and dismemberment effects. Furthermore, the zombies were fast, agile and running, which is a definite no in my book. Zombies are supposed to be slow and shambling, lacking proper motor skills and coordination. I will say that the atmosphere in the movie was actually quite good. There was a gritty feel to it all, with dirt and grime, which added a good sense of realism to the scenes. The pacing of the movie was adequate, because there was a good and constant flow to the movie. The movie's cover/poster looks rather interesting and is actually quite nicely made. It is alluring and eye catching. However, it is actually far more promising than what the movie delivered at the hand of writer and director Kurt Knight. "We All Fall Down" had some major problems in terms of script idea and concept, but there were lots of enjoyable moments throughout the course of the movie. For a zombie movie then "We All Fall Down" is definitely not a movie worthwhile mentioning or one that you must run out and add to your collection.

• Not bad. A bit too long.

  siderite2017-03-18

  Lots of people saying that the acting is bad are just plain silly. The acting is not great, that's for sure, but I've seen bad and this ain't it. In fact, the whole idea of the movie is that kids are the only people not "zombified" and so their behavior should be erratic and over the top. If anything, the actors played it too normal. The problem with the movie was with the story. It started from a premise that not only wasn't explored, but wasn't even relevant to the plot. Then it focused its 80 minutes on details that, again, were irrelevant. I really enjoyed Kalli Therinae's character and, with a better script, she could have shined. Bottom line: the idea was reasonably fresh, but the plot did not take advantage of it. The actors were OK, but their roles didn't really give them the opportunity to evolve. If this were an episode of The Walking Dead, it would have been way too boring. As a movie it just doesn't work. Too bad, since I enjoyed most other movies from Arrowstorm.