A story of mutation and evolution among Zombie Apocalypse survivors.
Narrated by and shot from the perspective of a young girl as she makes her way through the post-armageddon wasteland. The entire story is stitched together with the child’s musings and memories - flashbacks are plentiful. Actual Zombie encounters, not so much. No bother, apparently, the humans are more of a threat to the girl and her young companions. Fortunately for our diminutive protagonists, the trigger-happy military are some of the worst shots in cinematic history: Seriously, nearsighted Storm Troopers would mock these guys!
Coincidentally, the very reason the army guys are chasing the kids is the same reason the undead are NOT interested in them: these children have developed a specific mutation. And through these flashbacks we learn that the young group is traveling across the war-torn landscape to the presumed safety of the sea.
A hodgepodge assortment of camera techniques are employed to mask the ‘not-so-special’ effects: shaky cam, handhelds, Super-8 style, 1st person perspective, et cetera, to limited success. The hand-held shaky-cam in particular is so fierce that headaches will almost certainly ensue. And my apologies to the cameraman, who CLEARLY suffers from some violent nervous disorder.
Other clichéd effects include the brilliant bright, candy-apple red blood and the WAY over-used blood splatter on the camera lens shtick.
Zombies are straight-ahead Runners, but again, as no threat to the group of kids, they are not nearly as scary as they could have been.
But, the kicker is the surprise ending. The interesting and unique premise of evolution of humanity is almost completed overshadowed by film’s first real eyebrow-raising twist at its conclusion. BTW, that is not necessarily a good surprise.
So, all of the walking around from one antagonist encounter to the next, made Descendents a fairly boring experience for me. The Zombie Movie Rubric I employ for objective review ratings gave it a 1.7, with the heavy lifting awarded to 'originality within the genre.' This translates to somewhat of a recommendation, as in, if you’ve got nothing else going on, sure. But, personally, I would rate this a “Not unmissable.”
YouTube Trailer here: DESCENDENTS
