3D and zombie movies

Resident Evil: Afterlife just made 27 million at the box-office for its opening weekend, pretty ridiculous seeing as how the plot is no different from the previous 3 installations in the series. This happened, and is still happening, with the Saw series - same movie, new money, over and over again, never going to stop. 3D can be thanked for wasting our time by prolonging these series even more, reeling us audience into theatres across the globe with the temptation of new technology. Here, put on these glasses, they'll make the movie more fun. Yeah. Right.

I didn't see Resident Evil: Afterlife in 3D, but I did see it, and by not seeing it in 3D, I prevented myself from being distracted by it, therefore allowing myself to see the movie for what it truly is - offensive. I swear it's as if the inventor of 3D has arose from the grave and created Resident Evil: Afterlife as an hour and a half long example of what his new invention is capable of doing, leaving cinema out in the cold. Cinema is lying in a gutter, alone and crying, as Resident Evil: Afterlife goes on in its demonstration of abominableness. It ceases to be a film, it's moreso equivalent to a laser light show, or -- if it weren't for the special FX -- a baby's rattle toy. No amount of 3D can save it. Its value as entertainment is insulting.

I just as much felt tortured by its plot. How old is this plot exactly? 42 years. Perhaps longer. Here it is: The main character, Alice, thinks herself alone in the post-apocalyptic world, which is inhabited only by zombies, until she flies a plane and finds fellow humans holed up in a building, which is surrounded by thousands of zombies, so she lands on the roof and joins them in their struggle to make it out alive. Is there more depth to it than that? No. 42 years now, we are still subjected to the same...god...damn...zombie plot first seen in the year 1968 in George Romero's Night of the Living Dead!

And what eagerness the movie has to hurry up into the action. Worse than Inception. No build up to the action - it's just there, suddenly, no transition, no nothing, before you know it you're stuck watching over-stylized fight sequences, the whole time wondering, "WHY?" I don't see how enjoyment is possible when what I'm watching has no meaning. I AM NOT A DOG.

I read this interview with Wentworth Miller, one of the stars of Resident Evil: Afterlife, where I found his opinion on classic horror films as very respectable, as he commends them for their use of suspense to build the horror and for having respect for the audience by not cheaply scaring the audience within the first 5 minutes. He then goes on to insult the way modern horror films betray the audience's intelligence. Why he would say this in an interview to promote Resident Evil: Afterlife is beyond me. It is the epitome of the modern American horror film which treats its audience as stupid and it furthers this insult by being in 3D - 2 gimmicks combined to make 1 pile of shit. This is the worst case scenario horror film, I cannot imagine anything more bad.

I cannot live with myself for donating $9 of my own money toward those who made me endure this experience. An innocent Sunday afternoon turned to horror, not by the scares from the movie but by my supporting such blatant anti-cinema.

- Jon Seidman