{"id":1313,"date":"2021-05-27T20:40:21","date_gmt":"2021-05-28T01:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lasttheater.cnjradio.com\/?p=1313"},"modified":"2021-05-27T20:43:09","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T01:43:09","slug":"aquarium-of-the-dead-2021-quick-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lasttheater.cnjradio.com\/?p=1313","title":{"rendered":"Aquarium of the Dead (2021) Quick Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aquarium of the Dead<\/span><\/h2>\n

\"\"Starring: Eva Ceja, D.C. Douglas, Madeleine Falk, Brandon Lee W., Anthony Jensen, Erica Duke, and Vivica A. Fox
\nWritten by: Marc Gottlieb, Michael Varrati
\nDirected by: Glenn R. Miller
\nProduction Company: The Asylum
\nYear: 2021<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I love zombie movies. I also love aquatic monster movies. I\u2019ve also seen a fair number of movies putting human zombies underwater which can be a whole lot of fun (like in Shock Waves<\/em> or the classic shark versus zombie scene in Zombi 2<\/em>). I\u2019ve never seriously given much thought to having zombified sea creatures as a film\u2019s main monsters though. As unrealistic as the living dead are, zombie sharks and octopuses seemed like an unnecessary step in the direction of ridiculousness. Besides, a lot of sea life is already simple-minded and aggressive, a trait that zombification often instills in humans. Despite the ridiculousness of the scenario (or actually, probably because of the ridiculousness), low-budget production company The Asylum recently released Aquarium of the Dead<\/em>, a movie featuring zombified sharks, octopuses, walruses, spider crabs, starfish, and more. As one might expect, the results aren\u2019t very good, but the movie will probably be fun for a select audience.<\/p>\n

Aquarium of the Dead<\/em> takes place over the course on one day in The Shining Sea Aquarium. The movie starts with a marine biologist and her assistants attending to a large octopus that is behaving erratically. The octopus is injected with something meant to stabilize it and save its life, but it ends up killing the octopus instead. However, the creature reanimates and attacks, killing the biologist’s two assistants before escaping its tank and crawling into the facility\u2019s air ducts. The octopus is now a zombie, and the mucus it excretes throughout the aquarium kills and reanimates all of the sea creatures in every part of the facility. The aquarium goes on lockdown, trapping the workers and a few special guests inside, and the bulk of the movie follows a few different groups of people as they run back and forth through the complex, trying to survive multiple encounters with the crazed sea life.<\/p>\n

The premise is promising in a goofy way, but the execution is lacking in many, many ways. The cast does well with what they\u2019re given, and the lead actors (especially Eva Ceja and Vivica A. Fox) are what kept me interested enough to keep watching as the movie meandered its way to its conclusion. The plot is easy to follow since it really doesn\u2019t go anywhere beyond running around and trying to find an exit, but some of the actions taking place are inexplicable. For instance, Vivica A Fox\u2019s character is the head of security, and she\u2019s using a walkie talkie to direct a group of people to a fuse box which she apparently can\u2019t get to. Then, when the group arrives, Fox\u2019s character shows up out of nowhere, says nothing of importance, and dies in a physics-breaking way (sorry for the spoiler).<\/p>\n

Speaking of breaking physics, the action in the movie just looks odd. Characters move in impossible ways from shot to shot, just so they\u2019re in the right position to be killed. And sometimes, the action is completely absent like in a scene where two characters tell us they see otters coming at them, then in their next scene they\u2019re running away and commenting about how crazy the otters were acting. We never see the otters. We do see many other creatures, but the effects are primitive and don\u2019t look even remotely like they exist within the same reality as the characters. Plus it seemed like many of the creature effects were reused over different shots. I know the movie probably didn\u2019t have much of a budget, but it just felt like there wasn\u2019t much effort to try to dress things up and cover some of the glaring weaknesses.<\/p>\n

I do get it though. The Asylum has kind of made a name for itself for its low-budget charm and being dumb for all the right reasons. They made the Sharknado<\/em> movies (which actually get directly referenced by one of the characters in Aquarium of the Dead<\/em>), and Aquarium of the Dead<\/em> is the third part of the Zoombies<\/em> trilogy. I\u2019ve never seen any of those movies, but I have seen other Asylum pictures. I can\u2019t say I\u2019m a fan of what I\u2019ve seen, but I know they do have fans out there. I love tons of terrible movies, but from what I\u2019ve seen of The Asylum, it\u2019s just not my preferred brand of terrible. To me, Aquarium of the Dead<\/em> feels unfinished and intentionally bad just so people can goof on it. That’s fine, but I just found myself getting bored by the end, so I can\u2019t recommend the movie. Fans of the movies I just mentioned might want to check it out, but others may want to wait until it pops up on a streaming service you already have a subscription to. Or just pass on it altogether.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Aquarium of the Dead<\/em> is available on various VOD sites including Amazon<\/span><\/a>, VUDU<\/span><\/a>, RedBox<\/span><\/a>, and more.<\/p>\n