I’m no filmmaker, but I’d be willing to bet that it’s tough to make a good zombie movie these days. While the subgenre isn’t quite as popular today as it was about five or ten years ago, the height of the zombie craze was recent enough that it often feels like everything that can be done in these movies has already been tried. And that’s exactly why I was so excited for Among the Living. The trailer promised a very personal and character-driven story that would break from the stereotypical zombie norm just enough to be interesting, so when I got the chance to review the film, I grabbed it right away.
Among the Living was written and directed by Rob Worsey, and it stars Dean Michael Gregory, George Newton, Melissa Worsey, and Leon Worsey. It’s about a man named Harry and his kid sister Lily who are traveling across the English countryside during an outbreak of a deadly zombie virus. They’re trying to get to their father’s house, and along the way, they have to face threats both living and undead.
On the whole, I have to say that Among the Living is pretty middle of the road. It’s by no means a bad movie, but it’s not great either. For example, the characters and the performances are decent, but nobody in this film really stood out to me. I cared about Harry and Lily enough that I wanted to see what happened to them, but they didn’t pull at my heartstrings enough to get me truly invested in them and their wellbeing.
Granted, the movie does try to infuse its story with genuine emotion, but it doesn’t work nearly often enough. To take just one example, there’s a scene where Harry meets a woman who’s been bitten by a zombie, and their encounter feels like it’s supposed to be a hugely emotional moment. But the biggest reaction it got from me was a shoulder shrug and an unimpressed “Meh,” so it didn’t make me care about the characters any more than I already did.
That being said, I do have to acknowledge that not all of these emotional moments are failures. There are some that genuinely work, and I quite enjoyed them. For instance, at one point in Among the Living, Harry and Lily meet a man named Karl and his nephew Tom, and there’s a scene where Lily plays a game of catch with the two of them. It’s really nice seeing the kids having fun and getting to be kids again, even if it’s just for a few minutes, so I found this part of the film pretty touching.
But unfortunately, those heartwarming moments are very few and far between, so on the whole, I was never really able to connect with the characters quite as much as I wanted to. And that in turn kept me from caring about their story as much as I would’ve liked. While I wanted Harry and Lily to get to their father’s house safely, and I wanted the other characters they met along the way (at least the good ones) to stay safe as well, I never found myself particularly concerned about their wellbeing.
Because of that, the story just didn’t feel all that meaningful or important to me. I never became invested in it, so I felt very detached from it the whole way through. Sure, I was able to appreciate what Among the Living got right, but aside from a couple of scenes, it didn’t really resonate with me on any sort of emotional level.
When we turn to the zombies, things get a bit better, but not much. They look really good, but for some reason, I never found them particularly scary. I’m not sure what exactly was missing, but they just never hit me on a visceral level the way the zombies in, say, 28 Days Later and REC do.
However, there was one thing I really loved about these creatures. I’m a huge fan of when filmmakers put their own unique touches on monsters that have been done to death, and that’s exactly what the filmmakers in Among the Living did. While they gave us the standard zombie rules we all know and love, they made their zombies act a little differently from what we’re used to.
It’s tough to explain if you haven’t seen the film, but the way these creatures move, growl, and sniff the air around them reminded me more of werewolves than zombies, and some of them even look like werewolves in mid-transformation. I really appreciated that little twist, so even though I had my issues with these monsters, I have to give Rob Worsey and his crew a lot of credit for doing something different.
But even with that, I still have to say that Among the Living is fairly middle of the road. Sure, it has its strengths, and there are even some things about it that I enjoyed quite a bit, but on the whole, it mostly feels like just another zombie movie. At best, I’d say it’s eminently watchable, so it’s by no means a waste of your time, but unless you’re a huge zombie fan who needs to see every zombie film that comes out, you probably won’t get too much out of this one.
Among the Living hits select theaters on September 30, VOD on October 4, and Blu-ray on November 8.