Sometimes a movie confuses me but not how you would think. Not an intricate plot or a hard to figure out murder mystery. They are just to off the ways movies can confuse you and it's understandable. Then there are movies like April Apocalypse that for some reason or another is both really good and really bad. The first fifteen or twenty minutes is a buzz kill as nothing but the relationship forged between two children when April moves next door to Artie. April (Rebekah Brandes also from Bellflower and Midnight Movie) is the almost prom queen. I'm being a judgy bitch here I know but that's the best way to describe her. She's almost attractive enough to be prom queen. She dates the football jock but she secretly has feelings for Artie. Artie (Reece Thompson also from Dreamcatcher and Final Girl) is the nerdy next door neighbor who has loved April since the moment he sees her move in. He's rather pathetic as his mother is his biggest fan of his radio show on the station he runs from his basement, who might have five listeners.
April moves away and if it's possible Artie becomes even more pathetic. He smokes weed with his friend Steveson (Brent Tarnol the brother of director Jarret Tarnol, Brent also wrote the script) and continues to pine after April. One day after a particularly bad evening with his family, Artie who is now 21, decides to take go find April and tell her how he feels about her. On the way to April he is in a car accident. When he finally comes to a week later the zombie apocalypse has started. Will he make it to her before she becomes one of the walking dead? Or will he become a zombie first? His journey takes him to many different places. One of those places is to a church where he finds a group of zombie hunters and one of those hunters turns out to be Steveson. After finding Steveson he joins the hunters as they go along killing zombies. This is the relationship that I found to be more interesting; the one forged between friends both when they were in school as Steveson was the school stoner and he became friends with Artie simply because he accepted Artie. Steveson suspects that they are going on a fools journey as he doesn't believe Artie will find April still among the living but he does what a best friend does; he still goes with Artie.
If you're a zombie aficionado then this is standard zombie fare. There are a couple wrinkles thrown in here that made me think that at least the Tarnol brothers were thinking when they made the film so that's a mark in the win column for them. There's also a touching scene between Artie and his grandfather Pops (William Morgan Sheppard also seen in Elvira, Mistress of the Dark and The Keep) that I don't want to spoil but it's almost worth the other eighty minutes of the film. Comedian George Lopez guest stars as Artie's psychiatrist Dr. Lyle who prescribes Artie some experimental pills that will help control his depression. Those pills may also hide the secret to a cure for the zombies. Sarah Hyland (TV's Modern Family) also has a small part as Artie's annoying girlfriend Samm. In fact, most of the characters are a little annoying except for Artie and Steveson maybe that's why I have a hard time pinning this one down and giving it a score I can stand behind. So like I said giving this a score is a little difficult but writing this has helped me land on a score and I will give this a heavy two and a half zombies chained to a tree out of five. I would have given this two and three quarters if it was possible on Letterboxd but since I can't give quarter stars I have to go two and a half because three is a little high IMO. So maybe give it a go, you might find the story more endearing that I did. All depends on how and where this one hits you I guess.
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