SNIPER CORPSE ** UK 2019 Dir: Keith R. Robinson. 82 mins
A widow, Diane Keeley (Eleri Jones) goes looking for her dead husbands body. He was a solider missing in action and his body was never found. She discovers a secret military team run by Braddock (Kit Smith) who has found a liquid that reanimates the dead soldiers and allows him to train them to his command. Diane finds out where the base is and goes to investigate and expose the operation whilst also hoping to find her husband dead or alive. Unfortunately she is discovered, kidnapped and has her life threatened but unlikely heroes free her from the grasp of the real villains.
An interesting concept here where the zombies are not the threat at all. Okay they have been trained to be vicious killing machines but they rarely seem to show much aggression. They are instantly painted as the victims and as the movie goes on actually start to talk, and not just the odd bit, real sentences There is no cannibalism here either they are merely meat sacks trained to shoot an enemy which is pointed out to them which is not a bad thing just a bit tame. From what I can see of them the zombies look pretty good but they are nearly always kept in the dark so you can only see a few of their features. They are very decomposed though with most of their faces hanging off exposing teeth and on some, entire eyeballs, which is very effective. FX wise it appears to be all practical which is always my preferred type. I think the guys in charge of the FX had the best job and probably the most fun!! They don’t always look that great though. They seem a bit obsessed with close up head shots and use the same technique every time of a very floppy, squishy head shaped object exploding in every direction. They also have a fascination for shooting off limbs which look a bit like padded out pool noodles but they are good for a laugh. Annoyingly the whole thing is very gloomy and dark with only the human actors getting any decent lighting. The sound is good though if a little over produced and tinny in places and the overall score has a great 80’s synth feel to it. The actors really go for it. It’s only a very small cast and crew but they certainly give it their all! Eleri Jones as the lone main female character has quite a few scenes where it is just her and she does a reasonable job dealing with it. It seems a bit disjointed as some scenes go on for way longer than they should making it all a bit awkward. In editing and production they seemed to reuse/recycle their shots. So you would see a zombie get shot, head to a reaction shot from a character then go back again for the same kill shot. They also have a habit of showing the same scene from different camera angles too which, to me, clogs up the flow.
In short SNIPER CORPSE is no master piece but the messy practical FX add some fun elements and for a bit of a change they choose to show the zombies in a sympathetic light.
Review by Sarah Budd
SNIPER CORPSE is available on Amazon