28 YEARS LATER (2025)

Wat da fuq?

Seeing as how I’m both the most well-respected and highest paid movie critic in the known Universe, I decided to do my due diligence and revisit the first two films in the “28 Days Later” series before watching this new installment. And yep, they’re both still a 5/10 at best.

Alright, so let’s get to it: Twenty-eight years after the original outbreak of the Rage Virus, a 12-year-old boy, Spike (I’m guessing his parents were Buffy fans), lives with his family on a small British island that’s protected by the tides coming in and out, creating a natural barrier from the mainland Infected. There’s a small, fenced community on the island and when the children (boys only, no girls?) turn 15 they have a coming-of-age ritual where they go to the mainland, kill a zombie and teabag it or something. I don’t know, my brain started drifting when we’re told that the boy is only 12. Like, what the fuck? Why exactly is this dude going out three goddamn years early for? It’s like the movie created its own problem and never even explained it. (Or maybe it did and I missed it during one of my multiple, protracted yawning sessions.) Some townfolk say that Spike is too young, the dad says nope he’s old enough. Then once they get out of the gate, ol’ Spike starts fucking shit up left and right and even gets a few people killed!

Also, don’t even get me started on the goddamn doctor drugging the one zombie and letting him go, only to be bounced up and down like a goddamn Harlem Globetrotter basketball later on by the same exact zombie! Is this zombie your pet or something? Kill the motherfucker!

I don’t know. I was honestly looking forward to this film because I was expecting some badass zombie action, but instead I got weird camera effects, lens flares flying all over the joint and zombies treated more like annoying pests than deadly threats. I wanted to like 28 YEARS LATER, but by time it was over I wanted to parkour my 4K disc through a fucking window.

Part 1 - 28 Days Later... (2002)
Part 2 - 28 Weeks Later (2007)
Part 4 - 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)

MONSTER MAN (2003)

Two annoying hyperdouchers, who cannot die soon enough, are on a road trip (on a backroad that seems to get very little traffic) when they're revved up on by a post-apocalyptic-looking monster truck. Later on, they’re joined by a hitchhiker. It’s exciting stuff.

I can only assume that MONSTER MAN was made as a JEEPERS CREEPERS clone. If so, then that’s cool, because JC wasn’t very good and it would therefore be an easy idea to improve upon. Or so you would think. I originally saw MONSTER MAN, back when it was a New Release on DVD, and (I think) I remember kinda liking it. (I most likely did because I own an ancient copy of it.) But time hasn’t been kind to MM and sitting through it again for this review was a fucking chore. Mainly because the two main characters are insufferable. Especially the dude named Harley. He wasn’t on the screen for even 15 seconds before I wanted to dropkick his goofy ass into the Creeper’s dead body pipe hole.

Slow pace, extremely annoying dialogue, zero nudity, very little blood or gore, most of the movie tinted in a weird orange and/or blue filter, overacting galore, weak direction, a very dude-heavy cast, disappointing ending, a lot of lines delivered as though they were jokes even though they weren’t funny…so maybe MONSTER MAN is actually a horror comedy? Fuck, I don’t know. I do know that I didn’t laugh at all and spent most of my time just wishing something would goddamn happen. It never did.

MONSTER MAN isn't a bad film as much as it's just a nothing film. Like, what’s even the artistic point of making a JEEPERS CREEPERS rip-off if all you’re gonna do is make an even shittier, weaker version?

Watch it if you want, just don't expect much.