It’s a tainted ‘Bloodline’
If “Star Wars” can attract filmmakers eager to burnish the franchise with topdrawer continuations, why can’t George Romero get the same for his groundbreaking “Dead” movies? Instead, the year after zombiedom’s grand master dies, we get the stupid “Day of the Dead: Bloodline.” Would that Romero could arise like one of his creations to take a bite out of this cheap “reimagining” of one of his movies.
The movie hopscotches from zombie-ridden streets back to when the outbreak started in a medical school’s morgue, where epidemiology student Zoe (Sophie Skelton) is sexually assaulted by obsessed bloodwork patient Max (Johnathan Schaech) until one of the corpses awakens and saves her by biting him.
Cut to five years later, and Zoe is part of a military compound of camo-wearing survivalists dumb enough to allow a semi-intelligent zombie to sneak in. The interloper is an infected Max, still yearning for Zoe, who now sees in her former tormentor the makings of a vaccine.
Romero’s 1985 “Day of the Dead” wasn’t his best, but its debates about science versus brute force reflected his hopes for the thematic heft of zombies. “Bloodline” director Hèctor Hernández Vicens and writers Mark Tonderai and Lars Jacobson are less stewards of it than schlockmeisters, treating any possible resonance as stale oil in which to fry the junk food of gory, hyperkinetic kills. Their side orders are thin characters with dumb dialogue and dumber behavior. Did Zoe need to flirt with a chained Max and let him lick her face to get a blood sample? No, but when you’re on a tight schedule of “ew” moments, why not cheapen her trauma?
Romero would have known how to use a monster like Max. “Day of the Dead: Bloodline” can only slick its floor with insides and slide all over the place. Romero’s legacy deserves better.