Rogue Cinema - Day X (2007) - By Duane L. Martin

Day X (2007) - By Duane L. Martin
Posted on Saturday, December 01 @ Mountain Standard Time by Duane

In an industry inundated with zombie films, it takes a lot to make yet another one stand out from the rest of the entries in the genre. Day X, at least in some ways, has managed to do that, and yet in other ways, it's just kinda same ol', same ol'.

Day X's premise is that the government created this airborn virus to basically create super soldiers out of our own people in case we were ever invaded. Unfortunately, the virus ended up turning people into nothing more than highly aggressive super zombies with a super appetite for human flesh.

The same ol', same ol' elements of this film amount to basically a group of people being thrown together in a building, trying to secure it from the zombies and fight them off long enough to give them all chance to escape. The thing is, most of the characters were typical of other zombie movies. One badass, one bitch, one tough chick, a married couple, a minister, and a few other assorted random people.

Where this film brings something new to the table is with the zombies themselves. The badass guy was a government courier who was transporting an infected zombie girl, but she was on the side of the good guys. She was also the cure. If someone got infected and she bit them, they'd basically be cured. During the escape scene, she seemed to delight in grabbing zombie after zombie and tearing orally into their flesh. I'm not sure if it would cure zombies who were already infected, but she was tearing through them big time and helping the others escape. The one problem I had with this escape scene is that if she was that important, why didn't the courier guy keep her close by him so he could protect her and make sure she escaped? She ended up staying behind to fight the zombies and that courier guy ended up dead anyway. It just didn't make sense. I also felt that she was largely under-utilized in this film, and more cool stuff could have been done with her. I will say though...for a zombie chick she was just...well...yummy! The zombie girl was called Patient X and was played by Caitlin Cagle. This film is her only credit on IMDB, but I definitely hope to see a lot more of her in the future. She just did an excellent job in this film, and if this truly was her first film, then she has an amazing future ahead of her as an actress.

Another cool thing about the zombies in this movie is that they couldn't be taken down by head shots or anything else. Their bodies became altered in such a way that they turned dark and whenever they took damage, it would scab over and heal incredibly quickly. So basically, short of torching them, it was pretty hard to stop them. Unfortunately for them though, the virus would eventually eat away their bodies starting with the legs. So every once in a while you'd see one crawling around that was just a torso dragging itself along with its hands.

The acting in this film was quite good all around, the sound, lighting and editing were all great, and the creature make-up and effects were phenomenal. Where the film really shined though was in the cinematography. There were some really, really nice shots in this movie. This film had several directors of photography, and they are all to be commended for some fine work. It's not often that I see the quality of shots that I saw in some of the scenes in this film.

While not entirely original, Day X is a high quality film with some great acting, a good story that flows quite well and tons of great action. Those of you out there who love zombie movies will not be disappointed with this one.

If you'd like to check out this film, it has been picked up by Image Entertainment for US distribution and is currently available through Amazon and other DVD outlets.