In our last update the ZRC happily reviewed a smart, well-written and directed fan take on the world of Fallout 3, which happened to be Zombie Friendly to boot (given the Fallout 3 universe that’s not hugely surprising but was still appreciated).

This time we have a very different web series from Machinima entitled ‘Bite Me’ about a group of Gamers trying to survive, yes, you guessed it, The Zombie Apocalypse.

“Bite Me” is the polar opposite of “Fallout: Nuka Break” in almost every conceivable way. While Nuka Break was beautifully shot and cleverly used a minimum number of unobtrusive effects, “Bite Me” is jerky, spastic, riddled with effects and constant, and I do mean *constant* camera angle changes and movement.

In “Nuka Break” you get to take in the scenery; in “Bite Me” I literally found myself dizzy in the second episode. I haven’t been given vertigo from an entertainment product in years, if not decades; good show, “Bite Me”.

The lurching camera is accompanied by a brash, loud and intrusive soundtrack that takes you out of the picture every 30 seconds or so by incorporating yet another forgettable song that has no obvious thematic tie to whatever happens to be going on. (Contrast that with Nuka Break, which used Fallout 3′s vintage music style to great effect).

Now, as for the ‘humor’: it’s pretty much precisely what you’d be afraid of. Juvenile body humor jokes? Adolescent name-calling? Check. Fat jokes? Skank jokes? Check and check. ‘Retard’ jokes? Check. Boob jokes/girl jokes/rampant misogyny? Check. Sexual inexperience jokes? Check. ‘Plot’ element consisting of one member of geeky friend circle ‘moving on’ with his life and how this makes him an outcast and traitor? Check. Clumsy exaggerated situations to depict ‘real’ life as stodgy and boring compared with playing an Xbox game? Check. Constant references to Zombie media? Check.

Actually, let’s back that one up. In the second episode, three of the, ahem, ‘characters’ of “Bite Me” play Dead Rising 2 with a disembodied voice of a pre-teen boy (who incessantly trash talks them while screaming at his mother for chocolate milk, no, I don’t get it either). While playing Dead Rising 2 they debate Zombie movies and then discuss the Zombie Apocalypse as a genre trope, implicitly mocking their own series’ lazy writing by pointing out how traditional Anti-Zombie movies cut corners in the same way “Bite Me” is currently doing.

*grits teeth* Hmm. I can get through this review, I swear.

Meta-’humor’? Check, check, shoot me now, check.

We’ve been down this road before, with that execrable Mega 64 video about Zombies, or to be more precise, about Anti-Zombie cliches and the people who love them, or love to hate them. “Bite Me” follows in the ignoble tradition of bad ‘Geek’ comedy about Zombies in that same vein. Shallow, loud, violence-driven, crammed with an either poorly written or, tragically accurate story about breathtakingly annoying idiots thrust into an unrealistic situation where they have to fend off Zombie stereotypes who, quite frankly, exhibit more personality and intelligence than the protagonists even as they try to bash down interior doors with their fists having forgotten how to work the knobs.

This show is AGONIZING. I found myself longing for some Romero, Russo, anyone with actual ideas and the good sense to let the camera stay in one shot for ten consecutive seconds for the love of Eris. Just once in a while. Please? Anyone with an idea of what to do with a camera at all?

No? Sticking with the shaky-cam? All right then.

Since this is the ZRC I suppose I should mention the Zombies; by the end of the second episode one’s actually shown up. They’re your standard Postmodern take on Romero Zombies. They stagger, they groan, they foam and attack. They don’t move or act like a convincingly ‘Different’ form of life at any point; the Zombies portrayed here come across as, well, guys with Zombie makeup on, clumsily imitating what they watched better actors doing on some DVDs from Netflix.

Naturally this means they’re also portrayed as unintelligent and ravenous for human flesh, but again, it’s hard to discern the important difference between the Zombies and the protagonists, except that the Zombie stereotypes are marginally less annoying and have slightly less irritating dialogue. I suspect that’s why they went with the visual shortcut of white contact lenses, which would be more useful if the camera ever framed the ‘Zombies’ properly, so they doubled down with some Alka-Seltzer foam. (And then in the last episode they give you a lecture on Zombie ‘types’ to help out)

If, however, you really wanted to see some bad acting and poorly staged re-enactment of the gags from Dead Rising (umbrella as a weapon anyone?) then man, you’re a lucky, if submoronic, guy today! Bonus points if you really wanted to see a short movie series where the characters spend a considerable amount of their time reading Twitter and Facebook instead of doing anything interesting!

As for me? I’m off to read something. On paper. In a book.

Official ZRC Rating:

“Bite Me” earns a Living-Supremacist rating for depicting a tired Zombie Apocalypse fight-or-flight scenario, for glorifying Anti-Zombie violence and for putting ‘Zombie’ characters in a story this bad.

Below you can find “Bite Me” Episode 1; each episode links to the next in the series. Don’t watch it if you value yourb sanity.

Hat tip to Game Rant for pointing this series out.

Tags: Mega64, Movies, Videogames, Youtube Mischief, Zombie Flavored Creativity Substitute

This entry was posted by John Sears on Friday, January 28th, 2011 at 3:50 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.