REVIEW: Lifeless
Lifeless The Series is a short independent miniseries that was produced as a pilot episode with the hopes of getting picked up by a larger distribution company of some sort. It didn’t pan out, which I feel is too bad since the people who made it were very resourceful, but perhaps it was also inevitable, since the series was fairly flawed.
I say that this series was flawed because… well, it was. It had several major problems. First off, the acting is sub-par. It’s not really that bad, but it’s obvious that most of the actors weren’t of the highest caliber and the delivery of their lines is rather wooden. Next, the dialog is at times cliched. I mean, really, really cliched. It just didn’t feel natural. Finally, I don’t think we get to see enough of the characters to care about them the way we should. The series took a page out of the Lost book and in each episode we follow one of the survivors in flashbacks and see how they survived the initial outbreak and learn more about them. It works, too. I liked the flashbacks, they’re well done, but with only three episodes we don’t get to know enough of the characters to really care about the entire group.
Now, despite all of these flaws, I really liked this series. Like I said, the producers were very resourceful; they were able to create a realistic post-apocalyptic city by understanding the locale. They filmed in Salt Lake City, Utah on Easter Sunday. They were able to get permits to block off downtown SLC pretty easily since the large Mormon population there is mostly inactive on Sundays and doubly so on Easter Sunday, so they had an entire day to film on the streets without having to worry about upsetting anyone with the detours. They also had a lot of good ideas in the series and it’s obvious that they understand the purpose of a zombie apocalypse: that it’s not just about blood and gore, but about human interactions and survival. Also, despite the poor dialog and acting, the direction and editing was very good. This series knows how to create a good sense of tension and suspense, and it really knows how to end on a cliffhanger which leaves you wanting more. Unfortunately, the third episode ends on a cliffhanger that… well, I don’t want to spoil it, but it’s a really big cliffhanger. It leaves the whole group in a precarious position where they aren’t dead, but since no new episodes will ever be produced, it’s easy to say that they’re all probably going to die. So it can be more than a little bit of a downer ending if you choose to see it that way.
Bottom Line: I liked it a lot despite its flaws. It’s definitely worth watching, especially if you need a zombie apocalypse fix while waiting for the next season of AMC’s The Walking Dead. The full run is gone for now, but the producers are currently looking for other options to get it distributed, either via another streaming video service or perhaps even a DVD release. Until then, you can still check out the first five minutes and a few other clips on Vimeo right here.
