With the current global concerns over the threat of the spreading coronavirus, the plausibility of an epidemic affecting the human race once again manifests itself in the brand new lesbian-romance-cum-zombie flick BY DAY’S END.
Troubled civil partners Carly Mayweather (Lyndsey Lantz) and Rina Schultz (Andrea Nelson) aren’t exactly in Valentine’s Day mode when they check into a motel in Any Town America. Carly has taken delivery of a brand new video camera which she is experimenting on in the motel concourse – and it is here she meets fellow guest Gloria Menéz (Diana Castrillion), whose own partner Miguel (Umberto Celissano) has a mystery fever that is affecting him.
Also in situ at the motel is army veteran Wyatt Fremont (Joshua Keller Katz) and it seems pretty tranquil for all. However, when Gloria suddenly turns up at Carly and Rina’s balcony outside their room with a vicious blood wound on her arm, it’s clear there is not a great deal of optimism to temper the troubled relationship the ladies have with each other….
Working from a script he co-wrote with Justin Calen-Chenn, director Michael Souder encompasses a single location mantra a half-century-plus old from the ground-breaking days of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) and combines it with the found-footage style of CLOVERFIELD and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, which is getting to be more than overly-familiar and overly-used by film-makers, particularly those working in the horror genre.
Back in 2008, this visual approach yielded spectacular dividends for Matt Reeves with CLOVERFIELD, which was a cleverly-orchestrated version of a GODZILLA-type monster movie and along with THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT was a movie that thrived at the box-office thanks to its’ masterful social media campaign and trailer promotions.
BY DAY’S END, however, is a low-budget alternate that relies a little too much on standard horror motifs, with the principal cast limited by their location and can only allow themselves to be confined to the motel area where their fate awaits.
Performances are solid and above-average for the horror genre, maintaining a sense of grounded reality amidst an much-used premise that has been farmed relentlessly over the decades and it is this that will count against BY DAY’S END because of its’ unoriginal concept.
One for hard-core zombie fans – heading straight for low-end cult status.
