Film Review: BRIDGE OF THE DOOMED (2022)

 BRIDGE OF THE DOOMED (2022) USA 1hr 22mins

Director: Michael Su

"This just in...all citizens are to remain indoors. The military are on the streets but initial reports say they are unable to maintain control." - News reporter.

"I'm not leaving my post lieutenant!" - Vasquez

"It wasn't an animal... and it wasn't one of those things either." - Sanders

During a zombie apocalypse US army General Vasquez (Robert LaSardo) sends a crack team of soldiers led by Sgt. Hernandez (Kate Watson) to secure and hold a bridge with a view to destroying it if it is compromised. Hernandez and her team not only have to battle hordes of the undead but contend with sub standard explosives, unfriendly locals and something sinister that has made the bridge its home.

This independent low budget zombie movie sets itself up as a contender to take on the big action Hollywood flicks and to be totally honest it actually does make a great effort. It really is quite fun, sometimes it is a little confused as it's not sure if it's serious or not but it certainly is entertaining and a couple of the jump scares were pretty effective! The acting in places is really quite hammy and the characters are stereo typical but they are all very enthusiastic, try really hard and look to be having a blast doing it. I have never seen anyone look as happy picking apples as Private Lin (Johnny Huang) did. Some familiar faces pop up from other known indie horrors. As well as Watson and LaSardo  I recognized Michael Parè and Sarah French, even Mark Justice popped up randomly a couple of times. It is a fairly standard zombie apocalypse plot featuring frantic news reports, military bases getting overrun, civil unrest and atrocities against civilians both from the living and undead with a bleak undertone of complete annihilation which, for me is never a bad thing. 

As well as the fabulous abundance of zombies in this we have another element in the mysterious monster that lives under the bridge. I guess we talk about the zombies first though. They are pretty awesome and there are hundreds of them!! They are the slow shuffling type or at least to start with, once they catch the scent of a human they become highly agitated, violent and blood thirsty. I'm not sure of the origin but it is hinted at a flu like virus that has mutated, so again quite standard. Transmission is through bites and bodily fluids. A bite will kill you eventually but as soon as your heart stops beating you reanimate straight away. The make up is great, it reminds me of the old schools 80's style of face paint, latex wounds, fake blood and prosthetics with a few people wearing some effectively creepy undead full face masks. During the horde scenes you notice how different they all are which I really like. Great range of adults, kids and elderly zombies too. I don't want to give too much away when it comes to the creature so lets just say it is less of a troll (which I always associate with bridges) and more reminiscent of a certain Universal Monster from the 50's. It doesn't get a lot of screen time but I enjoyed the double whammy of zombies AND a monster!

As mentioned before the zombie make up is all practical as are a lot of the effects, there are plenty of intestines being pulled about, some close up head shots and hand to hand combat but the gun fire and blood splatter is very obviously CGI and doesn't look great. It is also plagued by a few continuity issues as one minute it's night time, then day time and back to night again. The soundtrack is bold and lively though with a mixture of every genre from rock, pop, electro and synthwave which adds to the energy. The action is frequent and great fun to watch.

BRIDGE OF THE DOOMED brings nothing new to the genre but it is one of those fun, over-the-top zombie movies that doesn't require much brain power to watch, which is something everyone needs in their life from time to time. Something to stick on with a bunch of mates as part of a movie marathon or something. A lot of low budget zombie movies fall flat or fail miserably but this one holds up as one of the more competent and entertaining ones and I, for one, enjoyed it! I score BRIDGE OF THE DOOMED 3 brains out of 5.

BRIDGE OF THE DOOMED (2022) is released on VOD/BluRay and DVD through Gravitas Ventures on November 4th 2022.