When you hear "Eerie" in a title, you think of ghosts and paranormal shenanigans. At least, if you think like me. What you do *not* think of is rage-zombie action. But that's what you get here. And 13 Eerie is a perfectly competent zombie film - it's got quality effects and a good basic premise. But ultimately there isn't really enough to make it stand out from the pack of "okay zombie films." So while it's still a cut above the bulk of zombie schlock out there, it's nothing I'll probably ever look back fondly on.
It does have an interesting set up though. It centers on a group of forensic science students, vying for an internship (or something). They've been brought out to an isolated abandoned prison by their professor, who has stashed three bodies out on the prison grounds. The students are broken up into three teams of two to go out and investigate the bodies, run some forensic tests, etc. It's kind of nice, because of the nature of the job, our group is not easily scared and is relatively smart. You get the chance to not only see some cool science stuff, but also the opportunity to get into some pretty nasty effects work.
Why choose an isolated, abandoned prison for this task? Well, it looks creepy, and had to be cheap. And I suppose there aren't a ton of places where you can just leave dead bodies to rot for people to study. It's just too bad that this particular prison *happened* to be a location where some horrible medical experiments were performed on prisoners, and consequently there just *happens* to be a few pissed off zombies lurking around, waiting to (graphically) devour our students.
I guess what disappointed me the most about 13 Eerie is that is devolves pretty quickly into more of an action film with gore, rather than a horror film intent on delivering scares and tension. (To be fair, I think this what director Lowell Dean - also of Wolfcop fame - is trying to do.) The whole abandoned island/prison would be a great setting for some lurking terror, but 13 Eerie is content with giving you loud rage-zombies/monsters, many chase sequences, and a little gunplay. The action is fine - nothing special, but at least easy to follow.
But the gore is where the film really shines. It's a pretty sloppy, gooey film, with mostly practical effects. In addition to a great deal of gut-munching, the zombies are dispatched of in pretty inventive (if not credibility-stretching) ways. There isn't any one big set piece or "holy shit" moment, but it's solid work across the board.
The acting is pretty good - it's just that the characters don't have an awful lot to do. You don't really end up learning an awful lot about them... and even when you do, it's pretty inconsequential to the overall story. (i.e the claustrophobic guy, the trust-fund girl; you expect these traits to somehow come into play, you know?) But special mention must be made of Katherine Isabelle (fast becoming a genre favorite of mine) as final girl Megan - she really sells being able to kick ass here. I also thought Nick Moran was good as the slacker bus-driver/cook Larry Jefferson - he's the only one who has heard of the rumors of this prison, and he's really our only insight into what exactly is going on. 13 Eerie doesn't really try to explain itself... which works just fine in this case. Jefferson is clearly in what would be the comic relief role in most films, but director Lowell Dean never lets the humor take precedent over the overall tone. Which I would describe as bleak, but unaffecting... i.e you'd be bummed at times if you were given a reason to care more about the characters.
Ultimately, 13 Eerie passes the time just fine. It's competently made and has some good gore... and played a ton better than what I'd expect out of of the other action/zombie films that were previewed on the DVD (among them Ozombie, an Osama Bin Laden/zombie mash up - I don't think I'll be checking that one out). I'll always prefer my zombies slow and creeping, and will always take some well built tension over action sequences. But 13 Eerie works just fine as an action/horror hybrid.
I would I guess sort of recommend this film.
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