It Stains the Sands Red

A surprisingly good movie, it didn’t seem terribly promising when I first started watching it but after 15 to 20 minutes it really become something much better than I thought it would be. The initial premise is the zombie apocalypse has happened – we don’t get any details other than a bird’s eye view of Las Vegas in absolute chaos – and our two main characters, Nick (played by Merwin Mondesir) and the true main character, Molly (played by Brittany Allen) are fleeing the city down a desert highway in a sports car.Molly, who drinks and does cocaine we see, has to pull over and vomit. Nick agrees and does so…and then the car gets stuck in the sand and they can’t get out. Not long after a lone zombie shows up and sorry if this a spoiler (you don’t see much of Nick in the trailer so it is kind of obvious) Nick dies and Molly has to flee (Nick and Molly were on their way to meet a friend of Nick’s at a small desert airfield to fly somewhere hopefully safer). Molly grabs a bunch of water bottles, a bottle of hard liquor, her cocaine, and heads off definitely not dressed for the desert to track overland to find this airfield, with the zombie in close pursuit, Molly able to walk just fast enough to keep ahead of the zombie, but unable to shake him for long and unlike the zombie, needing rest.What follows is the heart of the movie, as Molly grows as a character, in a series of flashbacks and maybe some sort of clarified thinking brought on by the hot desert sun and growing dehydration, realizes what is important in life. You see in her thoughts and in the flashbacks the bad (her past life, being a stripper, etc.) and the good (she is a mother). The desert strips away much of the bad and she becomes a different character, reminding me a bit of the movie _Feed the Devil_, where the main character started out as a small time drug dealing crook but really rose to the occasion and became brave, selfless, and resourceful when mortal danger presented itself to not only themselves but more importantly to others they cared about, that care formerly buried by their bad lifestyles but when a truly dangerous and frightening situation arose, became in fact heroic.The zombie though…relentless adversary and something also Molly bonds with? It’s hard to believe, but it is true, I don’t want to spoil that, but at the very least there is some sort of Wilson (as in _Cast Away_) aspect to the affair. The zombie was played with a surprising range of action and emotions of a sort, the actor Juan Riedinger doing a good job with a mindless creature that can only growl and roar.The desert scenery was gorgeous, I loved the drone footage of Molly or Molly and the zombie walking through the wide-open desert, it was very effective. There were the usual weird and potentially quite dangerous encounters with the odd survivor, those scenes largely worked. The Molly towards the end was a great character though not especially likable or intelligent early on. The idea of having a lone zombie most of the movie was a good one, I think that was very unusual for a zombie movie. It wasn’t a super zombie or had special powers, it was just in a situation where Molly for most of the film couldn’t do much to it other than barely keep ahead.

Some reviewers seem offended that the heroine in this movie is so stupid. She survives as long as she does, almost entirely by luck.But in fairness, literally every character in the movie is just as dumb. The writer's not saying "Women are dumb." The point seems to be that most people are... which in a way you can't argue with.Her boyfriend Nick is an idiot who pulls his car off the road, not checking whether he's pulling it into a hole it won't get out of. He also wastes a bunch of bullets trying to shoot a zombie. Not sure what he's doing with a gun; he's a very bad aim.Both characters get out of a car in the middle of nowhere, on a dark night, knowing there's a zombie lurking outside.The heroine is being chased by a zombie for about 3/4 of the movie. And she does indeed do lots of dumb things. She walks through the desert under the burning sun and sleeps at night. (If you're ever alone in the desert -- do the opposite.) She has multiple chances to kill her zombie pursuer, long before she bonds with it and decides to "keep" it. I do like the part where she learns to (sort of) communicate with it.The movie also has a grim but believable rape scene. a silly scene with a scorpion, some funny scenes in which the zombie trips over its feet and does pratfalls when chasing her, and a funny/gross tampon scene. I suspect the tampon scene will bother some people more than the scenes of zombies munching on humans... we're used to those.

Starts out as a routine zombie movie. A car gets stuck on the side of the road in a deserted stretch of desert. Along comes a man, who is a zombie, and he kills the boyfriend. She flees into the desert after gathering supplies (a bit unexpected, as the movie so far made her a ditzy person). Anyway, she can’t get away from him (zombie). She manages to stay steps ahead of him but cannot shake him. She winds up talking to him, even though he cannot answer. She develops sort of a bond with the zombie. And as the movie progresses, flashbacks show that she has a son that she loves, but had to give him up. The movie makes the desert survival quite real, and the scenery was wonderful. Little touches such as her cracked lips showed some research but her pearly whites were a glaring error. The make up was done very well. A small intimate movie that keeps the viewer’s interest. When she is given the chance to escape, she becomes conflicted as she was able to take stock of her life and think about what was the most important thing. Her decisions show her character thanks to 'knowing' her zombie follower.

Stripperin Molly (Brittany Allen) ist mit ihrem Lover Nick im Sportflitzer auf der Flucht aus Las Vegas, wo eine Zombie-Epidemie um sich greift. Ihre Tochter hat sie fortgegeben und kokst, trinkt Wodka und qualmt. Ihr Ziel ist ein Flugplatz in der Wüste, von dem aus es nach Mexiko gehen soll.Als er anhalten muss, damit Molly ihren Magen entleeren kann, nimmt das Debakel seinen Lauf: Der Wagen ist festgefahren, und auf der Straße schlurft und wankt ein Zombie heran, der sich auch nach mehreren Treffern mit Pistolenkugeln nicht davon abhalten lässt, die Innereien des Mannes zu vertilgen.Molly rafft zusammen, was Frau zum Marsch durch die Wüste so braucht: Fluppen, Wodka, Koks Wasserflaschen und Tampons. Dann marschiert sie auf High Heels in die Wüste, der lädierte Zombie hinter ihr her, sie kann ihn mühelos auf Distanz halten.Abends klettert sie auf Felsen, wozu der Zombie nicht mehr in der Lage ist, ein blutiger Tampon ist ein geeignetess Mittel, um ihn vom Felsen wegzulocken, damit sie wieder runterklettern kann.Der Zombie spricht nicht, das gleicht Molly durch plattes Gequassel mehr als aus. bald stellt sich heraus, dass der Zombie nicht ihr Hauptproblem ist. Vor 2 Vergewaltigern wird sie von "Smalls", wie sie ihn getauft hat, gerettet, und macht bald eine Wandlung durch. Er ist bald ihr Kummerkasten und Antrieb, ihre Tochter wiederzusehen. Bald macht sich Smalls auch gut als Lastentransporter, wenn er mit einem Schlauchboot, an einem Seil um einen Autoreifen um die Schultern Mollys Gepäck trägt, und als es ihm nach einem erneuten Schuß ins Bein durch Soldaten zunehmend schlechter geht, behandelt sie ihn fast liebevoll."It stains the sands red" ist eine erfrischende Variante des Zombiefilms, keine Horden von Zombies auf Menschenjagd, der Film wird fast allein von Brittany Allen und ihrem stummen Verfolger getragen, und das meistert insbesondere Brittany gut.Der Film ist ein schwarzhumoriges mit spärlichen Splatterszenen garniertes Roadmovie, in dem Molly während des Marsches durch die Wüste mit ihrem fast bedauernswerten stumm hinter ihr hertrottenden Verfolger bzw. später Gefährten eine Wandlung durchmacht. Ihr anfangs entnervendes Gequassel ohne Punkt und Komma wird im Verauf so etwas wie eine Selbstreflexion über ihr Leben, auch der arme Smalls ist immer noch ein Mensch, ohne das der Film jetzt besondere Tiefe hätte - was er wohl auch gar nicht haben will.Ich habe mich durch diesen Zombie-Film der ganz besonderen Art gut unterhalten gefühlt.Doc Halliday

Of course, what would be a monthly horror fest without, at least, one zombie movie. And that word, at least nowadays, seems to be like a four-letter word (even though it, obviously has more than that). What I mean is that the word has a negative connotation as a result of the fact that, thanks to The Walking Dead, the zombie genre has pretty much taken every form of media by storm. It's understandable that people would, honestly, be a little tired of the genre, because I am fairly tired of zombies myself, but that's not to say that I'm not gonna give a movie a shot just because it happens to have zombies in it. As I've always said, I welcome originality and subversion of usual genre tropes. And this is in general in horror, not just for zombie movies, but I feel that zombie movies probably needs more of it than any other horror subgenre. So, getting to this film, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I did watch the trailer and I thought it was actually a really cool concept. What I mean is that the movie made it seem that Molly, the lead character, was stranded in the desert and she was being hunted down by a single zombie. And I thought that that was actually a really fresh approach to the genre. I don't wanna say it's small-scale, but it is a smaller story. A story about a woman trying to outrun ONE zombie in the desert. And, at the same time, I thought it was also cool in how they were gonna transform the desert, which is obviously vast and desolate, into a claustrophobic setting given that the zombie, that Molly affectionately names Smalls, is after her all the time. No matter where she goes, Smalls is right there with her. So, as vast as the desert is, if you can't get away from the zombie, then that vastness really becomes irrelevant. But, much to my surprise, while the movie certainly has some of what I mentioned, I think the movie veers completely different than what I would have ever anticipated. And I mean that in the most complimentary manner possible because, in all honesty, I thought this was a really good, interesting and fresh take on the zombie genre. Perhaps it's not gonna be the type of movie that revitalizes the genre, but it is different. It's not even just that it's different, because that doesn't always equal good, but this movie is very good. The strange thing about this movie is that it juggles a variety of different genres while, mainly, using a horror frame. In some ways, at least at first, this is a buddy comedy with Molly having back and forths with Smalls. Well, really, it's more backs than forths, but you get my point. Then it's a road movie, as Molly is walking 36 miles through the desert, after the car she was in broke down, in order to get to this airfield in order to get a flight out of the country since, obviously, the zombie apocalypse has started. At the same time, in some ways, it's a coming-of-age movie. Molly is obviously an adult at the start of the film's events, but she is also an irresponsible person who gave up her son to her sister, since she was better at taking care of the kid than Molly was. Molly is obviously a very troubled woman, as she's clearly got a drug addiction and, essentially, she can't take care of herself. So, in her current state, she is not someone who's equipped to take care of a, supposedly, five-year-old boy. But the thing about Molly is that the film never sets out to make her look like an awful person for doing what she did. Yes, she has a drug addiction but, at the very least, she realized that her son was better off with someone else as opposed to with her. Regardless, the movie uses Molly's burgeoning friendship with Smalls, even to the point where Smalls starts listening to her commands, to tell this story Molly's story of maturation and coming to the realization that she needs to grow up and do right by her son. Not to mention the fact that the care she took of Smalls, basically, showed her that she did have what it takes to be a good mother. Smalls is, essentially, a metaphor for Molly's own son and they even look similar. So, in a way, the movie surprised with how character-driven it was because, essentially, Molly and Smalls really are the only prominent characters in the entire movie and Molly, obviously, gets the most dialogue. And, to Brittany Allen's (Molly) credit, she does a phenomenal job in this movie. The script is very strong, yes, but I don't think Molly is as strong of a character without Brittany Allen's dedicated performance. Brittany makes the character sympathetic in spite of all her perceived faults. Making mistakes doesn't make someone a bad person, as I'm sure some people believe, but Molly is very much haunted by the guilt of what, she feels, was abandoning her son. And her son does kind of see it that way, mostly because he doesn't know any better, but I feel that, again, in her own way, Molly was trying to protect her son. So I was definitely a big fan of that approach to this character. And, again, Brittany Allen is excellent in this movie, so that helps quite a lot. I'm not saying that the movie is perfect, but it is a very good and emotionally resonant movie in more ways than I was expecting. But the movie is also funnier than I would have expected. There's this scene early one where Molly, attempting to play 'fetch' with Smalls, just so he would leave her alone, takes out her bloodied tampon and throws it away in the distance. Smalls goes after it, attempts to eat it and, after a while, is apparently not pleased with the taste of this blood, so he spits the tampon out in disgust. The discussions that Molly has early on with Smalls are also funny in how, again, Molly plays it off as if Smalls is actually replying to what she said and, as mentioned earlier, there's a bit of a back and forth between them. This is a very surprising movie in many ways. There does come a moment where, after Smalls is shot through the knee, that Molly, essentially, has to put him down, so that obviously leads to Molly continuing on on her own. You might think that the movie loses something with Smalls' "death", but it really doesn't. I think, in many ways, and as cheesy as this sounds, Smalls ended up helping Molly turn her life around in a way, helping her realize what's really important and to stop being so selfish. Having said that, though, there is one unfortunate rape scene in the movie. Honestly, rape scenes are touchy, and I'm not saying that, inherently, they cannot work in any type of movie, but I don't feel that it works in this movie. While you could make the argument that it is the impetus for Molly starting to see Smalls in a different way, as Smalls killed the guy (an escaped convict) that was raping her while the other (another convict) drove off in a stolen truck, it's not like rape was the only way you could have gotten to this same point. She could have been physically assaulted or something. See, it's THAT easy. Honestly, it's just not to the benefit of the movie that much, so it feels kind of exploitative. And this is for a movie where, some scenes, are ripped straight from 70s exploitation flicks, down to one scene even going for the grainy footage. Regardless, with that aside, I still greatly enjoyed this movie. I feel that this is a massively underrated horror movie. It's got a strong central character, an emotionally resonant story and excellent acting. I was aware of this movie, having seen it on Amazon a few times here and there while browsing, but I never once really looked up much info on it. I saw the trailer for the first time yesterday, a few hours prior to watching it. I can't believe that I actually let this slip under my radar for as long as I did. It's not that old of a movie, mind you, but still, I should have watched this sooner than I did. More to the point, however, I'm very glad that I did end up watching this, even if it flew under most people's radars. I would happily recommend this movie. Maybe not if you're a casual horror fan and you want something to 'scare' you. This isn't that movie, but I'd recommend it to horror geeks looking for something fresh in the zombie subgenre.

Hier wird deutlich, wie sehr sich der Mensch an eine gegebene Situation eisntellen und an sie gewöhnen kann. Auch die Identifikation mit dem Aggressor zur Angstbewältigung wid gezeigt. Der Charakter der Menschen offenbart sich in Krisen, wie ein Mann dann auch leider im negativen Sinne offenbart. Die Hauptfigur würde, käme sie in die Obhut von Rick und Denise aiu The walking Dead, eine perfekte Bereicherung der Gruppe darstellen. Anfangs kann man über die Hilflosigkeit der Städter den Kopf schütteln, die Frau indess weiß sich sehr schnell anzupassen, eine Kämpfernatur, deren Ende ungewiss ist. Lohnt sich, in die Zombiefilmsammlung aufgenommen zu werden.

Für Fans dieses Genres eine klare Empfehlung. Dieser Film ist mal erfrischend anders als der ganze Einheitsbrei. Es ist mittlerweile schwierig diesem Genre etwas neues zuzufügen. Dieser Film schafft das mühelos und Brittany Allen ist in ihrer Rolle genial. Nur schade das dieser Film nicht die Aufmerksamkeit bekam, die er verdient hätte.

Ich habe den Film schon öfter gesehen. Es ist eine Art Zombie Film, aber eben nur eine Art.............