The Vanguard

If you watch the Vanguard expecting to see the production levels of say Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth or Robert Rodriguez's Sin City or even the same amount of gore as Saw III or Rambo you will be very disappointed, I'm sure the director Matthew Hope would loved to have had one of those multimillion dollar budgets to fall back on, but judging by the credits at the end of the film he didn't have that sort of luxury.
If however like me you just sit back & watch the film with an open mind & try to enjoy it for what it is, you'll be treated to some great performances. I feel Ray Bullock Jnr deserves particular mention for his inspired portrayal of Max (the guy on the cover) which was very impressive to say the least & not what you come to expect from watching low budget British movies of any genre. But it doesn't stop there, because the acting from the whole cast is very very good through out the whole film. Yes some of the effects could have been better & yes you do have to concentrate pretty hard not to get lost at certain points along the way.
But I think this film should be given credit where credit is due, it's not trying to copy all the other films out at the moment & has tried to do something original, I also think that with the budget retrains that naturally come with independent film making (& yes I do know what I'm talking about) they have all done a bloody good job.

Having suffered many bad films over the years, this is without a doubt the worst. Atrocious would be a complement. Running around the woods for 90mins, with zombies looking like the result of a highschool musical botched dance number. Simply avoid!!!

I dont normally comment on dvd's but i really have to in this case to save any fellow zombie fans from being duped. You can find better written and more inovative action/horror films posted on youtube by 12 year olds, seriously, nothing to see here...

I really wanted to like this film- zombies and post-apocalyptic scenarios are precisely what I want to see on screen. It started out well. I liked Max- even his hand axes and chopper bike. The initial combat scenes were well put together, Max has a forceful and direct fighting style and Ray Bullock Jr delivers a tremendous physical performance. He could have carried the whole thing on his own. In fact, this could have been a terrific film even with its limited budget.

However, as the film progressed the plot meandered and lost focus. It seemed to me that the writer was more concerned about making a political point (something along the lines of the evil Corporation inventing the threat of jihadist violence to keep the people at home distracted) than in actually creating a coherent story. Essentially it boils down to this- the evil Corp. wants to cull humanity but the scientists tasked with doing so have a change of heart and instead deliver a drug which turns people into savage, mindlessly killing zombies.

I still haven't figured out how that is supposed to make sense.

To add to the mix we have a rogue soldier who wants Max for his own mysterious goal, an escaping scientist who is trying to reach the resistance, an Arab figure sent to find Max from halfway around the world for some reason and the usual "evolving zombies" stuff. None of it ever comes to fruition after a lengthy journey. It's as if they just forgot about all of the plot lines they'd created. It's frustrating that all of it is dumped- it seems like an utter waste of the entire middle section of the film. Instead of an actual ending to the story the film concludes by having the zombies and the lead acting completely out of character.

And that makes even less sense than the "we don't want to kill people so we'll change them into mass-murdering zombies instead".

It's a real shame because the Max character deserves a much better film than this one.

words cant describe how bad this is! 90 mins of my life i will never get back, avoid at all costs