Review: Brain Worm or Rott Worm? "City of Rott" (2006)

Background:

City of Rott is a 2006 American animated zombie film by Frank Sudol, who performed all filmmaking duties himself. The film uses 2D limited animation in a style similar to South Park.(from Wikipedia)

Year: 2006

Director: Frank Sudol

Genre: Animated Horror, Zombie Apocalypse, Splatter Horror

Plot:

Alone, unarmed, and losing his mind, an old man named Fred is trapped in a city overrun by legions of the living dead. Driven by parasitic worms that infest their decaying bodies, hordes of rotting zombies roam the city searching for living flesh to feast upon. —Anthem

My Thoughts:

Immediately upon starting the movie, I started laughing. The animations are by far the worst part of the movie. Second to that is the same old man voice used for half of the characters that have speaking roles.

The animation and dialogue reminds me closest to Land of the Dead if described by Tom Anderson from Beavis and Butthead. The jokes are stupid and the dialogue is painful.

The movie which runs at a mere 78 minutes is a chore to sit through. I caught myself constantly checking how long it has been, eager to finish the film. BORING!!!

With all of this negativity though, I will say that there is a charm to this movie. I can't praise enough the obvious hard work that was put into this film by Frank Sudol. If you cut this movie down into a 30 minute short film with no speaking whatsoever, you actually have a really cool animated film.

More specifically, there is a tinge of nostalgia that accompanies this film for those who scoured the internet of free games. Maybe even short clips from the early days of New Grounds. I could even take a step further that if trimmed down, this movie could be a perfect context builder in the form of video game cut scenes.

The Good:

• Animation was fun

• Action sequences were entertaining

• Zombies turn into piles of lasagna (watch it and you will understand)
  

The Bad:

• SHUT THE FUCK UP!

• Any exposition or character building is painful to sit through

• Too long

Summary:

If this were the animation for a steam indie game, I'd have a better review. However, this is a movie and as far is it comes to movies, this one is a fucking snooze-fest. I love horror movies, even bad ones. But, if you are going to be so on the nose with a campy zombie film, at least make it funny. The same old man tropes and jokes are so played out that you can't even submerge yourself into the movie. I couldn't stop feeling anger when any of the characters talked.

The saving grace is the animation. I should clarify, the zombies and the character design, the movement is atrocious. The scenes where zombies munched on some Rott City citizens had so much love and attention to detail that it honestly saves the movie. Really, just make the animation and hire some voice actors and a script writer. I haven't seen City of Rott 2 but hopefully, when I tackle that one, it will be better than its predecessor.