2012:Zombie Apocalypse (2011)

   Months after the VM2 virus kills most of the world's population a small group of survivors has hopes of making it to a settlement of fellow survivors rumored to be unaffected by the virus on Catalina Island.

   Ramona,Billy, and Kevin (Gerald Webb) are looking for food when they're suddenly surrounded by an onslaught of zombies that manages to get a hold of Kevin and infect him after he takes several of them out.Ramona (Taryn Manning) and Billy are saved by a group of strangers, led by Mack (Gary Weeks), and decide to join the group on their journey to Catalina Island.Ramona is reluctant at first as if she has a hell of a lot of other choices (I guess she's not too bright). Mack's group, which includes Henry (Ving Rhames),Cassie (Lesley-Ann Brandt), and Julien (Johnny Pacar), share their horror stories with Ramona and Billy (Eddie Steeples) and inform them that there are two kinds of zombies they will be encountering.The older zombies are your typical slow moving, easily overpowered type, but the fresh newly made zombies, referred to as "runners", are strong and incredibly fast moving.They later cross paths with a "runner" bigger than Ving Rhames (Yes, I said bigger than Ving Rhames.Can you imagine a zombie twice the size of him coming after you?Terrifying!!). The group discovers along the way that the undead are becoming smarter.The group is ambushed on a couple of occasions by obviously organized attacks by brainiac zombies.They also discover that humans are not the only ones being infected by the virus when a dog that's been following them shows up turned and hungry for more than scraps.Eventually what's left of their group makes it to the docks where a ferry is sent weekly to pick up survivors and take them to Catalina Island.
   I have to say that during the opening credits of 2012:Zombie Apocalypse when I saw that this was a Syfy original movie I came close to turning it off without giving the movie a chance.I literally spoke out loud "Oh hell no!" (Slayer,my January 24th blog, was a terrible Syfy original and has me a little leery, okay a LOT leery of their movies.). 2012;Zombie Apocalypse, thank goodness, was nowhere near as awful.I was actually surprised by the quality of this movie versus Slayer.It was your typical zombie movie as far as the plot is concerned, but it was entertaining.The acting was well done and the gore was impressive.My only complaint is that when they finally make it to the docks they confront an infected tiger that is extremely, obviously computer generated.Other than that it was a descent movie.Netflix gave 2012:Zombie Apocalypse 2.1 out of 5 stars, but I'll give it 2.5 for excellent gore.