I was looking for something to scratch my Shaun of the Dead itch and came across this little gem on Netflix. Last of the Living is a Kiwi (that’s New Zealand) film about Morgan (Morgan Williams), Ash (Ashleigh Southam), and Johnny (Robert Faith) – three lazy couch potato survivors of the zombie apocalypse. These guys are Grade A slackers that are rocking the life after everyone else’s death. Looting sprees and killing the zombified neighbors. Yeah, it’s all fun and zombie killing until they meet Stef (Emily Paddon-Brown), the brainy hot doctor/scientist/pilot that’s going to save them all. Naturally, the boys do their losery best to impress the confident and capable Stef.
This grainy, extremely low budget (about $5k US) independent film starts out lighthearted, but eventually hits the “Shit Just Got Real” marker pretty quickly. For low-budget, the production quality is rather good but completely slathered in really bad gore. I mean, chocolate syrup and ground chuck bad. Fortunately, they make up for quality in quantity, a great story, and humor. Things progress from simple fart jokes and fighting over who’s making sandwiches to these three characters actually developing some… character. There are some absolutely fantastic deaths and then re-deaths and the fight scenes are so over-the-top these average blokes are living a Van Damme wet dream. With several amusingly timed hard cuts, Last of the Living is clever, funny, and gory. Death, mayhem, and cockblocks abound. Oh, and there’s one bitch’n Ford. All that with a surprisingly good soundtrack. Probably the best I’ve heard in a while. Last of the Living has a couple stutters in an otherwise amusing story, such as how the hell the power and phone lines are still working after 3 months of chaos? All in all, the cast put in a a fantastic performance that had “Ha’s,” “Aw’s,” and “Ew’s” across land, air, and sea. Last of the Living is a cheeky zombie flick about three guys and a hot smart chick trying to save the world despite themselves.
