REMAINS is yet another zombie movie, not quite as low budget as the very worst of the genre (DEADHEADS or THE ZOMBIE CHRONICLES) but pretty low budget all the same. I mean, the budget is enough to reasonably execute the premise and bring to life a ruined city and its environs, but not enough to provide a halfway decent script or memorable actors.

The storyline involves a group of survivors holed up inside a casino after a zombie apocalypse. The casino setting is featured heavily in the film's poster and box art, but is severely underutilised; they could have been in any old building. This is an action-focused narrative with lots of shoot-outs and run-ins with fellow survivors. It's all low rent and rather cheesy, but not unentertaining.

The story is based on a comic by Steve Niles and has some fun with zombies, making them more human than seen elsewhere. There's an undercurrent of black comedy running throughout, but it hurts that the human characters are less than interesting and you never really feel involved or care about what's happening to them. REMAINS is mildly watchable but entirely forgettable.

This 2011 horror film stars Grant Bowler, Evalena Marie, Tawny Cypress and Miko Hughes based on the graphic novel. This takes place in Reno, Nevada where a nuclear explosion occurs and a few Casino employees are the last survivors who discover that the explosion has turned most of the population into zombies. Apparently, these are no ordinary zombies, they can sleep, run and are smart. Bowler plays Tom, a casino dealer, Marie as Tori, a feisty, cocktail waitress, Cypress as Cindy, an army medic and Hughes (Pet Sematary, New Nightmare) as Jensen, a magician's assistant. This isn't that bad, there's gory makeup effects and the film pays homage to recent zombie-apocalypse films like "Day of the Dead" and "Resident Evil." I'd still give it a try at least once if you enjoy zombie/undead flicks.

After a radiation spill causes a massive apocalypse leaving most of mankind as ravenous zombies, several survivors try to survive barricaded inside a fortified casino until another group arrives looking for shelter against a newer breed that are far more dangerous and vicious coming for them.

Overall, this one was a rather disappointing zombie effort that does have a decent parts to it. Among the better features on display here are the big action scenes here that showcase the zombies in this, as the few zombie attacks here feature a lot of positives. The initial outbreak of the group clearing out the different floors of the casino feature some really exciting scenes of the burgeoning zombie hordes all throughout the building including the kitchen and laundry room encounters as well as the searches on the different floors getting some rather fun action trying to get away from the creatures. Other big action scenes here are even better with their attempts to leave hampered by the size of the swarm that needs to be maneuvered around leaving this one with some exciting scenes of the horde chasing after them through the streets, into the abandoned cars and vehicles left by the side of the streets and being forced into the buildings along the way which makes these action scenes all the more fun and exciting. There's some good parts scattered throughout in the final twenty minutes here with the ravenous gunfights across the casino, plenty of gory action with a rather impressive storyline addition of cannibalistic zombies that are even faster, stronger and more vicious which eat other zombies, providing some solid suspense here in the race to get out which makes for a high-quality finish. That, along with some decent make-up that looks good at times allows this enough to be watchable but not to overcome the flaws here. Frankly, the biggest issue against this one is the fact that this one tends to spend an incredibly long amount of time on the interaction with the humans surviving inside the compound and their various issues with each other while the zombies, while still shown to be around, are basically given nothing to do. The attacks are so few and far between, with so little action during them anyway, that it's almost a drama about living in a zombie apocalypse than a true-blooded zombie film, which can get taxing as there's nothing interesting happening here with these people and their issues consistently keeping this one from moving along. Even though they're present this one never really lets them loose after they're barricaded inside which is somewhat off in a film like this. Added together with some atrocious CGI in unnecessary places and it has some problems, though this one does get enough right to save it.

Rated Unrated/R: Extreme Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.