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Automaton Transfusion (2006) DVD Review
Automaton Transfusion (2006) DVD Credits:
Automaton Transfusion (2006) Directed by:
Steven C. Miller
Automaton Transfusion (2006) Written by:
Steven C. Miller
Automaton Transfusion (2006) Cast:
Garrett Jones, William Howard Bowman, Juliet Reeves, Rowan Bousaid, Ashley Elizabeth Pierce, Kendra Farner, Joel Hebner, Jeff Denton
Automaton Transfusion (2006) Released by:
Not available at this time
Region:
1
Automaton Transfusion (2006) DVD Release Date:
4th March 2008
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Automaton Transfusion (2006) Synopsis:

As a group of teenagers fight an army experiment gone awry, hordes of hungry, flesh-eating undead surge through their town - ripping jaws, snapping bodies and devouring men, women and children.

Automaton Transfusion (2006) DVD Review:

Automaton Transfusion, despite its head-scratching and convoluted title, just might be the purest low budget horror film to come out in the last twenty years. It’s not a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination, but it is the first film of its kind in a long while to give me the same adrenaline rush I felt when I first watched films such as the Evil Dead trilogy. Automaton Transfusion is certainly no Evil Dead, but it’s the first low budget horror film in a very long time to aspire to such greatness.

Automaton Transfusion hails back to an era of low budget filmmaking that I thought had long since passed. With the Hollywood studio system being as strong as it is, and filmmaking being such an expensive endeavor, I didn’t think truly low budget films were even made any more. To provide some context, the aforementioned low budget classic, The Evil Dead, was made in 1981 at a budget of $300,000. Nowadays, if a movie is made for anywhere between $1 million and $40 million dollars it is considered to be a low budget film. Automaton Transfusion was made in 2006 for $30,000. That’s practically the cost of catering on a Steven Spielberg film, and writer/director Steven C. Miller and company managed to make a special-effects laden zombie/action film for the same price.

Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first. Automaton Transfusion has noticeable flaws that should be addressed, so let’s just acknowledge them and move on with it. The most consistent problem with the film is the acting. A few actors are good some of the time while others are terrible all of the time, but suffice it to say that the acting performances are not this film’s strong point. It doesn’t help that most of the film had to be looped in post production due to no on-set sound recording (a necessary drawback of low-budget filmmaking). Another potential problem is that director Steven C. Miller utilizes the popular “shaky-cam” style of filming to heighten the intensity of many scenes, and while it works pretty well most of the time, if you’re bothered by this style of cinematography you probably won’t be the happiest of viewers. Again, it should be noted that this style of filmmaking helps hide low budget flaws (i.e. it’s harder to tell if a zombie’s makeup looks bad when the camera hardly ever stays still). Lastly, the film suffers from two different third-act blunders. First, Miller packs a whole bunch of exposition regarding the zombie’s origins into the last ten minutes of the film, which is not the best time in a film for characters to stop and chat. Secondly, he ends the film on a needless cliffhanger. He says that this film is the first in a planned trilogy, but that’s no excuse. Even when there’s an overarching plotline, each film in a trilogy should have a self-contained story so that the viewer feels satisfied at the end of each installment. One last thing: it’s a little nitpicky, but there is a noticeable deficit of strong female characters, as most of the women in the film are a male-projected fantasy: they either willingly take off their clothes at inappropriate times or scream for help from the men. A stronger female role would have been nice.

Okay, now on to the complimentary stuff and why I liked the film so much. The first thing I noticed in starting the film was that it looks like crap. “Complimentary?” you say. I know that doesn’t sound like the highest of praise, but it’s a key element that has been missing from horror films for years. Back in the day, low budget horror films looked murky and grainy because they were shot on cheap 16mm film, which did wonders for their gritty atmosphere. These days, every horror film looks too squeaky clean because they’re shot on pristine 35mm film that picks up every little detail in the frame. Automaton Transfusion, however, being truly low budget in nature, is shot on grainy, de-saturated video, and the lower quality resolution supports the gritty atmosphere of the film wonderfully.

Speaking of atmosphere, Automaton Transfusion has tons of it. A lot of independent horror films lack any real sense of atmosphere due to budget constraints and instead the filmmakers throw buckets of gore at the screen to make up for it, but the folks behind Automaton Transfusion manage to instill the film with palpable atmosphere at a fraction of the cost. Don’t get me wrong, there are buckets of gore in this film too, but there’s so much more than that. From the run-down shacks that the characters find themselves trapped in to the completely isolated city streets that lend a post-apocalyptic vibe to the proceedings, the crew on this film worked some kind of magic to achieve the things they did. If anything, this film also proves how important sound is to a horror film. The sound design is extremely eerie, and boosts the “creepy” factor up to 11. The music also makes the film sound much more expensive than it really is, as it boasts an orchestral score that expands the scope of the film and adds layers of value to the action and horror sequences. Uniformly, the film has an overall sense of artistry despite its miniscule budget and lightning fast shooting schedule of 9 days.

When the film ended I was left with an admiration for how much Miller and his crew were able to make out of nothing. Despite the obvious problems, the film makes for an enthralling and fast-paced horror adventure. The film clocks in at a brisk 75 minutes and the filmmakers pack in every bit of entertainment value and ingenuity that they can muster from their budget in that amount of time. Sometimes restrictions can be a movie’s greatest asset because they force the filmmakers to be creative. Automaton Transfusion is a testament to that fact.

The extras on the DVD complement the film perfectly. The audio commentary makes one appreciate the film even more when you find out that it was made by a group of film school students who recruited everyone they knew to help them out. It’s full of interesting tidbits and should be inspiring to other aspiring filmmakers. The documentary “Trials and Tribulations” is a worthwhile visual partner to the commentary. Director Steven C. Miller’s first short film, “Suffer or Sacrifice” is a worthy addition as well, as it’s always fun to see how a director has grown from project to project. Finally, things wrap up with a group of deleted scenes (with optional commentary) and two music videos.

On a technical note, I regret to inform the nerds out there (like me) that the film is not anamorphically enhanced for widescreen TVs. That’s unbelievable in and of itself in today’s day and age, but what’s worse is that the technical specs on the back of the DVD case say the film IS enhanced for widescreen TVs, which is simply inexcusable.

It certainly isn’t without its flaws, but Automaton Transfusion achieves a unity that is not often seen in today’s horror films. It pays loving tribute to the films that have preceded it, but also manages to feel like one of those films on its own. On the commentary Miller says that he knows it’s nearly impossible to be original in the horror genre these days, so he just wanted to make a “kick ass action/horror film” that fans of the genre would enjoy. He not only succeeded, but he did so with an unbelievably miniscule budget, and one can’t help but admire the film for its audacity, warts and all. Automaton Transfusion is Steven C. Miller’s love letter to the low budget horror films of yesteryear, and if you’re a fan of those films, you’d do well to see it.

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Automaton Transfusion (2006) DVD review written by: Anthony Berk

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