The Lost Tape: Andy's Terrifying Last Days Revealed (2004)

recommended

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Blistering performances.

"The Lost Tape: Andy's Terrifying Last Days Revealed" is a 16-minute live action short from 2004 and this one's closely connected to the popular "Dawn of the Dead" as we find out a bit more about one of the minor characters from one of Zack Snyder's better received films. It's all about the found footage component here, so the camera is static being put up by the title character, which means no great camera work, but still a convincing film overall. And that is pretty much 100% thanks to lead actor Bruce Bohne who carries this convincingly as a one-man show from start to finish. The longer it went, the more enjoyable it gets. The situational comedy about the character of Andy lets you forget at times how much of a tragic story this little film actually is. I guess we can be lucky that we don't have to live during the same scenario like Andy overall, regardless of broken our own world is. But takes it too far perhaps. Back to this one here: From what I saw, I'd probably also watch a full feature film about the character. The lead performance was top-notch and the contrast between the scenes in the past and in the now was handled pretty well. Overall, this short film is easy to enjoy, even if you haven't seen the big blockbuster movie from which this is a little spin-off like in my case. The title spoiler isn't a problem either as it is much more about the "how" and "why" than about the "if". I give it a thumbs-up and recommend checking it out.

Andy says he tosses a Molotov at the zombies and not good thing. For one, it didn't do anything. He says it just burns for a while and leaves them all grilled and smelling like Jimmy Dean! Classical lines like this one just made my day on this short. Priceless.With this "found" tape footage , we can finally see how Andy last days really fared out. As he was slowly starving and losing his sanity and grip on reality during the zombie apocalypse.I'm so glad this was included in the "Dawn of the Dead" (2004) DVD Special Features. Because I always wondered how Andy was holding out at the gun shop. I had no idea how bad it was for him over there all alone. I thought he had ample food and drink but it was not till he wrote "Hungry" to Kenneth (Ving Rhames) that it became apparent how desperate the situation truly was for poor Andy.Excellent short film and kudos to actor Bruce Bohne in his incredible performance of the character Andy. Oh and by the way, I'm the one who put up Andy's whole dialog/speech in the Quote section of this film! It took me quite a while to type in but I did it! Enjoy! :)

This is found on the DVD of the Director's Cut version of the Dawn of the Dead remake of 2004. Like the other extra features on there, it kind of underwhelms. The way it's produced is fine... they couldn't market it as a video diary if the camera wasn't just placed somewhere in front of Andy. This also sort of does the Cloverfield thing, with there already having been something on the tape, that occasionally pops up briefly when he stops recording for a while. That's all perfectly acceptable, if it does put the entire weight of carrying it on the shoulders of the actors, and of those, mainly Bohne. And that's where the real problem arises: None of these people are very good, convincing performers(the kid was by far the worst, then again, few children are that compelling, and they are typically considered OK if they can deliver lines and attempt to enunciate), and Bruce simply neither possesses the charisma or the talent to be the lead in a short anywhere near this long. This is only fifteen minutes, but with no real drama, horror or comedy(which they may have been going for here and there, though it's so vague that I can't be certain), you're gonna feel *every single second of it*. Yes, this does try to give back-story, flesh out "that gun store owner" we see in the film. If it didn't, there'd obviously be absolutely no justification for this at all. And it's still not that interesting. Heck, some of this takes away from the enjoyment of the movie, and one or two things may outright contradict it. At least this is pretty psychologically accurate. There is moderately frequent strong language in this, and disturbing content. I recommend this mainly to the biggest fans of the flick itself, and of this type of thing. 5/10

ALL the extra "films" on the DVD for "Dawn of the Dead" are incredibly lame, with horrible production values and questionable acting. This one is the more unwatchable of the two (if such a thing is possible), because it points a camera at a not-particularly-talented actor and has him improv for like 40 minutes.It's not a comedy, it's not a drama, in fact it's not anything at all, it just happens to have the same actor who played a (non-speaking) role in the film. Is that supposed to entice me to watch? Ed Wood made better "films" than this one. This was just someone's bored afternoon that they tried to pass as a DVD extra so they could charge an extra ten bucks. Don't fall for it.Watch the movie, not the extras. Awful... and what's worse, boring. The backstory it purports to "explain" isn't even consistent with the movie. Or zombie lore. Or technology, since he uses a VHS tape in 2005.