Halloween 2012 Day 11: Mutants (2009)

Zombie films, and really zombie fiction in general, is really played out. I can't think of a single horror movie monster I'm less interested or a single horror movie monster featured in more films recently. Until a real visionary manages to flip the script, all the potential in zombie cinema has been used up. There's nothing left but tired tropes being retread endlessly with different window dressing.
Mutants doesn't deviate from the script much. The film opens with a scroll that offers a little exposition, but unfortunately not enough. We are introduced to our standard french horror characters: The sympathetic wife and the protective husband. The husband is quickly infected by the Zombie Virus and the first third of the film is an incredibly interesting look at one man's transformation into a monster. Whenever the film adds additional characters, it suffers. The wife, in her quest to find the salvation of the mysterious NOE organization, soon meets a band of bandits intent on stealing whatever resources they can at gun or machete point.
The film runs out of premise within a half hour and stretches out cliches until an unsatisfying ending. It is certainly a technically competent film, with some very questionable editing decisions (time warp cuts, looping footage, and weird flashforwards) set aside. The makeup is absolutely gorgeous, serving to make the monsters sufficiently inhuman, and the setting, an enormous abandoned hospital in snow-covered Picardy, is breathtaking. If only they could have filled the running-time with something a little less trite.