Dirk Krop This is sort of an indie coming-of-age story with snippets of horror.Don't be misled by the cover and the title of this flick (as I was), because this is in no way a full blown horror flick.Wendy comes back from the dead as some sort of a zombie. Without the craving for human brains that is, because once again: this is not a horror story.The rest of the story is about Wendy's friends being bored and feeling sorry for themselves. Without having any shocking epiphanies while doing so.The movie starts with over half an hour of storytelling and elaborating on the characters. Although the acting is more than decent, the pace of the story is excruciatingly slow and filled with unnecessary scenes (buying a chocolate milkshake, minutes of walking through fields etc.). Maybe it's me being impatient, but I turned it off. How long can one watch a couple of teenagers walking around explaining how sad they are? But then again, that's just my 2 cents....

Paul Magne Haakonsen The DVD cover for "Make-Out with Violence" had the 'the year's rom-zom-com' on it, and that is what caught my attention along with a couple of other high praise lines from various magazines and websites. And being the zombie aficionado that I am, I just had to get it and see what it was.And now having seen it, I must say that it wasn't anything at all what I had expected it to be. The movie was incredibly slow moving. That being said, then I am not saying that the movie was bad, because it was really nicely filmed and edited, plus it had a good enough storyline. I, however, had just expected something more from it and more than just one decomposing girl, zombie-wise. And the 'zombie' is more of a backdrop character to help the story along.The story in "Make-Out with Violence" is about two brothers, Patrick (played by Eric Lehning) and Carol (played by Cody DeVos) who is trying to deal with and come to terms with the loss of their close friend Wendy (played by Shellie Marie Shartzer). They happen to come across her body, as it was never found, but Wendy is now a living dead. They bring her to a house, where they try to keep her alive and have something that resemble a life.Actually, the storyline was well put together and worked out well enough, I just had a whole other expectation to what it would be. And as such, I wasn't really enjoying the movie, because it was a drama and not a horror (as the DVD cover had listed as the genre). Don't expect this movie to be a zombie fest, because it only have that one zombie in it.The people they had hired for the various roles were actually doing good jobs with their roles, and they really helped the movie to step up a notch. Most noteworthy, in my opinion, was Eric Lehning; his performance was just incredible.If you enjoy zombie movies that aren't mainstream, then "Make-Out with Violence" might just be something for you. Just bear in mind that it is a drama about the lives of the brothers and their friends and their morbid situation of having a living dead amongst them, and not being a horror zombie movie. It is a beautiful movie, to be honest, but hardly an ordinary zombie movie.

jeromestiller A previous reviewer says it all, and says it well. This film reeks of indie cred, and has a few good performances (and a few awful ones) and a great soundtrack, but it's not funny, quirky, offbeat, frightening, thought-provoking, or anything else worthwhile. It would be a fairly impressive film school project. Why it won awards and so much notice I will never know, but I suspect it has something to do with yet another triumph of form over substance.Best high school oriented not-quite-dead girl double bill ever: Deadgirl - truly frightening and truly funny and an intense ending; Jennifer's Body - not really a zombie film but who cares? Brilliant. Best. Ever.Skip Making out with Violence.Spoiler Alert: There's really no making out in this film. Also no violence.

Matt Kracht Unlike Deadgirl, which was released around the same time, this movie struck me as pretentious nonsense that exists only to showcase the indie cred of all involved. There wasn't anything really *wrong* with it, per se, but I found myself constantly rolling my eyes and sighing heavily. Most of the scenes are melodramatic, though the acting is decent enough. None of the characters ever seem to express any strong emotions, though I suppose that's probably the fault of the writers/directors than the actors. Speaking of the writing, it was pretty mediocre. I've seen much, much worse, but with the pretentiousness of the directing, I was really expecting something a bit deeper. The soundtrack seems to be a major part of the experience, and I'm sure that if you're one of those hipsters who can't get enough of pretentious, derivative pop music, you'll love it to death. Unfortunately, I don't think I was in the target demographic for this movie. Some movies can transcend their genre and target demographic, like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (spaghetti western), The Shining (horror), and The Godfather (crime drama). That requires good directing and writing, however, and this movie simply can't rise above the silly pretensions of the Smeagol brothers (or whatever). If you're into this sort of thing (pretentious "indie" movies), you'll probably love it, but I was overcome by boredom and annoyance.