Day 156: I Am Omega

I Am Omega

Omega Man

I knew it was going to be bad. It was just a matter of how bad it was going to be. I had watched a few minutes of I Am Omega when it premiered on the SyFy channel. The description mentioned something along the lines of a zombie wasteland and those words are like catnip to me. What I saw was certainly a wasteland; a wasteland of entertainment. Maybe I didn't give the movie enough time. Plenty of movies start out slow just to become great towards the end. Yeah, and maybe monkeys might fly out of Uwe Boll's ass.

I Am Omega is a 2007 horror movie starring Mark Dacascos (Iron Chef America, Double Dragon) as Renchard. Los Angeles has become a post-apocalyptic zone filled with zombie-like cannibals. It appears that the infection is widespread because Renchard cannot get a radio signal and has not seen another human being for a long time. His house has been retrofitted with fences, alarms, and flood lights which help warn him when cannibals attack. He keeps his sanity be reading, training in martial arts, and driving around the city planting charges. Renchard receives a distress call on his computer from a woman named Brianna, who is hiding somewhere in the city. She was heading to Antioch, a town supposedly free of infection, when her group was attacked and she had to take refuge. Two men, named Vincent and Mike, claiming to be from Antioch arrive at Renchard's home and ask for his help in finding Brianna. When Renchard refuses, they blow up his house and force him to help. It is revealed that Brianna is actually immune to whatever it is that turns people into cannibals and the men want to kill her because they like what the world has become. Will Renchard be able to save Brianna and survive the cannibals?

"God, I hate Bobby Flay."

Well, I watched the rest of I Am Omega and no, it did not get better. It shouldn't be a surprise because the movie was done by The Asylum, possibly the worst “studio” ever. You may remember The Asylum from my review of Zombie Apocalypse, another shittastic horror movie. I Am Omega is loosely (and I use the term loosely, if that can even be imagined) based on the novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. It was released about one month before Will Smith's I Am Legend hit theaters in hopes that stupid people would accidentally think this was a real movie. That's one of The Asylum's calling cards; make a direct-to-video knockoff of a popular movie, give it a similar name, and pray that idiots pay 3 dollars for it when they buy gas.

I'd say the story for I Am Omega was terrible, but that would mean there's an actual story. We have no idea what caused the outbreak or any specific details. We don't know if the infection is widespread and are given conflicting ideas; Renchard can't get a radio signal and is shocked when Brianna contacts him. If he thinks there's no one left, why bother blowing up the city? What good would that do? How did Renchard survive when everyone else died, despite him constantly leaving his weapons in his car or just out of reach. Shit just happens and we're supposed to role with it. On top of the barely-there story, we're “treated” to such exciting scenes as Mark Dacascos doing martial arts without his shirt on, Mark Dacascos driving around, and Mark Dacascos taking a piss. 

"Now where is that Hanson cd?" 

The movie was clearly rushed and probably cost about $50 to make. The “effects” are embarrassingly bad. Not counting the cannibals, who were probably just the same 2 over and over again, there are only 6 actors in the movie. The cannibals don't need to be shot in the head, so the movie ignores the basic zombie rules. I guess that's fine, since they're not officially zombies, but some distinction would have been nice. They don't look that bad, so at least the movie managed to not screw up that. There's plenty of action, but it's not entertaining and the direction is just awful. Mark Dacascos is fine for a script that must have been written on used toilet paper. His costars don't fair any better.

Movies like I Am Omega only exist in bargain bins and flea markets just to part horror fans with their hard-earned money. The Asylum just apes off the work of other movies and tries to rip people off. The story makes little to no sense and has very little entertainment value. The action isn't thrilling and there isn't much horror to speak of. The movie is rushed and cheap and you shouldn't dignify it with your time or money. All that being said, it's still probably one of the better movies from The Asylum. Of course, that's like saying that puddle of puke is better than that pile of shit.

1.5/10