Automation Transfusion is like a Bad Restaurant Experience.
In Automation Transfusion the food is good but the service is just terrible. And, I am still waiting for the check.
Written by The Horror Czar
March 12, 2008
Release: DVD March 4, 2008
Written and Directed by: Steven C. Miller
Starring:
Garrett Jones as Chris
Juliet Reeves as Jackie
William Howard Bowman as Scott
Rowan Bousaid as Tim
Ashley Elizabeth Pierce as Simone
There are many similarities between a horror movie experience and a restaurant dining experience. Many years ago I worked as a waiter at a popular restaurant and bar. This particular place had an extensive training program filled with little pearls of server wisdom to ensure that the guests had a positive dining experience. Of all the training elements there are a few that stand out in my mind to this day.
• Ensure that the customer is greeted and acknowledged immediately upon being seated, even if the server does not have the time to take their order right away.
• Make sure the main course is hot, fresh and of the highest quality.
• The service should be attentive and anticipatory without being overbearing and annoying.
• Deliver the check and process payment immediately upon the guest being finished – the best dining experience in the world will leave a bad taste in a customer’s mouth if waiting for a check causes a missed theater opening.
These restaurant service elements can be applied directly to horror movies, and to Automation Transfusion particularly.
• Greet customer immediately – Great!
Automation Transfusion is a zombie film where people seem to randomly convert to flesh-feasting freaks throughout the city. The very beginning of the film treats zombie fans to a reanimation in a morgue that has suspense as the hapless orderly approaches the corpse cooler that has noise coming from it, excitement with a vicious attack by a biker-looking zombie ripping flesh from the orderly’s face and satisfying closure as the orderly is broken in half backward and pulled into the corpse compartment. Just awesome.
• The Main Course – Darn Good!
The main course in a zombie movie is the gore. In that regard Automation Transfusion excels. Bodies ripped apart, jaws torn from screaming faces, legs eaten off while under water – they are all in there. Great blood, great feasting and shocking dismemberment come together for a zombie experience that is both delicious and generous in portion.
• The Service – Abysmal.
For the service element of a zombie movie to be good some attention is required throughout the film. Little hints of the source of the zombie outbreak must be delivered throughout leading to the big pay-off of understanding the back story and the how/why of the mayhem. Automation Transfusion has none of this. What we get instead is gore, violence and characters doing stupid and ridiculous things to put themselves in peril… then five minutes of nonsensical explanation from the school janitor who is actually a government plant in the school overseeing an experiment began after the Vietnam War. It was like the server took my order and then disappeared while runners brought my food, minus the mayonnaise. No stopping by to check that everything was prepared to my liking, no stopping by at all. By the time the server finally visited my table my drink glass was dry, my food was eaten without mayo, the table was dirty and filled with empty plates – and the server brought me mustard.
• The Check – Still Waiting.
I read somewhere that Automation Transfusion is the first installment of a planned trilogy. Somehow the filmmakers decided that this gives them free license to provide zero resolution, zero conclusion and end the film with an abrupt “to be continued” in the middle of a particularly harrowing scene for our hero. I have no problem with the concept of a serial-ending cliffhanger, but this instance is so abrupt and poorly done that it just pissed me off. The wheels fell off of this film long before the ending came around but I kept watching hoping for some glimmer of satisfaction, and was denied even that. Not only did I miss the curtain call at the theater, but I’m still waiting at my table for the check with the lights out and doors locked for the night.
Typically I am a good tipper – 20% is the norm even if the service and food are average. In the case of Automation Transfusion, however, I am going to have to make an exception… maybe 7% just so that I don’t have to feel guilty. And one word of warning… if anyone tells you that this restaurant is “The Holy Grail” or some such nonsense, check to make sure they are not in bed with the owner. Questions or comments about Automation Transfusion? Contact us!
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