When it's "April Apocalypse" (2013). Don't let that dissuade you from watching it, though, because despite being a derivative zombie movie, it's still quite good. (THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS.)

To be honest, it actually borrows more heavily from "Zombieland" (2009),with its tone and narrative style. But … I actually think I like this more than "Zombieland," because the humor of that popular movie often fell flat with me, and I walked away feeling that it was a little overrated.

"April Apocalypse" actually has a smart, funny script, with a likable kid as a protagonist (capably played by Reece Thompson, who reminds me a little of Ryan Reynolds). There are a lot of genuine laughs, depending on off-beat, quirky characters and dry line delivery. The family scenes are extremely funny — who would have thought that the prison rapist from "The Shawshank Redemption" (Mark Rolston) could be a hilarious dysfunctional Dad? I'd give this movie an 8 out of 10, and I cheerfully recommend it to fans of the genre.

I … don't always respond so well to horror-comedies, so some of the truly black humor was a turn-off for me. We see a church full of desperate people perish in a manner that is supposed to be funny; one character dryly shrugs them off as expendable "Jesus Freaks." If you ask me, that's disturbing, not funny. Ask yourself this, secular friends — what if the script was different, and those sacrificed (in grisly fashion) were attendants at an American Atheist Convention? Most of my close friends who enjoy "The Walking Dead" as much as I do are also Christian. Which makes this joke, at the very least … icky, in my opinion.

We also see a running gag that I've seen pop up from time to time in zombie films and fiction. Otherwise good-natured characters gleefully enjoy killing the zombie versions of people who they disliked when they were alive. That's some pretty dark humor, and maybe it's transparently pathological. I like survival stories of people coming together to fight an insurmountable threat — not murder-by-proxy jokes.

Finally, I would have gone with a different ending. I won't say more because I don't want to make this post too spoiler-heavy.

Anyway, sorry to over-analyze and be a grumpy old man. Do give this film a chance and watch it. It was surprisingly good and made me laugh a lot.

I knew nothing about April Apocalypse before picking this up cheaply, and zombie movies can generally be a lot of fun, but this just had me regretting the moment I came across this and the time I wasted sitting through it.

Movie starts off with a guy and a girl, (Artie and April),running in slow motion through a field being chased by a horde of zombies. There's a voice over by Artie which then propels us back in time a few years and a montage of the history between this couple.

We then flash forward to the 2 of them turning up at a high school graduation after party and April has plans to break up with her boyfriend. Said break up does not go well. The douche bag boyfriend takes back his letterman jacket, punches Artie in the face who then finds out that April is moving away.

Flash forward 3 years and Artie lives at home in the basement and runs a late night radio call-in show which no one listens to and the only calls he gets are crank calls from his younger brother or his mother to ask if he wants salad with his dinner. This is supposed to be funny I guess.

His father sees him as a lost cause and even though he's only 21, his father thinks he's 31 and that April has been out of his life for 10 years instead of 3 and he should be over it by now. His mother is equally non-supportive and rather than just talk to him and encourage him like parents should, Artie instead gets the typical American universal fix-all to everything - therapy with lots and lots of medication. This is supposed to be funny too I guess.

Unsurprisingly it turns out that Artie has no real problems except that he misses the girl he's in love with and just needs some direction, but his doctor/psychiatrist played by George Lopez of all people says his fine, but here take these experimental purple pills twice a day anyway and they'll fix up whatever is not wrong with you, sheesh!

From there these pep pills give Artie new found vigour and he sets off to find April based on a postcard he got from her a couple of years ago. He takes his grandfathers car and heads off, but a zombie that came out of nowhere makes him run off the road and into a tree. Artie wakes up dazed, and he starts to make his way back home. The car radio talks about a virus sweeping the world, so zombies are the result.

Artie quickly learns about the zombie outbreak once he gets home. His family has disappeared and after killing a few zombies that were in his house and getting bitten on the hand he sets off again in another car to find April. Somehow the pills he was given are staving off his zombification and he meets people here and there on his quest for his girlfriend, all of whom end up getting killed.

Artie finally gets to Aprils house, rescues her and they make their way to one of the refuge shelters on the edge of town where he runs into his family. The refuge is just a large barn full of ill-prepared people and therefore nothing more than a zombie smörgåsbord. It gets overrun and everyone is killed. Artie gets bitten again and as he had run out of pills, turns into a zombie only to be killed by April.

For a zombie movie, even one with a limited budget as this, it's a very poor effort. This is supposed to be a horror-comedy of sorts but I found nothing to laugh at as it's too stupid. It might be OK for a look if it's on late at night and you can't sleep but there's no reason to go out of your way for this one.

For some reason this movie ended up with the title "Zombies: An Undead Road Movie", which was the title of the DVD that I purchased. But of course, anything even remotely zombie does catch my attention.

Without any knowledge of the movie, its story or cast, then I sat down to watch "April Apocalypse". But I have to say that I wasn't overly impressed with the movie as a whole. Now, don't get me wrong, as I am not saying that it is a bad movie. It is just a very generic movie which offers absolutely nothing new to the zombie genre.

The two main acting talents Reece Thompson (playing Artie) and Rebekah Brandes (playing April) were doing good enough jobs carrying the movie, although they had very little material to work with at the hands of director Jarret Tarnol.

It was, however, William Morgan Sheppard (playing Pops) who made it worthwhile to sit down and watch the movie, despite of him not having a particularly big role.

The effects in the movie were good enough, just don't expect an abundance of blood and gore, even though this is a zombie movie. This is more of a teenage movie infused with a zombie element, so I was somewhat out of the target audience.

Storywise, then it was basic and simplistic. A teenager setting out to reach his high school love amidst a zombie infested America. Right, fairly straight forward and simple storyline. But for a zombie outbreak, then Artie encounters surprisingly few zombies along the way.

"April Apocalypse" is nothing extraordinary, and as an avid zombie aficionado, then I must say that this movie came and went without leaving a dent or impression.