Do you like video games, or, feeling like you are watching a video game? If so, then writer/director Keith R. Robinson’s militant melodrama, Sniper Corpse, may just be for you. Starring Eleri Jones as a fiercely determined widow and Kit Smith as her antagonist who ensures that the film ends with a bang, Sniper Corpse is a film with plenty of jump-scares to verge on horror and a charming B-movie appeal to stand alongside classic “so bad they’re good” films.

Sniper Corpse follows Diane Keeley (Eleri Jones), a widow whose husband was killed in action. When his corpse goes missing, along with the bodies of many other dead soldiers, Diane launches her own investigation to track down his remains. An anonymous source gives her the location of a secret military base where she goes to finally uncover the truth, one where she soon finds herself in danger as her investigation brings her face to face with seemingly indestructible soldiers who are not as they seem, and are certainly no longer the men they once were.

Much like a video game, Sniper Corpse is highly expositional with characters rattling off their background story as if a thought bubble is appearing over their head. It is not the kind of movie that one watches when they are looking for substance and meaning, it is B-movie shlock, made for zoning out to and occasionally waking up to scream “heck yeah!” at its thickly blooded kills. These kills are too few and far in between for my taste; Sniper Corpse lags from the outset and never quite finds a satisfying level of destruction or mayhem. There is a bit of mystery to the storyline which sustains some intrigue, but for the most part, there is no pulse to its premise.

Sniper Corpse also suffered from technical slip-ups that further complicated the watching experience. I found the dialogue to be muffled at times, particularly when characters were talking through speakers, so the sound mixing could use some attention. The lighting is reminiscent of softcore porn, giving the film a distinctly campy feel, though the movie seemed to be going for an oddly serious tone. The reanimation makeup — or lack thereof — was a sign of the film’s low-budget constraints, but these masks somehow ended up being at least one nice aesthetic and unique aspect for the film.

With a name like Sniper Corpse, you might be expecting a zombie film, but it is more of a reanimation film along the lines of RoboCop. This movie was in dire need of some excitement — for a movie based around the military, it has far too little action. I was hoping for something like Annihilation with zombies, but Sniper Corpse is anything but. Released in 2019, Sniper Corpse feels like a movie right out of the mid-90s that fans of Paul Verhoeven (Starship Troopers, Showgirls) may appreciate. From Other Dimension Films, Sniper Corpse is now available on DVD, Blu-ray, and VOD.

MOVIE RATING — 5 out of 10 ☠️