There was a time when zombies were slow and the movies about them were quick.

The walking dead would lurch into sight and characters would have to go out of their way to trip or somehow be trapped by the stumbling undead.

And George A. Romero or his “Night of the Living Dead” filmmaking offspring would introduce a zombie outbreak, a shocked public’s reaction and an intrepid survivor or two who would fail or prevail in a whiplash-quick movie of 90-96 minutes.

In “Silent Zone,” the feature filmmaking debut of director Peter Deak, the zombies show up at a sprint, which has been all the rage in zombie movies since before “28 Days Later.” But the tried and trite story about surviving the post-zombie-apocalypse wasteland (Victor Orban’s Hungary) passes by at a snail’s crawl.

It’s a crushing bore and a C-movie, start to finish. From the parade of Hungarian-accented newscasters and the like who talk through the tale’s opening “news” montage through every slow-footed sequence of fight choreography fumbling its way towards a big explosion/bigger letdown ending, “Silent Zone” reminds us how exhausted this genre — beaten to death by TV’s “Walking Dead” — truly is.

It’s enough to make you fear for how “28 Years Later” turned out.

Career bit-player Matt Devere is Cassius, our hero, an armed-to-the-teeth warrior who rescues a little girl whose mother and little brother have just been bitten as the outbreak begins.

He rescues her by shooting them.

Cassius raises Abigail (Luca Papp) to shoot and fight and slice like he does. So ten years later, it’s no surprise that she’s as tactical geared-up as he is as they horseback ride through empty Soviet style housing blocks and a depopulated countryside.

Same assault rifle, same pistol. Same samurai sword, too. Because sometimes “we don’t have a bullet to spare.”

Abigail isn’t quite the crack shot Cassius is, and her mistake fails to save a member of a crew trying to get pregnant Megan (Nikolett Barabas) and David (Declan Hannigan) through Zombieland to “The Colony” and safety.

Naturally, Abigail talks Cassius into undertaking that quest.

They will trek slowly-so-slowly, fend off zombies and meet a somewhat mad scientist (Alexis Latham) along the way. As Abigail’s father used to be a pilot, she’ll be in the cockpit when they commandeer a ten-years-parked and broken down propeller plane to speed up their trek.

The dialogue is off-the-shelf dull of the “If we stop, we DIE” variety. Cassius, named either for the guy who plotted to kill Caesar or the boxer who liked to rhyme, has moments of reflection in between all the half-speed brawls and “double tap” shootouts.

“I sometimes feel I don’t have the space for all the faces in my brain.”

There’s no subtext to any of this, no commentary on culture, society or politics, government, anti-vax cranks or human failings. And thanks to Viktor Csák and Krisztián Illés, who scripted this, there’s not much of a “text” either.

Rating: R, bloody, graphic violence, profanity

Cast: Matt Devere, Luca Papp, Nikolett Barabas, Declan Hannigan and Alexis Latham.

Credits: Directed by Peter Deak, scripted by Viktor Csák and Krisztián Illés. A Saban Films release.

Running time: 1:59