I am beginning to get the feeling that the zombie movie is here to stay and that filmmakers and writers are developing new stories revolved around the sub-genre. The month of January I read three zombie novels that were excellent, and then this film; The Dead was dropped on my door step. The film received a lot of praise from many genre critics. However, while I found this film entertaining, I think it could have been cut short by about 1/2 hour.
The Dead takes place in Africa where a zombie plague is reeking havoc across the lands. A group of survivors on a plane headed away from the hostile environment suddenly find that the bad luck has not come to an end when their plane crashes just off shore of the African coastline. Air force Lieutenant Brian Murphy (Rob Freeman) survives the plane wreak only to walk right back into the same nightmare he was trying to get away from. While trying to find a way out of Africa he meets up with a Sergeant Daniel Dembele (Price David Osei). Daniel has come back to his village to look for his son. Together the men join forces and fight the onslaught on the living dead as they set out to find Daniel’s son and try to find a way out of the zombie infected country side.
The Dead is a film that had a good premise that worked really well. It was very similar to that of a Romero zombie flick with a mix of old fashion European zombie films from the seventies and eighties. The film as a whole is good. It is shot well, the acting is good and the overall production value is decent. The problem lies in the story which kind of goes around in circles. The story is simply dragged out from one setting to the next where the same thing happens over and over, our heroes are in distress and the zombies just keep attacking over and over again. The scenes just tend to repeat themselves in different environments until we get to the films conclusion. Like I mentioned above; this film could have been cut a lot shorter without ruining the story. The films running time is 105 minutes and I’m sure if I was sitting down in an editing room calling the shots I know I could of got this film down to 90 minutes. It just seems like the filmmakers fell in love with certain scenes and wanted to keep them in the picture.
The Blu-ray disc has a few features which include filmmakers commentary with Howard and Jon Ford, a behind the scenes featurette titled Unearthing The Dead, and Deleted scenes.
Overall, The Dead is not a bad film it is just a long film. There are some great scene and good make-up effects with enough gore to keep even the most hardcore gore fans happy and it is one of the better zombie films I have seen in a while. The film also is not your typical straight forward zombie film either as there are a few plots twist that will throw you off guard. It not the best zombie film ever made but it’s a decent one that is worth checking out.
– Horror Bob
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
