Since watching this I have learnt that a follow up is due for release this year under the title The Dead 2: India.
Since it close to Halloween I thought I'd review some trashy horrors in the run up to my planned Halloween movie fest. Let's start with THE DEAD
The Dead as you may have guessed is a low budget zombie movie from the Ford Brothers (whoever they are). I went into this film thinking it was going to be another terrible zombie flick based on every other zombie flick like so many that have shuffled off the production line in recent years, as as it was made in 2010 at the height of the zombie comeback my expectations were only cemented further.
I'm pleased to say I was a little surprised when the film turned out to not be as bad as expected. The plot is basic and easy enough to follow as we undergo a journey with a flight LT from a cashed USAF evacuation flight out of Africa after the dead begin to rise and attack the living. The flight LT is washed up on a beach and left to fend for himself. On his journey he meets a young African solider who has returned home admist the apocalypse to find he wife dying and his son taken by the retreating military forces, the team up to take on The Dead! While the plot is fairly solid as far as these films go I would have liked a little bit of background of the two main characters, we don't learn much more than their names, professions and basic drive.
The entire film has very little dialogue and at times entire scenes roll by without anyone saying a word. The zombies are too very quiet, they don't scream, they don't growl and they don't moan, they just shuffle around in old fashioned zombie style (think Night of the Living Dead) with blank expressions and far away stares ad ironically they all seem a little too subdued.
A good chunk of the film sees the LT simply wondering the barren African planes taking out the undead with perfect head shots, while this is very repetitive it does showcase the films surprising special effects which are superb considering the small budget so seeing the same basic scene over and over isn't that bad.
The Dead has a number of pros amongst some of it's low budget cliches and the fact it's shot on location in Africa is definitely one of them, too many films today (Hollywood I'm looking at you) are shot somewhere completely different to where they are supposed to be based, this I personally feel takes something away from the film so to see this film shot exactly where it was supposed to be was a big plus in my book. The film isn't drowned in gore which can't be said for a good number of zombie films, there is just enough to make it believable and proves you don't have to use gallons of fake blood to make a decent movie.
While the lead is an American Air Force LT he isn't your typical macho (USA is number one!) characters, he isn't adorned with American flags, he doesn't peace American Patriotism and is no underpinning American dream in the plot, the guy just gets the work done and moves on, this is remarkably refreshing to see. (No offence to American readers of course).
The environments lend a lot to the film as they are barren, dry and gloomy giving the film the perfect backdrop of a hopeless and god forsake wasteland. I wouldn't go as far as saying the film is scary but there were a number of attempts at "jumpy" scenes but sadly these didn't hit the mark and were very predictable, what I found more disappointing was that there were a number of times a scare scene could have been added in but the chance seemed to have been missed.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised with The Dead and I would recommend it for a good old fashioned "bad movie" marathon or Halloween get together.
Final Score - 3/5
Check out more about the dead over at IMDb
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