The Dead (V)
| release date | February 14 2012 |
| studio | Anchor Bay |
| director | Howard J. Ford, Jonathan Ford |
| writer | Howard J. Ford, Jonathan Ford |
| starring | Dan Morgan, Rob Freeman, Benjamin James Elliot |
| site | thedead-movie.com |
| trailer 1 | Trailer #1 |
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I had high hopes going into this film, and I was very pleased with the end result. The cinematography was gorgeous, and most of the effects were well done. The undead are reminiscent of those in Zombi 2, which is a great thing. It was a little slow in some parts, but it was incredibly enjoyable nonetheless. There’s a zombie in almost every single frame of the film, however it doesn’t always pose a threat. To me, seeing a zombie just shambling along the side of the road with the gorgeous African landscape behind it not necessarily being a threat is so fucking eerily beautiful. Seeing the zombies just lumbering around, not just during the action sequences, made the film feel so real. I really loved that. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s the best zombie film I’ve seen in a while, that’s for sure.
Aaaargghh, what a disaster! “The Dead”, one of my most eagerly awaited horror movies of the last years is actually an immensely overhyped, immensely disappointing borefest. Don’t believe the hype: apart from the slow-walking retro zombies, this has absolutely nothing to do with glorious genre classics from Romero or Fulci.
The whole movie is so incredibly boring and tedious, it’s ridiculous. 10-15 minutes into the movie, I was already completely bored to death. The Ford Brothers seem to have absolutely no idea how to create any suspense or tension. The script is horrendously bad, most of the dialogue is pathetic and there’s absolutely no plot.
The characters are all completely unlikable and conistently do totally stupid things – and lead actor Rob Freeman’s performance is so incredibly bad and laughable, I wanted to jump into the screen and beat the shit out of him.
The zombies look cool but they’re moving far too slow, they’re not scary, they seem to be completely harmless and they all look quite the same. I also hate the fact that they seem to be everywhere, even in places where no-one lives or lived for years.
Apart from the gorgeous cinematography and some terrific gore, “The Dead” is just terrible and I don’t recommend it all.
http://www.horrormoviediary.net
As a rule, I’ve been avoiding zombie films lately because I’ve grown weary of them. There’s definitely been a ridiculous oversaturation of the market since Snyder unleashed the Dawn of the dead remake in 2004. As it turns out, yes, you can have too many zombie films.
So I was pleasantly surprised to have my investment of time rewarded so richly by the Ford brothers film The Dead. This a quietly terrific movie,one that represents a total departure from the current hyper-kinetic, fast edit style and a return to the old school Lucio Fulci/ George A. Romero 70′s/80′s era of undead cinema. this is the sort of film that-back in the 1980′s- would have been accompanied by a black band with text warning audiences that ” Due to the graphic nature of the violence in this film, no one under 17 will be admitted”. Yet it isn’t cheap, quick or hastily assembled to cash in on a craze. This is a genuine piece of horror cinema created by adults for adults, and it feels right at home when compared with the work of the visionaries mentioned above.
The story is straight forward and beautiful in it’s simplicity: Two men- one an American soldier stranded after his evacuation flight crash lands , the other an African soldier whose village was decimated by a zombie attack- encounter one another and together trek across Africa in search of the local man’s son and a way out of the area as, all around them, the dead are rising en masse and devouring the living.
The Dead is moody and atmospheric. There are entire sequences where little to no dialogue is spoken and no action occurs (aside from that necessary to the story,such as the travelers stopping to investigate an abandoned hut or encountering another tribe that has come together to defend themselves against the dead). Yet even during these scenes, the ever present threat of the living dead is never allowed to slip out of view- as these men drive across the African countryside, we see fleeting glimpses of the shuffling corpses wandering among the rocks and fields.
To anyone raised on the last decade of zombie cinema,with it’ s focus on frenetic explosions of flesh tearing carnage or cleverly staged zombie kill gags, The Dead might actually seem too slow at times, but I loved it. It was actually shot on location and the cinematography looks amazing. The zombie makeup is convincing (these African zombies really do look like ambulatory cadavers and they all have creepy, ice blue eyes which add to that sense of something no longer human staring back at you) and the gore, when it comes, is brutal. Unlike a lot of zombie films, this one adheres to Romero’s original philosophy that it’s scarier to establish a pervading mood of hopelessness and increasing desperation instead of going for bloody shock after bloody shock. Make no mistake,though, much flesh is eaten throughout and many head shots are issued . There is really brutal violence (an early night time zombie attack on a village is terrifying in both it’s chaotic nature and depiction of an unrelenting assault by hordes of the undead), but it’s depiction is staged so as to be unsettling, not to merely please gorehounds.
There’s practically no humor here- the film is played entirely straight and the tone gets really,really dark at times. The zombie outbreak is never even explained..it’s happening already when the film starts ( that’s why the American’s plane was evacuating) and they never try to give a reason for it. Why bother? As The Dead so effectively demonstrates, all that matters in a situation such as this is that the threat exists. What caused it is irrelevant..it’s happening all around the characters and is something they are forced to deal with. In that regard, this film reminded me of the original Night of the Living Dead and Fulci’s Zombie, in that we’re spending time with characters who are fighting to stay alive as long as they can in circumstances which they are well aware will, in all probability, eventually lead to their deaths anyway. It helps matters a lot that I also enjoyed the lead performances. No Oscar bait here, but better than average acting for the genre and the characters grow on you. I also thought the very last shot- the closing image of the film- was powerful.
I strongly recommend this one to horror fans. Based on this film, the Ford brothers are a creative team to be reckoned with.
****1/2 out of *****
Great zombies/effects. Decent tension throughout the film. Terribly long, plodding story. Absolutely dreadful lead actor. Had me rooting for zombies to chomp on him early and often.
One of the best zombie movies I’ve seen in the past couple years. This movie is so good and I fully recommend it if you like zombie films. Just plain awesome.