A zombie movie that is compelling, decently acted, and not crap! Who knew they still made those?
No doubt you’ve seen The Dead pop up in your local DVD kiosk or big-box retailer with the quoted proclamation that it’s “The Best Zombie Movie of the Year.” Lofty superlatives normally carry some weight when paired with your latest Ben Affleck or Clint Eastwood movie, but I tend to be leery when it comes to low-budget horror since there are plenty of reviewers who are quick to label excellence upon crap to everyone else. Surprisingly though, that declaration is warranted.
Much like the haunted house genre I touched on previously, zombie movies are a dime a dozen with seemingly a good majority of them being lousy and hard to avoid due to their prevalence on streaming sites. In spite of the normal shortcomings of the genre, Jon and Howard Ford manage to carve out a little nihilistic niche in zombie legend with their grim and grisly film.
Rob Freeman is the de facto star as Brian Murphy, one of the last American military members to be evacuated from Africa after the outbreak. Prince David Oseia is Daniel Dembele, an African militant who abandoned post to return to his village only to see it in ruins, his wife dead, and son taken along with the other survivors. They meet up and decide to team up to head north where Daniel believes his son was taken. Surprisingly for the genre, the Ford brothers don’t devolve each man’s struggle into a standard, on-the-road zom-com but instead use each man to further characterize the other as they embark on their trip full of zombie obstacles.
It may not be exactly realistic that Murphy and Daniel are quick to forget their differences against their common foe but it is nice to see the point not belabored as well to manufacture artificial conflict between the leads after the time of relevance has long passed. Likewise, when the duo come across a fortified compound in the desert surrounded by armed men, it is refreshing to see that the militia is not out to pillage supplies and firearms but that they actually help Murphy and Daniel. While it may be easy to manufacture, I should hope that human conflict would dramatically subside in a zombie outbreak like what happened here.
Freeman and Oseia don’t really have much of a chemistry since neither really talks that much except to extract backstory from the other man. They do, however, have a nice understanding of each other and that each man’s goal leads to the same place is a happy coincidence as Daniel seeks his son while Murphy wants to get to the same compound in hope that there is a plane that he can return to his family with whom he has had no contact since everything happened.
The zombies, while mostly unmemorable, are pretty threatening even though they are more akin to the ‘Shuffling Dead’ rather than the walking kind. There is one scene late in the movie where a pack of them appear quickly which is rather unnerving in spite of this much like a lot of scenes in the film. The dead don’t pose so much of a physical threat as they do a psychological one … or unless they’re sneaky zombies that merely crawl across the desert floor.
While I was fully expecting the ending to crap out since the rest of the movie was so solid, it didn’t disappoint so long as you are willing to except that not all stories have a completely happy ending. Of the conflicts and desires set up in the film, many are resolved or obtained while others are left out of reach. It’s a completely fitting ending for such a dark and somber film. And one that also has sequel potential. I guess we’ll see. Either way, The Dead is highly recommended for zombie fans.
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