A young couple accidentally run over a pedestrian in rural Ireland. If we didn't know from the opening shots or advance publicity that this was to be a zombie movie, we are soon left in no doubt. Comments on the car radio about mad cow disease dispense with the 'how' problem quite efficiently and the rest of the movie just gets on with being a nice gory tribute to the genre with plenty of Irish humour thrown in.
The pedestrian gets up and walks after being run over, then attacks the driver. Helena heads for a cottage, fights off more zombies, teams up with another 'normal' human, fights off more zombies, finds someone with a mini-bus, fights off more zombies etc. You get the idea. Generally speaking, originality is not the strong card in Dead Meat everything is recycled, from moons going behind clouds, to scary castles, to ghoulish faces coming out of the bogs silhouetted by torchlight, creepy crawlies on a plate of food or a decomposing body, to the story line itself and final denouement. Dead Meat's winning streak is firstly that it uses the classic elements in a way that is almost deferential to films like Bad Taste, Evil Dead and Night of the Living Dead, secondly that it is well edited to be genuinely scary, and thirdly that it uses heavy doses of inimitable Irish humour.
Much credit goes to Conor McMahon who wrote, directed and edited the film on a budget of about £125,000. One of the leading characters, the mini-van driver who is described as 'slightly normal', is very memorable as a the sort of jovial Irishman who picks an argument with everyone first (living or dead) to decide if he likes them. I also enjoyed the (at times rather 'home-made'-looking) special effects - these rarely missed an opportunity to show the variety of horribleness portrayed by different zombies or hacked off body parts. For sheer entertainment, Dead Meat is a must for horror fans. Other audiences may have problems with the poor sound quality on some of the voices, the Irish accents (dialogue is not too important but adds to the humour), or the unashamed purveyance of formula, but for an aspiring young director, the signs from this first feature are good.
The pedestrian gets up and walks after being run over, then attacks the driver. Helena heads for a cottage, fights off more zombies, teams up with another 'normal' human, fights off more zombies, finds someone with a mini-bus, fights off more zombies etc. You get the idea. Generally speaking, originality is not the strong card in Dead Meat everything is recycled, from moons going behind clouds, to scary castles, to ghoulish faces coming out of the bogs silhouetted by torchlight, creepy crawlies on a plate of food or a decomposing body, to the story line itself and final denouement. Dead Meat's winning streak is firstly that it uses the classic elements in a way that is almost deferential to films like Bad Taste, Evil Dead and Night of the Living Dead, secondly that it is well edited to be genuinely scary, and thirdly that it uses heavy doses of inimitable Irish humour.
Much credit goes to Conor McMahon who wrote, directed and edited the film on a budget of about £125,000. One of the leading characters, the mini-van driver who is described as 'slightly normal', is very memorable as a the sort of jovial Irishman who picks an argument with everyone first (living or dead) to decide if he likes them. I also enjoyed the (at times rather 'home-made'-looking) special effects - these rarely missed an opportunity to show the variety of horribleness portrayed by different zombies or hacked off body parts. For sheer entertainment, Dead Meat is a must for horror fans. Other audiences may have problems with the poor sound quality on some of the voices, the Irish accents (dialogue is not too important but adds to the humour), or the unashamed purveyance of formula, but for an aspiring young director, the signs from this first feature are good.