Dead & Deader starts 'Somewhere in Cambodia...' as a five man special ops team try to establish contact with a medical team, however things don't go according to plan & they are attacked by flesh eating zombies. In the ensuing fight a grenade is used which kills everyone... Cut to 'Fort Preston, California' where the soldier's bodies have been taken, as he is about to be autopsied Lt. Robert Quinn (Dean Cain) suddenly springs back to life. Elsewhere his special ops buddies also return to life but they come back as ravenous flesh eating zombies unlike Quinn who is relatively normal & considerably more sociable. People have a hard time believing he is one of the walking dead & that a virus is being spread that turns the infected into flesh eating zombies, Quinn decides he has to go it alone & stop the ever growing zombie hordes...
Originally made for cable TV & directed by Patrick Dinhut I was extremely surprised to discover that Dead & Deader is a highly entertaining light hearted comedy horror that delivers on both counts. The script by Mark A. Altman & Steven Kriozere which doesn't take itself seriously at all is a lot of fun, it moves along at a great pace & it never bored me. The buddy buddy relationship between Quinn & the cook was pretty funny & they traded one-liners with each other to good effect. There are also lots of self referential dialogue & some really amusing references to other films, I loved the discussion Quinn has with Holly where they debate which version of Dawn of the Dead is better & Holly's passioned speech about why the original is! There's lines about Star Wars (1977), who was the best James Bond, Bullit (1968), an amusing moment when Quinn says 'I smell dead people' in an obvious The Sixth Sense (1999) homage, there are several nods towards superheros including Superman in an attempt to take the mickey out of Cain & a closing line straight from Casablanca (1942)! I thought it worked very well & I must admit I smiled on a few occasions, this type of constant referential dialogue may not appeal to everyone & you may not catch everything first time around. There's some decent horror here as well, there's enough blood & gore to satisfy although during the final 30 odd minutes when it tries to introduce it's main villain & it becomes more serious in tone it loses some of what it had built up. Having said that I was impressed, I mean when I knew this was had been made for cable & starred Dead Cain who would probably attend the opening of an envelope for money these days I feared the worse but maybe it's because I had such low expectations that I liked it so much?
Director Dinhut does OK, he keeps things moving along & the action scenes are pretty well handled. I wouldn't say it's scary or gratuitous but it's funny & has a few decent horror sequences. There's some gore including a hand in a mincer, various gunshot wounds, someone head is sliced in a ceiling fan, there are bitten throats, decapitation by meat cleaver, there a few zombie scenes where they feast upon various severed limbs & a decent amount of blood splattered around the place.
Technically the film is pretty good, it certainly looks a lot better than a lot of cheap made for cable offerings. The acting is good, Susan Ward makes for good eye candy for the boys & Cain will provide the same for the girls.
Dead & Deader far exceeded my expectations which were admittedly none existent, I really liked this humorous fun little zombie film & would definitely recommend it if not for the fact there are already plenty of reviews that totally slate it so maybe I'm in the minority when I reckon it's a great film. If you get the opportunity watch it & decide for yourself...
Originally made for cable TV & directed by Patrick Dinhut I was extremely surprised to discover that Dead & Deader is a highly entertaining light hearted comedy horror that delivers on both counts. The script by Mark A. Altman & Steven Kriozere which doesn't take itself seriously at all is a lot of fun, it moves along at a great pace & it never bored me. The buddy buddy relationship between Quinn & the cook was pretty funny & they traded one-liners with each other to good effect. There are also lots of self referential dialogue & some really amusing references to other films, I loved the discussion Quinn has with Holly where they debate which version of Dawn of the Dead is better & Holly's passioned speech about why the original is! There's lines about Star Wars (1977), who was the best James Bond, Bullit (1968), an amusing moment when Quinn says 'I smell dead people' in an obvious The Sixth Sense (1999) homage, there are several nods towards superheros including Superman in an attempt to take the mickey out of Cain & a closing line straight from Casablanca (1942)! I thought it worked very well & I must admit I smiled on a few occasions, this type of constant referential dialogue may not appeal to everyone & you may not catch everything first time around. There's some decent horror here as well, there's enough blood & gore to satisfy although during the final 30 odd minutes when it tries to introduce it's main villain & it becomes more serious in tone it loses some of what it had built up. Having said that I was impressed, I mean when I knew this was had been made for cable & starred Dead Cain who would probably attend the opening of an envelope for money these days I feared the worse but maybe it's because I had such low expectations that I liked it so much?
Director Dinhut does OK, he keeps things moving along & the action scenes are pretty well handled. I wouldn't say it's scary or gratuitous but it's funny & has a few decent horror sequences. There's some gore including a hand in a mincer, various gunshot wounds, someone head is sliced in a ceiling fan, there are bitten throats, decapitation by meat cleaver, there a few zombie scenes where they feast upon various severed limbs & a decent amount of blood splattered around the place.
Technically the film is pretty good, it certainly looks a lot better than a lot of cheap made for cable offerings. The acting is good, Susan Ward makes for good eye candy for the boys & Cain will provide the same for the girls.
Dead & Deader far exceeded my expectations which were admittedly none existent, I really liked this humorous fun little zombie film & would definitely recommend it if not for the fact there are already plenty of reviews that totally slate it so maybe I'm in the minority when I reckon it's a great film. If you get the opportunity watch it & decide for yourself...